>>58950300Gen I Kanto's biggest issue is that it doesn't have breeding. This makes trading starters a pain since everyone you know is already going to have them evolved, and it's going to require someone to reset their game multiple times to get their base forms, because no kids just starting to play are going to have that kind of pre-planning or coordination. The fossils are even more annoying because you have to get fairly late in the game to revive the other one so you can trade it. The silver lining is that most kids won't bother training their Omanyte or Kabuto up 10 levels that late in the game and will more than than likely have it gathering dust in the PC.
For as rare as a lot of Pokémon are in Johto, they're not outright unobtainable, and the introduction of breeding fixes the starter problem. A fairly large number of Pokémon, more than Kanto, can be obtained without too much trouble. Others, like Dunsparce, Qwilfish, Yanma, Snubbull/Granbull, Marill, and Remoraid/Octillery are 1% encounters outside of swarms connected to a specific Pokégear contact or tied to the late game Super Rod, so it's it's more a matter of patience. There are Pokémon that appear late in the game like Chansey and Porygon that are already hard to obtain, with their evolutions having further conditions (high friendship, trade holding an Upgrade). Getting Houndoom or Magcargo isn't too bad, but Larvitar is obtained in the final area of the game and requires as much grinding as Dragonite to get Tyranitar, a Pokémon you'll only use maybe against Red/grinding the Elite Four and friends. Murkrow, Misdreavus, and Sneasel at least didn't evolve.
And Gen III, at least in Ruby and Sapphire, took a major step backwards with breeding by not having Ditto until FRLG. With starters being 87.5% male, chances are you and your friends weren't trading eggs, and this also made Colosseum's evolved Shadow Pokémon an even bigger pain to breed (better hope Bayleef, Quilava, and Croconaw are female).
