1st Gen Why is the flying order for cities so strange?

[Imperator161]

When you use fly in RBY, you can press up or down to scroll through the cities you want to fly to (in contrast to newer games, where you freely select a location from the map). The first few options seem to follow the order of your journey (Pallet, Viridian, Pewter, Cerulean). Things then break off a bit, but seem to go in a clockwise circle around the map (Lavender, Vermilion, Celadon). But then it jumps to Fuchsia, Cinnabar, Indigo Plateau, and then back to Saffron. Why is Saffron last?

I wondered if it had to do with map index order (though I haven't found that order), like the Pokemon were entered out of order. But if GF can resort all of the Pokemon to order them in the Pokedex, why not do the same thing with flying locations?

 

[illumine]

There was a certain level of open movement around the section involving Saffron, in that sense it was likely that there might be some looseness in the map order around there. In any case, Saffron was in proximity to some Snorlax and so on, and so might have just been saved for last generally. The flying locations aren't exactly akin to the Pokedex, they're just a practical thing that players may use, rather than a compendium. In any case, maps weren't a distinguishing feature of the game by themselves. As such, GF might not have prioritised it that much, really, and other unrelated elements got in the way of such 'aspects' of the game.

 

[Sydian]

Hm? I thought it was done in the same order that you access the towns. I'll have to pop in my game and double check. I don't always pay attention to Fly, so I may have missed something. It's so easy to travel in Kanto that I find myself not bothering to Fly after a certain point.