>>48111792>I don't care. The fact is that Johto is obsolete as a region.No? It's perfectly serviceable, at the absolute worst. I do think it would be better if it were a little more linear, patch up some slight leveling problems, but it's by no means bad or anything.
>Even muh linear is a cope as Hoenn still has the soul and exploration they want while being nonlinear.Did you mean while being linear? Hoenn also has some of the best routes in the franchise and is borderline experimental with the late-game water routes, that's hardly a fair comparison to any game in the series.
>>48111815>they're unquestionably labours of love. you cannot say that about swoosh or half the other games in the seriesGiven what I know about the rest of the games in the franchise, it seems to more have Masuda's "just ship it" mentality, compared to Gen 1 which had a much more freeform development. That's not to say that's a bad thing, at least not at the time. I just don't know if I feel the love, it's a more transitional title (a lot like Gen 5 as a whole, maybe that's why I like it and HGSS a lot).
>elevate the world from a series of challenges to a believable place where events occur outside the players' control.Honestly given USUM probably did the most with this since Gen 2, out of the games I've played anyway, you might be on to something at least. Tajiri's vision was less of a JRPG and probably would have been some survival crafting mess of a game if it came out in the last 10 or so years. I should note that BW at least tried to integrate the Gym Leaders into the plot by connecting them more with the communities they're a part of, but that only does so much. It's fine in the moment but on a day to day basis it doesn't mean much.
