>>53518947after you go through all this works deciphering an entire made-up language, the ciphers and the actual hints, what's your reward? some artifacts items. that's it. no pokemon, no battles or easter eggs. just some coins, pottery, and a gray crown, all of which's sole purpose is to be sold to a history-autist living in Undella town for some extra cash. could you imagine a unique legendary or even just a regular pokemon(like with relic castle's Volcarona) being able to be found here, especially if that 'mon is the reason for the mechanisms powering the Abyssal Ruins? definitely huge wasted potential, and they could've even just slapped a Lugia or something here and called it a day.
also, while i personally don't mind the tileset, there's definitely something poor to be said for the bland scenery found within the ruins, as it's nearly all the same texture throughout the whole area.
luckily, in B2W2, you can obtain documents that automatically transliterate the language's symbols upon reading the pillars. while the messages will still be backwards and ciphered, this is much more reasonable to do for an average player due to actually having a language to use as reference for solving the hints, while still gatekeeping those who just don't care. kids and most players aren't actually that dumb, it's just that BW made it so extremely and arbitrarily obscure to solve.
aside from my gripes with the area, i think the atmosphere is nailed really well. the music is incredibly ominous, and the slow descent and the way the timer mechanic is handled builds dread every second you're in the ruins, even if there's no actual threat/payoff or even an explanation for the wave mechanism. again, i'm a huge unovafag, but even i can recognize the many flaws the region has(i would've TORN into every aspect of Pokestar Studios had someone else not already posted it lol), and Abyssal Ruins was just seriously mishandled imo.
