Not a genwar thread, I am referring strictly to the maps of the main games.

I think GF was not able to produce a decent map after they started basing it on regions outside Japan. I don't say this as a Japanofile, I believe there is an enormous potential to make incredible maps based on regions in many parts of the world, but it is somewhat well known that Japs are very isolationist and rarely they can make decent stuff based on foreign cultures.

The setting for the first four generations were great because the development team knew the regions and while those maps are full of references to the real life places (mt. Pyre and Sakurajima, for example), it is still done in an organic way. Since Unova, though, everything looks like a pastiche of stuff put together to show that we are referencing a certain place, to the point it becomes fake and jarring.