>>26975550Pretty sure he means "balanced" as in well-rounded.
Like Silver for example:
>battles you with four Pokémon in Ecruteak, when you have 3-4 badges>battles you with five Pokémon in the Underground, when you have 7 badges>uses a full team in Victory RoadYou could argue his teams aren't competitively sound, but that's because it's fucking Pokémon.
Blue fights you 7-8 times, depending on whether you do the optional battle near the start of the game.
>has 1 Pokémon in initial battle>has 2 Pokémon in optional Route 22 battle>has 4 Pokémon at Nugget Bridge, where you'd have 1-2 badges>has 4 Pokémon at the S.S. Anne>has 5 Pokémon at Lavender Tower, where you'll have 3-4 badges>has 5 Pokémon at Silph Co.>has a full team at the second Route 22 battle>obviously has full team as ChampionAnd of course Barry is great.
Compare with XY, where 3/4 of your rivals are laughable and the fourth one doesn't reach five Pokémon until Victory Road, never getting a full team until postgame.
The older rivals aren't "hard" but they're much more interesting team-wise.
