It's me. I'm the one that wants linear routes back.
My personal pokemon fandom is essentially the "Am I out of touch? No, it's the children who are wrong" image.
At least I'm self aware enough to realize I'm probably in the "wrong" lol
Oh, im not against linear gameplay. Im also not against having preferences.
Im against the people that have a rather limited view of things, lack in awareness
of their preferences, and label everything that doesnt confort to those as inherently bad and just a trend.
While i love exporation, there are some amazing linear games.
Pokemon (with the collecting and stuff) isnt the first franchise i would think off, but the first few generations did it reasonably well. (and even then i would argue that Gen 1 had a segment where it was kinda non linear?)
My problem is that the complexity of the routes and the exploration took a nosedive after Gen 5. Gen 6 i could accept, as in "ok, first 3D game, lot of rethinking, they still working on how to move from the grid...." but by gen 8 i was just doen with it, they clearly demonstrated being incapable of doing interesting linear routes.
Actually after Sw/Sh i was shure they are incapable of doing interesting level design whatsoever, only legends kinda revived my hope for a good mainline open world pokemon, so we will see how it is.
With Bayonetta (and DMC if they would try it) im not shure if it would benefit the games.
While i would like for some open world games to be inspired by the battle system of those,
the boss spectacles, the setpieces, the rating system, those dont really translate well into open world.
Also: please please please make a 3D Mega Man Zero game. compleeeetly off topic,
but a 3D entry to that franchise would be aaawesome.