Let me put it to you this way about map design:
I've played pretty much every Metroid game to date (excluding Metroid Prime Hunters because the controls were just so hideous I couldn't even play it). Metroid itself is about 90% backtracking. That's one of the main features of the games. Exploration, backtracking, collecting new stuff to better backtrack with. I find them great fun, they are among my favorite series of video games ever (with only a single game in the franchise ever making me angry and only a single one of them being "average at best").
Here's where Metroid succeeds and RSE fails in "map design". In Metroid, no matter how much backtracking you've done and how long you've left it... It's clear what your next objective is or even what you were doing when you left off months (or sometimes years, as I've discovered with the Metroid Prime 1 and 2 games on Hard Mode) ago. Some of the newer games helpfully tell you what you're supposed to do next, if you aren't sure. However, the map filling in as you go along also helps quite a bit. On top of which, much of the backtracking is to areas with things you couldn't access before, so when you step back out into the world, you can easily see why you were there. In RSE... Well, nothing exists to help you out. I suspect that this is the reason Leaf Green and Fire Red (which came out directly after RSE) have the "here's what you did last time!" entries the minute you loaded up your save file. Obviously the backtracking and getting lost was a huge problem in those games, so they fixed it with the next two games. After that, they made the backtracking almost non-existent in their games so it was always clear where you were supposed to be going.
RSE... Well, let's just say that when I picked up my Sapphire Version two months ago to play it and finish it... I had no clue what I was doing and had to go to the internet. Cue two hours spent on the internet and with my game running down the checklist of things I had done and still needed to do. I had a Kyogre, but still needed to beat up Team Cliché and had three Gyms left. I didn't have access to the Team Cliché area and didn't know what I was supposed to do. I tried to visit one of the Gyms I needed and found I didn't have access to the ocean. It was frustrating to the Nth degree. Then, we cue up my Emerald Version that I played shortly afterwards. I was in the tree city, but couldn't figure out what I was supposed to do. I couldn't get access to the Gym and I needed the scope thing. So, I was checking every human being in town to try to figure out who would give me the Scope. I backtracked to try to find the Scope from a random human being along the way. I went back to talk to my Professor to see if that's where I get it. You know what I found out? You get the scope when you try to bypass the town. Twenty minutes online solved my dilemma of a "not hinted at" and "not intuitive" problem in Pokémon. Never before or since has a Pokémon game relied on the player simply giving up out of frustration for not being able to access the Gym and then given you the key the moment you gave up. Any other time the games have done this, they've told you right away that you need to come back later, or it's been made obvious you need to come back later. Most of the time, they even tell you what you need to come back with. RSE? Yeah, they just expect you to get mad, take 5 steps out of town, and then walk back into town. Because, you know, poor design dictates this. Heaven forbid you get the Scope in town by the guy who gives it to you. Oh no, it has to be programmed in AFTER YOU LEAVE town. I wouldn't be so angry with it, if it had been "come back after the next town when you get the scope" like with the Silph Scope. Oh no, it's "oh, what? you walked 5 steps out of town? Here's the scope you're looking for! BACK YOU GO!". If you're going to give it out so close to where I need it, why not BEFORE I need it? Or, better yet, after I've explored inside the town a bit and found out what I needed?
Seriously, RSE needed a ton of help in the map and director's department. Someone should have spotted this major issues before release and fixed them. If I was running the company, I would have fired them both for such gross incompetence.
Also, if you have to go to the internet to figure out where you are and what you're supposed to do... You've designed the game poorly. I'm not saying a game should spell out every single detail of what you're supposed to do... I'm not even saying games that are "Myst" hard are poorly designed (as all the challenges can be figured out within the game itself without having to resort to a guide of any kind). However, when the best solution to getting lost in RSE is to "look it up online"... That's when you know the game is poorly programmed. Basically, if you have to go online to figure out what to do because the game doesn't provide you with the information (or the means to find the information), it's poorly programmed.
Honestly, I'll pick up the new versions of the games anyway (I love all things Pokémon, so why not?). I am just not looking forward to the absolute mess that was the RSE games. I'd be very grateful if they removed all the backtracking (like they did in Heart Gold and Soul Silver... a lot of that backtracking was removed).
Also, I'm pretty sure it's illegal for a fishing boat to park on a public resort beach to let you off or to see if you want to go back. Thanks for making me go this way instead of the normal way a player would go in these games! Now I get to backtrack two routes I was on after the second badge once I get to the sixth badge! You know, if I remember. Or, you know... Care at that point. Especially when one of the routes is "one way only" and if you mess it up, you get to backtrack to it again! All for some TMs and not even a Legendary.
Hooray.
