>>44280780>Nobody actually would know how to fight Blaine fourth, though, unless you knew how the events/checks worked and because the game is held together by string and glue.You're making it sound like you have to do some obscure glitch or sequence break, which is simply untrue. While most people won't fight Blaine so "early", it's not because there's some secret knowledge preventing them from doing so, it's because you have to ignore accessible gyms while continuing forward. The only thing keeping you from Rock Tunnel is Cut, which only requires a Cascade Badge to access and use, and you're likely to have seen the tree before getting it. The only thing keeping you from Fuchsia is the Pokeflute, which requires you to complete no gyms, and you're likely to have seen Snorlax before getting it. Once in Fuchsia you can find Surf in the Safari Zone and only have to beat Koga, in the same town, to be able to use it, and the sea is right there.
While the gyms themselves are clearly being done out of order, your levels don't lag very much because you still have to actually travel there through Kanto's trainer-infested routes and deal with Team Rocket more than once. The worst thing that happens is Lt. Surge and maybe Erika don't put up much of a fight by the time you go back and get their badges. Being able to reach Cinnabar with so few badges is just an extreme example used to highlight what you're allowed to do. It's the natural result of a game that is designed such that you're allowed to fucking move around and do a little bit of exploring.
The same region, with all the same locks, designed now, would probably make Cut unusable until you get the Thunder Badge, not let you into the Game Corner Hideout until after you beat Erika, forced you to beat Koga before you're even allowed into the Safari Zone, set up some plot event to make sure you go in and get Surf, and then not let you use it until you have the Marsh Badge.
