I'd say Route 13 is worse since it has that annoying random wind that makes it harder to navigate and those overworld Pokémon that not only directly go after you, but also have Abilities that make it impossible to flee from battle.
This is probably a hot take, but I've always thought caves were so much worse than water routes, tbh. Surf is actually a useful move in battle so you don't need to waste a team slot on an HM jockey, and you can just stick whichever water counter you've been using at the front of your party to power through it easily. Cave encounters have more type variety, which is more fun on a casual first playthrough, but miserable on repeat runs.
The early gens understood progression, near the end you get long routes far from civilization, where you cannot just run back to a pokemon center every two minutes. I also like these routes.
Counterargument: unlocking the postgame required you to literally fight EVERY TRAINER on this route, and the hail would drag out gameplay to a snails pace, as hail for some reason did not turn off as a battle animation if it was an overworld effect. This is even worse when you realize in platinum they added _more trainers_
@@dominicjannazo7144 I'm assuming from this comment that route 217 is meant to be an actual threat to the player. But to me, it felt more like a chore. You want an actual threat? Fight Cynthia.
@@t4tz3lwurmSinnoh has a lot of good Pokémon, even better in combat than Kanto’s It’s just that the ones you actually want are either in the post game or late game (in DP mainly)
I like Kanto Route 2. It felt cool to go through Diglett’s Cave and appearing back at the start of the game. It makes you think, “ohh, so _thats_ how you get on the blocked side of route 2.”
Yeah, I was confused by this video's offhand crapping on Route 2. I'd argue it's one of the most iconic and interesting routes in Kanto, between Viridian Forest and the mysterious, impossible-to-access area beyond the bushes that later provides a shortcut between the east and west areas of the region.
This pretty much. When you first see it, you can't help but think: 'Huh, I wonder how I'm supposed to get there? I should remember this place for later on.' Especially after you jump the ledge that leads to Cerulean City and you're temporarily locked out from going back to Pewter or Mt Moon. Feels like it's out of your reach for a while. And then you find the Diglett cave, follow it to its end and when you emerge and suddenly find yourself back between Pewter City and Viridian Forest, you get that big satisfied feeling. The dots are finally connected and you feel more motivated to explore that part of the route, because your interest in it was piqued earlier and now you get the payoff. It feels like they rewarded your patience and curiousity both. It's a great route, not for what it contains, but for how it's set up and eventually pays off.
Yea I feel like it's really overlooked like my first playthrough as a kid on yellow I never got flash lol rock tunnel sure was fun I had to turn up the volume to hear when I hit a wall
I think Route 4 is a much worse route imo Route 2 has at least some wonder in the Diglett's Cave and Mr. Mime trade Meanwhile Route 4 has the absolutely worst ledge in the history of Pokemon, so many of my runs of the game as a kid stopped here because the game felt like trapping the player in Cerulean, where the only way to get any experience to prep against the Blue fight blocking your progress is the pathetically small patch of grass that barely has any mons to grind for. And getting poisoned by an Ekans while trying to grind on it is the absolute worst lol As a kid this place was the worst, darn that ledge blocking me from attempting to grind on Mt. Moon
@@kirbyofthestarsfan I believe that ledge was intentionally designed to prevent you from going back, so that the player is guaranteed to find Bill’s house.
4:12 Route 116 and 117 are my favorite Sinnoh routes. I love taking a step back and trudging through the snow. Also, it has the by far the best Sinnoh route music.
Same, I think those snowy routes really reached their goal of representing Northern Hokkaido winters and how overwhelming the climate can become. Reminds me of Canadian Winters as well. It was also the first snowy region that wasn't a cave and I think they nailed it.
Route 1 in Kalos is easily the most useless in the entire franchise imo, but you're right that at least it's inoffensive. Just discovered you channel and your vids are so underrated! Subscribed, I hope you get a big follow
I have to disagree with Hoenn. I think Route 123 is the worst. It’s not an area you particularly need to go to and it has no Pokémon that are unique to that Route, it’s mainly just Pokémon you’ve already encountered. I know the Berry Master is on that route, but if you approach his house from the Lilycove/Mt.Pyre direction, it’s basically useless imo
Yeah…there’s nothing on 123 and there definitely should have been (feebas???) 123 is probably just there because of world design principles, but I’ll be honest: even if that was all it was, I see where they were coming from 😅 118->119, 120->121 and the 122/Mt Pyre stub would all feel different in a bad way if 123 was cut from the map. It’s just a trick of course, but the presence of the connection enhances the experience of exploration.
@@welshlout3400yeah remember that little pond just at the end of the route? Would've been perfect to hide a few feebas in it, maybe like what they did in the other route and give the pond 1 tile that has a feebas in it
@@welshlout3400 the very first time I played Ruby, I stumbled upon Route 123 by accident. If I hadn’t found it then, it’s quite possible I would never have found it at all
When I read the title, Route 1 from X and Y was the first thing that came to mind. I remember the first time I went down it and, I thought: 'Wait, what? Is that it? No patches of grass? No items? No NPC's? Just an empty straight road to the next town? What's the point of that? Why not just merge Vaniville and Aquacorde into one city?' Sure, it's not offensive, but I never understood the point of it either. No story events happen there. No items anywhere to be found. No Pokemon to catch. It's literally just an empty connection between two small towns.
casseroya lake was one of the best immersions into the world of Pokemon I ever experienced... well at least the first time I stumbled upon it with level 30 or slightly below 30 pokemon on my way to gym 5... and all those level 40 veluzas and dondozos coming at me felt really like oh-oh..seems like I'm in the wrong turf. Loved to see the pokemon slowly becoming visible as near the shore as they were coming up to the surface, when a massive dondozo showed up I was even more worried about my safety, a bit like when you meet the level 50 snorlax in pokemon arceus
Way back playing Pokemon Silver, I actually liked Route 46. After I was done in Blackthorn, I walked down that route and realized where I ended up, and immediately walked back to my mom in New Bark. There was no special dialogue or anything, but it was like I needed to say “Hey mom, you’ll never guess where I just was.” Even as a kid, I also noticed that Route 46 uses the same music that only plays on the early routs in gen 2, so it sort of signaled that you’re journey with the gyms was over and you were going back home.
There are definitely a couple hot takes in this video, but I think that it somwhat highlights why I prefer the direction, staring with Gen 5 (with a couple rare exceptions), to have each route be the ENTIRE path between two towns, cities, or important landmarks. It makes every route far more distinct, unique, and memorable; no longer do you have a situation like Route 19 or Route 46 where it's just a very uninteresting chunk connected to a much better route because it would all just be classified as the SAME route. I know that this generally leads to a more linear-feeling region, but I think that the designs of Unova and Kalos are superb.
Unova's design seemed jarring at the time, but really holds up looking back on it. B2W2's new routes are almost all winners, too, elaborating on concepts not fully fleshed out in the first game, and taking advantage of the season mechanic especially with the picturesque piles of leaves in Autumn. better final set of routes and Victory Road, too. routes feel just long enough without overstaying their welcome. they don't have the Sense of Adventure of Hoenn and Sinnoh's biggest routes, but those routes were only charming once or twice, and became miserable on replay. Unova's routes also have a lot of digressions while the main path is straightforward. you CAN explore, but you're not forced to slog through a jungle or a snowfield. and some of the longer areas have healing NPCs, a remarkably good game design decision. The last route before Victory Road in B2W2 is very much a corridor...if you keep to the main road. but it's remarkably dense in digressions, to the point of being one of my favorite Pokemon routes. it does require multiple HMs, IIRC. the area where you get the Larvesta egg is also very cool with the strong water current navigation, which would be miserable if the area were ever required, but you NEVER have to go there. it is 100% optional. also...VILLAGE BRIDGE IS THE BEST AREA IN POKEMON.
@@dvillines26 Yeah, BW2's final route (I believe Route 23) is one of my favorites from the game. The aesthetics, the music, and the amount of optional space... you basically only need to see half of the route before getting to Victory Road, but there's still so much more to explore.
C'mon, Kalos's locations weren't even bad. Yes, there's a couple useless caves and route 1 is filler but aside from that there's a lot of cool routes and memorable areas. I even like route 13 despite the unusable Kalos power plant entrances.
How about the upper portion of Route 210 from Gen IV? Your visibility is cut by a large margin and battling is a pain as you have to battle in Fog Conditions. Fog cuts your Pokemon's Accuracy down unless you have some that know moves like Shock Wave or Aerial Ace, as those moves never miss. And, of course if you have a Pokemon with the move Defog, you can clear the fog, but if you did not..... And about the Arena Trap Ability? It doesn't work if you are using Flying -Type Pokemon or a Pokemon with the Levitate Ability.
@@tefnutofhoney2832well defog does lower the enemy evasion making your moves accurate, as well as removing entry hazards, but you seriously never encounter those ever.
The route to celestial town haunts me. My first time on that route I was stubborn and didn’t want to replace a move slot for defog because I couldn’t find/access the move deleter. Dealing with nearly all of my moves missing made me want to throw my DS.. Sinnoh was my least favorite region for a decade until BDSP/PLA came out because of how horrific the routes are. The environment slows you down like snow, marsh and the slopes. When it isn’t slowing you down you need a ton of HMs just to progress. I did not like keeping an HM sI*ve or sacrificing move slots for an underwhelming HM.
LOLLLLL i think your commentary on the department store in unova is so valid and funny. the game is based on NYC yes but i feel like is also representative of general USA culture and malls off the highway in the middle of nowhere are EVERYWHERE and they’re so dumb but it has to do with the way suburbs work in the USA. lots of ppl left cities and needed things to do / places to go and shop and so many malls were made as like kind of center points for towns with lots of people and less infrastructure
I'd like to give an honorable mention to Reflection Cave in Kalos. Out of all the places in X and Y, that is the place I hate the most. It takes me forever to get through with all the random encounters, random pokemon dropping from the ceiling, trainers, and the weird layout. I've played through Kalos several times and always struggle through that cave. At least the Route 13 has Team Flare to break up the arena trap battles.
For the future, though I know this won't always be helpful because X and Y are definitely the most fun when doing challenge runs, Flying types and Levitating Pokémon are immune to Arena trap, and newly in X and Y Ghost type Pokémon are also all immune. Anything with the ability "Run Away" can also escape without fail, and both Roar and Whirlwind can be used to end the battle. (Before anyone mentions the Smokeball, that item is inaccessible by that point in the game short of trading it over).
The problem with Unova routes is not that they're empty. The problem with Unova routes is that they're so full of trainers and other stuff, that whenever you have to go through two or more back to back, it literraly gives you a feeling of burnout.
It's double bad for the caves and stuff because you're constantly being bombarded by random encounters while being assaulted by the locals, and it's triple bad because the wild pokemon are relatively high level so it's completely possible for them to outspeed you and not let you run away
@@500shades6 constantly having to reapply them and then wait them out when you want to turn them off to scout for new pokemon is still annoying, and you're not guaranteed to always have repels on you
@@InsertFunnyThingHere Plan around it then. If you know you're gonna go through a lengthy route buy them in bulk. You get access to repels after the first gym in Unova. If you want to scout, plan for it and don't use them. Once you're done, use the repels. This isn't really a problem as long as you plan ahead. Also, which is worse, reapplying repels, or getting an encounter every few steps in a cave or in long stretches of grass? I'll take reapplying it, thank you.
I still don't understand how, but that route in gen on that small patch of grass is how I caught Gligar first and quickly fell in love with my scorpion bat boy.
When we eventually get to Legends Victini/Kyurem I hope we get to see the humble beginnings of the Shopping Mall Nine, starting out as a small general goods store, as well as how the route came to seemingly be a place for bikers to hang out
i get why route 46 exists. it's meant not just as a shortcut from blackthorn to new bark, but also to show your progress via dark cave. as you get more HM's and progress, you find yourself able to go deeper and deeper into the cave and going farther and farther north. johto is also a relatively nonlinear region, so your normal progress measurement via where in the map you are only does so much. but by the time you're done with the 8th gym you're able to explore all of dark cave, including this time from the other side.
It's undoubtedly whatever route contains the trainer school that you're forced to attend. STOP TEACHING ME ABOUT X DEFEND! STOP IT RIGHT NOW! NOW ONE NEEDS IT! NO ONE HAS EVER NEEDED IT!
route 46 is the perfect place to grind for claire, you can go each route untill you reach a dead end and you fly back to another route where all the trainers are and high level pokemon to grind. Especaially since your probaly with an pokemon with an ice type for her dragons that same ice type move is effective on all the pokemon in the grass and some of the trainers are also weak to ice. Its actually a life saver.
2:04 so this route got a serious redesign in heart gold soulsilver, Actually connecting to 4 different parts of the johto map via connecting entrances and exits. The problem... is that dark cave requires flash ... And literally gives you _zero direction to the direction you want to go_
Well you’re both right. I’ve lived in the NY suburbs and NYC most of my life. The inspiration is the Palisades Mall (the biggest mall in the NYC suburbs) in Rockland County but also there are a few large malls in NJ right off Rt 17 and Rt 4 in Bergen County as well since Opelucid City is geographically Washington Heights with the Tubeline being the George Washington Bridge. They’re all large malls strategically placed near highways. The Palisades Mall is also adjacent to the Tappan Zee Bridge or the longest bridge in NY outside of NYC.
Route 216 and route 217 I thought were gorgeous and a bit spooky in the most intriguing way possible. Then I paused to do some self reflection. •Not everyone absolutely loves the cold and snow. •I literally have snow in my username. •What I found as a cozy amazing place to imagine taking shelter with my pokemon, to* other people could easily have been an annoyance. •I just think Yuki Onnas are absolutely beautiful. •Also Glaceon owo *Edit grammer
Some of my earliest gaming memories are in Johto, and one of the most vivid is finding out that route 46 was connected to the start of the game. I'd found a rare Jigglypuff there in the beginning, and a Gligar near the end. It felt like the game went full circle, and I really loved that as a kid.
Oh my god, I hate the Lumiose Badlands! That route is extremely annoying and frustrating to get through with the random gusts of wind, making it almost impossible to get through without encountering Pokémon, and most of the Pokémon prevent you from running with Arena Trap!
Excellent video, subscribed! I don’t think anyone has mentioned Horan route 103… it’s one of the starting routes, but leads nowhere. You meet someone here once in the story, and it’s never returned to again. Granted, I agree that the route named in this video is certainly MUCH more deserving…
Nah the worst route in sinnoh is the fog covered ones leading to celestic town. Id deal with snow any day over that because snow dosent affect my accuracy
Really? I personally loved the sinnoh snow routes. Sure it may be VERY annoying to navigate but its cool that its the first instance of snow (not ice) in pokémon games. Plus it has good music. I'd say the fog and swamp routes are pretty bad tho. I actually never even travelled much of the swamp route because once i fell into the marsh and was so annoyed that i just COULD NOT get out, that i ended up avoiding it. The fog route on the other hand meant i had to teach defog to my staraptor, which is not fun considering the waste of a move slot.
Route 46 would look really cool in 3D since you’re going down a mountain that you have seen since the early game, and finally climbed without noticing via Mahogany
Hello pichu! I love the video. So I’m going to leave a nice long comment to boost your video for the RU-vid algorithm gods! I know it’s hard as a content creator to get the videos you worked so hard on to get going with the algorithm. So hopefully this comment gets it on its way. I used to leave really short comments just saying “hi” or “
I actually really like Route 46 myself, first time I ran into it as a kid (I repeated the early game a lot as a kid because my emulator never saved the file xD), and was surprised to see that route when wandering in the first area Getting to catch an early Geodude was a total treat, and, even if I just skipped the return home from Blackthorn to Newbark with Fly as a kid, I appreciate a lot how they tried to make a sort of victory lap back home I think a more pointless johto route would be Route 33, the one connecting Union Cave and Azalea Town Just feels super pointless since there's really no Pokemon of interest there besides *maybe* Hoppip or Ekans, but it's so short you barely need to spend any time on it at all
Rock Tunnel also requires Flash or a map, still maybe the worst area in Pokemon. the cherry on top is in the original games there's the infamous Self-Destructing Hiker.
Exeggutor island is based off of Ni'ihau though, the Hawaiian island people aren't allowed to go to. So it makes sense that not much is there, and j think that's enough to justify it's existence
Maybe the route 9 shopping mall is meant to be like the shopping centers around highways? I know there is an outlet mall up the interstate that people go to. I don’t think Buc’ees was a big when gen 5 came out, but they are also bigger than they have any right to be. As for Exeggutor Island, I assumed it was representing Hawaii’s Forbidden Island. It is rather small and underwhelming though. Oh, and I believe Casseroya Lake (or any gen 9 water areas) suffers is because it is loading Pokémon in the depths. So it’s adding so many layers when calculating spawn chances. Still sad to see, but I bet that is the cause.
The route to wyndon really should have had an equivalent to victory road. Maybe the wyndon sewers or something? Something based on the Thames? Anything other than the frozen wasteland we got.
Funny, despite the egregious performance of Scarlet and Violet popping up (lol) so heavily there, I actually really liked Casseroya Lake. Maybe it's the OST or just how big it feels, maybe its the relatively unique spawns, or maybe the waterfall bridges around it, but it reminds me a lot of the feel of some of the unique, untamed nature routes of Hone.
This question was definitely one I'd never given any thought to at all, it's refreshing. Keep thinking of questions like this one, it was fun. Really well covered and interesting. Thanks :) Subscribed :)
I think for Hoenn I'd say the one after Pacifidlog where the regi unlock cave is. Sure its got that but the rapid water and having to fly back if you mess up is annoying
As others have said, excellent content! 😊 Stay humble as you continue to grow your channel, and you'll do great!! Looking forward to more videos from you 👍
150% agree regarding Enamorus. I got so fed up with it that I simply abandoned my playthrough. The rest of the game beforehand was great, I *_love_* the game's whole design, but this just outright ruined it.
I disagree with unova. I think it should have been Route 5. It has the same Pokémon as Route 16 but doesn’t have the lostlorn forest attached to it and also doesn’t even have a shopping mall like Route 9 does
