3rd Gen Too Much Water?

[Dragon]

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These games required you to SURF on your Pokemon quite often, especially near the last part of the game where you need to cross fairly large bodies of water to get to cities like Mosdeep City, and to find the Team Aqua/Magma crew in their secret seafloor hideout. Surf and Dive are indeed very important HMs for you to even progress through the game to travel across the sea in Hoenn.

But for you, was it a bit too much? Did you ever feel that there was too much crossing and diving of water to do in Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald? Or, did you enjoy the aspect of crossing the sea, and diving underwater? What do you think of this in genera;? Would love to hear your thoughts!

 

[XNaut]

I thought the surfing was nice and I remember I was struggling looking for Sootopolis City when I had to dive looking for that City.

 

[noa]

I truly disagree with the "too much water" thing, I think there is a lot of water, yes, but it's not too much. I always thought the amount of water was suitable for the region, Hoenn always felt very oceanic to me. I thought it was interesting to be able to surf to so many different places.

 

[Nah]

I've for a while thought that the issue isn't so much the amount of water but rather how nearly all of the water travel is concentrated into the last 1/4 of the game. Makes it seem like there's more than there is because you do nothing but surf once you reach Lilycove. If they more evenly spread out the times you water travel vs the times you travel on land (instead of doing all land and then all sea), I'd imagine that there would be less complaints about the water in Hoenn.

or at least, we might not have gotten the "7.8 too much water" meme

 

[S-MAN]

As I vaguely recall- I think the amount of water in game would have been fine if there were more content to be found in those general areas. It felt to be more of a filler for the map in general.. I don't remember very well but I liked the many surfing places in gen 2 as well as the surfing spots in sevii islands of lg/fr.

Overall I just kinda wished there was more to do out there other than battle some trainers and fish.. More events would have been nice.. like based on time of day/day of the week.. The waters just didn't seem too memorable to me compared to some of the other games, but maybe all of them in general. Gen 2 seemed less boring though- less water and felt less of a filler. Am I making any sense?
Needed more content in the water!.. Some fishing competitions would have been nice.. Like the bug catching one in gen 2.

 

[Sydian]

no. i've never minded it much. i do think three water-based HMs for traveling is a bit excessive, however i think diving added a great new element to exploring the region and i've always thought that was a great addition. waterfall could have gotten the axe imo, but i digress. honestly, it makes sense to me that a game with a land and sea theme and conflict would have a region to travel that reflects it. yeah, the water travel is delegated largely to the last portion of the game, but i mean. most of the land is delegated to the first half (if not more than half) so it doesn't bother me.

tl;dr never thought it was too much water, it suits the region and story, let's go swimming

 

[Rivvon]

Literally half the region is water, which fits the bill of one of the games' themes to a T: land versus sea. The problem is, the land portions of Hoenn are lush and diverse, while the water portions are all the same--unending, sprawled-out blue and the same few Water Pokémon every other step. The Dive segments did only a little to remedy this issue. The amount of water in Hoenn is only an issue due to their monotony; had there been more variety in their scenery and the available Pokémon, it would have been far more bearable.

 

[shab]

No! I love the ocean in Hoenn. Exploring it is fun because it's pretty vast. You never know what you're gonna find (that is, if you don't remember what's out there). But I do agree with other people that it can be pretty empty compared to land.

 

[bwburke94]

The problem with Hoenn isn't the water; it's the HM overuse in general.

 

[colours]

the diving exploration added depth (no pun intended here) to the otherwise monotonous surfing, so I really don't mind it as much. the constant tentacool/pelipper encounters did get a little old, though.

 

[Alloute]

I didn't see the problem with it since it was only a mild inconvenience during the first run-through of the region, but once you accessed each area in Hoenn, you could just Fly from place to place anyway without having to Surf everywhere. Surfing outside of visiting the island cities was only necessary to access a few areas like the Sealed Chamber or Shoal Cave and places like that, so it's not like it was required all the time.