Absolutely not, that was Hoenn, and I'd argue Kalos specifically is the start of the severe decline. Like, Unova has some bad map design on a micro level and the overly linear main story in both games isn't great, but Kalos focuses on mandatory slop routes over any interesting design and most of the games after follow suit to one degree or another. Like Sinnoh route design is fucking garbage but at least they're actually designed on a functional level, a ton of Kalos maps are aesthetically pleasing but provide near zero mechanical interest. Hell, Kalos has arguably the single worst map in any Pokemon game, worse than nothing routes like Kanto Route 7 or Unova Route 5, not to mention Scorched Slab which at least has a single item and a real world lore reference. Hell, Kalos has a room with nothing in it until post-game that they seemed intent on putting in from the very start of development and it's still not the worst map in the game.
>>56836069I appreciate the borderline experimental map design, and when it works it really works, but when it doesn't it's just fucking miserable. I think the good outweighs the bad but that's more about how good the actual map design is outside of that, compared to something like Sinnoh where it gets really bad for no benefit or Unova where it's just consistently okay.
