>>44101927The issue is perception
Most good johto pokemon are rare and sometimes impossible to come by, while in gen 3 you could pick up any pokemon and it would usually work out. In gen 2 many of the johto pokemon you can get are just straight up terrible are underwhelming. Notice how many of the pokemon you listed for johto aren't very usable in a play through because they're either trade evolutions, not available until post game, or unreasonably rare. Johto has plenty of strong pokemon but good fucking luck using them, you're likely to fall back on more available pokemon, which are mostly shit. In hoenn pokemon like breloom, gardevoir, aggron, hariyama, ludicolo, Shiftry, slaking, etc are all good enough to carry their own weight as team members and then some, and their evolutionary lines are all easily available in the early game, so it's easy to form a strong team when compared to johto where options are thin
