you know how people always ask "why do gym leaders never have a full team" or "why do trainers always train just 1 type"

my headcanon is that, training pokemon is a lot harder than it appears. Pokemon behave more like individuals than conventional animals, so its more similar to training a camp of martial artists with all different styles rather than just training animals to fight. So if you stick to 1 typing then at least there are more similarities, you can feed them the same food and keep them all happy in a similar environment.

Gym leaders are probably the best of the best only on a local scale, so they're still low tier normalfags with no chance of reaching the elite 4, but they're still very skilled as far as their town goes. this also explains why "ace trainers" are the archetype most likely to have more than 1 typing, and why some trainers/gym leaders will say shit like "you're really good, you could challenge the elite 4 someday!", its just because they see you have a full and diverse team that aren't all killing you or each other.

another thing I used to think about is how unfair and unsatisfying it is beating some random trainer with 2 pokemon knowing I have 6. like why don't they make it fair and say "you can only fight me with 2 of your pokemon since only I have 2". The way I think it works is that, when you go into a battle, both sides are expected to bring their best, and its assumed that the more pokemon you have that the more likely you're going to fumble and implore. Like, the idea is if you have 2 raticates then you're a master raticate battler but if you have 4 diverse pokemon and you're just a regular guy then chances are you suck with all 4 and this guy with his master raticates are going to obliterate you. Its like "just because you've spend 3 months on 5 martial arts, doesn't mean its a fair assumption that you can defeat a guy who is a master of 1 martial art".

the games play out different because it assumes your character is a prodigy