The 12 best routes in Pokémon history

If someone asked you about your favorite place in a Pokémon game, you likely wouldn’t tell them the name of a route. After all, what is a route but a tiring link between cooler stuff? However, for Polygon’s Retreat Week, I decided to take the time to focus on an aspect of the Pokémon world that can often be rushed through. Because, whether due to the score or the design or simply what the route reflects about the growth of the wider Pokémon franchise, there are some routes that are worth relaxing in and admiring. At the very least, the next time you walk (or surf or climb) through these, I hope you’ll take in the scenery.

Note: To be considered for this list, the area had to be defined as a route. Which means that places like Viridian Forest, while certainly trails, were out. It also means that regions like Paldea and the game Legends: Arceus, which don’t have any defined routes, were out.

This week on Polygon, we’re looking at games that feel like vacations for your brain in a package we’re calling Retreat Week.

Route 1 – Kanto – Pokémon Red, Blue, & Yellow

The first Pokémon route looks rather archaic today, considering that it’s just a straight shot between Pallet Town and Viridian City. But it’s also a wonderful way to get new players acclimated to the kind of traveling they’ll be doing later. Not only do we get reassuring warnings from strangers (“See those ledges along the road? It’s a bit scary, but you can jump from them!”), but the simple array of Pokémon keeps you on your toes. If you’re going north, you can’t really skip any of the patches of grass, so the surprise assaults by Pidgey and Rattata might make you rethink which areas you explore and which ones you want to skip past. There is relatively little tutorial time in the first generation of games, but no matter — stuff like this helps you learn the basics on the fly.

Route 45 – Johto – Pokémon Gold, Silver, & Crystal

Bearing an amazing theme by Junichi Masuda (his director and leadership roles tend to overshadow it these days, but there’s a case to be made that Masuda is an excellent composer), Route 45 looks like another straight shot at first. But just as much as Pokémon is about crafting your own journey, it’s also about the choices you make with the paths laid out for you. Route 45 gives you numerous options to tackle, from splitting away into the Dark Cave entrance at its most northwest to following the left or right lanes, both of which restrict traversal to the other thanks to the constant ledges. Add in the scenic river that divides them in the remakes HeartGold and SoulSilver and you have a route that doesn’t just make you consider which path you want to take, but which path you’ll choose if you plan to revisit it. 

Route 27 – Johto/Kanto – Pokémon Gold, Silver, & Crystal

“Hey! Do you know what you just did? You’ve taken your first steps into Kanto!” The fact that one can travel to both Johto and Kanto in the second generation of games and their remakes is well known today, but for those that played them in the late ’90s and early ’00s, the news was far more exciting. And yet, despite a particularly exuberant song accompanying you, there is little fanfare or celebration for your international travel. Instead, the trip is a mostly peaceful jaunt through water and bits of land, only interrupted by a brief detour through Tohjo Falls. In a way, it signifies the ongoing nature of the journey. Yes, there will be achievements and a chance to become champion. But the real success comes from knowing there is a road ahead. 

Route 108 – Hoenn – Pokémon Ruby, Sapphire, & Emerald

Pokémon fans have a love-hate relationship with the ocean. It can feel almost helplessly vast, and considering how many Tentacool and Wingull dive in to attack you, it often makes you crave even the scantest bit of dry land to catch your breath on. But it also contains moments of wonder that you might miss if you’re too eager to get to the next accomplishment. Back in Kanto, one can skip Route 20 entirely, but then they’d never venture into the Seafoam Islands and the legendary Articuno in their depths. 

Route 108 in Hoenn has its own mystery: an abandoned ship that offers no real utility in the wider game. But if the ocean represents anything in Pokémon, it’s exploration for exploration’s sake. And Route 108’s spooky, decrepit vessel is a charming digression. It urges you to smell the roses a little bit. Or, in the case of Pokémon, dive into a ship that’s probably haunted and in real life would be filled with corpses… a little bit.

Route 113 – Hoenn – Pokémon Ruby, Sapphire, & Emerald

Hoenn is full of cool routes (another contender for this list would be 110, which takes you under the Seaside Cycling Road at various points). But Route 113, a quiet path just north of the volcanic Mt. Chimney, stands out. At first it appears that snow is falling, but a young kid tells you that it’s actually volcanic ash dusting off of every step in the grass. It’s a fun environmental detail made possible by the Game Boy Advance upgrade, but it also serves as a way to unify Hoenn. The routes are more than just paths between important cities and landmarks. They’re part of the connective tissue of a vibrant fictional world.

Route 208 – Sinnoh – Pokémon Diamond, Pearl, & Platinum

By the fourth generation of Pokémon games, the ones that used the hardware of the Nintendo DS, there was more available to put on screen. Of course, this was a balancing act — the Pokémon world that fans imagine in their heads has always been much greater than anything a developer can attempt. But it did allow for areas like Route 208, where the player can climb around a mountain path and cross over bridges high above a river and the waterfall that feeds into it. The Sinnoh region is extremely rocky, but Route 208 is probably the best use of its particular biome, feeling sweeping in scale rather than insurmountable. One can practically feel the wind in their hair as they make their climb (or their swim). And once again, the features in the landscape, like the rock wall leading up to a Hiker on a cliff, make it ripe for revisiting. 

Route 217 – Sinnoh – Pokémon Diamond, Pearl, & Platinum

Just to the north of Route 216 and the last stop to heal your monsters, the Snowbound Lodge, is one of the most notorious slogs in all of Pokémon. You can’t ride a bike through Route 217, you can’t run, you can barely see, and the hail hurts all non-ice-type Pokémon every turn they’re in battle. That said, with it being so bereft of many of the comforts added to streamline your trek through the Pokémon world, Route 217 also feels untamed. Years before games like Legends: Arceus would plunge you into more unforgiving territory (it makes sense why both this set of games and Arceus were set in Sinnoh), Route 217 gave you a taste. Sometimes you have to rough it. 

Route 4 – Unova – Pokémon Black & White/Black 2 & White 2

Making Black 2 and White 2 direct sequels to their predecessors gave developer Game Freak a unique opportunity — how does a world change in a few years of time? Previously, this had only really been explored when players got to revisit Kanto in Gold, Silver, and Crystal, but Black 2 and White 2 really ran wild with it. One of the most fun examples is Route 4, which in Black and White is a barely developed path, unfinished thanks to the massive sandstorm that seems to be eternally raging. It’s a caustic place, but a nice way to combine lore with environmental storytelling. Play Black 2 and you’ll see that many of those ramshackle developments are now finished. Play White 2, however, and whatever construction that was done has been abandoned and left in a state of apocalyptic-esque disrepair. 

Route 10 – Unova – Pokémon Black & White

Pokémon Black and White have a curious vibe to them, one that feels like a pseudo-reinvention of the series. And that’s more than the fact that you can only capture old Pokémon after you’ve beaten the Elite Four. It tries to invigorate elements that one might’ve previously taken for granted, like the lead-up to Victory Road and the Pokémon League. After a short, easy stretch, you arrive at the Badge Check Gates. At first, all you can hear is the roar of the wind. Then, after you show your first badge, you get a drum track added to the score. Then a timpani, then a tuba, and so on. By the end, you’ve built up to the full Victory Road theme and are ready to tackle that stretch with pride. 

Route 4 – Kalos – Pokémon X & Y

Routes can often feel like wildlife preserves between towns, places where people have allowed Pokémon to settle peacefully as they pass on through. Route 4, on the other hand, thrives by being purely manicured. Planted flowers, hedge mazes, and a large fountain adorn the area, giving it the atmosphere that it was created to attract certain Pokémon (and tourists) rather than being built on top of or around them. Its musical theme, a marching band arrangement, adds to the unnaturalness. In a sense, it’s all building up to the reveal of Lumiose City, a gargantuan metropolis outside the bounds of anything yet seen in the series. But it’s an interesting look at Pokémon as a botanical garden, rather than a forest. 

Route 8 – Alola – Pokémon Sun & Moon/Ultra Sun & Ultra Moon

It’s hard to pick a route in Sun and Moon. Many of them are short and, with the game being set in a region inspired by Hawaii, the whole place is meant to feel like a vacation. But Route 8, backed by a vista of never-ending ocean, seems to have a spirit all its own. It rounds the curve at the top of the island, so it never quite lets you escape from the view. Pokémon hadn’t gone “open world” yet, and a heavier focus on guiding the player more linearly meant that what had once felt limitless was now landlocked and consumable. But Route 8, with its scenic overlook and odd assortment of establishments (like a roadside motel that looks right out of a family trip to the beach and a well-worn RV where a man in overalls brings fossils back to life for you) is a testament to Pokémon in all of its beautiful openness and inspired weirdness. 

Route 1 – Galar – Pokémon Sword & Shield

When you rush down the steps from your mom’s house in Galar, you aren’t just treated to a traditional Pokémon hometown, but what looks to be open land as far as you can see. Yes, you’ll be course-corrected into following some defined paths for much of the game outside of the free-for-all Wild Areas, but it’s this feeling that Game Freak has tried to recapture in nearly every game since (including the latest pair, Scarlet and Violet). With Wedgehurst off in the distance, the lush fields between, and the hills beyond, it instantly defines the tone of the game and the modern ambitions of the series. What you once imagined as you obsessively leaned over the dull light of the Game Boy screen is right there on the horizon. Does the game’s quality match its scope? Well, you’ll have to find that out for yourself. Better get moving.