Sea Routes

What's your opinion on sea routes? I like them when there's just a few of them in the respective region, but with Hoenn, they just go way too far. But saying, I still like the Hoenn sea routes.

Kanto: I quite like Routes 19, 20 and 21 - they make a nice break from all the land routes (or more specifically the Silence Bridge area), and it's interesting way to get to Cinnabar and the Seafoam Islands.
Johto: I like Route 40 as it's pretty simple and straight-forward, but I've never liked how Route 41 is basically a labyrinth due to the rock walls surrounding the Whirl Islands, meaning that you have to do several laps and do a lot checking to see if you've beaten all the trainers or not.
Hoenn: As I said, there are lots of sea routes in Hoenn, but I'll talk about them in groups; I like Routes 105 - 109 as you finally get to visit the routes that you sped through in Mr. Briney's boat, and you get the Abandoned Ship to make things interesting as well; Routes 124 - 131 are probably the worst sea routes because they're pretty monotonous and boring, but at least they introduce the diving mechanic to make things more fun; I also like Routes 132 - 134 because they're pretty gimmicky by introducing the water current mechanic, but once again it makes things more fun and interesting.
Sinnoh: I've never really liked Route 220, mainly because the surfing speed is sooooooo sloooooow, and I've never liked it anyway as it's pretty long and boring. I like Route 223 because it's the last route before the Pokemon League and so things are really tensing up and it's getting exciting, but I'm pretty neutral towards Route 226 and 230.
Unova: Now I hate Route 17 because the water current maze is so annoying, but I found Route 21 pretty fun when I last played Black 2.

I don't hate them. I know Hoenn's water routes get a lot of hate, but you have to consider you were on land for the first half of the game. It only makes sense, imo of course, that you spend most of the other half of the main story going over water routes or diving, especially in a game where the story is rooted with sea vs. land. That's how I've always seen it anyway. And besides, if you know your way around the region well, you don't even have to spend too much time on the sea.

As for BW's sea route...it was a bit annoying that the only wild Pokemon on it were too low level for the exp to even be worth anything. It's the only time I actually had to use Repels in the main games because I just didn't want the exp they had to offer (or didn't have, rather). So it feels more like a waste of time, imo.

Other sea routes in the games I didn't mention aren't really that memorable or tedious or anything, so they're not really worth discussing. They're just there. Not exciting, but not too dreadfully boring either. Just nothing to look twice at.

My problem with sea routes are quite simply that the variety of wild Pokemon is entirely too monotonous.

Kanto is nothing but Tentacool, Johto had SOME diversity, but not much, Hoenn was just a bunch of Carvanha and Wailmer, Sinnoh...ew, and Unova isn't even worth mentioning.

I like water routes because they add variety to the traveling experience, but I hate them because of the lack of diversity in Pokemon >_<

Kanto is nothing but Tentacool, Johto had SOME diversity, but not much, Hoenn was just a bunch of Carvanha and Wailmer, Sinnoh...ew, and Unova isn't even worth mentioning.

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Were you fishing or Surfing? You have to fish for Carvanha and Wailmer.

But you did remind me I didn't even talk about the wild Pokemon lmao. I agree that Kanto was just sad, Johto didn't offer much change from that (unless you were playing whichever version has Mantine in it). Hoenn added Wingull/Pelipper to the mix. Sinnoh was MANTYKE GALORE! And Unova with its silly level 10 Frillish and Basculin...yeeeeah. Maybe Alomomola if you hit the water spot thing. :( Wildlife on the sea isn't really exciting unless you're fishing, it seems lol.

My main problem with sea routes was the Pokemon.

Kanto and Johto had mainly Tentacool, which got old and boring fast. Not to mention all those random levels they appear at and the annoying moves they have, I even had trouble escaping from them unless if I had a fast Pokemon (mainly Electric-types).

Hoenn had so many sea routes I found myself getting lost most of the time, and I did hear how much people complained about Hoenn's sea routes, mainly cos they're so big and it's full of Tentacool and Wingull, which can get annoying if you don't have anything to take them down easily.

Sinnoh was alright, but the Mantykes on that route north of Sunyshore were just a pain to catch. They had a catch rate almost similar to Dialga/Palkia. I sometimes got lost, but not as much as Hoenn.

Unova thankfully had the least annoying, probably cos it has lots of land-based area. Frillish weren't all that hard to fight but those Basculin were annoying cos they had strong moves (and Final Gambit, eek!) and they're hard to escape from if you aren't fast enough.

I did like the water routes cos it added diversity to the environment but the lack of Pokemon (unless if fishing) was disappointing.

I very much enjoyed the Hoenn water routes actually. It's one of things that gave the region some of it's wonderful variety. I think having a gimmick to go along with water routes are essential though, or else they kinda become like blue caves.

Hoeen was nice because I could dive and their was plenty to explore and discover. Johto wasn't to bad either, I think the surfing music from Johto was so peaceful! I never beat 4th Gen, so I can't speak for Sinnoh. I was a little let down that they didn't have too many water routes in Unova, although Frillish are by far the most interesting thing to come out of a water route. I guess I'm pretty neutral about Kanto, It wasn't bad back in the day, and it just is pretty weak compared to the others because the formula has been improved greatly.

I really liked the water routes in the Hoenn region. Sure it's easy to get lost and they might have gone a little overboard but it only made sense for a tropical region like Hoenn, with that water vs land theme, to have a lot of sea routes. Plus once you get past Seafloor Cavern it's just a straightforward path to the west, and Emerald I think is the only one where this area is even required.

Kanto and Johto have less routes but I didn't like theirs that much. Kanto has those two islands in the way and Johto has the Whirl Islands. And Sinnoh has like maybe one sea route but the surfing is so bad in DP that it's a chore going through it.

Don't know about Unova's sea routes well enough to really have an opinion, but it doesn't appear to have a whole of sea routes from what I recall looking at its map.

Water routes aren't my problem. Sure it's easy to get lost, but at least Tentacool, Wingull, and any other water Pokemon you encounter aren't as bad as the Zubat line are. In the 3rd Generation main series, after Lilycove city is the sea where you have to travel to get to Mossdeep City, Seafloor Cavern, Sootoplis City, and Evergrande City by water. What makes up for it is that you swim fast, plus to add in the exploration is that you can dive underwater, so you don't necessarily don't have to deal with Pokemon except on seaweeds.

The sea routes in Kanto and Johto are bland meaning you'll encounter Tentacool all the time (unless you play Gold, Crystal, and Heart Gold) Sinnoh? Thank god for Platinum, otherwise, I would have gone insane if I played Diamond and Pearl (which I have yet to buy or import because I have the JP version of Ruby.) As for Isshu, you never have to explore by water plot driven, which is linear.

All and all, my favorite sea routes are in Hoenn. I would love to cross through water again.

I really like the Hoenn sea routes the most, especially with the addititon of dive which made it more exciting when R/S were first released.
The Pokemon do get irritating, aslong as I have a repel handy it's fine!
I like surfing though sometimes just for the surf music, johto's is my favourite <3

Repels make everything better. Don't get in the water without it! Sea routes can be either be quite fun or extremely annoying depending on whether or not you take them.

*shiver*
So...many...Tentacool...

I always hated sea routes. I didn't like encountering a Tentacool every other second. It gets pretty irritating.
But I guess repels DO make it a bit better.
Plus, I hate the feeling of being surrounded by water. I never liked being in open water in real life, so I guess that feeling transferred onto the games.

It may be commonplace but the water routes in Hoenn sucked. There's nothing in them other than a few islands with items. Dive was poorly utilized because there aren't any worthwhile Pokémon you can get from Diving. It was mostly a way to get Shards, since all the seafloor Pokémon have a chance of holding a Shard, but it didn't make up for it.

Also there's the route with the fast currents of doom west of Pacifidlog which takes ages to fully explore without a walkthrough.

If you play GSC before RSE, you learn to hate the water routes based on the route between Olivine and Cianwood. That route was dreadful, but RSE had it ten times worse. You actually have to use the map to figure out where you are, which gets annoying after a few times.

Hoenn in general had horrible mapping, what with cities such as Lavaridge and Sootopolis being completely isolated from the main routes unless you had Fly.

Sea routes are boring with little pokemon in them- only tebtacool/creul/wingull/pepiler/basalin/flillish. I did not like that the only way to lock the Regi trio was too go through water in a certain way.

Kanto- it was ok because you one needed to go through twice seafoam and Cinabar islands
Johto- Annoy as you have to go through water for whirl islands/kanto/Cianwood/Cinabar/seafoam
Hoenn- Too many sea routes
Shinnoh- leugue/that place where the stell gym is
Unova- Now we talking only to get to P2 lab

off topic:wow my biggest post so far

I always hated Sea Routes for their annoying trainers who get stomped easily and of course, those tentacools!

I really don't get the problem people have with water routes. They're just another thing in the game, probably most similar to caves, in that there's a limited number of pokemon and you can encounter them anywhere rather than just in particular squares. Aside from the aesthetics, I don't see much difference, and if anything, I much prefer the blue and open version of that sort of thing over the gray and closed version. They're the same in that you have to go through it to get from Point A to Point B, so you just put whoever's best suited to be in the front in the front and go. Then you either slog through the pokemon you encounter or use repel and avoid them, and then at some later point, you're done. You've accomplished your objective, and isn't that the point?

Again, personally, I prefer seas over caves, as far as that goes. I just prefer the notion of gliding over the water over the notion of crawling through a cave. It gets sort of tedious dealing with the same pokemon over and over, but that's the case either way, so that's just the way it is. I just don't get the issue.

Sydian said:

I don't hate them. I know Hoenn's water routes get a lot of hate, but you have to consider you were on land for the first half of the game. It only makes sense, imo of course, that you spend most of the other half of the main story going over water routes or diving, especially in a game where the story is rooted with sea vs. land. That's how I've always seen it anyway. And besides, if you know your way around the region well, you don't even have to spend too much time on the sea.

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Really nicely said.

Cerberus87 said:

It may be commonplace but the water routes in Hoenn sucked. There's nothing in them other than a few islands with items. Dive was poorly utilized because there aren't any worthwhile Pokémon you can get from Diving. It was mostly a way to get Shards, since all the seafloor Pokémon have a chance of holding a Shard, but it didn't make up for it.

Also there's the route with the fast currents of doom west of Pacifidlog which takes ages to fully explore without a walkthrough.

If you play GSC before RSE, you learn to hate the water routes based on the route between Olivine and Cianwood. That route was dreadful, but RSE had it ten times worse. You actually have to use the map to figure out where you are, which gets annoying after a few times.

Hoenn in general had horrible mapping, what with cities such as Lavaridge and Sootopolis being completely isolated from the main routes unless you had Fly.

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I'm sure I'm not alone on this, but I'm really tired of freakin' linear paths, haha. Why not just have the whole region be a straight line of towns then?

Aside from the fact that there wasn't too much to benefit from them at the time, I loved Hoenn's water routes because they gave it a HUGE sense of exploration. They made the games much more open and it's good that it gives the map use(although, like Sydian brought up, it's better once you get to know the map). I also liked the trip from Olivine and Cianwood because of that, although Hoenn really brought that expansiveness out. The fast currents beyond Pacifidlog were pretty fun too because learning to navigate them pretty well awarded you with the unlocking of the Regi trio.

All they needed to do was give more reason to explore the rest of them really.

I'm honestly sick of land dominated regions all of the time, which is one of the reasons I'm not as much of a fan of Unova(especially the first games where they are near non existent) as I'd like to be.

I love sea routes. :3 I've played Emerald many times over and never really get tired of them (though I still manage to get hella lost every single time I go to Sootopolis from the sea). They could be improved, yeah- a variable surfing speed would be great and extra islands and caves and underwater things would be fun. A bigger variety of Pokémon would be nice in all cases- why not be able to encounter land birds on rivers or across smaller channels? The occasional Wailmer on the surface would be fine, since whales do have to come up for air. idk man I think oceans are great and fun and could be expanded upon really well.

Totally agreeing with C Payne about the sense of exploration, too. :D