It's called the convenience of the main character. He always lives in the world's smallest town. Also lives where the weakest monsters live, and happens to go on his journey in order throughout the world based on the strength of the monsters, but that's a whole other hero convenient coincidence.

Yeah, but Pallet Town was at least 3-4 Individual Buildings. And you had to go through a slightly winding stretch of tall grass to reach the next big town. Vaniville is a single building and the path to Aquacorde is a short uninterrupted straight passageway. Like... a hallway.

There is no Vaniville. Only Aquacorde. XD
Vaniville is the Aquacode Apartment Complex. XD

Pallet was 3 buildings, but one was the professor's lab which implies Pallet has some level of importance even if it's just "This is where that goofy old dude lives." XD And it is as you said otherwise. XD After all, there aren't even any pokemon on Route 1. It's just..a heavily disappointing straight-shot to some sort of sittin' pavilion. XD

nice to see the other half of laph's avatar finaly though there slightly out of sync
adn you have a point

Yup! :3 Though, granted, you can see the two side-by-side on either of our main pages. XD The sync just requires some refreshes until it's close enough. :3

It's like the designers were told, "Make the beginning of the game as generic and quick as possible." It feels like they just wanted to get you started on your quest a bit too quickly and abruptly. There wasn't really any easing into it like in some of the past games.

Well on a design standpoint I must agree, getting all the good stuff at the start was definitely a smart choice, it didn't feel like a slog like the other games, in fact I actually swapped Pokemon out cause leveling and finding out certain things like having a certain type in your party got them to evolve.

I gotta say that portion is commendable, So far my only qualms I can find is the mega evolution mechanic really needs to be Toned back a tad, or just give it to every fully evolved Pokemon.

Mega Evolutions just break the game. All they do is give access to uber tier pokemon that aren't nearly as difficult to get as legendaries, or give temporary evolutions to weaker pokemon that just outright need normal evolutions instead, like Mawile and Medicham.

The Mega Evolution mechanic would've been a lot better if they used it as a means of adding depth to the game's strategy, rather than just making overpowered pokemon. Not necessarily make the pokemon better, but rather different. Maybe a sweeper like Lucario becomes a tank, or a pokemon that's normally weak against fighting suddenly becomes immune right before the opponent's eyes by becoming a ghost-type. Things like that, while keeping the pokemon's base stats relatively the same (perhaps slightly higher since you are giving up your items lot, after all) would've been a much more creative and enjoyable way to apply something like Mega Evolutions. It would also give reason to perhaps postpone mega evolving, rather than just automatically choosing to fire it off immediately.

Well, at least the new Pokemon: The Origin series showed that gym leaders pick different pokemon based on their opponents strength.

I've always imagined they do that ever since Gold and Silver. Like they have several pokemon to use based on the strength (levels) of the challenger's pokemon, which they gauge by watching them battle the other trainers in the gym.

Speaking of, it would be cool if they made a game where you could more freely choose which order you battle the gyms, and their levels, evolutionary stages, moves, etc. are based on how many badges you have.

Yeah I got so annoyed in XY with all the "You can go this way yet, there's <construction, rampaging pokemon, power is out, etc>" stuff... guh...

Yeah. Those were all just lazy excuses to keep you going where they wanted without relying on HMs restricting your progress instead.

This tigermouse's thoughts exactly. :3

hehe I say you covered this game really well :P

I've always thought of the "towns" in rpgs as more of a compression of the buildings of significance, and not actually representing the size of the town. The town is actually a lot bigger, but you can only see buildings which matter.
Kinda weird, but that's how my brain compensates villages being two or three buildings, towns being up to five buildings; and cities having maybe 15 buildings, some with no doors, and usually no sign of a city hall, police station, hospital, grocery store, school, or any of the other buildings a functional city would need.

Well, with a name like that what did you expect?