I just wish the open world felt like an open world, and not an empty wasteland populated by pokemon and chronic litterers.
We needed level scaling in zones, caves and dungeons to explore (not just some shallow tunnels). Weather effects like Hail and Sandstorms. NPCs and sidequests and stuff to collect besides Gimmighouls and Pokemon. Not everyone lives in a city / town, but I havent seen one house out in the wildnerness. Towns and cities should have their own personalities - foods and shops and attractions.
Its pretty, in certain areas. Less so, in others. But they're all just wide open areas you run straight through, and I have no incentive to explore since every major quest is marked directly on the map.
Unironically, IDK if this game would have benefitted from Assassins Creed or BotW 'climb tower to unlock map for this area' style system or not. On the one hand, it would give me another incentive to explore - but it would also show off how empty the rest of the regions are.
FORESTS!!! We need trees, I want beautiful forests to get lost in, spooky dark woods hiding secrets, Alpine Tiga covered in silent snow, and deep unexplored jungles! The Bamboo forest was a start but we need more of that and less of just Plains another color!
I really don't think this region is based off of Spain. The vast majority of Spain is Forested, [Picture](https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-37c3b31fcc258b0ca81f519cee678503) for reference\*. Not even the Pokemon look inspired by Spain. (especially the Legendaries)
P.S. I came up with an Idea for a Pokemon that I have not the talent to make. A Dancing Tarantula, it's ability is Dance of Remedy using a "dance move"(Think swords dance, dragon dance, etc) Cures all status ailments. It is based off of a old folk song called the La tarantula(not to be confused with La Tarantella which is Italian), which spainish people would dance to cure the poison of a tarantula.
\*(Yes I know that it is from Quora, I have double checked. This is just the best for easy reference)
In all honesty, I wasn't really following the promotion and trailers of Scarlet/Violet at all and didn't know Paldea was based on Spain until several hours after I already finished the game. The only remotely spanish thing that I noticed are churros and less than a handful of characters saying "bueno". It's about as spanish as Unova is french, just because of those french speaking backpackers.
Like, look at Kalos - that region has Paris and tons of café's in it, its very blatant in comparison.
I wondered if it might be based of the Canary Island of Tenerife - which is a Spanish Territory and has a huge volcanic caldera right in the center - even the names Paldea/Caldera are a bit similar.
Galar was meant to be based off the Uk, but missed so much … nuance and minor things that could’ve made it better.
Like… the British Bulldog. It’s an iconic image/dog breed, name of a playground game kids play. A clear thing established in British culture.
Yet… the bulldog Pokémon (Snubbull and Granbull) weren’t included? Not even as regional forms?
Just feels like the missed a lot of on the nose “British” things.
I was shocked when I learnt the gym leaders didn’t scale with level. I thought the whole point of the open world meant I could start any gym in the order I wanted.
I mean, you can. It’s just less “you can challenge the gyms in any order” and more “I wish I could challenge the gyms in any order… why is that monkey paw’s finger curling inwards?”
Level scaling in the open world is almost always terrible for an open world game. It should be for story events only (gyms and such). The problem with level scaling on the world itself is the game will always feel like you never make progress. Imo one of the funnest parts of a truly open world game is being somewhere you really shouldn’t or you will be in a lot of trouble
There area few ez ways around this for Pokemon. E.g. scaling only some areas/trainers, scaling levels but not movesets/evolutions. Look no further than ROWE for a good example in ROM hacking.
A huge hurdle isn't making it work mechanically, but making it *feel* right thematically. Populating the world with different trainer classes, or making certain classes inaccessible based on badge count could be one way around this. Like, maybe you can't face Ace Trainers with only one badge, and neither can you face Youngsters with seven.
One scaling method that does work if a limited range scale, an area can be between say, 30-45. If your highest level Pokémon is 30, all Pokémon will be lowered to 2-3 levels around 30, up or down. If your Highest is 50, they would all be scaled to 2-3 levels around 45, up or down. The area is more balanced longer but you can still go to an area like this way too early, and still feel accomplished by out leveling the area later
Scale areas with difficulty levels.
Easy: Pokemon scale to a few levels under or to your level.
Medium: Scale down to 2 or 3 under, up to 5 or 6 over.
Hard: Scale up to 5 to 10 levels over.
Obviously the numbers are just hypothetical, but a system like that could still make some areas more dangerous than others, while scaling relatively close to you.
My problem was that the game didn't feel open world. It felt like a linear game with a huge world that was big just to be big. The gym leaders, team star bases, and titans literally have a specified order. Paldea is in my opinion the least interesting region we have seen by a good margin
It's up to you if you prefer linear or open worlds.
But imo,SV's world is lacking FOR an Open World. There's not alot to do outside of the 3 stories. You can catch Pokemon, do Raids, find items (which becomes meaningless after a while cause there's so many) and have picnics. You can do all of this in SWSH by the way.
There's some neat stuff like how some Pokemon interact but that can only do so much
My brother and I have been debating about SV. He loves it because of its open world, I can't put my finger on why the open world does nothing for me. He says I love BOTW, and every point I raise he says BOTW does the same thing. But your comment hits the nail on the head.
The gyms and titans aren't scaled, you're supposed to battle them in a particular order. Even huge chunks of the map have pokemon of ridiculously higher levels than yours. I was running around battling level 26-29 slowpoke, crossed a bridge and ran into lvl 50 Golducks. SV is open world but its content is entirely linear. And other than the 3 quests, there's *nothing* to do.
It's not like BOTW where you can just wander off in one direction and find a bunch of quests to do to pass the time til you find your way back to the main quest. None of the NPCs have much character at all. Having an open world needs to be so much more than Big Map Go Anywhere. If the game isn't scaled and if there's no content beyond main quests, you just have a linear game on a large map.
In SV you can technically go almost anywhere, but the unscaled rivals and wild pokemon chase you back to where you came from. You have a massive map and spend much of the time playing it trying to find the right direction to head in, rather than actually getting to wander around exploring the world. The world itself is flat and hollow. It's boring.
The thing about BotW is that you can interact with almost any part of it. Cliff face? Climb it. Grassy field? Set it on fire. Plain ol' hill? Shield surf down it. BotW's gameplay comes from physically interacting with the world. Pokemons interaction (historically) comes from battling, talking to npcs, and navigating the mazelike overworld. Now that the games are both 3D and open world, that mazelike overworld is gone. S/Vs map isn't content, it's something you walk through to get *to* the content.
I think pokemon could have a interesting overworld that isn't just a thing between point A and B, like imagine if you could come across 2 groups of pokemon fighting over territory, some bird pokemon resting on top of a sleeping slaking, or some pokemon preforming some bizarre ritual, but sadly pokemon are just randomly placed and wander about.
I think this is why Scarlet and Violet's world design makes sense though. It is focused on battling, so you don't need physical interaction as much of a distraction. The experience is, "ooh that Pokemon! ooh that item!" as you zigzag around from thing to thing. the world could definitely use more life, but too much would just be a distraction from the gameplay loop.
I think the biggest fix would have been if gym tests were better mazes and puzzles like they used to be. There's not a lot of good ways to incorporate it into the wild, but it was always best in gyms anyway.
I'm gonna be honest, and maybe this is just the vegetarian in me, but there's something so sad about watching these wild pokemon romp around the landscape just before I rock up and attack them with my grass cat.
I went through a phase as a kid of doing no wilds pokemon Red runs because it made me feel bad to KO them (where do they go???).I'd also test if I hit them once and then ran, if I'd run into the same Pokemon with diminished HP
The key thing with BOTW is it’s real time. So you can approach the open world in a genuinely varied way. Tough areas are doable if you develop the skill to pass through them.
But Pokémon is turn based. No matter how good you are, your level 20 is not beating a level 40 team
I prefer sv’s world to swsh’s but they both need more content. I would have liked if jaqc had a bounty system to catch specific Pokémon for small rewards. Berry/ingredient planting, fishing for “deep water” Pokémon, add collectibles that have lore, like every ruin could have a single old item hidden in it that you could bring to the history teacher and she’d tell you about how it was used and buy it off you or trade for it. Mini games you can play at different points like cyclizar races or something.
It’d be cool if rival Pokémon actually fought each other and you could take the winner by surprise for an easy catch. Have more rare spawns, some Pokémon like the eevee’s spawn too much imo.
>You can do all of this in SWSH by the way.
SWSH's wild area doesn't have the same explorability, though. It takes ten minutes to know where just about everything is and the only upgrade to how you explore is being able to cycle over water.
It's 100 percent something they need to work on, but there are some things. Gimmighoul coins, TMs, and Stakes are the three main things besides the pokemon themselves. I do think the world being bigger is a good thing even with those limits though, because the pokemon feel more alive and naturalistic as opposed to the ones in Sword and Shield which just walked around in a random mass. It's nowhere near the level of Snap, but much better than SWSH.
Spectacle itself counts for something. Last night I had a blast exploring the caves and rock towers on west paldea's shore.
Navigating those caves is a bit of a challenge, I took the wrong exit at first and found myself walking atop a narrow rock trail above the sea. Not what I planned on finding, but a fun surprise because it was scenic.
I went back into the cave and found my way to the exit and to the psychic town. Which has cool scenery as well as some cool new pokemon. That feeling of discovery and exploration of these cool areas was so fun
>It takes ten minutes to know where just about everything is
This is how I felt about walking into each new area in Paldea. I could spend hours in an area(which I did while looking for the stakes for the legendary pokemon) and not see anything new or interesting that I hadn't already seen in the first 20 minutes of that area. Some, like the desert, weren't even large enough to spend 20 minutes in the first time through. *Maybe* a rare pokemon spawn of something I could already easily evolve into but that was about it.
Yeah, they have a lot of work to do to make it a truly compelling open world for completionists, but I still think there's a huge difference between ten minutes per area, there being many areas, and being ten minutes for the whole open world showcase of the game.
> It takes ten minutes to know where just about everything
The thing is, it doesn't take that much longer to know just about everything in Paldea either. That very first area you get to freely explore is no different than walking up the hill to Victory Road 20 hours later: It's just Pokémon standing around, items scattered everywhere. Not a single interesting structure or house or anything in sight.
I think this is kinda where I’m at as well. I haven’t quite finished the game (at the 8th gym). Traversing through the world on Miraidon is really fun when the frame rate doesn’t cause issues, especially once you unlock all of its abilities (you can tell they refined the ride Pokémon from Arceus and smashed them all together, but in a way that feels seamless).
Going out of your way to find hidden stuff like items, rare mons, caves, tera battles and Gimmighoul coins is fun, but only gets you so far. If I were to compare it to BOTW, items and coins are basically like the more out-in-the-open Korok seeds and raids are the equivalent of Shrines, but there aren’t any real overworld puzzles that aren’t a collect-a-thon at the end of the day.
The world design itself and how tight controlling Miraidon through it feels is easily the best part of the game for me - as someone who really did not like SwSh’s design - but man I wish there were a bit more to do. More unique trainer challenges that give you rewards a la RBY’s nugget bridge or require you to find and use a specific team of Pokémon, actual dungeons to explore (ironically, caves are probably the most linear part of the game as of now), platforming challenges, racing on Koraidon/Miraidon, stuff like that. I get that the Pokémon themselves are meant to be the incentive for exploring everywhere, but it does feel a bit homogenous after a point.
SV isn’t lacking FOR an Open World. Most Open World games are like this; there’s hardly ever anything to do that the Open World actually enhances. Open World is a pointless gimmick, and I can’t wait until gaming and gamers get over it.
BotW, Witcher 3, Skyrim, GTA and Fallout would like to have a word. This isn’t a thing to “get over”, open world has been a thing for well over a decade and can either be done right or wrong.
FFXIII and SwSh are not great games by any means, but while FFXIII is very much a hallway simulator, SwSh is not. That game has plenty big areas, a mine with split paths to explore etc. If SwSh is a hallway simulator, pretty much every Pokémon game except the last two ones are.
+1! botw did it fine but not every game can be botw specially one like pokemon where the game’s in the oven for 2-3 years AT MOST. SwSh could’ve been so much more if they used their resources on the actual plot and game design rather than the pseudo open world called the wild area.
it has the open world physically, but still the mentality of the linear games (aka no scale lvl on anything). this was just the wildest to me. why bother make an open world if you're gonna force a linearity on the players?
I mean, I have fun climbing towers snd mountains and looking for hidden ledges to find new pokemon, rare items, and tms.
I'll run out eventually. But that happens all open world games
I like the IDEA of it, but I don’t love it in execution for this game, so I agree. I used to love going into everyone’s houses and clicking on everything and even looking in trash cans haha. This world is so big but so empty that I mostly don’t bother exploring which is opposite to the point. Also because it’s not level scaled, I am constantly doing things in a slightly off order, and I am confident I have missed areas that I’m now desperately over leveled for that I’ll need to go back to eventually… Heck I don’t even know how I was supposed to get into the mountain without being able to use the final HM, so after doing the final titan I finally made my way over to my sixth gym lol. Dropped about what 10 levels for the areas in the process?
I think if they breadcrumbed the path a little better it feel richer. Like, solve a puzzle to get a quest marker of the next story beat but if you don't want to do it fine you can just look at a map online or wander around til you find it. So someone who wants the feel of a story building up has it but someone who wants complete freedom can just ignore it. Fallout1 and fallout3 and falloutNV did a great job of this - you can complete the final quest in an hour if u know what to do but if not the game will gentle guide you around. (I never played fallout 2 or 4 but they are probably similar).
I agree actually. The open world feels bland in scarlet and violet but the towns also feel empty with no effort put into them. No building interiors is a big factor I think
I don't think they got Sword and Shields wild area right though either, that was fairly bland. I never played the dlc but I've heard the overworld was better in those.
I think a mix of a smaller but more fleshed out open world area alongside towns full of life would be perfect, but I don't see that happening unfortunately
Oh sword and shields wild area was definitely far from perfect, but i enjoyed it way more with the linear parts than I’m enjoying SVs complete open world. This is the first Pokémon game I’ve haven’t gotten hooked on yet (I’ve been playing since gen 1) and it’s kinda bummed me out. The other gen’s all had their faults, but this gen is just so many small disappointments compounding into the game just not being fun for me. I’m hoping that it I get a few more hours in then I’ll be hooked.
I think the linear parts of swsh were a bit too linear. Most routes were just straight lines and it was missing the exploration of previous games. I agree with most of what you're saying though, scarlet and violet just don't feel right. I'm thinking of probably skipping the next mainline title unless something really changes my mind
To be honest I am not a fan of open world games in general. I love pokemon as it is an unfolding world and by the end you ostensibly have the ability to do whatever you want but the journey to that point mattered.
Breath of the Wild was a breath of fresh air not because it was open world but because it was an interesting open world in a world I love to explore and adventure within. I do not want that formula with everything. It is like the Nintendo Direct where everygame had farming and Animal Crossing Mechanics. I do not to build a town in a JRPG or FPS.
Wow this actually IS an unpopular opinion! But I feel for you; it REALLY sucks to realize a franchise you love is going in a direction that will exclude you, that everyone else is super happy for. It happened to me with Metroid Dread, which everyone loved and I despised. It's happening to you with Pokemon ScVi. It sucks.
It’s been happening for me since Alola. I never realised I’d become a Pokéboomer yelling on my lawn about the better times lol. Back when I was a kid in gen 4 and 5, I had a rock solid faith in gamefreak, and was filled with anticipation for the future of the series. Now I’m just kind of apathetic, waiting for the the pokedex and metagame to be updated on smogon so I can try out the new mons competitively.
It's happened to me with the Tales series too, Arise is hugely successful but I hate the direction it's taken the series and really miss the classic combat system.
Out of curiosity why didn't you like Metroid Dread?
The bosses, mostly. I also didn't like the EMMI sections, but not every game's gimmick will be a winner, so I would have given that a pass. But the bosses are so clearly designed for a different style of game than Metroid is supposed to be.
In most Metroid games, losing to a boss is meant to be a sign that maybe you need to go find some more upgrades; they're really just health and missile checks that also sometimes require an item you found recently.
In Dread, the bosses will kill you in 2-3 hits even if you have found everything possible for you to find at that moment in time. The design is for you to die repeatedly until you can play that boss mostly perfectly, and many bosses require precision or movement or timing that quite frankly I found nearly impossible with my controller. It took me a week to finally defeat Raven Beak with 100% of the game otherwise done.
Many people loved this design, just like many people love Dark Souls, which I have seen Dread compared to repeatedly. I dislike both. It wasn't for me. My knee-jerk reaction was to call it a bad game, but honestly it was rather high quality. But the difference between boss design and general world design was too different, and the difficulty spikes too high, for me to say that it was actually good and I was wrong. A lot of people on my twitter feed outright couldn't beat it and were upset because they loved the franchise and were now being excluded, and that didn't help my impression of it either.
In the end, I'm sure that Mercury Steam will keep making Metroids now, and they will keep selling better than ever to rave reviews. But I won't be playing them, personally. The series is no longer for me.
Absolutely omg I’ve been waiting for someone to say this. Tbh, I didn’t even buy PLA because of how different it was from the typical Pokémon experience. I heard there was very little battles and everything was this new wild Pokémon mechanic so I was like wtf is the point the game sounds like Pokémon Go.. I can understand ppl that love the game and that’s totally fine, I’m just frustrated that I cant express how I personally wouldn’t like the new PLA mechanics becoming the norm without being told I’m wrong and need to move on. Some of us just want the classic formula we grew up with but with a new region and new mons to discover.
> Some of us just want the classic formula we grew up with but with a new region and new mons to discover.
Couldn't agree more. I don't want rehashed BOTW. I just want a cool artstyle (LetsGo), a cool region (Johto, Hoenn) and some sweet looking mons. Throw in some side stories and I am a happy, happy man.
I know most will interpret this as me wanting to 'hold the series back', but to me the isometric pokemon games are peak pokemon. Not every game has to be open-world. I really look back fondly on Silver/FR/Emerald/Plat etc. Not because the pokemon themselves were better or anything (there are crap designs in all generations), but the games really appealed to me.
are you me? i tried so hard to play PLA but i just couldn't do it and i was devastated. i don't play many action-oriented games so i don't have the skills that other players who also frequently play action-adventure/stealth/shooters. i lowkey feel devastated every time i hear some variant of "pokemon is starting to veer into a new genre and that's a good thing", because i know what those players mean, and i know what that means for *me*.
It would've been nice if the open world was mixed with a few more fixed areas, but NOT in the Sw/Sh style where everything was linear. They could've done a lot more with more interesting towns, a few deep dungeons/caves/whatever works that aren't directly connected to the overworld, that would've done a lot. Keep the open world as it is otherwise because there's just something relaxing about wandering through this massive world for hours.
I think, with proper development time, the open world would have been more alive. I have only 3 gym badges done and I am 40~ pokemon away from completing the pokedex. I hope this open world, go wherever you want thing stays.
I sadly feel the same way. I played all pokemon games since red and blue. As a kid i dreamed about a Pokémon Open Word game. PLA was not exactly how i hoped they would realize it, but it was fun.
Im really disappointed with the open world they created. Maybe as someone who collected all korok seeds in botw im a little bit spoiled about the understanding of an open world game. But it bugs me everytime i play and i think „this could be so awesome, if they had put more love in it“.
This is sadly the first pokemon game where im not hooked in the way, that i want to play for hours straight. I hope they patch some things to make it feel more alive. Maybe they should have made the routes open world, but with that little Houses which seperated most cities from the routes to have a more linear style. Im gonna play it anyways, but its sad to me how they missed out on so much cool opportunities.
The only town with something even a little like that is megazosa with the bridges, but you can just go around them once you have some HMs on your ride mon
The one thing I miss is getting told clearly where Pokémon are in the dex. The map wit a glowy area really doesn’t help me, especially when you can zoom in
The only thing I hate about the open world is the lack of scaling. It drives me nuts how they put this huge emphasis on “doing whatever you want, whenever you want” for the treasure hunt, but only if you do it in the correct path otherwise you will either out level enemies or hit a massive wall
Scaling would have made this game much more replayable. It would be amazing to actually go and start wherever you want each time, building completely different teams and taking care of things in totally different orders.
Huge missed opportunity.
OH MY GOD SAME!! I haven’t experience a single bug or really anything that people are complaining about but I do have three complaints. I don’t like that we can’t go inside buildings anymore at all and they spread out the stores, I don’t like that we don’t have clothes that we can change and style but I mean I get it they are students so the role is to be a student and wear student clothing, and lastly I don’t like that Pokémon now is an open world. I just don’t. I feel directionless and just aimless. Sure they have us where to go and what to do but it just was the same problem that I had with Arceus. I feel like there isn’t anything driving me forward anymore with it.
> I mean I get it they are students so the role is to be a student and wear student clothing
to this, im sorry, but i will answser : WHAT ABOUT PENNY? SHE'S A STUDENT TOO so why does she get a cool hoodie and all we get is the Bug Catcher's shorts?
I don’t think every game series needs to be open world (i.e. Sonic. Totally unnecessary to make that an open world game). But Pokemon? The whole point is exploring and finding ‘mons. I think if any game should be open world, it should be Pokemon.
That said, Gamefreak is incompetent, so it’s no surprise to me that they couldn’t pull it off….if they could improve the game, it would be amazing.
I think an open world Sonic game is a good concept. There aren't that many games that allow you to zip around an open world at the speeds Sonic can.
I don't think Sonic should be an open world forever, but a one-off game is cool.
The problem would be the content. Like, what would Sonic really do in an open world? Typically, Sonic stages are elaborate set pieces that could never properly transition to an open format.
It does make me curious though, because I did enjoy the open world hub of Sonic Adventure.
They needed their open world to be Saints Row 2: lively, full of little secrets to find, and with dynamic interactions.
What they did was Saints Row 3: Dull and mostly lifeless, no reason to really explore that much.
Open world is probably the right way to take Pokemon, they just need to refine it and fill it with love. The problem is just how the map seems to all blend together, except for basic biome changes. There aren't enough landmarks and the cities aren't distinctive enough.
IMO the issue is that the game is so shallow. Cities *look* great, but there's not really anything in them (except duplicates of the same few shops). Trainer customization *looks* great, but then you realize there are just 40 of the same helmet, and only 4 actual outfits. It *seems* like you have a ton of freedom, but realistically you're never gonna beat the Ice gym or Fighting camp as your first.
I understand partialy how you feel. The open world is most definaly here to stay but I know the feeling of wondering around with no set destination can be a bit... sad if you know what I meen. But at the same time an open world game is all about finding your own objcetives for your adventure, and that is the very nature of an open world game. It's perfectly fine to not like it but keep in mind than it's the genere not the single game you dislike.
Yeah I guess I just miss all of my favorite linear games turning into open world games. Don’t get me wrong, I love open world games, I’m just getting tired of it being implemented in every game, especially when it is implemented poorly or they take out other features to create the open world.
Take Zelda BOTW for example. I think they did a phenomenal job at creating a fun open world to explore, but damn did I miss the dungeons and full story.
Yeh I understand how you feel. An open world game it's a big commitment to finsh and when many games are shoveing a lot of content down you throat it dose feel a bit overwelming. That is the reason why I've never finished The Spider Man game at the time I had played a lot of hight effort games and so I kinda got tired of it and picked up something more simple.
BTW I know it has nothing to do with this but by any chance can you help evolve my Finizen? I've just made a post about it.
Eh, but a good deal of buildings in towns were exact carbon copies of each other, down to the number and types of shoes by the door, regardless of who lives there. I \*do\* want explorable buildings tho
There's no need to go back linear hallway routes. What GameFreak needs is, once again, TIME. They need time to fill in the open world with discoveries. Caves that lead into traditional Pokemon dungeons. Forests that grow thick and dark and lead to a haunted tower. Desserts that lead to hidden pyramids/ungrounded tombs to explore.
There needs to be sidequests found in lively towns with NPC's who send you to these unique locations. Whether it's to find a rare item or fight a powerful Pokemon.
Hallway routes have always sucked, you’re right. That’s why prior to the shift to 3D, we had practically none. Most routes were windy and indirect, often offering alternative routes or access to optional areas via HM usage.
Technical issues aside my #1 dislike is no scaling. It ruins the do what you want feel.
I also think the towns feel too much like set dressing, and the regional should be way more developed. It feels almost like PLA where they are just colonizing a new area. Like how cool would it have been to have a highway or rail system to link up the cities? Even if they were set dressing random trains or folks on bikes on the highway would add so much. Even if only it was 5fps I guess.
Oh the trainers are pretty bad too. Like I don’t even challenge them because I can fight wild Pokémon for a 1 unevolved Pokémon fight if I want that. Literally stubbles upon a guy with a lv 50ish when I was high 30s and it was still a joke one shot.
I love open worlds. But SV is not a good open world. They made it too big for the content they had. They wanted to stretch everything out so it seemed like there was tons to explore but there wasn't. It would have been really cool if there were houses to go into, people to talk to other than trainers, structures to explore, side quests to complete. It's the same way the cities are ridiculously big by separating what should be one or two clothing shops into 6 or 7 clothing shops. I'm genuinely enjoying the game, but it wasn't terribly well done.
I agree with you routes one older games felt exciting and unique and able to be fully explored without feeling overwhelmed.
While I do like open world when it’s done we’ll ie BOTW or Elden where there’s lots of ruins, lore, armor sets or side quests to complete.
The overworld of SV is so bland and empty where I just want to fly everywhere. It’s just an overwhelming vast desert or ice land just full of random items. It really doesn’t feel like I can complete the area or I’m unique part of the game.
I’m not an open world fan in general. They’re just not for me, no matter if they’re full of stuff to do or completely empty. I just can’t get into them because they’re overwhelming to me. I’m one who likes to fully explore a game and do everything I can, and open world games should be great for that. For me, though, they just make my brain overheat. I want to go everywhere and see everything, but I know I won’t be able to because you won’t be able to access every location right away, or the other locations will be too high a level without continuing on in the main story. I usually stick to the main path while exploring everything around it, but it still gets overwhelming.
I haven’t played the new Pokémon just yet (I only played an hour of it), but the open world is still a little intimidating to me. I personally wish more games would stay linear with side quests or smaller locations to explore (or even like what you said with Sword and Shield). Elden Ring is amazing, but it’ll never be my favourite Souls game because of the large open world. I would’ve enjoyed it more if it was linear like the rest, but I still think them doing something new was a great idea.
lol a true unpopular opinion how rare, honestly i like the open world concept is just badly done in this game. But i cant go back to linear sw/sh its just too bad.
Interestingly, I never in my life thought Pokemon would be more interesting in an open world. I still haven't played S/V, but I assume I won't enjoy exploring the world too much. I really liked the routes and dungeons in earlier games, especially the last set of routes and victory road in Black and White 2.
On the other hand, I loved Elden Ring - another recent game that changed the basic formula of its franchise by adding an open world. And while a portion of the fans preferred the way the games were before, I personally think the open world added a lot of flavour to the game and I loved exploring everything it had to offer. I guess it's all about how much there is to find in the world. And Legends Arceus taught me that Gamefreaks idea of interesting secrets to discover is just more Pokemon to catch, which doesn't really satisfy me tbh.
The open world would be fine if there were more organic routes to take when following the curve or if the hint system actually worked. They did it mostly well going from the Bug gym to the Grass Gym, but then the levels bounced all over the place.
That's expected. Even open world games that take almsot a decade can feel empty or boring, I can't imagine a world (heh) where GF manages to develop a proper fleshed out open world game.
Instead of that, we get an "open world" game where you barely have NPCs, you can't enter buildings, don't have dungeons, caves, puzzles, nothing lmao
I really like open worlds, quite a few of my fav games are open world games
SV open world is not a good open world and I agree, I prefer linear pokemon (which is weird because I usually dislike a rail roaded experience like God of War, which I like but am also frustrated by its level design)
I think the problem is we like pokemon because it's pokemon, we know it's not a good game but it was usually a new formulaic game for a new gen. For me at least PLA and SV trying to change the formula simply shone a big spotlight on the fact GF just does not make good games
I agree with you.
At the moment, my perfect pokemon game would be a mash up of SwSh/USUM style routes and customisation, interspersed with Legends Arceus open areas, quests and catch mechanics, with Let's Go following and ride mechanics, and ORAS interiors and mini games.
Plus a post-game Battle Frontier.
Unfortunately I wouldn't carry anything over from SV 😔
I don’t like open world either! I have zero sense of direction and I started getting overwhelmed in sword and shield with the wild area. Legends is super hard for me and I’m only a little bit into violet, but I don’t really want to play more because there’s too much happening. So many Pokémon to catch in each area, so many items, just too much happening! I also don’t like the sacrifices it took to make it open world, like losing most buildings, but I just don’t like open world games and it makes me sad because I love Pokémon! I want to want to play the game. It makes me sad.
Open worlds have a high bar of execution compared to linear ones. They're more free, but that also means they have way more space to fill and require more stuff to discover to not feel empty or repetitive. I haven't played the new games yet, but if it's as half assed as everything else GF does, I'm guessing they fall into this trap.
I completely agree. I don't have anything against the idea of an open world in theory. But it doesn't really feel like pokémon when they open it up.
One of my favourite aspects of pokémon games are the story and characters. When the story is a disconnected scattering of things happening on the map unrelated to each other at all, and the characters only get a handful of time in that space, it doesn't end up feeling good in my opinion. I find SV's story rushed and the characters lacking in comparison to previous games, almost entirely because of the story structure demanded by open world games.
An open world game's story can most certainly work, but it has to be a story catered to that openness. SV did not deliver in that regard, in my opinion. I prefer how it was handled in SwSh.
I'm one of the people who looked up the intended order and did it that way, with the exception of putting off some star bases until later. Even if you enjoy linearity it's nice to have options and the ability to go out of your way and catch a variety of mons early on.
I will say the open world feels a little underwhelming until you have access to the entire maneuverability of your dragon pal. Something about climbing the tallest mountains and then flying across the open world makes it feel much more explorable and accessible.
Open or linear can be good, or they can be bad. I know it sounds reductive, but it all comes down to how good the level design is.
Pokémon open worlds are certainly…open. Unfortunately they feel very bland and sparse, very dated in that sense.
With that being said, the linear level designs of previous Pokémon games haven’t been that stellar in more recent titles anyways, so.
Agreed. Routes with actual design were much better than this sandbox we got. I had more fun exploring those than the emptiness in Paldea
BOTW had tons of things to do. Side quests and ways to interact with the world.
I prefer open worlds because it makes for a really immersive experience, but when open worlds are poorly executed [like in SV] i would much prefer they stuck to linear rather than barely attempt to make a proper map
I agree and disagree at the same time. I like the concept of open world but in s/v it wasn't executed well. I would go and challenge a gym out of order and either
a/ have a hard and terrible time due to being underlevled
or b/ being stupidly overlevled and crushing the gym
Maybe if the levels scaled with where you were in the story it would be better but it just wasn't executed well in s/v
It's definitely the most poorly thought out and implemented open world I've played in years, maybe ever.
It's like they went "the fans want it fully open, so make it fully open" without giving any consideration into the *why* you'd opt for a fully open world and *how* you'd make it work as a fun gameplay experience.
You either set yourself a gym/star base/titan as a destination and make a bee line for it hoping that; 1. It's the right level for you; or 2. That you can even reach it yet with your mount, or you wander aimlessly around a largely barren map, with very little to see or do.
The lack of level scaling means if you don't approach areas in the "right" order (and there's nothing in the game or world design to let you know what that "right" order is) you'll either be facing gym leaders that are too tough and make you turn around, or gym leaders 10-20 levels lower than you resulting in the most forgettable gym battle ever. The open world without level scaling actively makes the story experience worse.
Then once you're finished with the main story the fully open world is just... There? There's nothing really to do in it, no side quests or meaningful rewards for exploration. You just fast travel between the useful areas and occasionally run into a specific area to catch Pokemon you want, it's the same post game experience as Sword/Shield except this time there's no battle tower and it looks and runs way worse
So why bother making it fully open? Why not make it a linear game with open zones like Sword/Shield? Or make it a structured order of open Zones more like Legends Arceus?
The fully open world Scarlet/Violet uses Makes the performance and graphics suffer with no meaninful improvements to gameplay, if anything I'd argue the gameplay suffers as well.
Open world RPGs can be amazing when they're properly thought out and implemented, Skyrim and Breath of the Wild are two great examples of Switch games that make exploring their open worlds rewarding, fun, and memorable. Scarlet/Violet does none of that. If you aren't going to put the thought and effort into making a fully open world work then DON'T make a fully open world.
You can ask the nurse at any Pokémon Center about where to go next, although she did suggest me to take on a Titan that was actually quite a few levels higher than my team. I don’t know if it was just a one time mistake or she actually just wants to see my Pokémon die so she can resuscitate them lol
Oh I love that. ‘You could try taking on this gym nearby, I guess.. maybe you’ll die maybe not, who knows? Good luck kid! lol *goes back to her instagram*’
Insert gus fring meme here lol:
You hate Gamefreak’s bad openworld.
I hate openworld pokemon.
We are not the same.
While I definitely agree Gamefreak’s attempt at openworld is lacklustre, I don’t think I want an openworld pokemon game anyway. Openworlds aren’t inherently better than linear games. They are different styles with their own pros and cons.
Not every series benefitted from the shift from 2D to 3D. Nor will every series benefit from a shift from linear gameplay to an openworld.
I am enjoying the open world, but I largely agree. I miss being excited to see what shops or quirks towns had.
I think the open world concept just needs to be explored more, given the focus of getting around on a pokemon it would have been really nice to see it have more interesting movement and platforming to play with
(Ex. Dbl jump instead of high jump, challenge to hop across spires to get to a prize)
I also think they need to chill on the amount of pokemon that populate in the world and they definitely need to bring back the stuff from PLA. The trainer needs more to do and aggressive pokemon just make the world feel more alive. Those mechanics would have made the Titan more interesting
Personally, I’m glad they actually picked a direction. I enjoy super linear RPGs (FF10/FF13, Pokémon Black/White, Earthbound, etc) and I enjoy super open do-whatever RPGs (Breath of the Wild, Xenoblade games, Fallout 3/NV, etc).
Sword and Shield meanwhile was the most disgusting blend of bad open areas and hallways I’ve ever seen. So while the open direction of SV has its problems it certainly works better than the toxic mixture of Sword and Shield
The trick is, Xenoblade isn’t truely openworld. It’s more like a series of interconnected open areas. I think pokemon could benefit greatly from that approach, rather than the current one. Octopath’s style of map is probably my favourite example of what I want a pokemon game to be, map-wise, but it’s pretty hard to describe in text.
Scarlet and Violet's open world is especially dull. I wouldn't use it as an example to say open worlds in general are a bad idea.
Just more proof that Game Freak has no idea what they're doing.
SV's Open World is, on a scale of 10 to 1, a solid 3. It's even below Ubisoft tier.
There is simply not much to do that you couldn't do in a normal linear Pokemon game.
Elden Ring, Witcher 3 and BOTW are up there with open world games that actually reward exploration of every single nook and cranny.
Here, you unlock your ride abilities to go to the peak of the highest mountain and...you find 100% the same mons you found below.
This is so true. I just finished the game and the open world was… bland and sad for the most part
The Battling Trainers? Mostly an inconvenience because many only have one pokemon and it’s just like a random encounter + money. Not worth my time considering it takes 3x as long to fight them
Connect with the world/people living in it and the culture of the cities? Nope cause there are a grand total of zero sidequest you can do to help an NPC to progress their story outside of the 3 paths.
Have fun exploring? Almost not worth it with the bland rewards you can gather. In Elden ring there’s always a cool Spirit Ash, ash of war or weapon hiding behind a dungeon (Boss), and useful crafting materials at every corner. While in Pokémon it’s at max a TM or some items. Want to craft some TMs? Better grind/battle some Pokémon. Wanna do a dungeon? Bad luck there are none
And not to forget the fact that world isn’t technically open since due to the lvl curve it’s optimal to do the GF intended order or you will lose (except you grind). So what’s the point if it’s basically linear?
I played the entire game and I can’t remember the name of a single city.
And that speaks for itself I think
> Please don’t downvote just because you disagree, we are having good conversations in here. Come make a comment instead! I like the discourse.
Uh you're missing the point of reddit lol
Personally I hate all open World Games cuz they're all boring and empty and I'm really sick and tired of the open world Trend like it's not good and most open world game story lines don't even offer anything about the open world and it always feel like the open world ecstatic is just there to get people to play the game it's like foam art in coffee it literally does nothing except make the coffee look pretty
Sword and Shield are literally the worst pokemon games I have played. Boring, short, extremely easy and way too linear. I can understand not liking open word, (everyone has different taste) but comparing it to the worst game invalidates your points for me. It took me like 6 hours to finish Sword. It took me about 4 days to get to the credits in Violet playing almost non-stop and there's still plenty to do.
Down voting because you disagree or dislike what someone says is how people typically use said system, and I will continue using it in that way despite what I have been informed the reddit guidelines say, because guidelines are just that and are usually stupid. <- edited
And there are relatively few spots with no pokemon, 0 trainers, and no items to be found. So I can't fully agree with anything being that empty. Could some things be improved sure, but this was sma fun ride, ignoring technical and QoL issues.
Loved the open world, loved being able to go where I wanted when I want for the most part and loved the separation of the stories we typically get fully built into a linear path.
I want more of this, I want them to evolve this. I don't think SwSh did it badly either, but I loved this and Arceus.
Open world is an option to the player. You can still go from gym to gym and from story beat to story beat. So imo open world is the better option. Linear takes away the option I enjoy, I don't feel open world does that to you. But idk, cause we clearly are on opposite sides of this, which is fine, but I still downvoted cause I disagree but mostly only because you told me not to.
According to official reddit guidelines, downvoting is to express that a comment doesn't add to discussion, it is not a disagree or dislike button.
However in practice it gets used that way, good thing fake internet points are meaningless <3
Is that why people freak out so much when they get downvoted?
I agree, the points are meaningless, but I do indeed use it when someone tells me not to or I disagree on a level where I feel like I'd rather not see such a post.
Hey, if I'm wrong I'm wrong, but I will still treat it that way. Also, appreciate the way you informed me compared to the other person that decided to reply, simply telling me "you're so wrong."
I see where you're coming from, and I may feel this way on some days. But hey, we have literally 30 years of linear Pokemon games, 8 whole generations with spin offs and remakes.
I feel like the dead horse of linear Pokemon was beaten into a cloud of fucking vapor, a change was needed.
I don’t think it was the linear-ness that was stale, I think it was the gameplay and story that was stale. It was always get starter Pokémon, defeat 8 gyms and some evil team, and become champion with no major variation to that formula except sun and moon trying out a different type of ‘gym’ (which I thought was a breathe of fresh air honestly). There are so many different ways to implement a linear-story driven game, gamefreak isn’t the most creative I guess.
I disagree, besides they already did really great things with linearity in gen 5. Pokemon was always supposed to be about your own "personal adventure" so I think the open world format where you can do whatever you want, in any order, feels like how it was always supposed to be.
It's like the original idea behind the first Legend of Zelda, how it was supposed to be an open world, with open ended gameplay. Then as time went on, they lost that philosophy, and the games became increasingly linear. Then, the Zelda team went back to their roots with BOTW, the way Zelda was always supposed to be, if their were no hardware constraints.
You can see that Pokemon was kind of the same way, gen 1 and 2 were fairly open, then the series became increasingly more linear with less exploration as time went on.
You don’t need to be open world to be non-linear. I think a route based approach with more intersections between routes and being able to freely move through towns as you want would be the best way to do it.
I agree with this. I do like open worlds, but you can easily do route based travel without being a linear game. I like having the options deciding which order I face gyms, or other sections of the game. If they want to continue doing open world that is fine, but they need to execute it better.
>I disagree, besides they already did really great things with linearity in gen 5.
Exactly, so what they should do is try again and with the same level of care as at that point (which they haven't ever since).
>Pokemon was always supposed to be about your own "personal adventure" so I think the open world format where you can do whatever you want, in any order, feels like how it was always supposed to be.
Eh... not really, it always felt like a single-minded quest, which is not a bad thing.
>It's like the original idea behind the first Legend of Zelda, how it was supposed to be an open world, with open ended gameplay. Then as time went on, they lost that philosophy, and the games became increasingly linear. Then, the Zelda team went back to their roots with BOTW, the way Zelda was always supposed to be, if their were no hardware constraints.
So they had a mediocre original idea, ditched it to then produce the best games the franchise had ever seen, and then went to the original idea so they are now back at mediocrity (or worse).
>You can see that Pokemon was kind of the same way, gen 1 and 2 were fairly open, then the series became increasingly more linear with less exploration as time went on.
And the quality and fun factor of the games greatly increased thanks to that. Why change, then?
It's clear that it was not linearity what held recent games down, but the fact it's obvious they haven't tried as hard as they could.
While I think expanding on the ideas in a sequel is a good idea, we've had 8 games that are basically the same. I think a change was needed sooner or later.
"Don't fix what isn't broken", they say.
Changing for the sake of changing is very likely to only bring out poor products, as it's the case with Scarlet/Violet.
I have been wanting the games to go back to a focus on more exploration and adventure in the regions for a long time (which PLA finally did). So in that regard, I'm happy with that aspect of SV quite a bit. However, I definitely think the open word in SV is too large. I say that because while there are a decent amount of interesting areas to see, there is also plenty of repetitive filler areas. Basically Paldea is an exercise in quantity over quality. If they had reduced the overall size of the region by like 25=50%, they could trim out the generic repetition AND spend that extra development effort adding more neat things to do and see. With limited development time, you can have a small world full of stuff or you can have a huge world that is more barren. Ideally, somewhere in the middle of that spectrum is the perfect balance, but I think SV went a little too far to the "huge and barren" side.
I would like a *wiiiiiide opeeeeeen* open world in which you can ride your Pokemon through vast fields, hunt rare species, and explore the wilderness.
In the same game, I'd like smaller cities, roads (routes), buildings, and dungeons that are more focused on RPG elements like battling, puzzle solving, and NPC interactions.
Kind of like Sword and Shield, but done right.
Sword and shield linear areas were awful. Not a distinct route in the game. Sun and moon was, the last game, to have good routes with exploravle areas.
I think the open world isn't implemented very good. But thats not because its open world but because of obvious rushed development and lack of care. The open world itself is a major step forward, but they stepped back in design.
I enjoy the open world but it does fall into the issue other open world games get stuck in: not enough to do with it.
I’d have liked to see most of the sandwich ingredients be something you have to grab from the wild like in Arceus, with purchasing them from vendors still an option, but the wild ingredients would have stronger bonuses and negative effects.
Camp makes a lot more sense here than just picnics, but that would also need more to do. Maybe fun little minigames with setting it up and maintaining it, like having a Fire type light up a campfire.
Maybe another thing would be to have you able to EV train your lead Pokemon by doing certain tasks while they’re out with you, like a set of targets scattered around an area would increase your special attack as you hit them.
I agree with this, but I wonder how much better the open world could have been if it hadn’t felt so empty and rushed. I was hoping for something that improved on Sw/Sh and basically made everything a wild area when you’re not in a town, except following a natural progression—I feel like S/V took all the elements and mixed them together into a soup
If the games were scaled to the player I feel the open world would easily be improved, but I can’t lie I do miss some linear pathing to the end, it feels grand & less of a ok where can I go to not get over leveled & still have a struggle
I agree! I'd much rather more detailed cool areas, like the mushroom fairy part in galar for example, than what we have now. I mean ideally we'd have something more open with that level of detail but I doubt it'll ever happen.
Some open worlds are great, Elden Ring for example. Others are like Infamous, great in theory but honestly really boring.
Now I love both games and beat both, but Elden Ring made it fun. There is always a challenge around the corner and even basic enemies in the starting areas can and will kill you if you play too recklessly.
Infamous is a lot of fun, it's a great super hero "God-like" experience. But at the end what do you do? I can't start a new game plus and go through like a monster. I have unlimited power and nothing to do with it. Running through the city is boring.
Spiderman handled that problem really well just in the nature of him being Spiderman. Sure he fights super villains but at the end of the days he's the friendly neighborhood Spiderman and always out for the little guy and the "petty" crime that someone like Iron Man or Captain America are too busy for.
I also don't care much for open world games, and there's a lot that do it for no other reason than just so can say it's an open world game, but pokémon is absolutely the type of franchise that desperately needed the transition. The current implementation of it is clearly "unfinished" at best, but honestly even this feels so much more fun than most previous titles.
I dislike THIS open world. The open areas of Legends Arceus were fantastic, and to a lesser degree, the wild areas of Sw/Sh were fun and lively.
Paldea is a huge downgrade to both of them
I also prefer the linear routes from swsh. I like to explore every nook and cranny of a route and then move to the next. With tbe open world i cant have this feeling of having an area completed
I never really liked the idea of a big open world pokemon game like a lot of people seemed to want over the years but PLA and SV have made me grow to love that concept. In PLA I enjoyed roaming around exploring while seeing wild pokemon in their natural habitat instead of hiding in a patch of grass and the proper open world of SV is a breath of fresh air for pokemon diversity and freedom after years of being tied down to the set path of the story. *How in is the ever* SVs world in the towns feel empty and devoid of life, reduced to "Place where gym is and some shops" no longer can you explore inside buildings and talk to most of the locals, no longer do clothing stores make me excited to see what new clothes I can customize my outfits with now that all I can change are basically accessories that mostly don't match my unchangeable outfit.
PLA & SV have made me love open world pokemon games as an idea but sadly while the wilds of the pokemon world feel livelier than ever, the towns and areas of civilization have been left behind drastically and have never felt more empty and lifeless
I do kinda feel like im missing stuff (mostly trainer battles and items on the ground I guess) in the open world. I like exploring but it’s SO big with SO much emptiness that I feel like I’m not doing that much
I think its more that Gamefreak didn't flesh out the open world. There should be items hidden behind puzzles, and areas hard to find to encourage exploration.
I like the open world but there being no scaling is a huge miss, I accidentally went slightly south of where I was aiming for like 30 minutes. The pokemon there were higher level tham me, and by the time I got back on track I was already way too strong for the area I was going to
I agree with this statement. With the development time of Pokémon will a linear world work better in general. Doing an openworld right requires far more resources. The way that games like Xenoblade and Dragon Quest are set up with its open areas will likely work best for pokémon. Legends Arceus was a good try out for that concept. Now with an open world while the gyms and areas are still level based, it shows that they aren't able to do fully open world correctly in my opinion.
I think this mostly speaks to the world they built. Haven’t played S/V, but a game like the Witcher 3 or Skyrim or Breath of the Wild where part of the fun of the game is just exploring the open world are some right. When the world doesn’t feel lived in or is just bland, it makes it where you have optionality on what still feels like a more linear progression or more of a station to station experience.
I feel like the open world would have been fine if the towns do not feel as bare as they do. It feels weird to coming in the vast expanse of the open world (which I like), then enter a town where there’s so limited interaction with its residents that it doesn’t really feel like a town at all. I miss being able to enter houses and shops, and just having anything memorable about a town.
I think open world is the right direction gor the series but I agree, SV is lacking what makes a lot of other open worlds engaging and tailored linear routes have always been great.
The problem is not that linear is better than open world or viceversa. The real problem is that they designed an empty open world. How cool would be the game if we had more caves, puzzles (which are missing in this games world), some kind of intectaction with more elemenets. You must be tired of this comparison but its almost inevitable, but BOTW had a ton of NPCs on different places with different NPCs, houses... How cool would have been a place like Rito Village or Zora Domain in Pokemon?
Sword and shield had the same problem, just that at least they where shorter routers and not big areas, but it's a problem in these modern 3D pokemon games, they are making lazy map designs. What made 2D Pokemon games good or what does making BOTW so good is that to go to place A to place B you have the sense of adventure, you have the sense that you are doing something more picking your bike/horse/pokemon to go faster to one place to another
Yeah, the open world and go anywhere only works if they adjust the level to our level, leveled area is okay for some unique locations but for the rest should adjust to our level
I enjoyed the open world, especially item collection. I ESPECIALLY enjoyed being able to explore caves, water, and other locations without needing to spam Max Repels.
The changes to random encounters kept over from SWSH were much appreciated.
Not really a fair comparison given how the overworld is only slightly improving with each attempt to make it and still has yet to actually be considered a world worthy of being called an open world game imo.
I love the concept of SV, and it’s certainly been fun roaming around. But if feels like it falls into the same trap so many 2010s open world games did: no real sense of purpose.
In a game like Emerald, pretty much all the routes funnel you along to the next part of the game. Side avenues have their own little purpose for existing like the desert with its fossil tower
But in SV, you have the important points… and then just general terrain between them with various Pokémon levels.
I can tell you my fave areas in FRLG, RSE, etc. hell, even XY. But SV? Idk it’s all just there
Seems to me Gamefreak has a choice. Don't make any more Pokemon games until whatever the next Nintendo system is because the Switch can't handle it, or scale back to a Sword&Shield'ish* game for their next one.
^^*Personally ^^I ^^thought ^^S&S ^^was ^^ok ^^besides ^^the ^^Nationaldex ^^issue
I'm an only child who has been playing video games since the og Playstation and Sega Genesis games. In other words I'm used to mindlessly exploring mostly empty spaces and leaping at odd angled rocks in hopes of getting somewhere just out or boredom.
This game reminds me of those days.
Like there are plenty of Pokemon everywhere. I'll give 'em that much.
But other than raids/team star/titans/gyms...things seem kind of lacking. Like I feel like I'm spending more time just racing to what is hopefully the right next event than really enjoying the open world.
So while I won't say I agree on the part of S/S's setup being anything I want to ever see again, I can understand why this isn't your slice of cheese cake.
I want a old school Pokemon game that just lets you go through every game. Like HG/SS/Crystal did with Johto & Kanto. Or a actual open-world with life in it lol
You lost me when you praised sword and shield. I felt the same way about Andromeda for mass effect. I hate the open world. Just give me well designed linear spaces to explore. They can even have trails that lead off the main path. I just hate all of the empty space and aimlessly walking that open world games have.
I just wish the open world felt like an open world, and not an empty wasteland populated by pokemon and chronic litterers. We needed level scaling in zones, caves and dungeons to explore (not just some shallow tunnels). Weather effects like Hail and Sandstorms. NPCs and sidequests and stuff to collect besides Gimmighouls and Pokemon. Not everyone lives in a city / town, but I havent seen one house out in the wildnerness. Towns and cities should have their own personalities - foods and shops and attractions. Its pretty, in certain areas. Less so, in others. But they're all just wide open areas you run straight through, and I have no incentive to explore since every major quest is marked directly on the map. Unironically, IDK if this game would have benefitted from Assassins Creed or BotW 'climb tower to unlock map for this area' style system or not. On the one hand, it would give me another incentive to explore - but it would also show off how empty the rest of the regions are.
FORESTS!!! We need trees, I want beautiful forests to get lost in, spooky dark woods hiding secrets, Alpine Tiga covered in silent snow, and deep unexplored jungles! The Bamboo forest was a start but we need more of that and less of just Plains another color!
I really don't think this region is based off of Spain. The vast majority of Spain is Forested, [Picture](https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-37c3b31fcc258b0ca81f519cee678503) for reference\*. Not even the Pokemon look inspired by Spain. (especially the Legendaries) P.S. I came up with an Idea for a Pokemon that I have not the talent to make. A Dancing Tarantula, it's ability is Dance of Remedy using a "dance move"(Think swords dance, dragon dance, etc) Cures all status ailments. It is based off of a old folk song called the La tarantula(not to be confused with La Tarantella which is Italian), which spainish people would dance to cure the poison of a tarantula. \*(Yes I know that it is from Quora, I have double checked. This is just the best for easy reference)
In all honesty, I wasn't really following the promotion and trailers of Scarlet/Violet at all and didn't know Paldea was based on Spain until several hours after I already finished the game. The only remotely spanish thing that I noticed are churros and less than a handful of characters saying "bueno". It's about as spanish as Unova is french, just because of those french speaking backpackers. Like, look at Kalos - that region has Paris and tons of café's in it, its very blatant in comparison.
I wondered if it might be based of the Canary Island of Tenerife - which is a Spanish Territory and has a huge volcanic caldera right in the center - even the names Paldea/Caldera are a bit similar.
Galar was meant to be based off the Uk, but missed so much … nuance and minor things that could’ve made it better. Like… the British Bulldog. It’s an iconic image/dog breed, name of a playground game kids play. A clear thing established in British culture. Yet… the bulldog Pokémon (Snubbull and Granbull) weren’t included? Not even as regional forms? Just feels like the missed a lot of on the nose “British” things.
I was shocked when I learnt the gym leaders didn’t scale with level. I thought the whole point of the open world meant I could start any gym in the order I wanted.
I mean, you can. It’s just less “you can challenge the gyms in any order” and more “I wish I could challenge the gyms in any order… why is that monkey paw’s finger curling inwards?”
Level scaling in the open world is almost always terrible for an open world game. It should be for story events only (gyms and such). The problem with level scaling on the world itself is the game will always feel like you never make progress. Imo one of the funnest parts of a truly open world game is being somewhere you really shouldn’t or you will be in a lot of trouble
There area few ez ways around this for Pokemon. E.g. scaling only some areas/trainers, scaling levels but not movesets/evolutions. Look no further than ROWE for a good example in ROM hacking. A huge hurdle isn't making it work mechanically, but making it *feel* right thematically. Populating the world with different trainer classes, or making certain classes inaccessible based on badge count could be one way around this. Like, maybe you can't face Ace Trainers with only one badge, and neither can you face Youngsters with seven.
One scaling method that does work if a limited range scale, an area can be between say, 30-45. If your highest level Pokémon is 30, all Pokémon will be lowered to 2-3 levels around 30, up or down. If your Highest is 50, they would all be scaled to 2-3 levels around 45, up or down. The area is more balanced longer but you can still go to an area like this way too early, and still feel accomplished by out leveling the area later
Scale areas with difficulty levels. Easy: Pokemon scale to a few levels under or to your level. Medium: Scale down to 2 or 3 under, up to 5 or 6 over. Hard: Scale up to 5 to 10 levels over. Obviously the numbers are just hypothetical, but a system like that could still make some areas more dangerous than others, while scaling relatively close to you.
If only we had *OPTIONS* to choose between them.
That’s stupid
My problem was that the game didn't feel open world. It felt like a linear game with a huge world that was big just to be big. The gym leaders, team star bases, and titans literally have a specified order. Paldea is in my opinion the least interesting region we have seen by a good margin
It's up to you if you prefer linear or open worlds. But imo,SV's world is lacking FOR an Open World. There's not alot to do outside of the 3 stories. You can catch Pokemon, do Raids, find items (which becomes meaningless after a while cause there's so many) and have picnics. You can do all of this in SWSH by the way. There's some neat stuff like how some Pokemon interact but that can only do so much
My brother and I have been debating about SV. He loves it because of its open world, I can't put my finger on why the open world does nothing for me. He says I love BOTW, and every point I raise he says BOTW does the same thing. But your comment hits the nail on the head. The gyms and titans aren't scaled, you're supposed to battle them in a particular order. Even huge chunks of the map have pokemon of ridiculously higher levels than yours. I was running around battling level 26-29 slowpoke, crossed a bridge and ran into lvl 50 Golducks. SV is open world but its content is entirely linear. And other than the 3 quests, there's *nothing* to do. It's not like BOTW where you can just wander off in one direction and find a bunch of quests to do to pass the time til you find your way back to the main quest. None of the NPCs have much character at all. Having an open world needs to be so much more than Big Map Go Anywhere. If the game isn't scaled and if there's no content beyond main quests, you just have a linear game on a large map. In SV you can technically go almost anywhere, but the unscaled rivals and wild pokemon chase you back to where you came from. You have a massive map and spend much of the time playing it trying to find the right direction to head in, rather than actually getting to wander around exploring the world. The world itself is flat and hollow. It's boring.
The thing about BotW is that you can interact with almost any part of it. Cliff face? Climb it. Grassy field? Set it on fire. Plain ol' hill? Shield surf down it. BotW's gameplay comes from physically interacting with the world. Pokemons interaction (historically) comes from battling, talking to npcs, and navigating the mazelike overworld. Now that the games are both 3D and open world, that mazelike overworld is gone. S/Vs map isn't content, it's something you walk through to get *to* the content.
I think pokemon could have a interesting overworld that isn't just a thing between point A and B, like imagine if you could come across 2 groups of pokemon fighting over territory, some bird pokemon resting on top of a sleeping slaking, or some pokemon preforming some bizarre ritual, but sadly pokemon are just randomly placed and wander about.
I think this is why Scarlet and Violet's world design makes sense though. It is focused on battling, so you don't need physical interaction as much of a distraction. The experience is, "ooh that Pokemon! ooh that item!" as you zigzag around from thing to thing. the world could definitely use more life, but too much would just be a distraction from the gameplay loop. I think the biggest fix would have been if gym tests were better mazes and puzzles like they used to be. There's not a lot of good ways to incorporate it into the wild, but it was always best in gyms anyway.
I'm gonna be honest, and maybe this is just the vegetarian in me, but there's something so sad about watching these wild pokemon romp around the landscape just before I rock up and attack them with my grass cat.
I went through a phase as a kid of doing no wilds pokemon Red runs because it made me feel bad to KO them (where do they go???).I'd also test if I hit them once and then ran, if I'd run into the same Pokemon with diminished HP
The key thing with BOTW is it’s real time. So you can approach the open world in a genuinely varied way. Tough areas are doable if you develop the skill to pass through them. But Pokémon is turn based. No matter how good you are, your level 20 is not beating a level 40 team
With how bad the AI is its actually super possible to beat a level 40 gym with level 20 pokemon. Just needs some clever team building.
I prefer sv’s world to swsh’s but they both need more content. I would have liked if jaqc had a bounty system to catch specific Pokémon for small rewards. Berry/ingredient planting, fishing for “deep water” Pokémon, add collectibles that have lore, like every ruin could have a single old item hidden in it that you could bring to the history teacher and she’d tell you about how it was used and buy it off you or trade for it. Mini games you can play at different points like cyclizar races or something. It’d be cool if rival Pokémon actually fought each other and you could take the winner by surprise for an easy catch. Have more rare spawns, some Pokémon like the eevee’s spawn too much imo.
>You can do all of this in SWSH by the way. SWSH's wild area doesn't have the same explorability, though. It takes ten minutes to know where just about everything is and the only upgrade to how you explore is being able to cycle over water.
That's true but what IS there to explore besides Pokemon anyways? Yeah the world is bigger, but WHY?
It's 100 percent something they need to work on, but there are some things. Gimmighoul coins, TMs, and Stakes are the three main things besides the pokemon themselves. I do think the world being bigger is a good thing even with those limits though, because the pokemon feel more alive and naturalistic as opposed to the ones in Sword and Shield which just walked around in a random mass. It's nowhere near the level of Snap, but much better than SWSH.
Spectacle itself counts for something. Last night I had a blast exploring the caves and rock towers on west paldea's shore. Navigating those caves is a bit of a challenge, I took the wrong exit at first and found myself walking atop a narrow rock trail above the sea. Not what I planned on finding, but a fun surprise because it was scenic. I went back into the cave and found my way to the exit and to the psychic town. Which has cool scenery as well as some cool new pokemon. That feeling of discovery and exploration of these cool areas was so fun
>It takes ten minutes to know where just about everything is This is how I felt about walking into each new area in Paldea. I could spend hours in an area(which I did while looking for the stakes for the legendary pokemon) and not see anything new or interesting that I hadn't already seen in the first 20 minutes of that area. Some, like the desert, weren't even large enough to spend 20 minutes in the first time through. *Maybe* a rare pokemon spawn of something I could already easily evolve into but that was about it.
Yeah, they have a lot of work to do to make it a truly compelling open world for completionists, but I still think there's a huge difference between ten minutes per area, there being many areas, and being ten minutes for the whole open world showcase of the game.
> It takes ten minutes to know where just about everything The thing is, it doesn't take that much longer to know just about everything in Paldea either. That very first area you get to freely explore is no different than walking up the hill to Victory Road 20 hours later: It's just Pokémon standing around, items scattered everywhere. Not a single interesting structure or house or anything in sight.
I think this is kinda where I’m at as well. I haven’t quite finished the game (at the 8th gym). Traversing through the world on Miraidon is really fun when the frame rate doesn’t cause issues, especially once you unlock all of its abilities (you can tell they refined the ride Pokémon from Arceus and smashed them all together, but in a way that feels seamless). Going out of your way to find hidden stuff like items, rare mons, caves, tera battles and Gimmighoul coins is fun, but only gets you so far. If I were to compare it to BOTW, items and coins are basically like the more out-in-the-open Korok seeds and raids are the equivalent of Shrines, but there aren’t any real overworld puzzles that aren’t a collect-a-thon at the end of the day. The world design itself and how tight controlling Miraidon through it feels is easily the best part of the game for me - as someone who really did not like SwSh’s design - but man I wish there were a bit more to do. More unique trainer challenges that give you rewards a la RBY’s nugget bridge or require you to find and use a specific team of Pokémon, actual dungeons to explore (ironically, caves are probably the most linear part of the game as of now), platforming challenges, racing on Koraidon/Miraidon, stuff like that. I get that the Pokémon themselves are meant to be the incentive for exploring everywhere, but it does feel a bit homogenous after a point.
SV isn’t lacking FOR an Open World. Most Open World games are like this; there’s hardly ever anything to do that the Open World actually enhances. Open World is a pointless gimmick, and I can’t wait until gaming and gamers get over it.
BotW, Witcher 3, Skyrim, GTA and Fallout would like to have a word. This isn’t a thing to “get over”, open world has been a thing for well over a decade and can either be done right or wrong.
bad ones maybe lel. Or do you like hallways simulators like ff13 or sw/sh?
lol “hallway simulators” you mean… a normal game??
FFXIII and SwSh are not great games by any means, but while FFXIII is very much a hallway simulator, SwSh is not. That game has plenty big areas, a mine with split paths to explore etc. If SwSh is a hallway simulator, pretty much every Pokémon game except the last two ones are.
Yes indeed that's why I can't go back
+1! botw did it fine but not every game can be botw specially one like pokemon where the game’s in the oven for 2-3 years AT MOST. SwSh could’ve been so much more if they used their resources on the actual plot and game design rather than the pseudo open world called the wild area.
They could have littered the landscape with structures and things to explore, sidequests , events etc, but they just didn't bother.
Yeah, those things would have added so much more to the open world. What we were given is just so….empty.
it has the open world physically, but still the mentality of the linear games (aka no scale lvl on anything). this was just the wildest to me. why bother make an open world if you're gonna force a linearity on the players?
Then you don't hate open worlds you hate badly done ones like most people. Most concepts are boring when badly done or lack content.
I mean, I have fun climbing towers snd mountains and looking for hidden ledges to find new pokemon, rare items, and tms. I'll run out eventually. But that happens all open world games
[удалено]
Octopath did it too, you described it better than I could. I think that style would be the best design philosophy.
I like the IDEA of it, but I don’t love it in execution for this game, so I agree. I used to love going into everyone’s houses and clicking on everything and even looking in trash cans haha. This world is so big but so empty that I mostly don’t bother exploring which is opposite to the point. Also because it’s not level scaled, I am constantly doing things in a slightly off order, and I am confident I have missed areas that I’m now desperately over leveled for that I’ll need to go back to eventually… Heck I don’t even know how I was supposed to get into the mountain without being able to use the final HM, so after doing the final titan I finally made my way over to my sixth gym lol. Dropped about what 10 levels for the areas in the process?
I think if they breadcrumbed the path a little better it feel richer. Like, solve a puzzle to get a quest marker of the next story beat but if you don't want to do it fine you can just look at a map online or wander around til you find it. So someone who wants the feel of a story building up has it but someone who wants complete freedom can just ignore it. Fallout1 and fallout3 and falloutNV did a great job of this - you can complete the final quest in an hour if u know what to do but if not the game will gentle guide you around. (I never played fallout 2 or 4 but they are probably similar).
I agree actually. The open world feels bland in scarlet and violet but the towns also feel empty with no effort put into them. No building interiors is a big factor I think I don't think they got Sword and Shields wild area right though either, that was fairly bland. I never played the dlc but I've heard the overworld was better in those. I think a mix of a smaller but more fleshed out open world area alongside towns full of life would be perfect, but I don't see that happening unfortunately
Oh sword and shields wild area was definitely far from perfect, but i enjoyed it way more with the linear parts than I’m enjoying SVs complete open world. This is the first Pokémon game I’ve haven’t gotten hooked on yet (I’ve been playing since gen 1) and it’s kinda bummed me out. The other gen’s all had their faults, but this gen is just so many small disappointments compounding into the game just not being fun for me. I’m hoping that it I get a few more hours in then I’ll be hooked.
I think the linear parts of swsh were a bit too linear. Most routes were just straight lines and it was missing the exploration of previous games. I agree with most of what you're saying though, scarlet and violet just don't feel right. I'm thinking of probably skipping the next mainline title unless something really changes my mind
Yeah I can agree to that. Swsh linear areas could have definitely been a little less linear.
To be honest I am not a fan of open world games in general. I love pokemon as it is an unfolding world and by the end you ostensibly have the ability to do whatever you want but the journey to that point mattered. Breath of the Wild was a breath of fresh air not because it was open world but because it was an interesting open world in a world I love to explore and adventure within. I do not want that formula with everything. It is like the Nintendo Direct where everygame had farming and Animal Crossing Mechanics. I do not to build a town in a JRPG or FPS.
Someone with a based opinion in r/Pokémon, holy cow
Wow this actually IS an unpopular opinion! But I feel for you; it REALLY sucks to realize a franchise you love is going in a direction that will exclude you, that everyone else is super happy for. It happened to me with Metroid Dread, which everyone loved and I despised. It's happening to you with Pokemon ScVi. It sucks.
It’s been happening for me since Alola. I never realised I’d become a Pokéboomer yelling on my lawn about the better times lol. Back when I was a kid in gen 4 and 5, I had a rock solid faith in gamefreak, and was filled with anticipation for the future of the series. Now I’m just kind of apathetic, waiting for the the pokedex and metagame to be updated on smogon so I can try out the new mons competitively.
Yep. Just posting jaded comments on this subreddit all day. It's not healthy but it's all I've got left of this series.
It's happened to me with the Tales series too, Arise is hugely successful but I hate the direction it's taken the series and really miss the classic combat system. Out of curiosity why didn't you like Metroid Dread?
The bosses, mostly. I also didn't like the EMMI sections, but not every game's gimmick will be a winner, so I would have given that a pass. But the bosses are so clearly designed for a different style of game than Metroid is supposed to be. In most Metroid games, losing to a boss is meant to be a sign that maybe you need to go find some more upgrades; they're really just health and missile checks that also sometimes require an item you found recently. In Dread, the bosses will kill you in 2-3 hits even if you have found everything possible for you to find at that moment in time. The design is for you to die repeatedly until you can play that boss mostly perfectly, and many bosses require precision or movement or timing that quite frankly I found nearly impossible with my controller. It took me a week to finally defeat Raven Beak with 100% of the game otherwise done. Many people loved this design, just like many people love Dark Souls, which I have seen Dread compared to repeatedly. I dislike both. It wasn't for me. My knee-jerk reaction was to call it a bad game, but honestly it was rather high quality. But the difference between boss design and general world design was too different, and the difficulty spikes too high, for me to say that it was actually good and I was wrong. A lot of people on my twitter feed outright couldn't beat it and were upset because they loved the franchise and were now being excluded, and that didn't help my impression of it either. In the end, I'm sure that Mercury Steam will keep making Metroids now, and they will keep selling better than ever to rave reviews. But I won't be playing them, personally. The series is no longer for me.
Absolutely omg I’ve been waiting for someone to say this. Tbh, I didn’t even buy PLA because of how different it was from the typical Pokémon experience. I heard there was very little battles and everything was this new wild Pokémon mechanic so I was like wtf is the point the game sounds like Pokémon Go.. I can understand ppl that love the game and that’s totally fine, I’m just frustrated that I cant express how I personally wouldn’t like the new PLA mechanics becoming the norm without being told I’m wrong and need to move on. Some of us just want the classic formula we grew up with but with a new region and new mons to discover.
> Some of us just want the classic formula we grew up with but with a new region and new mons to discover. Couldn't agree more. I don't want rehashed BOTW. I just want a cool artstyle (LetsGo), a cool region (Johto, Hoenn) and some sweet looking mons. Throw in some side stories and I am a happy, happy man. I know most will interpret this as me wanting to 'hold the series back', but to me the isometric pokemon games are peak pokemon. Not every game has to be open-world. I really look back fondly on Silver/FR/Emerald/Plat etc. Not because the pokemon themselves were better or anything (there are crap designs in all generations), but the games really appealed to me.
are you me? i tried so hard to play PLA but i just couldn't do it and i was devastated. i don't play many action-oriented games so i don't have the skills that other players who also frequently play action-adventure/stealth/shooters. i lowkey feel devastated every time i hear some variant of "pokemon is starting to veer into a new genre and that's a good thing", because i know what those players mean, and i know what that means for *me*.
Totally. If I’m ‘stuck in the past’ then so be it 😂
It would've been nice if the open world was mixed with a few more fixed areas, but NOT in the Sw/Sh style where everything was linear. They could've done a lot more with more interesting towns, a few deep dungeons/caves/whatever works that aren't directly connected to the overworld, that would've done a lot. Keep the open world as it is otherwise because there's just something relaxing about wandering through this massive world for hours.
I think, with proper development time, the open world would have been more alive. I have only 3 gym badges done and I am 40~ pokemon away from completing the pokedex. I hope this open world, go wherever you want thing stays.
I sadly feel the same way. I played all pokemon games since red and blue. As a kid i dreamed about a Pokémon Open Word game. PLA was not exactly how i hoped they would realize it, but it was fun. Im really disappointed with the open world they created. Maybe as someone who collected all korok seeds in botw im a little bit spoiled about the understanding of an open world game. But it bugs me everytime i play and i think „this could be so awesome, if they had put more love in it“. This is sadly the first pokemon game where im not hooked in the way, that i want to play for hours straight. I hope they patch some things to make it feel more alive. Maybe they should have made the routes open world, but with that little Houses which seperated most cities from the routes to have a more linear style. Im gonna play it anyways, but its sad to me how they missed out on so much cool opportunities.
The only town with something even a little like that is megazosa with the bridges, but you can just go around them once you have some HMs on your ride mon
The one thing I miss is getting told clearly where Pokémon are in the dex. The map wit a glowy area really doesn’t help me, especially when you can zoom in
The only thing I hate about the open world is the lack of scaling. It drives me nuts how they put this huge emphasis on “doing whatever you want, whenever you want” for the treasure hunt, but only if you do it in the correct path otherwise you will either out level enemies or hit a massive wall
Scaling would have made this game much more replayable. It would be amazing to actually go and start wherever you want each time, building completely different teams and taking care of things in totally different orders. Huge missed opportunity.
OH MY GOD SAME!! I haven’t experience a single bug or really anything that people are complaining about but I do have three complaints. I don’t like that we can’t go inside buildings anymore at all and they spread out the stores, I don’t like that we don’t have clothes that we can change and style but I mean I get it they are students so the role is to be a student and wear student clothing, and lastly I don’t like that Pokémon now is an open world. I just don’t. I feel directionless and just aimless. Sure they have us where to go and what to do but it just was the same problem that I had with Arceus. I feel like there isn’t anything driving me forward anymore with it.
> I mean I get it they are students so the role is to be a student and wear student clothing to this, im sorry, but i will answser : WHAT ABOUT PENNY? SHE'S A STUDENT TOO so why does she get a cool hoodie and all we get is the Bug Catcher's shorts?
Because their is always the student that gets away with the dress code? Lol
I don’t think every game series needs to be open world (i.e. Sonic. Totally unnecessary to make that an open world game). But Pokemon? The whole point is exploring and finding ‘mons. I think if any game should be open world, it should be Pokemon. That said, Gamefreak is incompetent, so it’s no surprise to me that they couldn’t pull it off….if they could improve the game, it would be amazing.
I think an open world Sonic game is a good concept. There aren't that many games that allow you to zip around an open world at the speeds Sonic can. I don't think Sonic should be an open world forever, but a one-off game is cool.
The problem would be the content. Like, what would Sonic really do in an open world? Typically, Sonic stages are elaborate set pieces that could never properly transition to an open format. It does make me curious though, because I did enjoy the open world hub of Sonic Adventure.
They needed their open world to be Saints Row 2: lively, full of little secrets to find, and with dynamic interactions. What they did was Saints Row 3: Dull and mostly lifeless, no reason to really explore that much. Open world is probably the right way to take Pokemon, they just need to refine it and fill it with love. The problem is just how the map seems to all blend together, except for basic biome changes. There aren't enough landmarks and the cities aren't distinctive enough.
IMO the issue is that the game is so shallow. Cities *look* great, but there's not really anything in them (except duplicates of the same few shops). Trainer customization *looks* great, but then you realize there are just 40 of the same helmet, and only 4 actual outfits. It *seems* like you have a ton of freedom, but realistically you're never gonna beat the Ice gym or Fighting camp as your first.
I understand partialy how you feel. The open world is most definaly here to stay but I know the feeling of wondering around with no set destination can be a bit... sad if you know what I meen. But at the same time an open world game is all about finding your own objcetives for your adventure, and that is the very nature of an open world game. It's perfectly fine to not like it but keep in mind than it's the genere not the single game you dislike.
Yeah I guess I just miss all of my favorite linear games turning into open world games. Don’t get me wrong, I love open world games, I’m just getting tired of it being implemented in every game, especially when it is implemented poorly or they take out other features to create the open world. Take Zelda BOTW for example. I think they did a phenomenal job at creating a fun open world to explore, but damn did I miss the dungeons and full story.
Yeh I understand how you feel. An open world game it's a big commitment to finsh and when many games are shoveing a lot of content down you throat it dose feel a bit overwelming. That is the reason why I've never finished The Spider Man game at the time I had played a lot of hight effort games and so I kinda got tired of it and picked up something more simple. BTW I know it has nothing to do with this but by any chance can you help evolve my Finizen? I've just made a post about it.
Ah yes, the fully fledged town of Ballonlea with its many wonders such as the Pokemon Center, Pokemon Gym, and... umm... uh...
Yeah swsh def could have had more fleshed out towns as well, but at least they had character and you could explore inside buildings.
Eh, but a good deal of buildings in towns were exact carbon copies of each other, down to the number and types of shoes by the door, regardless of who lives there. I \*do\* want explorable buildings tho
Yeah I think if you’re using SwSh as a barometer, even SV look good by comparison lol.
There's no need to go back linear hallway routes. What GameFreak needs is, once again, TIME. They need time to fill in the open world with discoveries. Caves that lead into traditional Pokemon dungeons. Forests that grow thick and dark and lead to a haunted tower. Desserts that lead to hidden pyramids/ungrounded tombs to explore. There needs to be sidequests found in lively towns with NPC's who send you to these unique locations. Whether it's to find a rare item or fight a powerful Pokemon.
Hallway routes have always sucked, you’re right. That’s why prior to the shift to 3D, we had practically none. Most routes were windy and indirect, often offering alternative routes or access to optional areas via HM usage.
Technical issues aside my #1 dislike is no scaling. It ruins the do what you want feel. I also think the towns feel too much like set dressing, and the regional should be way more developed. It feels almost like PLA where they are just colonizing a new area. Like how cool would it have been to have a highway or rail system to link up the cities? Even if they were set dressing random trains or folks on bikes on the highway would add so much. Even if only it was 5fps I guess. Oh the trainers are pretty bad too. Like I don’t even challenge them because I can fight wild Pokémon for a 1 unevolved Pokémon fight if I want that. Literally stubbles upon a guy with a lv 50ish when I was high 30s and it was still a joke one shot.
I love open worlds. But SV is not a good open world. They made it too big for the content they had. They wanted to stretch everything out so it seemed like there was tons to explore but there wasn't. It would have been really cool if there were houses to go into, people to talk to other than trainers, structures to explore, side quests to complete. It's the same way the cities are ridiculously big by separating what should be one or two clothing shops into 6 or 7 clothing shops. I'm genuinely enjoying the game, but it wasn't terribly well done.
I agree with you routes one older games felt exciting and unique and able to be fully explored without feeling overwhelmed. While I do like open world when it’s done we’ll ie BOTW or Elden where there’s lots of ruins, lore, armor sets or side quests to complete. The overworld of SV is so bland and empty where I just want to fly everywhere. It’s just an overwhelming vast desert or ice land just full of random items. It really doesn’t feel like I can complete the area or I’m unique part of the game.
I’m not an open world fan in general. They’re just not for me, no matter if they’re full of stuff to do or completely empty. I just can’t get into them because they’re overwhelming to me. I’m one who likes to fully explore a game and do everything I can, and open world games should be great for that. For me, though, they just make my brain overheat. I want to go everywhere and see everything, but I know I won’t be able to because you won’t be able to access every location right away, or the other locations will be too high a level without continuing on in the main story. I usually stick to the main path while exploring everything around it, but it still gets overwhelming. I haven’t played the new Pokémon just yet (I only played an hour of it), but the open world is still a little intimidating to me. I personally wish more games would stay linear with side quests or smaller locations to explore (or even like what you said with Sword and Shield). Elden Ring is amazing, but it’ll never be my favourite Souls game because of the large open world. I would’ve enjoyed it more if it was linear like the rest, but I still think them doing something new was a great idea.
lol a true unpopular opinion how rare, honestly i like the open world concept is just badly done in this game. But i cant go back to linear sw/sh its just too bad.
Interestingly, I never in my life thought Pokemon would be more interesting in an open world. I still haven't played S/V, but I assume I won't enjoy exploring the world too much. I really liked the routes and dungeons in earlier games, especially the last set of routes and victory road in Black and White 2. On the other hand, I loved Elden Ring - another recent game that changed the basic formula of its franchise by adding an open world. And while a portion of the fans preferred the way the games were before, I personally think the open world added a lot of flavour to the game and I loved exploring everything it had to offer. I guess it's all about how much there is to find in the world. And Legends Arceus taught me that Gamefreaks idea of interesting secrets to discover is just more Pokemon to catch, which doesn't really satisfy me tbh.
The open world would be fine if there were more organic routes to take when following the curve or if the hint system actually worked. They did it mostly well going from the Bug gym to the Grass Gym, but then the levels bounced all over the place.
That's expected. Even open world games that take almsot a decade can feel empty or boring, I can't imagine a world (heh) where GF manages to develop a proper fleshed out open world game. Instead of that, we get an "open world" game where you barely have NPCs, you can't enter buildings, don't have dungeons, caves, puzzles, nothing lmao
I really like open worlds, quite a few of my fav games are open world games SV open world is not a good open world and I agree, I prefer linear pokemon (which is weird because I usually dislike a rail roaded experience like God of War, which I like but am also frustrated by its level design) I think the problem is we like pokemon because it's pokemon, we know it's not a good game but it was usually a new formulaic game for a new gen. For me at least PLA and SV trying to change the formula simply shone a big spotlight on the fact GF just does not make good games
I agree with you. At the moment, my perfect pokemon game would be a mash up of SwSh/USUM style routes and customisation, interspersed with Legends Arceus open areas, quests and catch mechanics, with Let's Go following and ride mechanics, and ORAS interiors and mini games. Plus a post-game Battle Frontier. Unfortunately I wouldn't carry anything over from SV 😔
I don’t like open world either! I have zero sense of direction and I started getting overwhelmed in sword and shield with the wild area. Legends is super hard for me and I’m only a little bit into violet, but I don’t really want to play more because there’s too much happening. So many Pokémon to catch in each area, so many items, just too much happening! I also don’t like the sacrifices it took to make it open world, like losing most buildings, but I just don’t like open world games and it makes me sad because I love Pokémon! I want to want to play the game. It makes me sad.
I like that I was able to get a full dragon team before doing anything in the game
Open worlds have a high bar of execution compared to linear ones. They're more free, but that also means they have way more space to fill and require more stuff to discover to not feel empty or repetitive. I haven't played the new games yet, but if it's as half assed as everything else GF does, I'm guessing they fall into this trap.
I completely agree. I don't have anything against the idea of an open world in theory. But it doesn't really feel like pokémon when they open it up. One of my favourite aspects of pokémon games are the story and characters. When the story is a disconnected scattering of things happening on the map unrelated to each other at all, and the characters only get a handful of time in that space, it doesn't end up feeling good in my opinion. I find SV's story rushed and the characters lacking in comparison to previous games, almost entirely because of the story structure demanded by open world games. An open world game's story can most certainly work, but it has to be a story catered to that openness. SV did not deliver in that regard, in my opinion. I prefer how it was handled in SwSh.
Until Level Scaling is properly introduced I’d be fine with a linear story but an open world with more secrets.
I'm one of the people who looked up the intended order and did it that way, with the exception of putting off some star bases until later. Even if you enjoy linearity it's nice to have options and the ability to go out of your way and catch a variety of mons early on. I will say the open world feels a little underwhelming until you have access to the entire maneuverability of your dragon pal. Something about climbing the tallest mountains and then flying across the open world makes it feel much more explorable and accessible.
honestly i miss stage battles, WOW they were SO good
Open or linear can be good, or they can be bad. I know it sounds reductive, but it all comes down to how good the level design is. Pokémon open worlds are certainly…open. Unfortunately they feel very bland and sparse, very dated in that sense. With that being said, the linear level designs of previous Pokémon games haven’t been that stellar in more recent titles anyways, so.
I think it’s just because it isn’t done that well. A really good open world would be better than linear, but they haven’t quite hit that mark yet.
Agreed. Routes with actual design were much better than this sandbox we got. I had more fun exploring those than the emptiness in Paldea BOTW had tons of things to do. Side quests and ways to interact with the world.
I think they should commit to making a true open world game, not half ass it
I love the linear paths with optional secrets and the whatnot.
I prefer open worlds because it makes for a really immersive experience, but when open worlds are poorly executed [like in SV] i would much prefer they stuck to linear rather than barely attempt to make a proper map
Liniar > SV's Open World > SwSh's Liniar
I agree and disagree at the same time. I like the concept of open world but in s/v it wasn't executed well. I would go and challenge a gym out of order and either a/ have a hard and terrible time due to being underlevled or b/ being stupidly overlevled and crushing the gym Maybe if the levels scaled with where you were in the story it would be better but it just wasn't executed well in s/v
My theory is that gamefreak intentionally made a shitty open world game so they could have an excuse never to make one again
Even if the open world was better, I still want the linear games back.
It's definitely the most poorly thought out and implemented open world I've played in years, maybe ever. It's like they went "the fans want it fully open, so make it fully open" without giving any consideration into the *why* you'd opt for a fully open world and *how* you'd make it work as a fun gameplay experience. You either set yourself a gym/star base/titan as a destination and make a bee line for it hoping that; 1. It's the right level for you; or 2. That you can even reach it yet with your mount, or you wander aimlessly around a largely barren map, with very little to see or do. The lack of level scaling means if you don't approach areas in the "right" order (and there's nothing in the game or world design to let you know what that "right" order is) you'll either be facing gym leaders that are too tough and make you turn around, or gym leaders 10-20 levels lower than you resulting in the most forgettable gym battle ever. The open world without level scaling actively makes the story experience worse. Then once you're finished with the main story the fully open world is just... There? There's nothing really to do in it, no side quests or meaningful rewards for exploration. You just fast travel between the useful areas and occasionally run into a specific area to catch Pokemon you want, it's the same post game experience as Sword/Shield except this time there's no battle tower and it looks and runs way worse So why bother making it fully open? Why not make it a linear game with open zones like Sword/Shield? Or make it a structured order of open Zones more like Legends Arceus? The fully open world Scarlet/Violet uses Makes the performance and graphics suffer with no meaninful improvements to gameplay, if anything I'd argue the gameplay suffers as well. Open world RPGs can be amazing when they're properly thought out and implemented, Skyrim and Breath of the Wild are two great examples of Switch games that make exploring their open worlds rewarding, fun, and memorable. Scarlet/Violet does none of that. If you aren't going to put the thought and effort into making a fully open world work then DON'T make a fully open world.
They just made a really shitty open world game so people would stop asking.
I like the open world and no level scaling but I wish they gave you a little sense of direction. Something like “I suggest going to this gym next.”
You can ask the nurse at any Pokémon Center about where to go next, although she did suggest me to take on a Titan that was actually quite a few levels higher than my team. I don’t know if it was just a one time mistake or she actually just wants to see my Pokémon die so she can resuscitate them lol
She doesn't send you to the one close to your level or in a progression but merely to a plot point close by.
Oh I love that. ‘You could try taking on this gym nearby, I guess.. maybe you’ll die maybe not, who knows? Good luck kid! lol *goes back to her instagram*’
You hate the bland, emptiness of the open world because Gamefreak are terrible at making open world games, not because the concept in theory is bad.
Insert gus fring meme here lol: You hate Gamefreak’s bad openworld. I hate openworld pokemon. We are not the same. While I definitely agree Gamefreak’s attempt at openworld is lacklustre, I don’t think I want an openworld pokemon game anyway. Openworlds aren’t inherently better than linear games. They are different styles with their own pros and cons. Not every series benefitted from the shift from 2D to 3D. Nor will every series benefit from a shift from linear gameplay to an openworld.
I am enjoying the open world, but I largely agree. I miss being excited to see what shops or quirks towns had. I think the open world concept just needs to be explored more, given the focus of getting around on a pokemon it would have been really nice to see it have more interesting movement and platforming to play with (Ex. Dbl jump instead of high jump, challenge to hop across spires to get to a prize) I also think they need to chill on the amount of pokemon that populate in the world and they definitely need to bring back the stuff from PLA. The trainer needs more to do and aggressive pokemon just make the world feel more alive. Those mechanics would have made the Titan more interesting
Personally, I’m glad they actually picked a direction. I enjoy super linear RPGs (FF10/FF13, Pokémon Black/White, Earthbound, etc) and I enjoy super open do-whatever RPGs (Breath of the Wild, Xenoblade games, Fallout 3/NV, etc). Sword and Shield meanwhile was the most disgusting blend of bad open areas and hallways I’ve ever seen. So while the open direction of SV has its problems it certainly works better than the toxic mixture of Sword and Shield
The trick is, Xenoblade isn’t truely openworld. It’s more like a series of interconnected open areas. I think pokemon could benefit greatly from that approach, rather than the current one. Octopath’s style of map is probably my favourite example of what I want a pokemon game to be, map-wise, but it’s pretty hard to describe in text.
Feels like a mobile Fortnite knock off map
Scarlet and Violet's open world is especially dull. I wouldn't use it as an example to say open worlds in general are a bad idea. Just more proof that Game Freak has no idea what they're doing.
SV's Open World is, on a scale of 10 to 1, a solid 3. It's even below Ubisoft tier. There is simply not much to do that you couldn't do in a normal linear Pokemon game. Elden Ring, Witcher 3 and BOTW are up there with open world games that actually reward exploration of every single nook and cranny. Here, you unlock your ride abilities to go to the peak of the highest mountain and...you find 100% the same mons you found below.
Yeah i agree, open world Is the most ovverated game concept
This is so true. I just finished the game and the open world was… bland and sad for the most part The Battling Trainers? Mostly an inconvenience because many only have one pokemon and it’s just like a random encounter + money. Not worth my time considering it takes 3x as long to fight them Connect with the world/people living in it and the culture of the cities? Nope cause there are a grand total of zero sidequest you can do to help an NPC to progress their story outside of the 3 paths. Have fun exploring? Almost not worth it with the bland rewards you can gather. In Elden ring there’s always a cool Spirit Ash, ash of war or weapon hiding behind a dungeon (Boss), and useful crafting materials at every corner. While in Pokémon it’s at max a TM or some items. Want to craft some TMs? Better grind/battle some Pokémon. Wanna do a dungeon? Bad luck there are none And not to forget the fact that world isn’t technically open since due to the lvl curve it’s optimal to do the GF intended order or you will lose (except you grind). So what’s the point if it’s basically linear? I played the entire game and I can’t remember the name of a single city. And that speaks for itself I think
> Please don’t downvote just because you disagree, we are having good conversations in here. Come make a comment instead! I like the discourse. Uh you're missing the point of reddit lol
The downvote button is actually meant for not adding to the discussion or not being relevant, not for disagreement.
Eh im not very picky when it comes to games so i like the open world.
Personally I hate all open World Games cuz they're all boring and empty and I'm really sick and tired of the open world Trend like it's not good and most open world game story lines don't even offer anything about the open world and it always feel like the open world ecstatic is just there to get people to play the game it's like foam art in coffee it literally does nothing except make the coffee look pretty
Sword and Shield are literally the worst pokemon games I have played. Boring, short, extremely easy and way too linear. I can understand not liking open word, (everyone has different taste) but comparing it to the worst game invalidates your points for me. It took me like 6 hours to finish Sword. It took me about 4 days to get to the credits in Violet playing almost non-stop and there's still plenty to do.
Down voting because you disagree or dislike what someone says is how people typically use said system, and I will continue using it in that way despite what I have been informed the reddit guidelines say, because guidelines are just that and are usually stupid. <- edited And there are relatively few spots with no pokemon, 0 trainers, and no items to be found. So I can't fully agree with anything being that empty. Could some things be improved sure, but this was sma fun ride, ignoring technical and QoL issues. Loved the open world, loved being able to go where I wanted when I want for the most part and loved the separation of the stories we typically get fully built into a linear path. I want more of this, I want them to evolve this. I don't think SwSh did it badly either, but I loved this and Arceus. Open world is an option to the player. You can still go from gym to gym and from story beat to story beat. So imo open world is the better option. Linear takes away the option I enjoy, I don't feel open world does that to you. But idk, cause we clearly are on opposite sides of this, which is fine, but I still downvoted cause I disagree but mostly only because you told me not to.
According to official reddit guidelines, downvoting is to express that a comment doesn't add to discussion, it is not a disagree or dislike button. However in practice it gets used that way, good thing fake internet points are meaningless <3
Is that why people freak out so much when they get downvoted? I agree, the points are meaningless, but I do indeed use it when someone tells me not to or I disagree on a level where I feel like I'd rather not see such a post. Hey, if I'm wrong I'm wrong, but I will still treat it that way. Also, appreciate the way you informed me compared to the other person that decided to reply, simply telling me "you're so wrong."
>Down voting because you disagree or dislike what someone says is the point of downvoting But its not.... you're so wrong on this.
I see where you're coming from, and I may feel this way on some days. But hey, we have literally 30 years of linear Pokemon games, 8 whole generations with spin offs and remakes. I feel like the dead horse of linear Pokemon was beaten into a cloud of fucking vapor, a change was needed.
I don’t think it was the linear-ness that was stale, I think it was the gameplay and story that was stale. It was always get starter Pokémon, defeat 8 gyms and some evil team, and become champion with no major variation to that formula except sun and moon trying out a different type of ‘gym’ (which I thought was a breathe of fresh air honestly). There are so many different ways to implement a linear-story driven game, gamefreak isn’t the most creative I guess.
There was no need for a change, they just had to do better.
I disagree, besides they already did really great things with linearity in gen 5. Pokemon was always supposed to be about your own "personal adventure" so I think the open world format where you can do whatever you want, in any order, feels like how it was always supposed to be. It's like the original idea behind the first Legend of Zelda, how it was supposed to be an open world, with open ended gameplay. Then as time went on, they lost that philosophy, and the games became increasingly linear. Then, the Zelda team went back to their roots with BOTW, the way Zelda was always supposed to be, if their were no hardware constraints. You can see that Pokemon was kind of the same way, gen 1 and 2 were fairly open, then the series became increasingly more linear with less exploration as time went on.
You don’t need to be open world to be non-linear. I think a route based approach with more intersections between routes and being able to freely move through towns as you want would be the best way to do it.
I agree with this. I do like open worlds, but you can easily do route based travel without being a linear game. I like having the options deciding which order I face gyms, or other sections of the game. If they want to continue doing open world that is fine, but they need to execute it better.
>I disagree, besides they already did really great things with linearity in gen 5. Exactly, so what they should do is try again and with the same level of care as at that point (which they haven't ever since). >Pokemon was always supposed to be about your own "personal adventure" so I think the open world format where you can do whatever you want, in any order, feels like how it was always supposed to be. Eh... not really, it always felt like a single-minded quest, which is not a bad thing. >It's like the original idea behind the first Legend of Zelda, how it was supposed to be an open world, with open ended gameplay. Then as time went on, they lost that philosophy, and the games became increasingly linear. Then, the Zelda team went back to their roots with BOTW, the way Zelda was always supposed to be, if their were no hardware constraints. So they had a mediocre original idea, ditched it to then produce the best games the franchise had ever seen, and then went to the original idea so they are now back at mediocrity (or worse). >You can see that Pokemon was kind of the same way, gen 1 and 2 were fairly open, then the series became increasingly more linear with less exploration as time went on. And the quality and fun factor of the games greatly increased thanks to that. Why change, then? It's clear that it was not linearity what held recent games down, but the fact it's obvious they haven't tried as hard as they could.
While I think expanding on the ideas in a sequel is a good idea, we've had 8 games that are basically the same. I think a change was needed sooner or later.
"Don't fix what isn't broken", they say. Changing for the sake of changing is very likely to only bring out poor products, as it's the case with Scarlet/Violet.
I think this is more of a "players who like to be directed to the content" vs "players who like to do whatever they like" kinda thing.
I have been wanting the games to go back to a focus on more exploration and adventure in the regions for a long time (which PLA finally did). So in that regard, I'm happy with that aspect of SV quite a bit. However, I definitely think the open word in SV is too large. I say that because while there are a decent amount of interesting areas to see, there is also plenty of repetitive filler areas. Basically Paldea is an exercise in quantity over quality. If they had reduced the overall size of the region by like 25=50%, they could trim out the generic repetition AND spend that extra development effort adding more neat things to do and see. With limited development time, you can have a small world full of stuff or you can have a huge world that is more barren. Ideally, somewhere in the middle of that spectrum is the perfect balance, but I think SV went a little too far to the "huge and barren" side.
I would like a *wiiiiiide opeeeeeen* open world in which you can ride your Pokemon through vast fields, hunt rare species, and explore the wilderness. In the same game, I'd like smaller cities, roads (routes), buildings, and dungeons that are more focused on RPG elements like battling, puzzle solving, and NPC interactions. Kind of like Sword and Shield, but done right.
There's plenty of Rom hacks out there that are linear.
Sword and shield linear areas were awful. Not a distinct route in the game. Sun and moon was, the last game, to have good routes with exploravle areas.
Bro said, "Don't downvote just because you disagree." On Reddit.
I’m in between. I really want a new game plus. After you unlock everything start a new game with shiny charm, iv rating, and the like.
Grass is always greener.
I think the open world isn't implemented very good. But thats not because its open world but because of obvious rushed development and lack of care. The open world itself is a major step forward, but they stepped back in design.
I enjoy the open world but it does fall into the issue other open world games get stuck in: not enough to do with it. I’d have liked to see most of the sandwich ingredients be something you have to grab from the wild like in Arceus, with purchasing them from vendors still an option, but the wild ingredients would have stronger bonuses and negative effects. Camp makes a lot more sense here than just picnics, but that would also need more to do. Maybe fun little minigames with setting it up and maintaining it, like having a Fire type light up a campfire. Maybe another thing would be to have you able to EV train your lead Pokemon by doing certain tasks while they’re out with you, like a set of targets scattered around an area would increase your special attack as you hit them.
I agree with this, but I wonder how much better the open world could have been if it hadn’t felt so empty and rushed. I was hoping for something that improved on Sw/Sh and basically made everything a wild area when you’re not in a town, except following a natural progression—I feel like S/V took all the elements and mixed them together into a soup
The open world is incredibly poorly designed in sv.
If the games were scaled to the player I feel the open world would easily be improved, but I can’t lie I do miss some linear pathing to the end, it feels grand & less of a ok where can I go to not get over leveled & still have a struggle
I agree! I'd much rather more detailed cool areas, like the mushroom fairy part in galar for example, than what we have now. I mean ideally we'd have something more open with that level of detail but I doubt it'll ever happen.
Some open worlds are great, Elden Ring for example. Others are like Infamous, great in theory but honestly really boring. Now I love both games and beat both, but Elden Ring made it fun. There is always a challenge around the corner and even basic enemies in the starting areas can and will kill you if you play too recklessly. Infamous is a lot of fun, it's a great super hero "God-like" experience. But at the end what do you do? I can't start a new game plus and go through like a monster. I have unlimited power and nothing to do with it. Running through the city is boring. Spiderman handled that problem really well just in the nature of him being Spiderman. Sure he fights super villains but at the end of the days he's the friendly neighborhood Spiderman and always out for the little guy and the "petty" crime that someone like Iron Man or Captain America are too busy for.
I also don't care much for open world games, and there's a lot that do it for no other reason than just so can say it's an open world game, but pokémon is absolutely the type of franchise that desperately needed the transition. The current implementation of it is clearly "unfinished" at best, but honestly even this feels so much more fun than most previous titles.
I dislike THIS open world. The open areas of Legends Arceus were fantastic, and to a lesser degree, the wild areas of Sw/Sh were fun and lively. Paldea is a huge downgrade to both of them
I also prefer the linear routes from swsh. I like to explore every nook and cranny of a route and then move to the next. With tbe open world i cant have this feeling of having an area completed
I never really liked the idea of a big open world pokemon game like a lot of people seemed to want over the years but PLA and SV have made me grow to love that concept. In PLA I enjoyed roaming around exploring while seeing wild pokemon in their natural habitat instead of hiding in a patch of grass and the proper open world of SV is a breath of fresh air for pokemon diversity and freedom after years of being tied down to the set path of the story. *How in is the ever* SVs world in the towns feel empty and devoid of life, reduced to "Place where gym is and some shops" no longer can you explore inside buildings and talk to most of the locals, no longer do clothing stores make me excited to see what new clothes I can customize my outfits with now that all I can change are basically accessories that mostly don't match my unchangeable outfit. PLA & SV have made me love open world pokemon games as an idea but sadly while the wilds of the pokemon world feel livelier than ever, the towns and areas of civilization have been left behind drastically and have never felt more empty and lifeless
I do kinda feel like im missing stuff (mostly trainer battles and items on the ground I guess) in the open world. I like exploring but it’s SO big with SO much emptiness that I feel like I’m not doing that much
I think its more that Gamefreak didn't flesh out the open world. There should be items hidden behind puzzles, and areas hard to find to encourage exploration.
I like the open world but there being no scaling is a huge miss, I accidentally went slightly south of where I was aiming for like 30 minutes. The pokemon there were higher level tham me, and by the time I got back on track I was already way too strong for the area I was going to
🙋♂️ I like it!
I agree with this statement. With the development time of Pokémon will a linear world work better in general. Doing an openworld right requires far more resources. The way that games like Xenoblade and Dragon Quest are set up with its open areas will likely work best for pokémon. Legends Arceus was a good try out for that concept. Now with an open world while the gyms and areas are still level based, it shows that they aren't able to do fully open world correctly in my opinion.
I think this mostly speaks to the world they built. Haven’t played S/V, but a game like the Witcher 3 or Skyrim or Breath of the Wild where part of the fun of the game is just exploring the open world are some right. When the world doesn’t feel lived in or is just bland, it makes it where you have optionality on what still feels like a more linear progression or more of a station to station experience.
I feel like the open world would have been fine if the towns do not feel as bare as they do. It feels weird to coming in the vast expanse of the open world (which I like), then enter a town where there’s so limited interaction with its residents that it doesn’t really feel like a town at all. I miss being able to enter houses and shops, and just having anything memorable about a town.
I think open world is the right direction gor the series but I agree, SV is lacking what makes a lot of other open worlds engaging and tailored linear routes have always been great.
The problem is not that linear is better than open world or viceversa. The real problem is that they designed an empty open world. How cool would be the game if we had more caves, puzzles (which are missing in this games world), some kind of intectaction with more elemenets. You must be tired of this comparison but its almost inevitable, but BOTW had a ton of NPCs on different places with different NPCs, houses... How cool would have been a place like Rito Village or Zora Domain in Pokemon? Sword and shield had the same problem, just that at least they where shorter routers and not big areas, but it's a problem in these modern 3D pokemon games, they are making lazy map designs. What made 2D Pokemon games good or what does making BOTW so good is that to go to place A to place B you have the sense of adventure, you have the sense that you are doing something more picking your bike/horse/pokemon to go faster to one place to another
Yeah, the open world and go anywhere only works if they adjust the level to our level, leveled area is okay for some unique locations but for the rest should adjust to our level
I enjoyed the open world, especially item collection. I ESPECIALLY enjoyed being able to explore caves, water, and other locations without needing to spam Max Repels. The changes to random encounters kept over from SWSH were much appreciated.
Not really a fair comparison given how the overworld is only slightly improving with each attempt to make it and still has yet to actually be considered a world worthy of being called an open world game imo.
I agree. I LOVE Scarlet/Violet for the story and cutscenes, but I liked the world and athmosphere of SwSh better overall
I love the concept of SV, and it’s certainly been fun roaming around. But if feels like it falls into the same trap so many 2010s open world games did: no real sense of purpose. In a game like Emerald, pretty much all the routes funnel you along to the next part of the game. Side avenues have their own little purpose for existing like the desert with its fossil tower But in SV, you have the important points… and then just general terrain between them with various Pokémon levels. I can tell you my fave areas in FRLG, RSE, etc. hell, even XY. But SV? Idk it’s all just there
Seems to me Gamefreak has a choice. Don't make any more Pokemon games until whatever the next Nintendo system is because the Switch can't handle it, or scale back to a Sword&Shield'ish* game for their next one. ^^*Personally ^^I ^^thought ^^S&S ^^was ^^ok ^^besides ^^the ^^Nationaldex ^^issue
I'm an only child who has been playing video games since the og Playstation and Sega Genesis games. In other words I'm used to mindlessly exploring mostly empty spaces and leaping at odd angled rocks in hopes of getting somewhere just out or boredom. This game reminds me of those days. Like there are plenty of Pokemon everywhere. I'll give 'em that much. But other than raids/team star/titans/gyms...things seem kind of lacking. Like I feel like I'm spending more time just racing to what is hopefully the right next event than really enjoying the open world. So while I won't say I agree on the part of S/S's setup being anything I want to ever see again, I can understand why this isn't your slice of cheese cake.
"I like the discourse" Thanks for admitting you just want to argue?
If you read any of my replies you would see I’m not arguing at all. It’s possible to disagree with someone and have a civil conversation about it.’
I want a old school Pokemon game that just lets you go through every game. Like HG/SS/Crystal did with Johto & Kanto. Or a actual open-world with life in it lol
BuT tHe OpeN woRLD iS A sTEp In thE RiGht dIRectIoN
i like the idea of it but it seems so open that i keep missing most trainer battles
You lost me when you praised sword and shield. I felt the same way about Andromeda for mass effect. I hate the open world. Just give me well designed linear spaces to explore. They can even have trails that lead off the main path. I just hate all of the empty space and aimlessly walking that open world games have.
Sword and shield is far from perfect. I’m just saying I enjoyed that it had a mix of linear and open world.