>>54720199Only one of the rival battles even has an elemental move available, this isn't Gen 7 (although it really should have been that way). You're also forgetting about the optional type matchup NPC chatter in the same city. Personally, I would have given the first rival battle the elemental moves (Leafage should have existed for way longer), changed the encounters on Route 2 to prioritize alternative type matchup information instead of minimize it (the fact that you can't get the early game bird before the first gym is baffling and goes against the entire rest of the game's design), forced the player to catch one more Pokemon to get gifted the monkey, and make the gym a triple/rotation to get the most out of learning the type matchups in an interesting and progressively iterating way. This is really the only truly outstanding problem with BW's design, everything else is about as good as you can get for a Pokemon game.
