>>52694369If the scaling was shit because of Kanto they would have actually continued the level curve into Kanto. Instead every trainer after Lance is weaker than Lance, except Blue and Red (Blaine's Rapidash also hits Level 50, but he only has three Pokémon).
They're all weaker than the Champion except the former Champions because that "makes sense," even though it's not good game design. Janine is the most clear example, she's significantly weaker than the other Kanto gym leaders because she's a rookie taking over for Koga. It's not a big deal in HGSS where that means she's "only" as strong as Lance but in GSC you're fighting a team of Level 30s (which is still better than all but one Johto gym).
>>52694586The problem isn't just that it's easy, everything being so low-level makes some Pokémon basically impossible to use. You could pick up a Dratini in Goldenrod and be training it the entire game but it still won't be fully evolved by the time you beat the Elite Four and there are only two worthwhile trainers in the game after that.
Donphan doesn't learn Earthquake, its ONLY ground-type move, until Level 49, and it's far from the only Gen 2 mon with a shit movepool. Skarmory doesn't learn Steel Wing (its only STAB option besides Peck) until 49, Heracross doesn't learn Megahorn (its only STAB option besides Reversal) until 54, Togetic doesn't learn Double-Edge (its ONLY ATTACKING MOVE besides Metronome) until 38.
For the record, everyone's favorite games Black and White has very similar issues with a weak level curve and weak gym leaders (consistently just a few levels ahead of Johto's curve and capped at 3 Pokémon), on top of having many Pokémon who aren't usable until unreasonably high levels, but it gets far less criticism because its linear design makes for a much smoother curve and the postgame east half of Unova immediately gives you many trainers with Level 60+ Pokémon to fight.
