>>49524038It's definitely the latter. There's one part where you have to grind if you want to keep some level of parity with the bosses, which is before the E4. Even then, a very slight amount of grinding will probably take you to the low 40s, which is roughly on par with everyone up to Karen. The other part people complain about is Red, but he's the post-game superboss, so that's pretty easy to justify.
The real problem is the level curve being flat from the point where you leave Ecruteak to the point where you beat the Radio Tower, and to make matters worse, their teams are often like 50% NFE. I mean, for fuck's sake, Jasmine's Steelix is preceded by two Magnemite. Then the level curve is completely flat again for 90% of Kanto, in addition to being lower than the levels of bosses you already beat (even if it makes sense lore-wise).
>>49524346Johto rocks. The level curve is still bad. A game can be really good but still flawed.
