What is your -least- favorite region and why?

[the-mirrors-wish]

I'm not asking explicitly about generations, but I am asking about regions. The two overlap a lot, don't they? You can take the question either way, really.

Unpopular opinion incoming!

I already know a lot of people are probably going to say Unova; I never quite understood everyone's disdain with that region. Then again, I'm pretty sure many may not understand why the Kanto Region is my least favorite. This isn't to say that I hated Kanto - I just didn't like it nearly as much. Here's why (based on the games and not the anime):

First off, I have a lot of issues with Kanto's navigability. I realize that a lot of this has to do with the fact that the developers were trying to keep you on track with where you needed to go for the story. I did not realize this as a child playing Leaf Green. It bothered me to no end that everything got blocked off at some point or another. It all starts in Cerulean, when, once you go down those ledges on Route 4, there is no way back to Mt. Moon until you get Fly. In addition, it was frustrating to have upwards of five possible directions you can go, only to find out that you can only go one. I know other regions do it, but I don't think any really do it to the extent that Kanto does it. At least, for whatever reason, Kanto's was the most obvious and frustrating of all the games, for me.

Secondly, and this one focuses more on generation than region: Overall, the Pokemon were not too great. There were a few gems - The starters, Arcanine, Ninetails, the Eeveelutions, and Dragonair... But, ultimately, Kanto, in comparison to other regions, just did not stand out to me in terms of Pokemon.

I think it goes without saying that my first Pokemon games were not Kanto games - my first game was actually Ruby. I guess my bias just lies in different places. This is probably why it makes me so mad when fans want to constantly holler that Gen 1 was the best in all regards and none of the other generations matter. That's fine if you think Gen 1 is the best - I understand! But it really gets under my skin when people just use Gen 1 to tear down other generations.

So, I ask the question: What is your least favorite, and why?

 

[Platinum_]

Personally, I would say Unova or Kanto.

Why? Because, well, many small reasons I guess xD I feel that way for Kanto, because I mean, it is the original, and a lot of people tend to focus more on the new and updated things. I am usually not one to swim along the mainstream, but to go from Kanto, simply battling Gym Leaders and the Elite 4/Champion, to adding Contests, better quality to the games (and show alike), adding more and better pokemon, more intriguing cities and towns, to now being able to change your outfit, choose out of multiple characters to suit you personally, and interact with your pokemon, flushes a lot of the old stuff away from attention.

It also, for me, has to do with the Anime. I am a big fan of it, and have watch it quite a lot through my childhood. The quality of the show, the vast pokemon, the new added types, the plot, and especially the character building is a large way of how I categorize my favorites to least liking. That's where Unova comes in. I mean, I adore Axew and some other pokemon, but the majority of the Pokemon, the characters (Iris in particular) just rub me the wrong way. But I have to come to respect the Unova Region for some of the new features they have brought.

All in all, I don't hate Kanto, it's just the age of it, I would say, bores me a bit. Quite the average person opinion, but I guess it is what it is

 

[iIncredibleAudrey]

Sinnoh. The anime just wasn't that appealing to me and the Pokemon are just kinda meh.

 

[Linkachu]

Unpopular opinion incoming!

I think this tagline could likely apply to my reply as well. XD

Focusing on just the main RPG series regions, I'd likely still have to answer this question the same as I always have: Johto is my least favourite region, specifically the Gen 2 version of it. While the Johto region has many very interesting landmarks within it, traversing the actual region often felt very suffocating to me. Too many of the region's earlier routes felt treed in with little leg room to explore. Even the most open area, the waters surrounding the Whirl Islands, ultimately felt closed in due to the fact that swimming out to Cianwood City left you with a dead end. Even the Kanto region, which also has many narrow routes, handled the idea of openness better due to the waters around Cinnabar Island connecting with the beach near Fuchsia City.

Admittedly, the HeartGold and SoulSilver version of the Johto region somewhat fixed this issue for me with the inclusion of routes 47 and 48. Not only is route 47 gorgeous in general, those two additional routes gave the swim to Cianwood deeper purpose and expanded Johto's exploration. For this reason Johto is still my least favourite region overall but not by nearly as much. At least I can appreciate it more now.

 

[Swampert "Beef Cake" Poke]

i hate Kanto! hate it! someone stole my Pokemon platinum version and tried to give me red version (i already had blue, it was my first game) and i spat on him! and his wretched game! and then i proceeded the next day to mug him and get my game back happy times it was back then

 

[Cugi]

my least is kanto it sucks its overrated the pokemon suck its just bad i dislike kanto

 

[AzureEdge]

I have a strong hatred for Jhoto. To this day, I have little clue why. It isn't the gym leaders, but I guess the whole connection to Kanto killed it. Kanto is too overrated, and Jhoto's nothing compared to that.

 

[ModasPro]

Well my least favorite region (NOT GAME) would be Kalos because Game Freak just didn't add enough Pokémon. I know that Kalos is based off of France, but to me the region was just plain and boring.

 

[#UmadOrNaw?]

My least favorite would be the infamous Black and White Games. I liked how they introduced moving sprites but for some reason the gameplay was just BORING! I am still not sure about the Pokemon... However, I never finished the game and my parents scolded me for wasting their money. ^-^

 

[KrystalSuicune]

My least favorite region had to be Unova, it didn't "feel" like the other games if ya get my drift? The story was overdramatic and the Pokemon were just "meh"
Sinnoh as well. Just didn't do it for me..

 

[sunflore]

It's a tie between Kanto and Kalos.

Kanto because of the Pokemon distribution. Because of the Snorlax, there were a lot of Pokemon that were inaccessible until the player was considerably far into the game.

Kalos...I just didn't like at all. I don't know why, I just hated it.

 

[OnePiecefan11]

I would have to say my least favorite is Kanto. The anime is okay but I'm going to mostly talk about the main games. Blue version being my first game, I can now look back and see how BROKEN and GLITCHY it is. For example, Psychic types had absolutely no weakness and the special stats were combined into one. Moves like Focus Energy did the opposite of what it was suppose to do. Instead of raising your chance of getting critical hits, it decreases it. Also if you have a Pokémon like Dugtrio or Persian that learned slash, that move's critical hit ratio is raised by 99.6% which is insane. To top it off; you have the Mew glitch, Missingno., and others I bet I haven't seen. As for the Pokémon themselves, they're mostly simple designs. There are good Pokémon though such as Kabutops, Rhydon, Arcanine, Ninetales etc. but then you have the bad ones like Beedrill, Muk, Farfetch'd etc. So really, I don't hate Kanto but it's very flawed looking back at it.

 

[Rinoa Heartilly]

Sinnoh, Sinnoh, Sinnoh.
There was nothing memorable or enjoyable about it for me.
Sure, I didn't hate the game. I have my Pokémon favourites.
...But it felt less like a game and more of a chore. A commitment rather than a game.

 

[Swampert "Beef Cake" Poke]

Sinnoh, Sinnoh, Sinnoh.
There was nothing memorable or enjoyable about it for me.
Sure, I didn't hate the game. I have my Pokémon favourites.
...But it felt less like a game and more of a chore. A commitment rather than a game.

all pokemon games are a commitment, they all contain some form of boring battles, routes, and towns. AND THAT FREAKING GRINDING! IT'S MORE OF A STAPLE THAN PIKACHU BY NOW!

 

[Rinoa Heartilly]

all pokemon games are a commitment, they all contain some form of boring battles, routes, and towns. AND THAT FREAKING GRINDING! IT'S MORE OF A STAPLE THAN PIKACHU BY NOW!

What I meant by commitment is that it was like signing up for a college course. For example; say you took on hospitality management because you enjoy catering the bar, waiting tables, studying wines or maybe helping in the back of house with the chef. However, you need to study the financial part of that course as well. It kills you inside to touch the thing but you have to do it anyway. It's long, boring and tedious that takes up many hours of your time but you made a commitment to that course. You need to take on the whole series, not just "A" and "C" without the "B". Being a fan to me by definition is accepting the series with its positives and its negatives. I hate it when people have an opinion on something they "dislike" when they've never actually even tried it, y'know? It would be very unfair.

I played Diamond through to the end and then again with Platinum.
Once each, then ever touched it again - I just couldn't bear it. I can't stand Sinnoh as a region.

Sinnoh was like finance to me. I loathed the thing and the only thing that really saved gen. IV for me was Platinum.
Platinum was much more smoother for me but it didn't really change my feelings or experience with it.

Just my opinion and personal experience. The game had its good points too as do all of them.

 

[Swampert "Beef Cake" Poke]

What I meant by commitment is that it was like signing up for a college course. For example; say you took on hospitality management because you enjoy catering the bar, waiting tables, studying wines or maybe helping in the back of house with the chef. However, you need to study the financial part of that course as well. It kills you inside to touch the thing but you have to do it anyway. It's long, boring and tedious that takes up many hours of your time but you made a commitment to that course. You need to take on the whole series, not just "A" and "C" without the "B". Being a fan to me by definition is accepting the series with its positives and its negatives. I hate it when people have an opinion on something they "dislike" when they've never actually even tried it, y'know? It would be very unfair.

I played Diamond through to the end and then again with Platinum.
Once each, then ever touched it again - I just couldn't bear it. I can't stand Sinnoh as a region.

Sinnoh was like finance to me. I loathed the thing and the only thing that really saved gen. IV for me was Platinum.
Platinum was much more smoother for me but it didn't really change my feelings or experience with it.

Just my opinion and personal experience. The game had its good points too as do all of them.

i can already tell your knowledge far surpasses mine, i won't argue with you.

 

[MegaBlastoise15]

I never got much enjoyment out of Sinnoh. The region itself was pretty bland, the Pokémon weren't all that impressive(My exceptions being Infernape, Garchomp, and Giratina), and the story was passable at best.

 

[KoL]

Sinnoh, by a mile, is the worst region in any Pokemon game to exist both before and since, and I honestly believe there will never be another region to surpass how awful this one is.

The first - and biggest - problem I have with Sinnoh is Mt. Coronet. Most other regions are quite happy to let you roam around relatively freely without needing Fly to get anywhere in any kind of practical manner, but Sinnoh having Mt. Coronet sat in the middle of it like the foul-smelling fat guy you have to sit next to on your airplane trip to a region that doesn't suck is enough alone to make it the worst region of the lot. Granted, the Eon Flute and Battle Box would null this issue if they existed in Sinnoh, but they didn't, and having to go to a PC to grab my Fly slave every single time I dare want to go to a different town gets very annoying very quickly. Combine that with the utterly awful route leading up to Snowpoint City that decides being slow, boring and practically blind from obnoxious and shit snow pixels is a fun experience for all, Defog's existence as the worst HM in the entire Pokemon franchise's history, the completely forgettable Regional 'Dex and the fact that Sinnoh is just generally bland and boring beyond that to me makes me wonder how I ever liked Gen IV at all.

Sinnoh is dreadful and Gen IV sucks. That is all.

 

[Vaporeonn]

I'm gonna have to say Sinnoh. It seems like it's one of those things that you either love or hate, and for me, sadly, I didn't like it.. at all.

Lets start with the soundtrack
The music was just.... forgetable. I can easily remember the tunes from Gen 1, Gen 2,3,5, heck, I can even remember a few from Gen 6, and I wasn't a big fan of those games/the region either. I feel like the music adds to the whole experience of playing a Pokemon game and catching them all, and if the sound doesn't appeal to me, I don't feel like playing the game as much as if I actually liked the music. And as much as I tried to remember at least one song from the D/P/Pt games... I couldn't. And, it's just a minus for me.

Now, the Pokemon.
I'm not saying they're bad (they were), but they were just... more goofy-ish than the previous Pokemon. I mean, lets just compare Rattata to Bidoof, Purugly to Presian, Starly to Pidgey, and then you'll see what I mean. Also, too much legendaries. 14 of them to be exact. Kanto had 5, Johto 6, and Hoenn was pushing it with a whooping 10. But Sinnoh had 14. The most out of all, and I just feel like it's too much. The beggining of me not caring about legendaries anymore..

Oh, now, the plot.
I don't remember it. At all. I even forgot what Team Galactic wanted to do. I just remember not doing anything but challenging Gyms for a while.

And last, but certanly the most annoying thing:

*THUD* ....that's all I need to say



Overall, Sinnoh was forgettable. I used the word way too much, but it just describes it best. There are more things that I don't like about the games, but I'll leave it on this, for now.

 

[The Blue Blur]

Sinnoh without a doubt. Most charcters I forgot in a second, (Except Barry 'cause I loved his personality) and the Pokemon wern't the best. Some pokemon were goodbut most were either dumb, bad or forgettable.

 

[Beten]

I'm also gonna have to play the Kanto card. It's okay, but, looking back to Gen I, it was atrocious. It also had very little plot, which, while I didn't give ten 'karps about it back when I was young, is pretty important to me nowadays. Gen III fixed a lot of the bugs and Pokemon power distribution (that is, no type appears to be quite as OP as it was in Gen I), but it still added very little in terms of the plot department. Grinding is also a pain in Kanto, and you frequently have to try and seek out trainers you haven't yet fought to eek out even a decent amount of experience (thankfully, the VS Seeker helped change that a bit in Gen III). However, what always frustrates me about Kanto, no matter which generation, is the fact that your rival is an insufferable prick and you just wanna deck him for it. Sure, Barry is annoying with his inability to sit still or watch where he's going, and Hugh's line about "feeling [his] rage" gets tiresome, but neither of them is as big of a bother to me as Blue/Green/Gary is.

Add to all of this the fact that nobody will stop praising it like it was the only good generation/region (spoilers: Unova obliterates Kanto in every single way besides rivals, because Cheren and N are also insufferable), and you give me reason enough to consider it my least favorite.

 

[bubblyberet]

Before I say anything, I'd like to say that I'm a little relieved to see that not many people said Unova was their least favorite--oddly enough, I expected to dislike it, but it actually impressed me.

Truthfully, I do agree with many people on this thread that Sinnoh was the least impressive region. I especially agree with the point made by Vaporeonn regarding the soundtrack of Diamond/Pearl/Platinum. I wish I could explain why, but the soundtrack is very forgettable. None of the motifs stand out in my mind; I don't remember any. And I've played through D/P a couple times, but looking back, I didn't particularly like any of the music. All the other regions had soundtracks that boasted a couple good tracks (if I can say, Johto's Cianwood City theme is gorgeous, I find Unova's Team Plasma's theme to be really fun, and the Hoenn Rival Battle theme stands out to me in the best way.) Perhaps the memorability of Kanto's soundtrack come from it being the original region, but even without nostalgic bias, it stands out more than Sinnoh's. Even the recently released Kalos region doesn't sound so... I'd say, generic? Not to say Sinnoh had awful music, some was nice and pretty, but like Vaporeonn said--it's not memorable.

Secondly, the plot set-up and run-through of the region confused me when I first played it. The geographic layout of Sinnoh made playing through it laborious. Like Johto, Kanto, and even Kalos, there was a lot of 'meeting in the middle,' but the difference is that the said regions had their center based on a city rather than a Mountain (although Johto was a little tightly packed, it still had a sense of fluidity once one surfs back to Olivine from Cianwood.) Yes, there was a bit of circling around Hearthrome, Veilstone, and Pastoria, but they weren't exactly centered or emphasized as much geographically than the mountain? And I understand, Mt. Coronet was an important part of the plot, but its placement is just so inconvenient, and I feel that it really ruptures the map layout. Speaking of ruptured layout--is it it just me, or is it weird that Crasher Wake and Maylene are interchangeable in battling order? It made me feel uncomfortable. And having just one lone city all the way up North with tedious blizzard routes in between? It's just an annoyance.

Having said all that, I believe the weakest point of Sinnoh was plot execution. Of all the teams, Team Galactic doesn't stand out to me; I hardly remember their motives without looking it up. Apparently, they wanted to recreate the universe from scratch? The problem is, that's a big motive, and it should stand out from the other teams, but I think due to weak execution, it just seemed, I don't know, bland? Probably because it was the first main Pokemon game on a DS, Nintendo may have wanted to incorporate a thicker plot with better effects. Still, it was a slightly awkward story, and even then, the story did little to nothing about the excess legendary pokemon outside the main plot. They were just... there. Hoenn and Unova are responsible of this too, but they definitely weren't as excessive as Sinnoh. Alongside the weird side story of Team Galactic, there were just little idiosyncratic things with Sinnoh that didn't sit right with me: the altered contests, the weird thing about putting seals on poke balls (the whole process was annoying,) the odd introduction of Defog and Rock Climb (and Defog isn't even a dire necessity?), the lack of fire types that was only fixed in Platinum, the standard safari being replaced by a bog, the Johto-esque insertions of 3rd stage evolutions (while Johto inserted loads of baby pokemon,) and the generic feel of a good portion of the Pokemon designs.

I don't mean to sound like I'm slamming Sinnoh, because every region had its flaws and appeals differently to people. I just had to express that out of all the regions, I found it the least enjoyable.

 

[Lost Wolf]

I have got to say, it's Johto. It was just very confusing, and i just....it's hard to explain. I just dislike it.

 

[Cugi]

I have got to say, it's Johto. It was just very confusing, and i just....it's hard to explain. I just dislike it.

I like johto

 

[RYOSHIROGANE]

Now, having read the whole thread, while I agree with certain opinions I'd say I'm too infatuated with Pokémon as a whole to really elect a region I dislike.
I haven't played on Kalos yet since I currently don't own a 3DS so I didn't purchase X as I intended back then. Thus being said, my opinions are limited from Kanto to Unova... well, enough babbling.

Back to the "I love Pokémon so much it's hard to pick something I really dislike", I have to say the region I like the least would be Sinnoh. And why's that so? Firstly, because it's the only region where it was legitimately hard for me to form a team. The new Pokémon weren't that appealing at all for me.
People tend to say Gen I is/was the best because the Pokémon designs were better and I don't think that's true since almost all of them are very simple in comparison to the majority of Pokémon we have today. Simple in the "not so creative" meaning, even if in some situations simple is best. That's not a bad thing. Pokémon grew in concept with the generations, and we had more elaborate designs as the time passed on, but with Sinnoh I just felt... like, most of the designs weren't that good for me. They somehow looked simpler than Gen I's Pokémon, and not only that: they looked too silly. Too childish, if I may put it this way.

Secondly, what I like about Pokémon most are the mysteries surrounding the Pokémon world and how lots of things in the games relate to true legends and stuff, there's too much thought put into it and I admire that a lot. It makes the Pokémon lore very interesting for me up to this day. In comparison to prior games' regions (and later, Unova), I felt Sinnoh had a very weak mystery/legend plot. I recognize Palkia and Dialga's importance, and I was thrilled to travel around Distortion World to battle Giratina (in fact, it was the only time I felt thrilled about unraveling a Pokémon mystery in Gen IV, sadly). But whenever I started to feel like "wow, that's it!", it all ended abruptly. It feels like they were poorly planned.
All the Mesprit/Uxie/Azelf thing turned boring as soon as they were out of Team Galactic's hands. Catching them felt like a boring chore, and I didn't feel like capturing Mesprit because I couldn't care less. The story behind those Pokémon is interesting, but it just didn't click the trainer in me.
About Cresselia and Darkrai: they're event Pokémon, but they just seemed disconnected from the game. It felt like "oh hey, I'm having bad dreams, weird huh, I don't even know you but take this thing and travel to somewhere, I swear it's related to stuff! Like, mystery stuff.". Makes sense? No? That's what I meant.
I know random people give us stuff related to legendaries Pokémon in every single game and out of nowhere, but in Sinnoh it felt plain ridiculous. And I'm not even gonna get started about Arceus - the, supposedly, god of all Pokémon which had no major importance even though it's a freaking god. For the first time I felt like there were too many legendaries without a proper cause, like they were just there 'because'.
About Team Galactic, most of what @planethelium said applies since I agree with what they said. Team Galactic had a terrifying goal but due to lack of proper plot thinking, it just seemed bland and didn't strike us as something we've got to prevent from happening at all costs. The 'evilest evil' didn't feel evil enough and was just there - what affected the feeling of importance of Palkia and Dialga too.

And Barry. I seriously thought he was annoying but I'm torn. While I think he's a good-hearted trainer (only a little too energetic), in which I don't dislike him... Somehow, he annoyed the crap outta me. I think he was the only rival that ever made me think "ugh, here he comes AGAIN".

Lastly, I'd like to say I didn't hate it. It just felt weaker in plot and whatnot in comparison to the other regions. There's actually many things I like about Sinnoh. My favorite gym leader of all time (Roark, the rock!), some very good Pokémon, the Distortion World itself... the list goes on. But as many stated, it wasn't as memorable as the others; some parts felt boring and lacked action (grinding doesn't count) plot-wise speaking.
Welp, I talk too much.

 

[icyraven93]

I'm gonna have to go with Unova. Sure the soundtrack was good, but I just didn't like the Pokemon. There were a few good ones, such as the Snivy line, the Oshawott line, the Joltik line, and the Litwick line, but the rest felt forgettable to me.

As for Kalos, I haven't even played a Kalos game yet, so I can't entirely pass judgement on that region yet.

 

[PokeMario]

Any spin off region like Orre. Oh, and Kalos isn't as disappointing and "easy" as it seems. Just remove the EXP. Share once all your Pokemon have evolved into their fullest. Then, you'll get ready for a challenge at the end of the game.

 

[NonAnalogue]

Honestly, my least favorite region is Hoenn. At the time, it was cool and exciting - they did a lot with the graphical upgrades possible on the GBA - but especially after playing through ORAS, Hoenn has not aged well at all. I know IGN gets a lot of flak for their "too much water" review, but honestly that's a fair criticism. Water routes in Pokemon are nine times out of ten the most frustrating ones to get through. Allow me to explain:

Visually, they're boring - it's almost always just water with some rocks here and there - and they don't have a lot of diversity in terms of wild Pokemon or in terms of trainers. Let's take one of my favorite routes in Hoenn as an example - the route after Fortree. It's long, yes, but there's a lot going on - lots of different kinds of trainers, lots of different wild Pokemon, and it's also visually diverse too, with the ponds, the low and high grass, ledges, trees, so on and so forth. In contrast, most of the water routes are dull and bland, with very few different wild Pokemon and most of the trainers using only water types.

In terms of the map itself, the water routes also fall short. most routes in Pokemon do a good job of guiding you to the next town, while also concealing secrets here and there to reward those who venture off the beaten path. Most water routes do not do this. They're generally just wide stretches of water. If you want to make sure you end up where you're supposed to go in Hoenn's water routes - or, heaven forbid, fight all the trainers - you're forced to just zigzag across the water, slowly making progress here and there. It's boring at best and frustrating at worst.

That brings me to my final point - the encounter rate. This is a problem I also have with caves. Yes, thematically, it makes sense for Pokemon to appear at random in water and in caves, but mechanically, it's annoying - and it gets worse when you have to zig-zag across the water to get to where you're supposed to go. Yes, you can use repels, but if they're going to give you a workaround for the problem, they might as well just make the problem less annoying to begin with. Just off the top of my head, they could do what they did for the underwater sections - underwater, you don't get attacked unless you're in the kelp, just like in most routes. It makes it far less obnoxious to navigate.

Now, all of these are not problems unique to Hoenn. Kanto and Johto have the same problem, though mercifully the developers seem to be heading away from this design choice, since these sorts of water routes are rare in Sinnoh, nearly non-existent in Unova, and I can't think of a single one in Kalos. However, these problems are way more noticeable in Hoenn simply because Hoenn has so many water routes. Something like a third of a map is water. You spend just about the last fourth of the game in these routes. And when a fourth of the exploration you need to do in a region is annoying and frustrating, it's bad news.

My second least favorite is Sinnoh, but that's just because its art direction isn't great and it really didn't make the jump to 3D that well. I think Sinnoh would actually benefit the most from a remake.

 

[PokeMario]

Honestly, my least favorite region is Hoenn. At the time, it was cool and exciting - they did a lot with the graphical upgrades possible on the GBA - but especially after playing through ORAS, Hoenn has not aged well at all. I know IGN gets a lot of flak for their "too much water" review, but honestly that's a fair criticism. Water routes in Pokemon are nine times out of ten the most frustrating ones to get through. Allow me to explain:

Visually, they're boring - it's almost always just water with some rocks here and there - and they don't have a lot of diversity in terms of wild Pokemon or in terms of trainers. Let's take one of my favorite routes in Hoenn as an example - the route after Fortree. It's long, yes, but there's a lot going on - lots of different kinds of trainers, lots of different wild Pokemon, and it's also visually diverse too, with the ponds, the low and high grass, ledges, trees, so on and so forth. In contrast, most of the water routes are dull and bland, with very few different wild Pokemon and most of the trainers using only water types.

In terms of the map itself, the water routes also fall short. most routes in Pokemon do a good job of guiding you to the next town, while also concealing secrets here and there to reward those who venture off the beaten path. Most water routes do not do this. They're generally just wide stretches of water. If you want to make sure you end up where you're supposed to go in Hoenn's water routes - or, heaven forbid, fight all the trainers - you're forced to just zigzag across the water, slowly making progress here and there. It's boring at best and frustrating at worst.

That brings me to my final point - the encounter rate. This is a problem I also have with caves. Yes, thematically, it makes sense for Pokemon to appear at random in water and in caves, but mechanically, it's annoying - and it gets worse when you have to zig-zag across the water to get to where you're supposed to go. Yes, you can use repels, but if they're going to give you a workaround for the problem, they might as well just make the problem less annoying to begin with. Just off the top of my head, they could do what they did for the underwater sections - underwater, you don't get attacked unless you're in the kelp, just like in most routes. It makes it far less obnoxious to navigate.

Now, all of these are not problems unique to Hoenn. Kanto and Johto have the same problem, though mercifully the developers seem to be heading away from this design choice, since these sorts of water routes are rare in Sinnoh, nearly non-existent in Unova, and I can't think of a single one in Kalos. However, these problems are way more noticeable in Hoenn simply because Hoenn has so many water routes. Something like a third of a map is water. You spend just about the last fourth of the game in these routes. And when a fourth of the exploration you need to do in a region is annoying and frustrating, it's bad news.

My second least favorite is Sinnoh, but that's just because its art direction isn't great and it really didn't make the jump to 3D that well. I think Sinnoh would actually benefit the most from a remake.

They fixed the water encounter rate in ORAS.

 

[NonAnalogue]

That's well and good, but they notably did not fix any of those other problems.

 

[theshadedmistress]

My least favourite region is Hoenn. I can't really express exactly why I hate Hoenn, so I'll just nitpick a few things...

As The Blue Avenger said, the water routes were boring at best and frustrating at worst. I'm always tricked into exploring every inch when it comes to pokemon games; making sure I've battled every trainer and collected every item. But in water routes it's just annoying zigzagging to this end and that making sure I didn't miss that one trainer that, if I find him later on, would be so pathetic and make his pokemon's experience seem null. Hoenn was simply more abundant with water routes than the other regions.

Also, about half of the pokemon introduced in Hoenn never quite appealed to me. While some, like Mightyena, the Treecko line, Salamence, and a few others are really great pokemon, a lot of others simply seemed lackluster to me... It literally took me an hour and a half to form a team out of pokemon that appealed to me at least a bit, on my SECOND playthrough of Omega Ruby.

Overall, I just felt 'meh' traveling through Hoenn the first time. Maybe it's just because I never played R/S/E and only OR/AS? Maybe I just don't care for tropical locales? I mean yes, there are really good features in OR/AS, and I always feel sympathy for Wally, but other than that I never felt any triumph during my journey. When beating it, I only felt “Okay. I beat another Pokemon game.” It's basically like finishing breakfast, “Alright, I drank my coffee and ate my toast. Now to carry on with the day.”

The only word I seem to instinctively say on my thoughts of Hoenn are 'meh'. I just didn't enjoy it as much as a lot of other pokemon fans. Like I said, it has it's good points, and I'll still keep playing OR/AS - I just simply won't enjoy exploring Hoenn as much as the other five regions.

 

[Starfall]

I personally dislike Ruby and Sapphire. The starters were not my favourites, for they only stayed cute for 1 evolution. I personally like cute starters XD. And too much water. (dontkillmeeeee)

 

[EmeraldKal]

I found Unova to be a bit bland. Sure, it was diverse, but the Pokemon designs were a bit meh for the most part, and I found it to be dull to play through. I enjoyed it, just not as much as any of the other regions I played through.

 

[Aura]

It's a fairly close call between Sinnoh and Kalos for me personally, however Kalos had a few moments where the game became so stupid it was actually funny which saves it from my least favourite region. So a lot of these points can also apply generally to Kalos as well, but they just aren't executed quite as badly most of the time.

My biggest problem with Sinnoh is Team Galactic. I'm the kind of person who judges how much I like things by the story of the games, and the whole Galactic story line is just poorly executed. I could see something like this working - having a small group of people so frustrated with the current state of humanity who decide to try and rewrite the world rather than fix the problems sounds pretty cool in my mind, and could bring up a lot of interesting moral questions. However, almost nobody in Team Galactic actually understands what they're trying to do, which is complete insanity. Maybe this is naive of me, but my mind rejects the idea of people being so stupid to sign themselves over to a group while having no understanding of what that group is trying to achieve, and actively being aware of this fact. In actual cults, to get people involved they often don't really let on about what the group is actually about to newcomers, or at least present themselves as being milder than they actually are, then slowly get them so involved that they're socially or emotionally dependent on the group's existence before slowly feeding them their more extreme views. But none of the grunts have any idea of what they're trying to achieve. Having a bunch of completely bland admins didn't help things either. The entire situation completely breaks my willing suspension of disbelief.

Another big problem I have is pacing. The distance between the second and third gym is just too far in my mind to feel satisfying. The gyms give you a sense of progression and accomplishment throughout the story, and I find having them unevenly paced is less satisfying over all. Its not as bad when gyms are close together, because at least you're not dragging things out, but here its just painful. Although travelling around Sinnoh in generally is pretty painful - I think there's probably only a handful of routes I actually like. Having Mt. Coronet where it is probably doesn't help either. Admittedly this was fixed a little bit in Platinum, but the point still stands for the other games.

The lack of diversity in the Pokemon available really gets frustrating, especially with the lack of fire types. Having a mere two options is really not okay, especially if one of them is from an older generation. But what's more annoying is the fact that a lot of the newer Pokemon aren't available unless you have someone to trade with or until the postgame. Oh hey guys, look at these two new Eeveelutions, aren't they cool? Oh btw you don't get Eevee until after you beat the game. Oh hey guys, look at this cool ghost/dark type, wouldn't that be fun to train? Oh btw you can't get it unless you complete this annoying minigame, which is going to be downright impossible to get if you don't have heaps of friends with the game. Just the unavailability of a lot of Pokemon meant I never could use them, which further limited my options of who to have on a team. ... I could go on, but I think I've ranted enough for one day honestly >>

 

[Nateriety]

I might get a few glares for this, but out of every generation/ region, I'd have to put Hoenn as my absolute least favorite of them all.

Now, this isn't to say that I hated Hoenn. A lot of good things came from that region for me: my favorite Electric type in Manectric, my favorite Dragon type in Flygon, the three starters are great, and the legendaries of Hoenn are some of the best. Not to mention the music is Absol-luteley fantastic! (Yes, I made a pun. On that note, Absol came from Hoenn, and he's one of my top Dark types).

But what ranks it as my least favorite region is that it's just a little boring to play through. It doesn't grab or excite me the same way, say, Sinnoh or Johto or even Kalos do. Most of the routes and towns in the game aren't very memorable for me, most of the Pokemon outside of the ones I've listed (and probably a few I'm forgetting) aren't all that great in my opinion, and the villain Teams Aqua & Magma just aren't interesting enough for me. Their goals seems pretty bizarre, too. I mean, terraforming?

Also, although everyone else has said it, the amount of water is a drawback. Not only for the encounters (so many Tentacool!), but because it slows the pace of the game to a crawl. It's not quite as slow as Gen IV Surf speed, and having a Sharpedo in ORAS does speed it up a bit, but it's still an issue.

ORAS, despite looking prettier and adding plenty of new features, still didn't quite make Hoenn jump up anywhere in my list of regions. The Legendary hunting in the post-game is super thrilling, yes, but the rest of the game is still just sort of...meh to me.

 

[GalacticDeg]

Definitely Sinnoh.

I know NOTHING about that region, except the Pokemon, which are easily forgotten. Not even the Gym Leaders, E4 or Towns and Cities. However, I've never played any games Gen 5 or lower. The good thing about Sinnoh is that it introduced a lot of really cool Legendaries. Also, it has a really forgettable Pokemon, lots of Poketubers probably forget to add, Shellos/Gastrodon.

 

[GalacticDeg]

Oh and also I dislike the stupid Side Game Regions (thanks for reminding me PokeMario)

 

[Peachy Ace]

Hoenn! One Reason. Theres too much Water!
#Team Magma