People kind of overreact to Hoenn's water thing. It's really not that bad, especially if you have repels. Beats caves.

No, it is that bad.

I found FR/LG's victory road more frustrating TBH.

Hustle L100 in the lead. Hustle as a field ability acts kinda like a Repel :D

I liked Hoenn's ocean. Dive made it pretty interesting. For me, the only boring bit was between Ever Grande City and Pacifidlog Town.

Oceans would probably be more fun throughout the series if there was a wider variety of encounters one could... er... encounter in them. The thing that made oceans so irritating for me was: "oh look. Another Tentacruel. How... interesting..." I liked the trainers there, though, because they were something different.

See, the seas and oceans are essentially one giant mass of wild Pokemon encounters, so it'd be very interesting if there was a multitude of wildlife in then, such that you might find any number of new and interesting wild Pokemon in there.

Imagine, a region that's an archipelago (maybe Hawaii or, even better, Galapagos inspired) where most of the new Pokemon are in the oceans and can be found at certain areas in the oceans or at certain times, etc. It'd also love it if something that was non-linear, or at least less linear: with several islands one could go to at their leisure with many quests between then.

That plus lowering the encounter rate ever so slightly would make me love oceans.

Um... Max Repel?

We need a fun fish Pokemon with colour patterns that can vary wildly kinda like Spinda's spots.

^^ If you'd read what I said, yadda yadda yadda: the frequency isn't actually the problem I'm addressing with that statement.

edited 10th May '12 2:50:58 AM by KnownUnknown

RE: Water routes in Hoenn.

Honestly I don't think they were nearly as horrible as people make them out to be. I know for me at least I found DP's to be a lot worse.

I agree with DP's surfing... So slow, glad Platinum fixed all that!

Yes. At least RS had fast surfing and you didn't have to worry about too many trainer battles. DP's surfing was slow and overloaded with them. At least with wild pokemon you can run from battles.

I can't comment on R/S/E's water routes, but I can comment on the lack of variety on water routes. It just plain doesn't make sense to have a wide variety of water types, a lot of which look like they could be found on the open sea, and then make the only Pokemon on water routes be jellyfish (with maybe manta rays or ocean sunfish as rarely encountered extras).

Don't forget the SEAGULLS!

And/or pelicans.

Even if you do repel the encounters, that doesn't change the fact that the water routes are so boring! The environments earlier in the game were so very interesting. The ocean? Water water everywhere. For the last 4th of the game. Caves at least can be interesting.

I enjoyed the underwater routes.

Diving was a nice change of pace :D

If they reintroduce diving, we need a Cthulhu or Deep One Pokemon.

Tentacruel Evolution

Tentafulu

edited 10th May '12 7:00:29 AM by RandomChaos

Hail Tentafulu!

I'd like the water routes better if they made them a little more visually interesting and changed up the Pokemon you can find in them. At least have the levels go up as you get to the higher-numbered surf routes, seriously.

Hoenn's pretty varied, really. You've got the forested lowlands around Petalburg City, the beach routes around Dewford Town and Slateport City, the mountains and desert around Lavaridge Town, the ash field outside Fallarbor Town, the rivers and plains around Fortree City, and the ocean to the east.

Plus the cities are probably the oddest in the series. Fortree City, Sootopolis City and Pacifidlog Town are the ones most worth mentioning.

Honestly to me the only bad part of Hoenn's water routes is the limited amount of water types you encounter. And if you have enough repels even that isn't much of an issue. Well that and the fact that it is easy to get lost in them but I find even that to be fun.

edited 10th May '12 7:32:09 AM by Chariot

One time I got lost on the way to Pacifidlog Town, I discovered the Sky Pillar.

Yeah, I got in the habit of checking the Pokénav map frequently when surfing. One really good thing about the water routes is the surfing music :P

I almost never check the map when surfing unless I get really lost with no land in sight.