>>12590709On the contrary, looking back I think that the inclusion of Kanto in Gen 2, especially such a stripped-down, soulless version, indicated a lack of ideas and the fact that Gen 2 mainly consisted of stuff cut from Gen 1, with almost no innovation. Gen 3 at least tried to make it a brand new region with a ton of new Pokemon and no connection to previous regions. How much they succeeded is debatable, but they tried. They also changed up the formula a bit by making the evil teams interested mainly in the legendaries for various reasons, which gave the legendaries a plot relevance other than "they're there, so go get them". As far as the new battle mechanics, if they just kept adding new types we'd get a stupidly, needlessly complex battle system, and it's great that Gen 3 and beyond improved the battle mechanics without being lazy and just adding more and more types.
This is from someone who has gen 2 as his favorite by the way.
