That's not even the actual awful part of Kanto, wait until the game actually "opens up" and all you get are trainers with all the same Pokemon with barely any level increase in the entire middle area of the map. Seriously, that's like 6 routes and Silph Co. of actual garbage. And yeah, most of it is optional, but when playing the optional content feels like filler you can feel the fact that they cut like 40 Pokemon. I'd almost rather face trainers with 1 Pokemon than 3 of the same family with almost zero level difference. I would definitely rather face trainers with just 2 different Pokemon, and even that can get repetitive with the limited Pokemon pool that also limits itself for balance and lore reasons. DP is guilty of similar things with it's pool, and BW only gets away with it because they overemphasized making the Pokemon work in the context of BW to the detriment of every other game the Pokemon would have to be in (I think it was worth it though, for the most part). As much as people shit on Johto's distribution, it was definitely a step up from Gen 1. I generally prefer Hoenn's when it comes to the medium Pokedex size, although I'm sure somebody can make an argument about how Platinum is good. As for the larger size Pokedex, I don't know if I like it in first versions but given how there were over 600 of the fuckers before XY even came out I don't really want to blame them for wanting to put as many Pokemon in a game as possible, even if it's not the best when it comes to actual game design.
