>>46041797that image is misleading, many routes like 33, 37, 40, 7, and 19 basically don't exist and are super super super small. Many of them are fairly small, even the biggest ones like 45 and 12 have very little substance compared to routes like 119 and 212
That's the issue with this gimmick, sure you have like 50 routes but most of them are small and insigifacant, sure there 16 gyms but they're all super close together.
plus, one of them is literally just retreading already explored land. For it to be worth it they'd have to make 2 new regions but at that point the split is arbitrary, why not just make one big region? Well that's exactly what they did after gen 2
In conclusion: Gen 2 was great, and so are kanto and johto, but the games are better off with the approach of later gens
