>added new routes
>brought back safari zone
>brought back cerulean cave
>brought back seafoam islands
>brought back viridian forest
>added all the improvements from Crystal
>Kanto is no longer an afterthought
>rematches for all 16 gym leaders
>rematches for your rival and a conclusion to his story
>following pokemon, all of the pokemon available at the time, with shiny forms
>added sidequests for legendaries you can complete as you wish
>legendary birds are back
>pokeathlon, one of the only secondary activities that is enjoyable and provides actual rewards
>good music remixes, but if you don't like them, you can use a key item to change them back to GBC original
>Pokewalker
>By far the complete edition for the Gen IV online player back in the day
>pokemon who have evolutions or pre evolutions from later gens got them included in the pokedex
the difficulty curve can't be solved for the nature of the game (having 2 regions means there will be difficulty spikes in order to keep the levels consistent, i doubt they wanted kanto to have gym leaders with pokemon of lvl 60-80 and red to be 100)
it's not perfect, there is a plot you have to follow now, more roadblocks than before and it is a pity they didn't expand kanto instead of johto to show the pass of time.
