>>45375006you're right. my bad for relying on my shitty memory. he's made comments on other dialog changes in line with my original post, but it doesn't apply here
>>45375042>a large part of the Johto region was littered with Raticate, Ekans, Doduo, Spearow and BellsproutDoduo and Spearow are all OP, and for so many kids who went with Pidgey in their original run of RBY, the chance to choose a different bird this time around was incredibly novel. Doduo was actually the best pick of Pidgey/Spearow/Doduo in RBY, but it appeared so late most kids didn't run with it. Hell, save for it being so easy to overlevel Kenya and run into problems with it disobeying you, there's a strong case for it being the absolute best Pokemon you have access to in the entire game
don't rule out the fact the kantomons in the game are not to be taken for granted. they all came back, in full color, with new level up sets, and the additional 100 pokemon were more of an 'expansion pack' to the original 150 than anything else. hell, one of the reasons the gen 2 starters have such a bad rap is that the original starter trio overshadows them in their own game - the original trio line have arguably the best sprites in the game, and the NPCs that battle you with them left lasting impressions on me and other kids that didn't have ready access to a link cable
my most recent runs of Gold and Crystal had the following teams;
Azumarill/Ampharos/Girafarig/Heracross/Piloswine/Forretress
Electabuzz/Persian/Xatu/Nidoking/Cloyster/Donphan
with the exception of piloswine (bred to have ancientpower for the cute novelty of it, and a late game sub for corsola which, again, the level curve makes incredibly easy to do), all of these teams are made up of monsters you can get well in advance of the 8th gym
and fuck off, the level curve is absolutely fine