>>53725179Gen2 was always criticized due to being a sequel, the complaints that "Gen2 Pokemon should appear more in Gen2". and “team Rocket being lame villians” have alway been there. but the general consensus was that Gen2 were among the best in the series.
The Gen2 bad meme in its current state came from shills using Gen2 as a scapegoat to deflect from flaws in newer games, That's why it increased dramatically around Gen 8. And because Johto is the oldest game without GenWun privilege so it’s by far the least shilled region, so new fans are less likely to know about it, and even older fans as less likely to remember every detail about it. This makes it easy for shills to gaslight people about Gen2 by exaggerating flaws and flat-out lying
