>>55116936I would say the things I value the most are:
>Wide Pokemon variety Hard to justify giving X anything but a 10 for the Gym 2 segment, you just have an insane variety of Pokemon to obtain during that part of the game.
>Player choice / non-linearity I tended to rank things higher if they had a good deal of side/extra content; different areas to explore (especially if they are areas you've explored before that are now opened up due to a new HM etc) New Mauville, Sprout Tower, the routes west of Route 1 in Unova. Having those went a long way for me. Also with Unova you get access to a lot of dope held items thanks to the Battle Subway / PWT being accessed so early; I literally had a Choice Band Cinccino that was cleaning everything up.
>Strategy / Difficulty If a game forced me to adapt a certain strategy for beating a gym/boss, that was typically a sign of it being well-designed. Obviously this depends a lot on the specific gym configuration; like I really struggled against Gardenia but thats because I picked Piplup, it would've been a lot easier had I picked Chimchar, which is why Brawly above it; because he's about equally as tough regardless of your starter choice. It's also why I like fights like Norman, Elesa and Tate & Liza. Also something I should share is that I didn't use healing items in-battle, so that made some parts significantly tougher. Platnium got a 10 for the E4 section because for Cynthia I literally resorted to using type-reducing berries to beat her. So if the game forces me into that corner, its a sign it should be ranked high.
