Late last year / early this year, we had threads talking about Johto's Pokemon distribution and something that came up once or twice was how Pokemon like Larvitar and Houndour were situated at the back of the game because they'd trivialize the early game. I distinctly remember someone saying that anyone who complained about Houndour's placement had never used it. The second time around, I think someone noted in response that Fire Stones aren't all that easy to come by before reaching Kanto iirc it's impossible but I'm not 100% sure that's what was said. Someone also mentioned that Larvitar was offset by its high evolution level, and that getting Tyranitar before Kanto was unfeasible anyway.

I'm going to go ahead and say here that an early game Larvitar is really no more game-breaking than Geodude, looking at both it's Gen II and IV learnsets. So as far as game balance goes, those anons had a point. Geodude trivializes a great deal of GSC. It's very, very slightly less useful in HGSS because Morty's Pokemon get Levitate, but it's still pretty good. The hypothetical early game Larvitar is still useful against Morty with its Dark moves, but they're roughly on par with each other.

That's all I wanted to say.