>Only gen where you could directly trade to a previous gen's games
>only gen where you battle the protagonist from the generation before
>only gen which directly is a sequel to the gen that came before it
>only gen to feature 16 gym leaders
>only gen to have 2 different regions to explore

Serious question, why do so many seem to completely despise this generation specifically?

>muh level curve

Not that bad when you could max out all of your stats with EVs. You can beat red easily with a team 20 levels under his

>muh baby pokemon

I don't know how so many still to this day don't recognize the value of baby pokemon. They offer a way to get rarer/more powerful mons in the early game. GF doesn't always seem to make them for this purpose, but I think that's a good value for their existence.

>muh watered down Kanto

Having both regions in the game pushed the gb to its limits for the time. There's only so much that could be included within a gb game from 2001.

Feel free to dislike it or say it hasn't aged too well, but to openly despise it so much is schizo as fuck.