Saw people talking about this in a discord i'm in and they're totally right.

Brock had Onyx.
Misty had Starmie.
Surge had Raichu.

Their teams were designed to soften you up with weaklings and then fuck you up with their ace. This made gym leaders actually feel like boss battles.

Now it feels like gym leaders just have random pokemon with no technique or themed strategy at all.

How is it that only gen one did this right? I can't think of any other gym leaders after gen one that had a gym as defined as the first game.

wtf went wrong