Johto was intentionally designed with a "pick your own path" system after, I think, Badge 3. So the level curve was made so that any of the three available paths would be at your level. Which meant that like half the region wasn't available for being part of the level curve because of redundancy.
Kanto was similar in that you could technically do Badges 4-6 in roughly any order and the level curve was only slightly prohibitive to doing so. But it wasn't nearly to the level Johto was. And it didn't have a fucking final boss in the 80s with a super strong team, so you could just finish Red/Blue with a team leveled pretty normally into the high 50s and be happy.
Its how you can tell that the legions of people who claim HeartGold/SoulSilver are the best/favorite games play them exclusively on emulator or with traded from elsewhere Pokemon. Because playing them actually like they were designed is literal misery no matter what other good they bring.
And I played the original on Gameboy, where it had the excuse of being super primitive as to why its filled with bad decisions and design, instead of a full price remake that spent its time adding half a dozen gimmicks instead of fixing one of the biggest issues with the game.
Johto was intentionally designed with a "pick your own path" system after, I think, Badge 3. So the level curve was made so that any of the three available paths would be at your level. Which meant that like half the region wasn't available for being part of the level curve because of redundancy.
Kanto was similar in that you could technically do Badges 4-6 in roughly any order and the level curve was only slightly prohibitive to doing so. But it wasn't nearly to the level Johto was. And it didn't have a fucking final boss in the 80s with a super strong team, so you could just finish Red/Blue with a team leveled pretty normally into the high 50s and be happy.
Its how you can tell that the legions of people who claim HeartGold/SoulSilver are the best/favorite games play them exclusively on emulator or with traded from elsewhere Pokemon. Because playing them actually like they were designed is literal misery no matter what other good they bring.
I played them originally on DS. I loved them. The Pokewalker was neat. Sit and spin.
And I played the original on Gameboy, where it had the excuse of being super primitive as to why its filled with bad decisions and design, instead of a full price remake that spent its time adding half a dozen gimmicks instead of fixing one of the biggest issues with the game.
The frustration when the mount finally drops and it just somehow happens to go to the guild leader's wife despite the roll.