>>50383159From what I can tell the problem in most peoples eyes seems to be that, after ecruteak, the non linearity causes the levels of trainers to fall behind as they all need to all be balanced similarly. From there the levels don’t catch up till just before the league.
Similarly the levels of kanto in general are wonky, and in GSC everything but the gym leaders are painfully underleveled.
Less intelligent anons will also cite the fact that levels are just lower overall but that doesn’t even make any sense since you’ll be that low too so I typically ignore those people.
For my personal take, I fail to see it as THAT big a problem, the non linear more so just makes the difficulty curve less smooth in general, but it’s interesting cause I find the gym leaders are often harder due to a more drastic level advantage and some trainers like the ace trainers on route 34 are quite the jump up considering you can battle them right after morty. Tamashii was spot on, Gen 2 was balanced more like an MMO where you retread old areas regularly doing daily things like nabbing berries, making balls, doing bug catching contests etc, battling wild mons along the way, OCCASIONALLY stumbling upon new areas with trainers, making incremental progress to your team along the way, slowly working up to a point where you feel you can beat the gyms. It’s a completely unique approach but it’s one I really respect because it facilitates a sort of experience you can’t get with any other Pokémon game.
