Quote:
|
The route in Pokemon games tends to be pretty obvious, but I can't help but think this is in order to cater to the young age of the major target audience. I mean, up until BW, not a single Japanese Pokemon game had any Kanji, because it was assumed that the audience was too young to be able to capably read Kanji (meaning elementary schoolers in Japan). Even "hidden" items tend to be on the more obvious route, because the makers want young players to find as many of them as possible.
|
Quote:
Indeed. Pokemon games, as far as JRPGs go, aren't meant to be on-par with other JRPGs in terms of "where the hell do I go next?". There's still a little bit of it in the newer titles, but even Red/Green/Blue are nowhere near as difficult as a Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest game in that regard.
The difficulty is, and should always be, in the battles themselves.
|
I'm thinking less "Where am I
supposed to go next?" and more "Where do I
want to go next?" This is the mark I think Pokemon is best suited to hit. Having over 600 monsters, a plethora of habitats to explore, so many legendary entities, Pokemon would flourish in an open environment.
Instead of: "I'm going to the forest, which is followed by the cave, which followed by the power plant", one could say "I'm going to the forest, but if I can't find anything I'll go to the power plant, and come back to the forest later to see if I can get deeper and find a rare Pokemon. I also think I found a new path in the cave, so I'll check that later."