>>51152338>worse than soda pop kanto1 word; backtracking.
The regions layout is all over the place, consider the layout as a triangle, hometown in the bottom left, Snowpoint at the top and the E4/Sunnyshore on the bottom right.
Backtracking exists in pretty much every game, but you are constantly moving backwards.
Finish Orgeburgh, go back through the tunnel to get to Flomora town.
Finish Eterna City, head back to Oreburgh via bikpath for the first visit to Mt.Cornet.
This is just the beginning of the game, because you then progress through the next 3 gyms in rapid succession, to return to Hearthome, I'm not saying returning to a town for a gym is the worst thing, and it's done in most of the games. However, after you beat Fantina you have to trudge all the way up Mt. Cornet, now for the third visit. Because, after you beat Candice, you have to go to all the lakes, and they don't have Flypoints. The biggest issue is the first 2 gyms, and there are a good number of battles in between all of these places. Couple all of that with the battles being slow, it is a hell if a slog. The other thing to add to this- and it's more on how they chose to make the battles and regional choices of what pokemon are there, but if you played this after playing Gen2 and 3 there are too many old pokemon and not enough new, which is weird because there are 101 new pokemon, kind of doing what they did in Johto.
>what any generation brought to the series?To add to my
>Gen 4 (DPPt specifically) is a shitty patch for Gen3 at bestGen 3 really was the last time pokemon made a huge change to how the gameplay plays out; new ways to train and breed pokemon for specific EVs, IVs, and attacks; as well as the introduction of abilities. Gen 4 patched it with the Phys/Sp split and did nothing else. Gen 5 added basic UI updates (tbf any game could have done this) in the way of just good old QoL; multiple select items, repels, no more needing HMs for main quest. But that's all just my opinion.