What an odd game. Its presentation is fantastic, ranging from the beautiful spritework to the iconic soundfont. The added & updated content (gen 4 mechanics, Pokeathlon, following Pokemon!!) are greatly appreciated, too. And the victory lap in Kanto is still as nice a surprise as it was back in GSC.
But why did they do so little to address the infamously bad XP curve? Grinding in this game is a slog, and it ends up strongly discouraging experimenting with your team. I had a lot of things I wanted to try out, but the amount of mindless grinding time it would have required made it not worthwhile at all. This was exacerbated in the lategame, where getting something from level 1 to 60 - a necessity for the Elite Four refights & Red - could take hours. Just a huge fumble for what should have been a slam dunk. I'm thankful later games addressed this, at least.
But why did they do so little to address the infamously bad XP curve? Grinding in this game is a slog, and it ends up strongly discouraging experimenting with your team. I had a lot of things I wanted to try out, but the amount of mindless grinding time it would have required made it not worthwhile at all. This was exacerbated in the lategame, where getting something from level 1 to 60 - a necessity for the Elite Four refights & Red - could take hours. Just a huge fumble for what should have been a slam dunk. I'm thankful later games addressed this, at least.