>>55456731>Yes, it makes the region less lineral.And what exactly is the point of that?
Something like Kanto or Hoenn where each city is interconnected but there's also a flowing line that can be followed where you very rarely rethread ground despite constantly going to the same locations feels much more satisfying to go through for me than having the game basically force you to Fly between locations or just backtrack through routes you've already cleaned up.
>>55456747Lavaridge drops you off at Mauville, from that point you basically do the Fallarbor return trip in reverse to get back to Rustboro and then go south.
It's a bit of backtracking but it's short enough and with no forced wild encounters outside of the cave.
>>55456751>because the badge from veilstone gym lets you use flyThe Vermillion badge in RBY lets you use Fly, yet you don't get it until you're done with Celadon. Likewise the Celadon badge lets you use Strength, which you don't get until Fuchsia.
>so you can focus on the story event instead of getting sidetracked with exploring a new route and fighting trainers? since you presumably would have done all that on your way in.Again, what's the point of that? Seeing fresh content and giving each route some amount of relevancy is the ideal for a region - Sinnoh is, as far as I know, the only time this can ever happen. The Johto games don't have you go to the Lake of Rage twice to clear out trainers and then catch the Red Gyarados later, you knock it all out in one visit.
This isn't even to mention that the game is gonna have you returning to this area later anyway when you have to visit all three lakes, plus it's the only path to Sunyshore, they get more than enough mileage out of this set of routes.
>and since when was having optional routes a bad thing?If the optional route comes at the expense of having to backtrack through routes you've already seen then it is kinda bad yeah, I'd rather be seeing new stuff as much as possible.
