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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Undrave" data-source="post: 8052241" data-attributes="member: 7015698">In the older Pokémon games, HM moves work a lot like abilities in Metroid in that they open up the overworld map and you unlock them from progressing the story. In the Hoenn games in particular you have Cut, to chop down specific trees, Rock Smash to break cracked boulders, Strength to push boulders around (mostly for block pushing puzzles), Fly to take you back to places you've been, but the three more important ones are Surf, Waterfall and Dive.Hoenn is (in)famous for being covered in water. It's theme is 'Land VS Sea' so about half the map is water area. Surf allows you to traverse water, Waterfall lets you climb waterfalls and Dive, if it's not obvious, lets you dive underwater in certain segment of the ocean.HM moves are also used throughout the game to open up shortcuts that were previously unusable, which is useful because you don't get to use Fly until you've defeated 6 of the game's 8 Gym Leaders so it takes a while.In addition, you have two bikes available to you: the Mach Bike and the Acro Bike. The Mach Bike is fast and lets you ride up sandy slopes that make you slip otherwise, and the Acro Bike lets you hop and ride on narrow elevated rails that (for some reason) exist in parts of the map.Also, there's a desert covered in a permanent sandstorm that you can't explore until you gain goggles from progressing the story. It's mostly a short cut to avoid a cave system, but if you go off the main path you can find a fossil that you can have revived into a Pokémon. Among other things.Throughout your journey you'll find water areas or just small bodies of water doting the map. Almost EVERY single one of them give you something if you go back to it once you have the Surf HM.One BRILLIANT set piece is the abandoned ship! Early in the game you need to take a boat to reach your next destination (you can charter the boat after rescuing the old sailor's Wingull from the bad guys) and as you navigate you catch a glimpse of a beached ship, crashed against the rocks. If you go back there later when you have Surf (an entirely optional thing to do even) you'll find trainers there and a couple of items... but you can't explore ALL of it until you get Dive and can go through a submerged passage.Some of the diving segment in the oceans hide rare Pokémon, rare items, items you can trade for useful services, and some of them allow you to pass through rock barriers into other segment of the over world water route.What you'll find in those hidden nooks and crannies dotting the map will vary. Two common ones in Hoenn are Berry Trees and Secret Base spots. Hoenn introduced the concept of berry farming (while previously you could only harvest berries from predetermined tree, berries are useful held items that Pokémon can make use of, on their own, in battle). By planting a berry and watering the crop you can make more of the useful berries, and some of the rarer ones were hidden in those little out of the way nooks.The game also had this 'secret base' system where you could use a special move when next to a specific terrain feature and open up an indoor space for yourself that you could decorate (giving you decoration to collect, including ones you could only get through specific achievements). If you connected to another player, your secret base would appear on their overworked and they could go visit it! There, they would find a NPC version of you, complete with your team at the time of connecting, who they could battle once per day! This system was brought back for the remakes, made even better by the use of the internet. Those terrain features were specific holes in rock walls, giant bushes or specific big trees you could climb. So, if you connected to your friend, you could discover them at random points in your map, or make them look for you and play hide and seek! It was a really fun concept.Oh, and let's not forget to mention Pacifidlog Town, the optional town. If you go there you'll the TM for Return, a powerful move that can be thought to almost every Pokémon, a couple of items and a trainer offering a trade. It also looks nothing like the other towns in the game, as it's basically a floating city, built onto of a colony of Corsola (coral Pokémon). There's an old man there that, if you bring with you a Pokémon with a rare specific set of hidden stat, will tell you he can see Mirage Island, an area you can't normally access and you can go there to find wild Wynaut, the only place to find such Pokémon in the game. It's a baby Pokémon so it's not THAT great, but it happens so rarely that it's quite an event.To the East of that town is a water route covered with rushing currents that act like a labyrinth. If you align yourself JUST right, you can find yourself at a spot where you can dive and then get into a secret cavern... This is the first part of the famous quest for the Regis (Regirock, Regice, Registeel) three Legendary Pokémon. Not to go into too much detail, but to be able to unlock the secret areas where those three titans dwell, you need to decipher BRAILLE! It's pretty crazy. And again, optional to the completion of the game.</blockquote>

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