>>49805686>Read the literal next sentence.Stopped reading there, sorry. But fine, now I did.
That being said, open world's just the normie way of doing nonlinearity. I hate big empty spaces but I love a hundred times more nonlinearity, and damn even though I love old Zelda games for their puzzle side (even the 2D ones which are pretty fucking claustrophobic are still awesome), BOTW has so fucking much replay value and freedom to it I have no doubt it's the future of gaming as a whole.
As for Pokémon, if you think I'd rather have the same shit as in previous games with NPC railroading you when you get a bit off tracks, fuck you. As we both agree, GF sucks at this and if this is the only solution with their current staff, I'll take it.
Personally? I don't mind walls, I don't mind corridors. Octopath is a nonlinear JRPG with corridors, and damn that aspect of it is great. Even linear games can be done pretty well like with Etrian Odyssey where the mazes both feel and look natural, and when there's a big ass monster in the middle of the way, it makes sense to have to beat it. The game integration of linearity is pretty fucking discreet there, but I'd still prefer a less linear game design if I had the choice.
That's all because budget is budget, not a single series would be hurt by having an astronomic budget open world game. And particularly not Pokémon who could afford this if TPC weren't huge bitches.
