>>57537330What I miss the most is the little somethings you could find on routes and in places in other games. Because they had such small maps, they tried to put at least something unique on all routes, even if it's something small. Just to name a few things off the top of my head for Sinnoh: that hidden cave with Gible, the stat trainers that accompany you, the Villa where you can battle some maids and find rare Pokémon, the snowstorm route, the bike path, Ironworks, an old haunted mansion with Rotom, foggy routes, the Lost Tower, the Giratina Cave, the Unown Cave that one guy was digging, just to name some of them. It's not like earlier games where overflowing with content on all routes, but you always has a little bit to discover. Plus the HM obstacles.
In SV, it's essentially the same stuff everywhere. You can climb and jump and swim around, and glide, and that's nice enough, but in terms of stuff to find...at most, you find a small cave with a tera mon, or one of those boring "ruins" or "towers". Some randomly placed collectibles. But barely anything that really sticks out. I don't need entertainment at every step of the journey, but Paldea offers barely anything.
That is one of the most important things they need to fix on a basic game design level, in my opinion.
Routes gave the game more structure and always had certain points of interest. Paldea is just an open field with some nice visual design variation.
