Faiz was sort of post apocalyptic. Orphenochs ruled the Earth and normal humans were on the brink. So there are a lot of scenes of people out in the world trying to survive. And also those places tended to look diritier and more cramped then what you normally see in Rider. Like that village Mari and Keitaro were in. But then the next shot, it looks like a normal city street, but it's all Orphenochs in thier human forms.

Sort it's sort of a weird mix of apocalyptic and not.

The entire show like Paradise Lost would be pretty awesome. Pretty rare for us to see a show where humans are actually in the minority. It would be a fun twist.

Sure it could, lost technology is a super common post-apocalypse trope, which is a perfect reason for henshin devices.

I mean, imagine a KR series like Fist of the North Star or something, just replacing acupuncture induced explosions martial arts with belts and kicking.

That sounds far better than Kamen Rider's usual setting which is just "the city" (unless its Hibiki). Rider usually doesn't have that creative of a setting, I assume because it costs more money to distinctly set it up rather than just fliming at random spots around Tokyo, and wouldn't be worth the money to maintain across a series. Movies can do it because they are much shorter self contained experiences.

If only they were random!
I'm guessing Toei have every bit of Rider and Sentai budgeted to be as cheap as humanly possible and having your locales remain generally the same every year (mostly unchanged since Kuuga!) cuts down on fees for not only licensing space, but for paying the scouts to find said spaces.

I might need to do some rewatching of the Special and the end of Faiz. I can see him ending going back to same spot later on because well a lot of other movies make no sense if Takumi died at the end of Faiz.

None of KR makes sense if it all takes place in the same world, Roidmudes were a worldwide tragedy, Kuuga exists, the fangire who got away in 1986, etc.

Just watched Kabuto God Speed Love (great!).


Why is "God Bless America" the main musical motif?

That's the thing. They did more stuff in the city in the second half of Hibiki because always filming in the mountains was flippin' expensive. Getting the equipment alone out there must have been a pain in the butt.

Kuuga had no money because it was rather experimental and the brand had been on hold for a while though, so they didn't even change them for Kuuga. Most locations were Toei's standard places as well there. You still see a ton of locations they use now in Showa series shows, both Rider and Sentai.
The thing is, they're filming in Tokyo. Over a million people live there and the population density is 6,224.66/km2 (Metropolis). That's not even counting how many tourist run around there everyday, which is why Toei can only film their shows in public places very early in the morning or late at night (at best), because reserving certain spaces is pretty difficult (and most likely expensive). They do film a lot in their own studios, but of course you need more locations than that, so they have to rely on those public places.
The thing is, the budget for kids shows is relatively limited and they have more to spend money on than just locations, so of course that would be one of the points where they would try and save money. CGI is expensive as hell too and the props and costumes, especially the stuff used for stunts also needs to be replaced from time to time.

And I'm fine with that if it keeps the shows going.