>>717535354
Gen IV(and particularly HGSS) I feel rides a lot on mechanics upgrades and quality of life features rather than the actual content of the game.

And before you think "durr you're just parroting a Poketuber" I replayed these games recently so these are my own thoughts on it

For example HGSS has a HUGE problem that the original games had where the level progression fucking comes to a screeching halt after the 4th badge all for the sake of "exploration". Yes a more open region is fun but not at the expense of 3 gyms worth of content all being the same levels. The same actually happens in Kanto with you being able to do Koga/Sabrina in either order and it suffers as well but not as bad as Johto. The fact game makes you visit Cianwood before you can even fight the Olivine gym begs the question of why they didn't just force you to fight Chuck before Jasmine. Who in their right mind is gonna do the required quest of going there and then just not fighting the gym. And the fact that the Rocket Hideout is in Mahogany and the whole lake of rage thing and that you need to have beaten badges 5-7 to be able to finish the Rocket storyline also makes you wonder why they didn't make Pryce 7th by force. Go to Olivine lighthouse, go to Cianwood to get the medicine and beat Chuck, go back to Jasmine, then cross Mt Mortar to beat Pryce then do rocket hideout is such an ingrained pattern to me it's so odd it's not forced. Hell just make it so you need the HMs from the prior two badges to even cross Mt Mortar

The level scaling aside, why is the mon distribution so bad? We all know that original GSC were in the time when the devs didn't really know how they wanted to handle a follow up Pokemon game but these are remakes after they've already made gen 3 and Sinnoh. The encounter rates for Johto mons should not be as low as they are for such garbage ones as well. And may I ask why in the hell certain mons that got evos in gen IV are only able to evolve post game while (cont.)