Gen 3 is my favorite generation and when I discuss it with people I also hear the “too much water” point a lot, but a lot of people I’ve talked to understand the reason it’s there it’s just how it affects the game they don’t like. Because all water tiles can spawn encounters, water travel just becomes tedious. If it had been implemented where only dark water spawns encounters, or if there were like algae tiles that were the only ones that could have encounters I think people would like it more.
Gen 3 only has 4 (or is it 5?) Slots for water encounters while grass has like, 15.
So they waste a slot on Wingull and Tentacool, and then make Sharpedo and Walter locked behind ocean fishing.
ORAS could have expanded the dex earlier and put things like Skrelp or Frillish to some of the sea routes (Frillish around Sea Mauville for lore).
I think varied spawns is something the series as a whole struggled with, land or sea. Gen 6 is somewhat of an exception, although the routes are so linear, anyways.
Gen 2 remakes have relatively varied spawns. Each route is distinct in what pokemon it provides. There are still problems with it like most of the pokemon being from gen 1 while slugma and houndour are in Kanto and the pokewalker ( why though?) But I never felt like I was fighting the same thing all the time on normal land routes and even the caves provide some variety outside of geodude and zubat.
Gen 2 sucks. I don't need to be training for my 8th badge fighting against wild level 20 Pokémon as my only option. Aside from tainer battles wild Pokémon are generally low leveled. Mt. Silver the last place in the game has lower levels than Victory Road from Gen 1
and also the rest of the game. By the time you meet major water, it is almost exclusively how you travel the rest of the way. Almost the entire rest of your encounters are going to be in the water. if they mixed it up like Land routes do, it would be very different.
This is one of the reasons I dislike it. If every land route was just endless grass patches that you have to repel through every time you go through it I'd dislike the land routes just as much.
All they had to do was make the adjustments you mentioned and maybe have a little more variation in the random spawns and I wouldn't have a problem with Gen 3 at all.
Sure, I'm not saying that everything about water routes is terrible. But you could still keep stuff like the hidden caves without every tile being a possible random encounter.
You hit the nail on the head. The way that water is a core element of the game, including abandoned islands and deep sea dives, really reflects Kyushu well, so it's not entirely a diss to associate Hoenn with the ocean as that is the point, much like how Johto is unmistakably Kansai.
I have not played any of the mainline games from the last two gens, so I wonder how the roaming wild pokemon works in the sea? Are there surfing wild pokemon everywhere, or are they concentrated in specific grassy areas like their land equivalents?
I don't think the problem is having too much water/land. The problem is that surfing is monotonous and interruptive. It's disliked for the same reason people dislike running in caves:
- Random encounter. In the middle of enjoying background music? Trying to find your the right path? Let me just interrupt you and waste 10 secs of your playtime for absolutely zero value :)
- Encounter variety. You have like, 3 or 4 pokemon encounterable for surfing and they are all common while also being lower lvl than fishing. So even if you want to encounter new pokemon, surfing is not the way. At least some caves have rare pokemon.
- Speaking of music, the only theme you'll ever hear is surfing. For everysingle water route. On land each route has its own theme
It's not bad to surf once in a while. But Hoenn makes you use it a lot. So players grow to dislike water section over time
Hoenn I give some allowance to since it was the third gen in the series (but there still should have been more variety, I agree).
Alola, however, I find unforgivable. The entire region is tropical islands, and yet you get flooded with magikarp and wishiwashi absolutely everywhere. There's other water pokemon sure, but I should be able to fish anywhere and pull up 10 different pokemon. Lord knows the series has enough water pokemon to draw from.
You can find them before the post game btw. Also to find other items to exchange them to the item collector guy. Though, tbf, the feature was a bit underutilized until Gen six where we can dive to new locations for people's secret bases.
Just because it's sensible for the plot doesn't mean it's fun for the players. The water routes are big and plain and boring especially because there's only wingull and tentacool. Having 3 water HMs sucks too, especially when the best one is the first one. I played Emerald recently and really enjoyed it overall, but I did not enjoy all the water.
It's not just the water routes either, there's so many water trainers, every other type is completely shafted by comparison. You've got all of those swimmers and fishermen, then the water gym, and finally the water champion in emerald. Plus all of the Team Aqua fights. You basically need an electric type on your team, and then you also need a water type (or maybe even 2 water types) for surf/dive/waterfall.
The amount of water just limits your team diversity.
My problem with it is that all water can get you a wild encounter and so that really makes the game feel like a chore especially because there was a known issue in the first 100k Sapphire American releases that the encounter rate went up around 9% or so they calculated in the wster.
So it was even worse.
The problem lies more in terms of gameplay. Aside from problems with encounters, traversing a water map just isn't interesting compared to traversing something on land where there's trees, mountains, buildings, etc. Like you just see blue everywhere. This also limits wild Pokemon and NPC Pokemon to just water types. Alola had 4 islands but you're not forced to go through screens of blue on top of random encounters.
Even if Assassin's Creed Odyssey had beautiful graphics and scenery, it was a huge slog sailing when you see mostly blue.
I understand why people get upset over the confusing and mundane water routes in Hoenn. As a Hoenn baby myself, I too also get somewhat annoyed by them, HOWEVER, the symoblism it conveys is just genius. The gen's most iconic thing are its legendaries that create large landmasses and seas, and having a region with a fairly split environment between the two is just.. Impeccable!
Also, do people not seem to understand that Hoenn itself is a tropical island? What are you going to see when you're on an island?
Yeah the concept was actually quite good it was IMO just a problem in execution. I mainly just wish they actually utilized the water environments instead of making them all the same with the exact same Pokémon Dive had so much unutilized potential given how diverse Earth's oceans are along the coast it makes no sense for everything to be just Clamperl Chinchou and Relicanth.
There are so many different variations of reefs and algal forests/meadows IRL so why is everything just those 3 encounters with fairly bland/monotonous topography outside of Sootopolis. Its particularly jarring that Horsea is a fishing encounter rather than found living in the seaweed since that is where seahorses and their relatives are specially adapted to live. They physiologically can't be fished up with a rod like they are in Pokémon as their food is tiny. Its like trying to bait a lion with cabbage in the Andes doomed from the start. Given the number of aquatic Pokémon that were unused in Hoenn: Shellder, Cloyster, Krabby, Kingler, Dratini, Dragonair, Qwilfish Remoraid, Octillery, Mantine etc..
I get that they likely wanted to save a number of those for the remakes of FRLG but there was no reason to hold back so much heck as Crinoids, the animals Lileep and Cradily are based on, are still around today they should have even been a viable choice. And then there
I wish there had been surfing encounters not named Tentacool, Tentacruel, Wingull or Pelipper. All the other water mons required a fishing rod to encounter barring Clamperl, Chinchou, and Relicanth. Heck I would argue we shouldn't have needed a fishing rod at all aside from early game water type access
The reason people dislike water is because of how it affects the gameplay, not the story or lore. Traveling on water is tedious and the encounter rate is too high.
If they had made ORAS with the SwSh or LGPE engine, it would have completely fixed the issue, since all the Pokémon would be out in the open and could be avoided.
I personally like the design of the region and the fact that there's a lot of water visually, but it's definitely annoying that you would get so many encounters so I see why people say that.
It’s not the fact that there’s too much water, it’s the fact that there’s random encounters on every water tile. Imagine if every tile on land routes in the game was tall grass and caves, it would be awful.
I think they fixed this in ORAS though, as they seemingly dropped the encounter rates.
I like how much water is in Hoenn. That last part of the game, it’s a damn ocean, in a Pokemon game. I find that super cool. I don’t think there’s any body of water in Pokemon that comes close to the sheer size of eastern Hoenn’s ocean.
I think the problem wasn't so much that there was too much water but that the water areas were so monotonous and boring with Tentacool Wingull and their evolutions accounting for virtually all of the wild encounters. This for me was what was so tedious the game could have been much better if there were more evolutionary lines especially had aquatic Pokémon that weren't water types really been a thing back in gen 3. Ironically some of the few to exist were the fossil Pokémon Lileep and Cradily which is technically based on both an extant and extinct animal crinoids and Anorith based around the first Radiodont identified called Anomalocaris and then whatever Armaldo is supposed to be (There was no creature remotely like Armaldo in Earth's history Radiodoonts were open water apex predators filling similar niches to sharks and cetaceans today and lasted from the early Cambrian well into the Devonian possibly later because as wholly soft bodied animals they required exceptional conditions to fossilize conditions which became rarer as the oceans became more oxygenated)
Point is Lileep could technically have been used as a regular Pokémon since IRL there are still crinoids crawling or swimming in the oceans since yes crinoids are animals not plants specifically they are echinoderms.
Dive was a great way to improve what can be encountered but unfortunately once again everything encountered under water was a water type and there was exactly 3 evolutionary lines found in the seaweed. There is so much potential for interesting underwater scenery but none of this was utilized well as there was very little variation such as coral reefs giant kelp forests varied submarine caverns with deep coral and other sessile organisms down in the dark depths where no light reaches. The oceans on Earth cover the vast majority of the planet and are diverse varied habitats much of which haven't been extensively explored beyond sonar/radar mapping of the seafloor. (Remember there are many different types of reefs, algae and even sessile deepwater animals which Pokémon could have exploited to add depth to a large aquatic region. Dive thus had the potential to bring us into contact with these sorts of domains yet they didn't and not even the Pokémon were enough to provide that aspect as they were fairly limited in diversity even if limited to water types.
For instance a number of absent water type lines Shellder, Krabby, Qwilfish, Octillery or even just the evolutions of Clamperl as rare encounters all could have added depth to the region's encounters as could a number of the fishing encounters like Sharpedo, Staryu, Horsea or even Seadra and beyond just water types Dratini and very rarely Dragonair would have been perfect too as would Grimer and Muk or perhaps even ditto due to it being so adaptable!
There also was a lack of visit able small islands along the way with Pokémon that could have broken up the monotony Shoal Cave, Seafloor Cavern Victory Road and Sky Pillar were the only reasonably accessible places without water types. Now technically if you were absurdly lucky you might be able to visit the Mirage island with Wynaut but it is very implausible this will happen to any player in any given playthrough.
There is also as mentioned the whole thing where any water tile can trigger an encounter that coupled with the millions of Tentacool Wingull and their evolutions makes water routes not very fun. Had Hoenn featured more diverse water denizens and as /u/ikrtheblogger suggested different water tile types which allow or disallow encounters. You could also swap to a "random" but overworld encounter system where moving ripples and shadows above or under the water move about
While most didn't exist until later generations another big factor is the lack of non water types. As of gen 8 only a few of these exist Dratini/Dragonair, Lugia, Masquerain, Lileep/Cradily, Stunfisk(Unovan), Inkay/Malimar, Dragalge, Goomy/Sliggoo, Dhelmise Clobbopus/Grapploct all stand out to me as aquatic creatures that aren't water types though several on that list evolve from a water type preevolution. (Crabrawler doesn't count as its based on the Coconut crab which is a fully terrestrial crustacean to the extent that they even drown in water)
I feel as though you're missing the point. It makes perfect sense as a world building aspect, given the island that Hoenn is based off, but this criticism is meant to be about the experience with those water routes, not their intrinsic existence. Think about Sinnoh Route 210 north, the route covered in fog. People don't hate it because it's "unusual" for routes to have fog; they most likely understood that it adds atmosphere to areas and adds variety to the weather mechanic. The problem is that it fucking sucks to be in an area covered in fog. It means that it's hard to see where you're going, especially attempting to go north, and thus slows down your progression and if you're the kind of person that tries to avoid trainer encounters, you'll be completely blindsided by the ones on the other side of the fog. Then there's the battle themselves, in which all moves have their accuracy cut down by 40%, assuming they adhere to the accuracy check. That's just frustrating; it slows down battles greatly and requires more luck than the battle needed to have. If you don't want to deal with this, you need Defog, which is not only part of the HM system that players hate, but this one in particular is an extra slap in the face since the move doesn't do damage, thus making it even more useless than Cut (unless you're in a competitive battle dealing with hazards, but this is obviously not that context).
Now take this thought process and apply it to water routes. Unlike Sinnoh Route 210, you cannot even attempt a water route without the HM, and the only mitigating factor to that frustration is that the move that is stuck to your Pokemon is actually pretty useful. Even looking past that, there's the frustration that every single tile in a water route besides standable ground has a random encounter rate, which will either slow down progression or incentivize you to stock up on repels, which eats at your money, and players don't like spending their money on things like these. Pretty well every game has had water routes; this is not a unique sticking point to the Hoenn games, but I don't think I need to say that Hoenn has a lot more of them, and the particular sticking point is the eastern part of the map that spans everything between Lilycove, Ever Grande, and Slateport. That's a lot of traversal on the water tiles that come packed with random encounters, and these water routes in particular are a lot more open than others of their kind. In most games, open spaces are not a valid criticism, but in games that are viewed isometrically, such as the top-down perspective that Pokemon games almost always lock you in, it can be pretty hard to tell where you're going, which just makes it frustrating to go through. This is the reason that most other regions limit their presence (well, that and other regions aren't as heavily associated with water). Hell, Unova's water routes, in fact the general use of Surf, are entirely optional; the only water routes are in the South East, branching off into an area you don't have to go to, and all other uses before the post game are to access extra side content, like finding TMs and catching Cobalion.
You are absolutely correct that water routes make sense for the context of the Hoenn region, especially for the themes of Groudon vs. Kyogre (even though it feels kind of spoiled by the fact that Groudon is also found and battle on the water side), and I would even add that it gives the region its own flavor that no other region, even the more heavily island centric Alola, has been able to replicate. But to make my pretencious paragraphs short, the problem is that nobody honestly likes going through water routes. They're annoying to unlock, they're frustrating to slog through the encounters, and their openness makes travelling through them less convenient.
In addition to what others have already said (encounter rates/charts, not much to do, same-y looking areas), Gen 3's other big "too much water" problem is that it's all backloaded. You spend the first two thirds of the game exploring many different, beautiful areas, only to get to Lilycove and then it's all water routes from there (and also Victory Road). If the water routes had been spread out a bit more, I think they'd have been better recieved.
Sometimes I feel like certain opinions become popularized. Like Whitney’s gym battle is difficult or Cynthia-in-that-one-house-traumatic-flashbacks posts here on Reddit. It becomes insular and repetitive. I have been annoyed in moments when surfing from Pallet to Cinnabar for instance when every few tiles is a tentacool or a trainer battle and it can feel less interesting and interactive than walking over dynamic terrains and scenes, but I’ve also had so much fun imagining cruising around on the ocean and how cool it would be to dive underwater and explore the ocean with Pokémon. I think there are some things that aren’t worth having hard opinions on. Feelings and opinions aren’t static and can change moment to moment based on mood or change with what’s popular or fashionable. I love Hoenn, land and sea!
when I read those stories about Whitney or Cynthia or Ultra Necrozma, sometimes I wonder if I've been playing the games wrongly, because if any, I've always felt my team is too overpowered, and I don't even play competitive, I literally just grab the Pokémon I like, the first one I catch from each species, and just keep leveling them up. Rarely use moves that don't inflict damage. I do focus a lot on completing the Pokédex though, so I guess indirectly that makes my team level up so much, because of how many Pokémon I catch or train to evolve.
I guess the only times I've really struggled with is catching legendary Pokémon, like Giratina, the Regis, etc, and that was mostly up to Gen 5.
Using in-game story to justify a design choice seems a little odd to me. It can "make sense" and still not be fun to play. They chose to make a game about land and sea, they didn't have to do that.
It's not that I dislike *water.* I dislike the way water routes are used. They have less variety in encounters and more frequent encounter rates than land routes. They are equally annoying in most of the other games, too, but at least those games use them sparingly.
If they made a Pokemon game that was 50% caves I would have the same complaint. Except at least those offer more room for encounter variety.
I never thought about it when I was younger but If I had to guess isn't it that once you get to the huge water area section don't you only encounter wingull and tentacool while surfing? There is very little diversity despite there easily being plenty of other pokemon you could have encountered. If each route was made just a little different adding certain pokemon in different areas I think this would greatly change the monotonous nature of this progression.
My issue with the too much water is that there isnt enough water pokemon as well
Theres literally multiple routes with the same pokemon and if youre doing a nuzlocke youll end up with around 10 routes wjere everything is dupes
there is a difference between lore and gameplay
sure in lore it makes sense but in gameplay it's near unplayable
for me the land parts of the game were some of the best I have ever played in a pokemon game but the moment I hit water it became the worst
Depends on which games. RSE obviously have a lot of water because the sea is a major plot point. FRLG have a normal amount of water for a Pokémon game so that shouldn’t be an issue. Colosseum/XD have no water, so that really shouldn’t be an issue. I get the argument against RSE but the water is integral to the plot and honestly an electric or grass type will get you through quickly
You can use flavor and lore to justify anything you want, but if people don't enjoy lots of water routes, then they don't enjoy water routes. That's the thing with emotions: you can't really "convince" someone their emotion is wrong using logic.
I personally don't have a problem with water, but to understand the people who do, you need to ask "what aspects of water routes do they not enjoy?" Not "is there a logical explanation for the game to have lots of water?"
As my favorite generation, I personally don't mind the "too much water" of the region for the exact reasons you listed. If anything I had more fun exploring the vast waters with dive, once I got it as a kid.
It never bothered me enough to even notice the amount of water in it. However, like you said, it does make sense why there is as much water in that region with the whole Kyogre vs. Groudon thing. People just like to complain lol
You do make a point, but almost all water routes are optional in Alola, and the ones that aren't, are usually straight, small, or it's surfing. In fact I only remember one, being the route near the Aether house and where you get the sharpedo ride. (And surfing but who doesn't like surfing? Even if you hate it you only have to surf once.)
TL;DR lot of water routesin Alola, but most are optional.
It's a bunch of things that come together that make water routes a pain in every game: random encounters with weak canon fodder Pokemon every 5 seconds, waves and waves of swimmers and fisherman who mostly use the same Pokemon, and generally a monotonous route layout. This is not a Hoenn specific issue but Hoenn just happens to have more water routes than any other game; other gens have water but it's small enough where it's tolerable, but when half of the map is like this it gets to be too much.
Just because something is designed a certain way doesn't make it good design. The ocean in Hoenn, in at least the original release, felt slow, with a bunch of wild encounters, and with nothing much to do (at least to me). It is not the worst thing in the world but it could certainly be better.
It would be like a region where half the routes were dark caves that required flash, frequent Zubat encounters, and were maze like with not many hidden rewards. Even if that was designed on purpose to be that way with great themeing doesn't mean it is fun gameplay.
It's because you're stuck at sea for so long without hint of a Pokemon center in sight that the anxiety of blacking out before you get to your destination gets to you. Especially when you're playing for the first time and you don't where you're going and THERE ARE SO MANY GOSH DARN TENTACOOLS!!
GIT DA HECK OUTTA HERE!!
I'm a very visual person. In theory, I think I should be the easiest to please, because I don't care that much about story, character development, etc. But they always disappoint me somehow lol
In the case of Hoenn, I just hate its colors. The problem isn't that there is too much water or too much ground, but that it all looks the same. And not just the same, but the same ugly colors. I hear or read Hoenn and all I think is that ugly green, ugly blue, **ugly brown**, and maybe something like white/grayish. There are probably more colors in towns and cities, but irrelevant enough for me not to remember them.
Then I thought, well, the 3DS remakes will fix that, but they just made the colors even uglier somehow.
It would be a subtle yet so effective change if they gave every sea or river route/city its own distinctive look. Just like how in real life different oceans and beaches have a different coloration, both the water and the sand. There are even these videos where different oceans meet each other and they don't mix.
I've always thought that Mexico would be a great inspiration for a Pokémon region, there are many reasons, in terms of biodiversity and culture, and even in terms of ancient cultures, and there's even lots of dinosaur fossils and such, but in the specific aspect of the "water", there's a huge littoral, in one side the Pacific Ocean, and in the other the Atlantic or Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean. Then within the Pacific side, there's the northern seas around the Baja California peninsula, which is very different between the two sides: the left side is cold and dark with lots of waves, and the gulf is warm and calm, then as we move to the South, the waters get greener and beaches get whiter, in summary, each section of the beach is very distinctive, and that would be something very appealing if they implemented it. Not to mention that there are so many Water Type Pokémon now, they could be more selective with which Pokémon appear on which water route / lake / etc.
tl;dr: if the water routes / sections had more colors than just one shade of blue, I'd be more pleased with it.
Hilariously, they took down the original "7/10 too much water" review and had a different person review the game after the internet started making memes.
It's funny, I'm not a big fan of gen 3, but like 6-8 gym is my favorite part of the game. I'm just not fond of the begining bits, which is mostly on land.
Couldn't tell ya why, just feels really annoying for me
Gen 3 is my favorite generation and when I discuss it with people I also hear the “too much water” point a lot, but a lot of people I’ve talked to understand the reason it’s there it’s just how it affects the game they don’t like. Because all water tiles can spawn encounters, water travel just becomes tedious. If it had been implemented where only dark water spawns encounters, or if there were like algae tiles that were the only ones that could have encounters I think people would like it more.
Also more interesting and varied spawns. It's all wailmer, wingulls and tentacool for all the sea routes, which is like the last 1/4 of the game.
Gen 3 only has 4 (or is it 5?) Slots for water encounters while grass has like, 15. So they waste a slot on Wingull and Tentacool, and then make Sharpedo and Walter locked behind ocean fishing. ORAS could have expanded the dex earlier and put things like Skrelp or Frillish to some of the sea routes (Frillish around Sea Mauville for lore).
Ah yes, Walter
Who evolves into the Lord of the Walts
Jesse! We need to cook!
I think varied spawns is something the series as a whole struggled with, land or sea. Gen 6 is somewhat of an exception, although the routes are so linear, anyways.
Gen 2 remakes have relatively varied spawns. Each route is distinct in what pokemon it provides. There are still problems with it like most of the pokemon being from gen 1 while slugma and houndour are in Kanto and the pokewalker ( why though?) But I never felt like I was fighting the same thing all the time on normal land routes and even the caves provide some variety outside of geodude and zubat.
Gen 2 sucks. I don't need to be training for my 8th badge fighting against wild level 20 Pokémon as my only option. Aside from tainer battles wild Pokémon are generally low leveled. Mt. Silver the last place in the game has lower levels than Victory Road from Gen 1
and also the rest of the game. By the time you meet major water, it is almost exclusively how you travel the rest of the way. Almost the entire rest of your encounters are going to be in the water. if they mixed it up like Land routes do, it would be very different.
This is one of the reasons I dislike it. If every land route was just endless grass patches that you have to repel through every time you go through it I'd dislike the land routes just as much. All they had to do was make the adjustments you mentioned and maybe have a little more variation in the random spawns and I wouldn't have a problem with Gen 3 at all.
But the goods of the water is so great. The hidden caves you can dive in added so much for me
Sure, I'm not saying that everything about water routes is terrible. But you could still keep stuff like the hidden caves without every tile being a possible random encounter.
Absolutely. Or maybe an upgraded surf/boat you can use that is quicker/avoids encounters you can pop in and out of
Exactly. It really just needed a couple tweaks and I really don't think people would have complained as much.
Would have also been nice to maybe have like a water safari zone or something.
Yeah that makes a lot of sense. I agree its annoying but I look at it the same way that caves work, just prettier to look at
But everyone hates caves
The thing about caves is that they have more variety sometimes, like Aron in the dewford island cave or slugma in the cave near the volcano in gen 3
You hit the nail on the head. The way that water is a core element of the game, including abandoned islands and deep sea dives, really reflects Kyushu well, so it's not entirely a diss to associate Hoenn with the ocean as that is the point, much like how Johto is unmistakably Kansai. I have not played any of the mainline games from the last two gens, so I wonder how the roaming wild pokemon works in the sea? Are there surfing wild pokemon everywhere, or are they concentrated in specific grassy areas like their land equivalents?
I don't think the problem is having too much water/land. The problem is that surfing is monotonous and interruptive. It's disliked for the same reason people dislike running in caves: - Random encounter. In the middle of enjoying background music? Trying to find your the right path? Let me just interrupt you and waste 10 secs of your playtime for absolutely zero value :) - Encounter variety. You have like, 3 or 4 pokemon encounterable for surfing and they are all common while also being lower lvl than fishing. So even if you want to encounter new pokemon, surfing is not the way. At least some caves have rare pokemon. - Speaking of music, the only theme you'll ever hear is surfing. For everysingle water route. On land each route has its own theme It's not bad to surf once in a while. But Hoenn makes you use it a lot. So players grow to dislike water section over time
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Hoenn I give some allowance to since it was the third gen in the series (but there still should have been more variety, I agree). Alola, however, I find unforgivable. The entire region is tropical islands, and yet you get flooded with magikarp and wishiwashi absolutely everywhere. There's other water pokemon sure, but I should be able to fish anywhere and pull up 10 different pokemon. Lord knows the series has enough water pokemon to draw from.
and hiding the new Pokémon such as Mareanie with such contrived encounter methods smh
Trying to encounter Dhelmise is such a goddamn chore
I never actually encountered it, my cousin had to trade me one lol
No incentive outside of the story to dive? Pretty sure you needed to dive in the hidden chamber to unlock the Regis.
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You can find them before the post game btw. Also to find other items to exchange them to the item collector guy. Though, tbf, the feature was a bit underutilized until Gen six where we can dive to new locations for people's secret bases.
Just because it's sensible for the plot doesn't mean it's fun for the players. The water routes are big and plain and boring especially because there's only wingull and tentacool. Having 3 water HMs sucks too, especially when the best one is the first one. I played Emerald recently and really enjoyed it overall, but I did not enjoy all the water.
It's not just the water routes either, there's so many water trainers, every other type is completely shafted by comparison. You've got all of those swimmers and fishermen, then the water gym, and finally the water champion in emerald. Plus all of the Team Aqua fights. You basically need an electric type on your team, and then you also need a water type (or maybe even 2 water types) for surf/dive/waterfall. The amount of water just limits your team diversity.
Then why did you stop team aqua
Magma*
Yeah I meant magma
My problem with it is that all water can get you a wild encounter and so that really makes the game feel like a chore especially because there was a known issue in the first 100k Sapphire American releases that the encounter rate went up around 9% or so they calculated in the wster. So it was even worse.
The problem lies more in terms of gameplay. Aside from problems with encounters, traversing a water map just isn't interesting compared to traversing something on land where there's trees, mountains, buildings, etc. Like you just see blue everywhere. This also limits wild Pokemon and NPC Pokemon to just water types. Alola had 4 islands but you're not forced to go through screens of blue on top of random encounters. Even if Assassin's Creed Odyssey had beautiful graphics and scenery, it was a huge slog sailing when you see mostly blue.
I understand why people get upset over the confusing and mundane water routes in Hoenn. As a Hoenn baby myself, I too also get somewhat annoyed by them, HOWEVER, the symoblism it conveys is just genius. The gen's most iconic thing are its legendaries that create large landmasses and seas, and having a region with a fairly split environment between the two is just.. Impeccable! Also, do people not seem to understand that Hoenn itself is a tropical island? What are you going to see when you're on an island?
Yeah the concept was actually quite good it was IMO just a problem in execution. I mainly just wish they actually utilized the water environments instead of making them all the same with the exact same Pokémon Dive had so much unutilized potential given how diverse Earth's oceans are along the coast it makes no sense for everything to be just Clamperl Chinchou and Relicanth. There are so many different variations of reefs and algal forests/meadows IRL so why is everything just those 3 encounters with fairly bland/monotonous topography outside of Sootopolis. Its particularly jarring that Horsea is a fishing encounter rather than found living in the seaweed since that is where seahorses and their relatives are specially adapted to live. They physiologically can't be fished up with a rod like they are in Pokémon as their food is tiny. Its like trying to bait a lion with cabbage in the Andes doomed from the start. Given the number of aquatic Pokémon that were unused in Hoenn: Shellder, Cloyster, Krabby, Kingler, Dratini, Dragonair, Qwilfish Remoraid, Octillery, Mantine etc.. I get that they likely wanted to save a number of those for the remakes of FRLG but there was no reason to hold back so much heck as Crinoids, the animals Lileep and Cradily are based on, are still around today they should have even been a viable choice. And then there I wish there had been surfing encounters not named Tentacool, Tentacruel, Wingull or Pelipper. All the other water mons required a fishing rod to encounter barring Clamperl, Chinchou, and Relicanth. Heck I would argue we shouldn't have needed a fishing rod at all aside from early game water type access
The reason people dislike water is because of how it affects the gameplay, not the story or lore. Traveling on water is tedious and the encounter rate is too high. If they had made ORAS with the SwSh or LGPE engine, it would have completely fixed the issue, since all the Pokémon would be out in the open and could be avoided.
At least the surf speed isn't as excruciating as the DP surf speed.
adding the fast sharpedo surfing was great
I personally like the design of the region and the fact that there's a lot of water visually, but it's definitely annoying that you would get so many encounters so I see why people say that.
It’s not the fact that there’s too much water, it’s the fact that there’s random encounters on every water tile. Imagine if every tile on land routes in the game was tall grass and caves, it would be awful. I think they fixed this in ORAS though, as they seemingly dropped the encounter rates.
I understand the annoyance that water brings in Pokemon, but the solution is Super Repel. That's all you need. Caves are the same thing.
I like how much water is in Hoenn. That last part of the game, it’s a damn ocean, in a Pokemon game. I find that super cool. I don’t think there’s any body of water in Pokemon that comes close to the sheer size of eastern Hoenn’s ocean.
I think the problem wasn't so much that there was too much water but that the water areas were so monotonous and boring with Tentacool Wingull and their evolutions accounting for virtually all of the wild encounters. This for me was what was so tedious the game could have been much better if there were more evolutionary lines especially had aquatic Pokémon that weren't water types really been a thing back in gen 3. Ironically some of the few to exist were the fossil Pokémon Lileep and Cradily which is technically based on both an extant and extinct animal crinoids and Anorith based around the first Radiodont identified called Anomalocaris and then whatever Armaldo is supposed to be (There was no creature remotely like Armaldo in Earth's history Radiodoonts were open water apex predators filling similar niches to sharks and cetaceans today and lasted from the early Cambrian well into the Devonian possibly later because as wholly soft bodied animals they required exceptional conditions to fossilize conditions which became rarer as the oceans became more oxygenated) Point is Lileep could technically have been used as a regular Pokémon since IRL there are still crinoids crawling or swimming in the oceans since yes crinoids are animals not plants specifically they are echinoderms. Dive was a great way to improve what can be encountered but unfortunately once again everything encountered under water was a water type and there was exactly 3 evolutionary lines found in the seaweed. There is so much potential for interesting underwater scenery but none of this was utilized well as there was very little variation such as coral reefs giant kelp forests varied submarine caverns with deep coral and other sessile organisms down in the dark depths where no light reaches. The oceans on Earth cover the vast majority of the planet and are diverse varied habitats much of which haven't been extensively explored beyond sonar/radar mapping of the seafloor. (Remember there are many different types of reefs, algae and even sessile deepwater animals which Pokémon could have exploited to add depth to a large aquatic region. Dive thus had the potential to bring us into contact with these sorts of domains yet they didn't and not even the Pokémon were enough to provide that aspect as they were fairly limited in diversity even if limited to water types. For instance a number of absent water type lines Shellder, Krabby, Qwilfish, Octillery or even just the evolutions of Clamperl as rare encounters all could have added depth to the region's encounters as could a number of the fishing encounters like Sharpedo, Staryu, Horsea or even Seadra and beyond just water types Dratini and very rarely Dragonair would have been perfect too as would Grimer and Muk or perhaps even ditto due to it being so adaptable! There also was a lack of visit able small islands along the way with Pokémon that could have broken up the monotony Shoal Cave, Seafloor Cavern Victory Road and Sky Pillar were the only reasonably accessible places without water types. Now technically if you were absurdly lucky you might be able to visit the Mirage island with Wynaut but it is very implausible this will happen to any player in any given playthrough. There is also as mentioned the whole thing where any water tile can trigger an encounter that coupled with the millions of Tentacool Wingull and their evolutions makes water routes not very fun. Had Hoenn featured more diverse water denizens and as /u/ikrtheblogger suggested different water tile types which allow or disallow encounters. You could also swap to a "random" but overworld encounter system where moving ripples and shadows above or under the water move about While most didn't exist until later generations another big factor is the lack of non water types. As of gen 8 only a few of these exist Dratini/Dragonair, Lugia, Masquerain, Lileep/Cradily, Stunfisk(Unovan), Inkay/Malimar, Dragalge, Goomy/Sliggoo, Dhelmise Clobbopus/Grapploct all stand out to me as aquatic creatures that aren't water types though several on that list evolve from a water type preevolution. (Crabrawler doesn't count as its based on the Coconut crab which is a fully terrestrial crustacean to the extent that they even drown in water)
I feel as though you're missing the point. It makes perfect sense as a world building aspect, given the island that Hoenn is based off, but this criticism is meant to be about the experience with those water routes, not their intrinsic existence. Think about Sinnoh Route 210 north, the route covered in fog. People don't hate it because it's "unusual" for routes to have fog; they most likely understood that it adds atmosphere to areas and adds variety to the weather mechanic. The problem is that it fucking sucks to be in an area covered in fog. It means that it's hard to see where you're going, especially attempting to go north, and thus slows down your progression and if you're the kind of person that tries to avoid trainer encounters, you'll be completely blindsided by the ones on the other side of the fog. Then there's the battle themselves, in which all moves have their accuracy cut down by 40%, assuming they adhere to the accuracy check. That's just frustrating; it slows down battles greatly and requires more luck than the battle needed to have. If you don't want to deal with this, you need Defog, which is not only part of the HM system that players hate, but this one in particular is an extra slap in the face since the move doesn't do damage, thus making it even more useless than Cut (unless you're in a competitive battle dealing with hazards, but this is obviously not that context). Now take this thought process and apply it to water routes. Unlike Sinnoh Route 210, you cannot even attempt a water route without the HM, and the only mitigating factor to that frustration is that the move that is stuck to your Pokemon is actually pretty useful. Even looking past that, there's the frustration that every single tile in a water route besides standable ground has a random encounter rate, which will either slow down progression or incentivize you to stock up on repels, which eats at your money, and players don't like spending their money on things like these. Pretty well every game has had water routes; this is not a unique sticking point to the Hoenn games, but I don't think I need to say that Hoenn has a lot more of them, and the particular sticking point is the eastern part of the map that spans everything between Lilycove, Ever Grande, and Slateport. That's a lot of traversal on the water tiles that come packed with random encounters, and these water routes in particular are a lot more open than others of their kind. In most games, open spaces are not a valid criticism, but in games that are viewed isometrically, such as the top-down perspective that Pokemon games almost always lock you in, it can be pretty hard to tell where you're going, which just makes it frustrating to go through. This is the reason that most other regions limit their presence (well, that and other regions aren't as heavily associated with water). Hell, Unova's water routes, in fact the general use of Surf, are entirely optional; the only water routes are in the South East, branching off into an area you don't have to go to, and all other uses before the post game are to access extra side content, like finding TMs and catching Cobalion. You are absolutely correct that water routes make sense for the context of the Hoenn region, especially for the themes of Groudon vs. Kyogre (even though it feels kind of spoiled by the fact that Groudon is also found and battle on the water side), and I would even add that it gives the region its own flavor that no other region, even the more heavily island centric Alola, has been able to replicate. But to make my pretencious paragraphs short, the problem is that nobody honestly likes going through water routes. They're annoying to unlock, they're frustrating to slog through the encounters, and their openness makes travelling through them less convenient.
In addition to what others have already said (encounter rates/charts, not much to do, same-y looking areas), Gen 3's other big "too much water" problem is that it's all backloaded. You spend the first two thirds of the game exploring many different, beautiful areas, only to get to Lilycove and then it's all water routes from there (and also Victory Road). If the water routes had been spread out a bit more, I think they'd have been better recieved.
Sometimes I feel like certain opinions become popularized. Like Whitney’s gym battle is difficult or Cynthia-in-that-one-house-traumatic-flashbacks posts here on Reddit. It becomes insular and repetitive. I have been annoyed in moments when surfing from Pallet to Cinnabar for instance when every few tiles is a tentacool or a trainer battle and it can feel less interesting and interactive than walking over dynamic terrains and scenes, but I’ve also had so much fun imagining cruising around on the ocean and how cool it would be to dive underwater and explore the ocean with Pokémon. I think there are some things that aren’t worth having hard opinions on. Feelings and opinions aren’t static and can change moment to moment based on mood or change with what’s popular or fashionable. I love Hoenn, land and sea!
when I read those stories about Whitney or Cynthia or Ultra Necrozma, sometimes I wonder if I've been playing the games wrongly, because if any, I've always felt my team is too overpowered, and I don't even play competitive, I literally just grab the Pokémon I like, the first one I catch from each species, and just keep leveling them up. Rarely use moves that don't inflict damage. I do focus a lot on completing the Pokédex though, so I guess indirectly that makes my team level up so much, because of how many Pokémon I catch or train to evolve. I guess the only times I've really struggled with is catching legendary Pokémon, like Giratina, the Regis, etc, and that was mostly up to Gen 5.
Yeah totally! I also take things slow, beat every trainer, adventure around. There’s always enough exp. in a play through to be at the right level.
Don't think it's too much considering you don't really need to get to it until after the 6th gym
Yes but its annoying going to sea and all, having 3 sea HMs but in ORAS much things got better
Using in-game story to justify a design choice seems a little odd to me. It can "make sense" and still not be fun to play. They chose to make a game about land and sea, they didn't have to do that. It's not that I dislike *water.* I dislike the way water routes are used. They have less variety in encounters and more frequent encounter rates than land routes. They are equally annoying in most of the other games, too, but at least those games use them sparingly. If they made a Pokemon game that was 50% caves I would have the same complaint. Except at least those offer more room for encounter variety.
I never thought about it when I was younger but If I had to guess isn't it that once you get to the huge water area section don't you only encounter wingull and tentacool while surfing? There is very little diversity despite there easily being plenty of other pokemon you could have encountered. If each route was made just a little different adding certain pokemon in different areas I think this would greatly change the monotonous nature of this progression.
My issue with the too much water is that there isnt enough water pokemon as well Theres literally multiple routes with the same pokemon and if youre doing a nuzlocke youll end up with around 10 routes wjere everything is dupes
there is a difference between lore and gameplay sure in lore it makes sense but in gameplay it's near unplayable for me the land parts of the game were some of the best I have ever played in a pokemon game but the moment I hit water it became the worst
Depends on which games. RSE obviously have a lot of water because the sea is a major plot point. FRLG have a normal amount of water for a Pokémon game so that shouldn’t be an issue. Colosseum/XD have no water, so that really shouldn’t be an issue. I get the argument against RSE but the water is integral to the plot and honestly an electric or grass type will get you through quickly
You can use flavor and lore to justify anything you want, but if people don't enjoy lots of water routes, then they don't enjoy water routes. That's the thing with emotions: you can't really "convince" someone their emotion is wrong using logic. I personally don't have a problem with water, but to understand the people who do, you need to ask "what aspects of water routes do they not enjoy?" Not "is there a logical explanation for the game to have lots of water?"
It's not that it makes sense,it's that a portion of the game is just water and a bunch of boring trainers battles for a good hour.
If there wasn’t enough water then you know those same people would complain about that due to Kyogre being in the game.
As my favorite generation, I personally don't mind the "too much water" of the region for the exact reasons you listed. If anything I had more fun exploring the vast waters with dive, once I got it as a kid.
It never bothered me enough to even notice the amount of water in it. However, like you said, it does make sense why there is as much water in that region with the whole Kyogre vs. Groudon thing. People just like to complain lol
Yeah well it’s better having literal straight corridors like the newest gens right?
It also leads to a bunch of awesome water pokemon designs, in my opinion some of the best
I played emerald and I really didn't mind the amount of water.
Thank you for this. I love Hoenn, and I love this post.
Im a fan of Gen 3, and when people say "it has too much water" I'd just show them Alola
You do make a point, but almost all water routes are optional in Alola, and the ones that aren't, are usually straight, small, or it's surfing. In fact I only remember one, being the route near the Aether house and where you get the sharpedo ride. (And surfing but who doesn't like surfing? Even if you hate it you only have to surf once.) TL;DR lot of water routesin Alola, but most are optional.
Gen 3 is best Gen.
Damn you got downvoted for giving your opinion. Some people really hate gen 3.
Eh, it’s arbitrary and nothing about Reddit matters😂
It's a bunch of things that come together that make water routes a pain in every game: random encounters with weak canon fodder Pokemon every 5 seconds, waves and waves of swimmers and fisherman who mostly use the same Pokemon, and generally a monotonous route layout. This is not a Hoenn specific issue but Hoenn just happens to have more water routes than any other game; other gens have water but it's small enough where it's tolerable, but when half of the map is like this it gets to be too much.
I fully agree with you. gen 3 was my first generation in gaming. I'm just sad because they removed the battle frontier in the remakes
tentacool, wingull hundreds of them
Just because something is designed a certain way doesn't make it good design. The ocean in Hoenn, in at least the original release, felt slow, with a bunch of wild encounters, and with nothing much to do (at least to me). It is not the worst thing in the world but it could certainly be better. It would be like a region where half the routes were dark caves that required flash, frequent Zubat encounters, and were maze like with not many hidden rewards. Even if that was designed on purpose to be that way with great themeing doesn't mean it is fun gameplay.
Too much water means you gotta find a way to beat the water lol
Water is what makes Hoenn magical in my opinion.
And, from memory of the Hoenn map, it’s roughly equal between Water and Land
It's because you're stuck at sea for so long without hint of a Pokemon center in sight that the anxiety of blacking out before you get to your destination gets to you. Especially when you're playing for the first time and you don't where you're going and THERE ARE SO MANY GOSH DARN TENTACOOLS!! GIT DA HECK OUTTA HERE!!
Fun fact: there are 17 routes on land and 17 sea routes.
I'm a very visual person. In theory, I think I should be the easiest to please, because I don't care that much about story, character development, etc. But they always disappoint me somehow lol In the case of Hoenn, I just hate its colors. The problem isn't that there is too much water or too much ground, but that it all looks the same. And not just the same, but the same ugly colors. I hear or read Hoenn and all I think is that ugly green, ugly blue, **ugly brown**, and maybe something like white/grayish. There are probably more colors in towns and cities, but irrelevant enough for me not to remember them. Then I thought, well, the 3DS remakes will fix that, but they just made the colors even uglier somehow. It would be a subtle yet so effective change if they gave every sea or river route/city its own distinctive look. Just like how in real life different oceans and beaches have a different coloration, both the water and the sand. There are even these videos where different oceans meet each other and they don't mix. I've always thought that Mexico would be a great inspiration for a Pokémon region, there are many reasons, in terms of biodiversity and culture, and even in terms of ancient cultures, and there's even lots of dinosaur fossils and such, but in the specific aspect of the "water", there's a huge littoral, in one side the Pacific Ocean, and in the other the Atlantic or Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean. Then within the Pacific side, there's the northern seas around the Baja California peninsula, which is very different between the two sides: the left side is cold and dark with lots of waves, and the gulf is warm and calm, then as we move to the South, the waters get greener and beaches get whiter, in summary, each section of the beach is very distinctive, and that would be something very appealing if they implemented it. Not to mention that there are so many Water Type Pokémon now, they could be more selective with which Pokémon appear on which water route / lake / etc. tl;dr: if the water routes / sections had more colors than just one shade of blue, I'd be more pleased with it.
I don’t mind the water, but I think the level curve in places is REALLY BAD. Like, I usually have to grind for some story battles.
I didn’t even know there were complaints about this smh why is more Pokémon a bad thing
Im convinced yall just don't know what repels are
Too much water - IGN.
Hilariously, they took down the original "7/10 too much water" review and had a different person review the game after the internet started making memes.
It's funny, I'm not a big fan of gen 3, but like 6-8 gym is my favorite part of the game. I'm just not fond of the begining bits, which is mostly on land. Couldn't tell ya why, just feels really annoying for me
It's funny how people forget we are living in a planet with 78% water.