Jumping back up the thread a little, but I keep seeing people mention the Focus Sash as a justification for Ultra Necrozma as if it's handed to you in a mandatory cutscene or something, instead of being an optional item for people (myself included) who take a more completionist approach. Rather than being an equaliser, surely the Focus Sash just creates an even bigger gap between people who avoid a lot of optional stuff and people who take pains to scour every route and dungeon for experience and items?
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Which games had good level curves?
- Thread starter Volt-Ikazuchi
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I used a Sturdy Sudowoodo in my USUM playthrough and literally was only able to beat Ultra Necrozma by using Toxic on it on the first turn, then rotating Pokemon in and out while I used Revives. Had I not been using Sudowoodo (or even used a Sudowoodo with Rock Head)... it'd have one-shotted all of my team.
I love a tough boss fight, but if you literally have to rely on something there's good odds you won't have, something's wrong.
Both SwSh and SV have the design issue of catering to people who are just bumrushing through the game.
Those level curves are designed for speedrunners. You really can't explore at all or the game is cooked.
Kind of a shame, really. They invested so much in building these worlds, but if you interact with them, you'll break the game.
There's no good single answer for regular power scaling for a fully open setup, since part of being able to explore exactly as much as you want is being able to move on at any point. Needing to do more than that to keep up with the main difficulty becomes grinding. While not really open world games, Xenoblade has tried to address the similar issues of having tons of sidequests when players may want to focus on progressing the main story. Basically, combat exp will keep you on curve if you're doing sidequests, but both sidequest and story progress grant additional exp that is only applied through a menu. It feels like a similar setup could easily be applied to pokemon: gym rewards include enough exp candies to prepare for the next objective so story-lovers/pvp specialists/whoever else don't need to spend any extra time leveling, while dedicated explores can just ignore them.
And tbh, that's why open-worlds kind of suck. Especially for Pokémon. The combination of a level-based rpg and a broad spectrum of players is tough to balance.
I like the idea of Exp. Candy as an extra reward for story content though.
The return of the Exp. Share toggle would also be very good in a scenario like that too. Balance the game around the extra exp from the Exp. Share, and allow players to turn it off so they can explore without a leash.
Gen 1 does not have a good level curve but it's compensated by the game having terrible AIs and a complete lack of postgame. The level curve is nothing to really worry or stress about in these games and is thus more forgiving. Whether or not it's actually bad is questionable since the consequences aren't all that significant here.
Gen 2 has it absymal. Same applies for HGSS.
Gen 4 has it abysmal. No. Platinum does not fix this. If anything only BDSP actually truly made effort into alleviating the terrible level curve by having increased exp yields and EXP shared across the entire team.
Black and White almost has a good level curve but the lategame ruins it quite considerably by requiring heaps of grinding just to keep up. Also relying on Audino just to consistently keep up with the game spells that something was off with the exp yield of many Pokémon this whole time anyway.
B2W2 has a level curve much better than Black and White's and is pretty solid overall.
RSE/ORAS have solid level curves. Not the best but solid.
XY have quite very wacky level curves but they're easy to mitigate if you have enough experience playing the game. Not good level curves, but with this game, it's not accurate to say they're as destructive to the game as Gen 2 and 4's level curves. Maybe even Black and White's. Especially since many people consider these games "too easy" and overlevel due to having the exp share on and farming way too many trainers in the game prior to the Elite Four. If you know how to turn the EXP Share on and off and use features wisely, you can make this level curve not a huge deal.
Sun and Moon has the single best level curve in the series. It is highly consistent and keeps up with you regardless of how much you grind, unless you overdo it or you turn off the EXP Share.
USUM has a good enough level curve to be considered good level curve. Most of it is similar to Sun and Moon, but it gets kinda wonky towards the end. Not in a way that requires gruesome grinding to keep up unlike Black and White though.
I haven't paid attention to Sword or Shield level curves but I do think this does not stop Sun and Moon from having the best level curves.
The fact Scarlet and Violet have a set level curve almost defeats the purpose of open world.
I have never touched Colosseum or XD but from reviews it appears they have notoriously awful level curves?
Gen 2 has it absymal. Same applies for HGSS.
Gen 4 has it abysmal. No. Platinum does not fix this. If anything only BDSP actually truly made effort into alleviating the terrible level curve by having increased exp yields and EXP shared across the entire team.
Black and White almost has a good level curve but the lategame ruins it quite considerably by requiring heaps of grinding just to keep up. Also relying on Audino just to consistently keep up with the game spells that something was off with the exp yield of many Pokémon this whole time anyway.
B2W2 has a level curve much better than Black and White's and is pretty solid overall.
RSE/ORAS have solid level curves. Not the best but solid.
XY have quite very wacky level curves but they're easy to mitigate if you have enough experience playing the game. Not good level curves, but with this game, it's not accurate to say they're as destructive to the game as Gen 2 and 4's level curves. Maybe even Black and White's. Especially since many people consider these games "too easy" and overlevel due to having the exp share on and farming way too many trainers in the game prior to the Elite Four. If you know how to turn the EXP Share on and off and use features wisely, you can make this level curve not a huge deal.
Sun and Moon has the single best level curve in the series. It is highly consistent and keeps up with you regardless of how much you grind, unless you overdo it or you turn off the EXP Share.
USUM has a good enough level curve to be considered good level curve. Most of it is similar to Sun and Moon, but it gets kinda wonky towards the end. Not in a way that requires gruesome grinding to keep up unlike Black and White though.
I haven't paid attention to Sword or Shield level curves but I do think this does not stop Sun and Moon from having the best level curves.
The fact Scarlet and Violet have a set level curve almost defeats the purpose of open world.
I have never touched Colosseum or XD but from reviews it appears they have notoriously awful level curves?
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I'm going to go a bit against the consensus that I'm seeing here and say that Platinum has one of the better level curves in Pokémon games. It's not a great level curve, largely because of one person,
But if you fight all the trainers - which you really should because it'll unlock the national dex - then you won't need to grind before the elite 4 which is enough for me to call it good. Sure, you won't always be quite on par with them level wise but IIRC Platinum trainers don't have EVs, so it evens out.
But if you fight all the trainers - which you really should because it'll unlock the national dex - then you won't need to grind before the elite 4 which is enough for me to call it good. Sure, you won't always be quite on par with them level wise but IIRC Platinum trainers don't have EVs, so it evens out.
no platinum's level curve is actually dogshit because you have to grind a lot in order to stay at curve
"if you fight all the trainers" BUZZ instantly disqualified, players should not be required to hunt out boring trainers to grind against throughout the game. imo any good level curve lets you skip around 30% of the trainers and still be good
my friend played pokemon platinum recently as a casual player and she was level 44 at the elite 4 and has like no way to catch up, if you use a team of 6 pokemon you are guaranteed to not get enough exp without going out of your way to grind a decent amount
"if you fight all the trainers" BUZZ instantly disqualified, players should not be required to hunt out boring trainers to grind against throughout the game. imo any good level curve lets you skip around 30% of the trainers and still be good
my friend played pokemon platinum recently as a casual player and she was level 44 at the elite 4 and has like no way to catch up, if you use a team of 6 pokemon you are guaranteed to not get enough exp without going out of your way to grind a decent amount
Different definitions of what grinding is, I guess. I don't consider fighting all the trainers grinding, especially not in Platinum where it'll get you the national dex.
to me the point of optional trainers in the game's design is simple:
it gives the player the option in order to grind and get more exp, or to not take it and just keep going. it allows the player to choose their pacing, and to slow down and be more thorough if they need more boost, or to just keep going ahead if they think they're doing good. this changes at different points in the game and different players can choose at different times what they need to do
so for me, i see it as 100% grindy to fight even like, 90%+ of the trainers. and im not considering the national dex unlock, because im talking about just, beating the game
A lot of people are bringing up SV as an exemple of a bad level curve because "you can't play the game in any order", but that's a bit of a misnomer. Very few, if any, open world games actually allow you to do anything in any order. The intent behind that sort of design is to let each player experience the game in a slightly different way, so the adventure feels more personal. The level distribution in SV does look nonsensical if you look at it as the "intended" order, when in reality they're spread around so you can have a consistent level curve on each side of the map while throwing you a few curveballs (Mela, Tulip, Great Tusk) so you keep exploring the map.
Of course, it's not very well executed in practice, as the map's still only have two "routes" to choose, they're not very distinct from each other (as opposed to say BotW, where you can choose to go to a water, snow or desert area first), the region itself doesn't offer much outside of the main objetives and no matter how you slice it, you'll end up feeling like you skipped a ton of content, but that's a structure and level design problem
Of course, it's not very well executed in practice, as the map's still only have two "routes" to choose, they're not very distinct from each other (as opposed to say BotW, where you can choose to go to a water, snow or desert area first), the region itself doesn't offer much outside of the main objetives and no matter how you slice it, you'll end up feeling like you skipped a ton of content, but that's a structure and level design problem
Volt-Ikazuchi, you forgot some games in the poll: FR/LG, HG/SS, LGP/E and Legends Arceus.
I rarely replay the main game of Pokémon games, and it has been a long time since I last played the main game for most games, so this will mostly be based on my memories. During the past five years, the only games where I have played through the main game are Crystal, Black, Black 2, Sword, Legends: Arceus and Violet.
I'll just share some short thoughts on each game since I don't have time/interest to write anything longer. I think a good level curve is one that progresses, and a great level curve is one that progresses smoothly.
R/B: Mostly good. As long as you do the gyms in the right order, it has solid progression for the most part. The wild Pokémon don't increase quite as well as the trainers, but even so, it worked. The only real issue is that there's a fairly big jump to the Elite Four, but that's it.
Yellow: Worse than R/B because of the massive jump between Erika and Koga. Otherwise the same.
G/S/C: Horrible. I think they have the worst level curve in the series. I'll just quote what I wrote in my Crystal review earlier this year:
R/S/E: Mostly good. Similar to R/B, the only real issue is that there's a bit of a jump before the Elite four.
FR/LG: R/B but better thanks to the Sevii Islands giving you more options to grind, and the Elite Four got nerfed slightly.
D/P: Pretty good most of the game, but then there's a very big jump to the Elite Four.
Platinum: Better than D/P since the jump to the Elite four is not as big, and many trainers during the main game got their levels raised, giving more Exp.
HG/SS: Very bad. Marginally better than G/S/C thanks to the new areas and higher levels in Kanto, but still among the worst in the series.
B/W: Excellent during the main game, but as others have pointed out, there's a quite big jump towards the post-game. But at least the games have great training spots, allowing you to grind easily. As for using a second team member before the first gym, it is not impossible. In my replay of Black, I trained a Lillipup alongside my starter Tepig before the first Gym, and it worked.
B2/W2: Better than B/W since there's no big jump to the post-game this time around.
X/Y: With the Exp. Share on, I was extremely overleveled when I beat the game (my team was at level 80+). With the Exp. Share off, it was mostly well-balanced, the only one point was again, the Elite Four.
OR/AS: With the Exp. Share off, I remember that it was great. Never tried with the Exp. Share on.
S/M: Only tried with the Exp. Share off, and it was weird. The first half of the game is very balanced, but then there are some slight jumps during the second half. First from Akala to Ula'ula, then from Ula'ula to Aether and Poni, from Poni to the Elite Four, and finally from the Elite Four to the post-game. When I played S/M, I had to stop and grind at all of these points. It isn't that bad since the levels at least progress, but not perfect either. I strongly disagree about their level curve being the best in the series.
US/UM: With Exp. Share off, it is mostly the same as S/M, the only difference being that the jumps to the Elite Four and the post-game weren't quite as severe, but still notable.
LGP/E: Haven't played these, so can't say.
S/S: When I played Sword for the first time, I got very overleveled early on in the game thanks to the Exp. Share always being on. I ended up using 15 Pokémon in rotation, and I was mostly on par with the opposition all the way to the end, where I got underleveled against Leon. On my second playthrough, I did a slow speedrun, using only six Pokémon, and it was mostly balanced. I think the level curve in itself is fine, it was just easy for me to get overleveled due to the way I play.
BD/SP: Haven't played these either, so no opinion.
Legends: Arceus: Despite having played through this game "recently" (2 years ago), I don't really remember much of the level curve, and I find it hard to give a fair assessment since I am feeling quite negative towards the game. So I'll pass.
ScaVio: This is hard for me to say since when I played Violet, I did everything completely out of order. Pass here as well.
Colosseum: I think it is mostly good up to the very end, where there's this absurd jump from Nascour to Evice, and zero opportunity to grind in-between. When I played it for the first game, I made it all the way up to Evice only to get completely stomped.
XD: Better than Colosseum since it is mostly balanced all the way up to the end.
I guess I'll rank the level curves like this:
Great: B2/W2, X/Y, OR/AS
Good: R/S/E, FR/LG, Platinum, B/W, S/S, XD
Okay: R/B, D/P, S/M, US/UM, Colosseum
Bad: Yellow
The worst: G/S/C, HG/SS
Hard to say: L:A, ScaVio
No opinion: LGP/E, BD/SP
I rarely replay the main game of Pokémon games, and it has been a long time since I last played the main game for most games, so this will mostly be based on my memories. During the past five years, the only games where I have played through the main game are Crystal, Black, Black 2, Sword, Legends: Arceus and Violet.
I'll just share some short thoughts on each game since I don't have time/interest to write anything longer. I think a good level curve is one that progresses, and a great level curve is one that progresses smoothly.
R/B: Mostly good. As long as you do the gyms in the right order, it has solid progression for the most part. The wild Pokémon don't increase quite as well as the trainers, but even so, it worked. The only real issue is that there's a fairly big jump to the Elite Four, but that's it.
Yellow: Worse than R/B because of the massive jump between Erika and Koga. Otherwise the same.
G/S/C: Horrible. I think they have the worst level curve in the series. I'll just quote what I wrote in my Crystal review earlier this year:
R/S/E: Mostly good. Similar to R/B, the only real issue is that there's a bit of a jump before the Elite four.
FR/LG: R/B but better thanks to the Sevii Islands giving you more options to grind, and the Elite Four got nerfed slightly.
D/P: Pretty good most of the game, but then there's a very big jump to the Elite Four.
Platinum: Better than D/P since the jump to the Elite four is not as big, and many trainers during the main game got their levels raised, giving more Exp.
HG/SS: Very bad. Marginally better than G/S/C thanks to the new areas and higher levels in Kanto, but still among the worst in the series.
B/W: Excellent during the main game, but as others have pointed out, there's a quite big jump towards the post-game. But at least the games have great training spots, allowing you to grind easily. As for using a second team member before the first gym, it is not impossible. In my replay of Black, I trained a Lillipup alongside my starter Tepig before the first Gym, and it worked.
B2/W2: Better than B/W since there's no big jump to the post-game this time around.
X/Y: With the Exp. Share on, I was extremely overleveled when I beat the game (my team was at level 80+). With the Exp. Share off, it was mostly well-balanced, the only one point was again, the Elite Four.
OR/AS: With the Exp. Share off, I remember that it was great. Never tried with the Exp. Share on.
S/M: Only tried with the Exp. Share off, and it was weird. The first half of the game is very balanced, but then there are some slight jumps during the second half. First from Akala to Ula'ula, then from Ula'ula to Aether and Poni, from Poni to the Elite Four, and finally from the Elite Four to the post-game. When I played S/M, I had to stop and grind at all of these points. It isn't that bad since the levels at least progress, but not perfect either. I strongly disagree about their level curve being the best in the series.
US/UM: With Exp. Share off, it is mostly the same as S/M, the only difference being that the jumps to the Elite Four and the post-game weren't quite as severe, but still notable.
LGP/E: Haven't played these, so can't say.
S/S: When I played Sword for the first time, I got very overleveled early on in the game thanks to the Exp. Share always being on. I ended up using 15 Pokémon in rotation, and I was mostly on par with the opposition all the way to the end, where I got underleveled against Leon. On my second playthrough, I did a slow speedrun, using only six Pokémon, and it was mostly balanced. I think the level curve in itself is fine, it was just easy for me to get overleveled due to the way I play.
BD/SP: Haven't played these either, so no opinion.
Legends: Arceus: Despite having played through this game "recently" (2 years ago), I don't really remember much of the level curve, and I find it hard to give a fair assessment since I am feeling quite negative towards the game. So I'll pass.
ScaVio: This is hard for me to say since when I played Violet, I did everything completely out of order. Pass here as well.
Colosseum: I think it is mostly good up to the very end, where there's this absurd jump from Nascour to Evice, and zero opportunity to grind in-between. When I played it for the first game, I made it all the way up to Evice only to get completely stomped.
XD: Better than Colosseum since it is mostly balanced all the way up to the end.
I guess I'll rank the level curves like this:
Great: B2/W2, X/Y, OR/AS
Good: R/S/E, FR/LG, Platinum, B/W, S/S, XD
Okay: R/B, D/P, S/M, US/UM, Colosseum
Bad: Yellow
The worst: G/S/C, HG/SS
Hard to say: L:A, ScaVio
No opinion: LGP/E, BD/SP
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Laughable. Sinnoh actively rewards players for beating all trainers by unlocking most of the post-game. That's the one game where you really should make a point of not dodging trainers.
And no, you don't even really need to "hunt down" trainers. Just beat everyone on the way. For example, rescuing Mira in Wayward Cave is a notoriously awful sidequest that is entirely skippable since no trainers there use unique Pokémon you want to get in your dex.
The game is actively designed towards beating all route trainers. You may disagree about whether or not that's a good thing, but it's like complaining that Gen 7 totems are too tanky when you're not using Z-Moves.
I thought I had written down FR/LG and HG/SS for sure
Uhhhhh, does LGPE even count? I dunno how that game works tbh, so I don't mind adding it. PLA uses an entirely different formula when it comes to levels' influence in the damage formula and all that. Just a big bag of nope. It's a completely different experience than the mainline games.
Great post btw
I don't care because I'm not concerned with the post-game and I don't think most people are lol. You deeply, deeply, deeply have far too much trust in the average player to actually give a shit. Post-game? Brother, most people are getting off before they beat Cynthia, let alone after.
You quoting "hunt down" is annoying because that wasn't my point to begin with. The point was you shouldn't have to fight every trainer you see. Because that's cringe.
Fighting trainers in most Pokemon games is not very fun and that's why most people I've watched play Scarlet/Violet almost never actually fight trainers. Gameplay wise it's not very enjoyable, and the most fun part of them is actually the exp management and rewards for your team. People like to see their Pokemon gain moves and evolve them, not to click the same attack on the opposing Pokemon five times in a row with slow ass animations.
Even from just "trainers you see from walking through the route" in most Pokemon games a good amount of them are optional because the devs know most people aren't going to want to fight all of them, and it's there for extra exp if you need. An example is Unova, the best rated game on this list. You don't really have to fight any of the trainers in the desert in BW1. You can basically just skip the ENTIRE desert area if you wanted, and frankly, most players probably just did.
Sinnoh with 6 Pokemon doesn't give a choice, you need to fight them to get enough exp, and even if you do you will probably be owned by the endgame level jump. Even if you were thorough you probably would still need to grind anyways given variables such as Slow exp. curve Pokemon, how much you actually fight Wild Pokemon, how well you optimize the Exp. on your Pokemon, and other factors.
No I think it's entirely skippable because most people don't even know this quests exists and they wouldn't wanna do it anyways, not because most players knew about it and skipped it, actually. This is also again, assuming people actually went out of their way to explore this deeply, and I think you are again over-estimating the actual average player and what they do.
When I was 8 and played Pokemon Diamond I didn't go "Wow I gotta fight all the trainers for the National Dex!" I just leveled up my Monferno.
This is an insane exaggeration. "The game has a way to get the National Dex (90% of people don't care about getting this) in the post-game (90% of players will not do the post-game) so obviously the game intends for you to do it!"
If you are writing on this website you are in the 0.01% of players. You are not the people they are designing the game for.
Pokemon has always been designed to where the average player can beat the campaign easily and there is extras on top for the mega fans, and that is how it will probably always be.
The truth is that the average player when this game came out didn't know 90% of the stuff that has been said in this post. The National Dex unlock? Shit in the post-game? The Mira quest?
This mythical player that actually engages with all of the side content is an EXTREMELY small percentage of players. Most players (and who most mainstream games actually design around) will take the most clear Route A to B possible, and not engage with much of the side content in general.
I need you to realize that a lot of the reason Legends Arceus appealed to so many people (especially in the West) is because a sizable number of people don't even like the turn-based nature of Pokemon games. Pokemon is a game series that has always had to design itself around a very real divide:
There are a lot of players who play Pokemon for the Pokemon and not for the game. They come for the ideas, the atmosphere; they only really know mainstream games, maybe a kid, they want the fun power fantasy of owning a fire dragon. You know what kinds of games usually appeal to that type of person? Any action game (and they still might quit an action game if there's a puzzle or two)! Pokemon is a game that is a genre that absolutely does not appeal to the mainstream, and thus it's designed for basically the least interested playerbase of an RPG possible.
That is why in Scarlet and Violet you don't even have to fight trainers. It is the natural conclusion of this gameplay style and its goal to appeal to players where people often criticize Pokemon games for being slow, constantly stopping the player, doing these long... slow... tedious battles. If you've noticed that reviewers and the mainstream Western gaming opinion is that Pokemon has never improved in its gameplay, it's because they don't actually like the combat and see it as dated. The reason they like Persona combat isn't because it's deeper, because it really isn't (it's just longer, the endgame strategy is always Buff -> Debuff -> Attack and / or Heal), it's that it feels snappier and faster, and it's more mainstream is an ironic sense. The visual feedback gives dopamine when you hit a weakness and automatically win the battle, in Pokemon it's just a slightly faster HP bar going down further. This is why Legends Arceus took a lot of queues in its combat to simplify the systems (in ways I hate, but make it more mainstream) and make the UX feel better. Did the turn-based combat improve? No, it actually became way worse, but to the audience it is being made for it actually reads as far improved over the main series, leagues ahead, because the only thing a turn-based game can do for them is deliver good UX when they press the button.
When I think about level curves in Pokemon, I think of the average player and playstyle for the game. Because when I judge any game the way I do it is to read how I see the developer's intention, and then judge what they did based off of that, and if I disagree with the developer that is a different story. You can disagree with how these games are being designed, but this makes entirely sense for the demographic and what they are going for. Disinterested players is just the average player in a turn-based game. That's why the more the player has to go out of their way to succeed is directly correlated with how hardcore the RPG is.
In some ways, I must admit, I do sometimes fall into the more mainstream Pokemon player archetyle, I especially did when I was a kid. I grew up on Platformers, action games, all of those. I didn't even really know how to read much when I played Pokemon for the first time (though it helped me learn how to read, somewhat). But since I was a kid I have opened up my tastes, including to other RPGs. I play Final Fantasy, Xenoblade, Persona, SMT, tons of RPGs that require you to interact with so many more systems, explore more of the worlds, do more stuff in general to be on par because they expect the more hardcore playerbase to actually appreciate it. I love Emerald Rogue for encouraging me to be thorough, Pokemon Reborn for hiding extra Pokemon encounters and items all over the map, and plenty of fangames that require me to be more engaged as a player.
But when it comes to actually judging Pokemon as an experience? I'm going to judge it as a game for a player that probably doesn't know that much about it, probably isn't sticking around past the post-game, doesn't give a fuck to explore side content unless the game pushes them into it, and might not even enjoy Pokemon's turn-based gameplay all that much. I'm going to judge it in the way I see people play the game when I log on to Youtube . Com. I'm going to judge it by how my friends have reported their experiences, how the level curves actually meet with the design on a literal level, and what the average player is going to find.
So I'm going to continue judging the level curves of the games not with the idea that you should fight every trainer because that is ridiculous. There are a bajillion reasons from a developer and game-design perspective for Pokemon to not balance itself around that. No one cares to fight the 6th copy-paste Water route trainer in a row when they could easily swim around it and save an extra 120 seconds of their finite time on this Earth.
i'm gonna talk shit about some of the games i really like
rse's level curve is mostly good but nobody is being nearly rude enough to it so i will engage in some Hyperbole to Stir Up Discussion
the opening of the game through roxanne is good, but then immediately jumps to the first of the two contentless gym leader spikes. between roxanne and brawly the total training content is a fight against an extremely pathetic magqua grunt, an optional rival battle that rolls over for you unless you are a brendan that started with torchic in which case may throws a torkoal at you(????), (the trainerless) granite cave, and brawly's gym trainers. oh and a couple really weak fishermen but they're almost worse than wilds for exp.
brawly is a nasty jump from roxanne, what with his weakest pokemon being higher leveled than her ace and his makuhita being decently thick and actually hitting hard with accurate moves unlike rock tomb nosepass. main thing is that he's got it holding a sitrus berry (which will literally heal 50% of maku's hp) and has upgraded from potions to super potions to heal 50 of makuhita's 60 max hp twice. sure if you can no sell fighting moves then you'll be fine but otherwise makuhita is a nasty fight and worth skipping.
yeah if you skip brawly he'll be a total joke and pushover but that's not a good level curve.
the worse one though is definitely norman. content between flannery and fighting your dad? you can explore the desert and its few trainers in goddamn miserable weather and you can fight norman's goons. that's it. there is near 0 that you actually do between fighting torkoal lady and your father, and most of it requires going out of your way to fight extra trainers in the gym.
emerald is almost reasonable about the whole thing and i am convinced that's why people don't remember it as a problem. flannery's gotten a reasonable buff with having a good camel and a slightly stronger torkoal and norman's got a nerfed overall team that starts at L27, even if he does throw a 670 bst slaking at you as an ace. in RS he throws two of them and the first one starts at torkoal's L28. it's not a nice fight to go in at neutral.
the league is fine but also not? sidney's right about what you'd be expecting and shouldn't be hard, it's just that the constant +2 levels each E4 has can get overwhelming towards the end. if steven didn't nerf himself (weak skarmory with 60-70 bp moves, at least it has toxic so it's not itemless setup fodder, 3/4 special aggron?) then it'd be significantly more difficult though wallace does make up for it despite not having a pseudo and relatively exploitable weaknesses. honestly emerald starting off VR with wally instead of putting him at the end helps make it a bit smoother, but the curve from juan all the way through phoebe's pretty reasonable. glacia's where it starts really outpacing the player.
rse is still like an A level curve on the whole though
rse's level curve is mostly good but nobody is being nearly rude enough to it so i will engage in some Hyperbole to Stir Up Discussion
the opening of the game through roxanne is good, but then immediately jumps to the first of the two contentless gym leader spikes. between roxanne and brawly the total training content is a fight against an extremely pathetic magqua grunt, an optional rival battle that rolls over for you unless you are a brendan that started with torchic in which case may throws a torkoal at you(????), (the trainerless) granite cave, and brawly's gym trainers. oh and a couple really weak fishermen but they're almost worse than wilds for exp.
brawly is a nasty jump from roxanne, what with his weakest pokemon being higher leveled than her ace and his makuhita being decently thick and actually hitting hard with accurate moves unlike rock tomb nosepass. main thing is that he's got it holding a sitrus berry (which will literally heal 50% of maku's hp) and has upgraded from potions to super potions to heal 50 of makuhita's 60 max hp twice. sure if you can no sell fighting moves then you'll be fine but otherwise makuhita is a nasty fight and worth skipping.
yeah if you skip brawly he'll be a total joke and pushover but that's not a good level curve.
the worse one though is definitely norman. content between flannery and fighting your dad? you can explore the desert and its few trainers in goddamn miserable weather and you can fight norman's goons. that's it. there is near 0 that you actually do between fighting torkoal lady and your father, and most of it requires going out of your way to fight extra trainers in the gym.
emerald is almost reasonable about the whole thing and i am convinced that's why people don't remember it as a problem. flannery's gotten a reasonable buff with having a good camel and a slightly stronger torkoal and norman's got a nerfed overall team that starts at L27, even if he does throw a 670 bst slaking at you as an ace. in RS he throws two of them and the first one starts at torkoal's L28. it's not a nice fight to go in at neutral.
the league is fine but also not? sidney's right about what you'd be expecting and shouldn't be hard, it's just that the constant +2 levels each E4 has can get overwhelming towards the end. if steven didn't nerf himself (weak skarmory with 60-70 bp moves, at least it has toxic so it's not itemless setup fodder, 3/4 special aggron?) then it'd be significantly more difficult though wallace does make up for it despite not having a pseudo and relatively exploitable weaknesses. honestly emerald starting off VR with wally instead of putting him at the end helps make it a bit smoother, but the curve from juan all the way through phoebe's pretty reasonable. glacia's where it starts really outpacing the player.
rse is still like an A level curve on the whole though
I think SWSH automatically has a bad level curve because for half the game the wild Pokemon are at a higher level than the trainers
this doesn't get talked about enough
also keep in mind that these trainers are 0IV
edit: I said half the game but actually even on the final route they're about even in level lol
this doesn't get talked about enough
also keep in mind that these trainers are 0IV
edit: I said half the game but actually even on the final route they're about even in level lol
You bring up some interesting points, a lot of them boiling down to essentially judging a "good" level curve through the lens of a casual Pokemon gamer. However, I'd actually view this question in almost the opposite way.
Most if not all Pokemon games are quite simple to work your way through from a casual standpoint. When I was younger, I could beat Pokemon games by playing through them in a more casual way - i.e. Shift mode, using items in battle, over leveling, using legendaries, etc. With a fair bit of challenge, but nothing too arduous. And I had a lot of fun doing that because I didn't really know any better. I feel like that play style mirrors that of many casual Pokemon gamers who represent the mainstream majority.
But I view a well designed level curve as one that contains appeal to a broad spectrum of people/play styles. The middle part of the bell curve is relatively easy to solve for in this case (the "mainstream" majority). It's the far right end of the curve - passionate fans who care enough to create a Smogon account to post on Orange Island forums - who have a different set of standards decidedly more difficult to meet or even ascertain.
And for my part as I grew older and learned more about the game's mechanics, I began to challenge myself in playing through games imposing rules such as Set mode, no items in battle, only battle trainers/no grinding against wild's, no legendaries, etc. - and this opened up the need for some cool strategies like my Bronzong using Trick Room against Cynthia in Platinum; not for shits and giggles but because I actually needed to in order to defeat her.
So I'd prefer to answer this question in this way - in judging the level curve of a Pokemon game, I have to more broadly look at its difficulty curve. For example HGSS to me doesn't have a bad curve on levels alone; it's really not that bad numerically compared to other games. What makes it truly bad in my view is exacerbating the level discrepancy with an extreme dearth of options - Pokemon selection wise, TM availability wise, evolution method wise, etc. It turns the game into a kind of patchwork affair, whereby your options are so limited that it takes an absurdly tailored run to be able to overcome unreasonable level spikes like Lance and Red. While other games with difficult bosses level wise usually give you reasonable options to be able to combat them.
Which brings me to my answer to this question on the best level (read: "difficulty") curve in the series - Platinum. The physical/special split opened up a huge portion of regional dexes, which I feel significantly hinders option availability in games prior to Gen 4. Post Gen 5, there are a host of problems difficulty curve wise ranging from small like gaining EXP when catching Pokemon, to large like balancing games around optional or mandatory EXP Share, open world, etc. that I won't get too much into; needless to say, I'm not the biggest fan of these games from a challenge perspective.
And between Gen's 5 and 4, one subtle change I felt like made the former end games a little too easy for my taste was suppressing the Elite Four levels to one set across across all four members, as opposed to a steadily increasing progression. I felt like the latter in Platinum produced a perfectly challenging capstone Champion fight with Cynthia, whereas BW Ghetsis and BW2 Iris felt slightly nerfed by comparison. DP's AI is an abject failure. And I already alluded to the problems with HGSS. Leaving Platinum for me with the best difficulty, and by transitive relation, level curve in the series. Between difficult bosses and a wealth of options to plan and strategize with, it has everything I could want from a challenge perspective.
Lastly, the point in Sinnoh about needing to battle all trainers to unlock the National dex and post game is hard for me to gloss over. In an already brilliantly designed region, this alone unlocks what I view as the crown jewel of the region aesthetic wise - the Battle Zone. Within which contains the crown jewel of crown jewels - the Battle Frontier. Which I can assure you, many of us care about. Arguably even casual Pokemon gamers.
Too bad Platinum's is bad for the casual playthrough.
It's actually not. Without deeper knowledge of the battle system, most of these players will have only one option: grind. AKA the one thing they don't want to do. Even a game like Black 2 White 2, which I think has a pretty good level curve, can have problems.
Here is an extreme story from me as a kid. When I played White 2 for the first time, this was my fifth Pokemon game, and the first Pokemon game where I actually decided to train a team of 6. I'd seen some playthroughs of Pokemon on the internet by this point so I understood the appeal of doing so, whereas in almost every playthrough before I'd powerleveled my starter or something.
This was great until I got to the Elite 4. I was around Level 46 average for my team, and I met this,
and I lost hard. I was around 10 levels under the Elite 4 and I was bad at the game. Makes sense. So what did I decide to do?
Did I:
A. Go back and explore more of the region
B. Fight wild Pokemon in Victory Road
C. Bruteforce the Elite 4 by constantly fighting it, naturally getting Exp. even knowing I'd lose
D. Learn 2 Play?
All of these are options I'd do today and I consider reasonable. And despite the story and what I did, I still consider B2W2 to have a good level curve because this is an extreme case, and I do not think reflects what the average player will be at here. Level 50 is the benchmark for most bossfights prior to this point, so while I don't remember everything that I did, it'd be reasonable to expect even a casual player to be around 50 here.
Anywho what I did was delete my entire save file because I was bored of the non-progression. I started back up, got like 2 badges in, stopped playing for a while, and then I think my dog ate my cartridge or something. It'd be years before I got into emulation and actually went the final 20 minutes of gameplay before the credits rolled.
Now, again. I'm not saying this is a problem with the B2W2 game's specifically, because I think it's actually unreasonable for the developers to have expected I was at that level there, and there were ways to level up quickly if I explored more. I also skipped a lot of trainers, probably because I thought they were boring.
What this is a case of is "casual players do not, in fact, easily solve the game", especially the ones who grow a bit older and find solo-leveling a starter to not be the deepest gameplay in the world. The middle of the curve is the hardest to solve because experienced players will understand the game and how to play it, while people like kids and those who don't know much about Pokemon likely won't.
If I wasn't a dumbass kid I could've went back through Victory Road and fought all the trainers I skipped, fought wild Pokemon, gone back to side activities, even found more mundane solutions. There was plenty of content to play, plenty of stuff to do in B2W2's Unova that would probably be worth my time. But I didn't know or really understand how to metagame Pokemon. For some reason my head just went "Oh I played the game badly I need to restart", so I did, and then never beat it.
I think the problem with this disagreement is: I know from firsthand experience that it is extremely easy for these games to literally just lose the player. And Platinum doesn't do much to discourage that with a major jump at the end, with much less side activity than a game like B2W2, with a slower battle engine, and a terrible grinding experience.
Entirely subjective. I don't view things related to Exp. as actually being difficulty. To me a hard bossfight in a turn-based game is a bossfight that has enough options and is well-designed to where there doesn't need to be a level difference for it to be hard.
Cynthia isn't hard. She's just way overleveled for where the average player will be. Maybe a decently designed team, but not much that's going to stop any decently designed team from the player outside of level creep. Trainer Red isn't hard, he's a superboss they put in for hardcore players meant for a game they thought hardcore players would do daily events in, but in the West we especially just bruteforce it. His team is actually pretty bad, full of monotypes with mid movesets.
Maybe I'm just brainrotted from fangames where they make hard bossfights despite literally guaranteeing you're going to be at the same level of the opponents, but I don't find this argument appealing. The "difficulty curve" in this case is very subjective because I feel that difficulty from levels is just not actually real.
I don't agree with this, really. Even if HGSS gave a ton of good Pokemon, it'd still suck because you won't have enough Exp. to train them all. A team of Starter + Red Gyarados + Eeveelution and maybe a 4th Pokemon is probably going to do better than a team of 6 without long grinding sessions because there literally isn't enough Exp. in the region to support a team of 6.
I also wouldn't say this is "hard" though. HGSS is an extremely easy game. It's solved. It solves itself! The best Pokemon in the game are literally gifted/guaranteed encounters and the trainers are very easy to fight, including the gyms, and frankly yeah the Elite 4.
If the game had a better leveling curve I'd enjoy the game a lot more because I'd feel an incentive to play with a Team of 6. Even if the game dropped more good Pokemon in my lap I wouldn't want to use them just because I would prefer not grinding over carrying more Pokemon.
It's pretty trash.
This doesn't really matter for most players. Hoenn already had a bajillion good Pokemon and it is hard to go wrong in Kanto, and Johto still has good Pokemon to catch. It's just maybe not really worth it to train a team of 6.
I, again, find this point to not vibe with me at all. I don't care how many good Pokemon you throw at me if it takes much more grinding. Almost all of my Platinum playthroughs are basically Starter + Staraptor + Luxray for almost the entire game, because catching another Pokemon means grinding in the slowest battle engine in the series.
It's so much simpler and the game is more efficient by cutting Pokemon in the party.
All of these are good things.
Rewarding catching Pokemon with Exp. is a great idea, more incentive to catch Pokemon. Catching Pokemon can take more time and for most players doesn't have a direct reward, so giving a reward for actually going out of their way to catch it rather than just kill it and take the Exp. is a good thing.
Balancing the games around Exp. Share is a weird statement because, to be frank, they kinda already were automatically. XY is the only of the 3DS games I'd say that didn't really do a good job, but also if you really look at it, the problem with that game is less "omg you can get to the levels quicker" it's that the actual trainer design is terrible.
In the other 3DS games, the Exp. Share just fixes the problem for most players, letting them train a full team with no downside. It encourages players to catch more Pokemon and train an entire team. Which is good. One of the reasons I tend to replay modern Pokemon games more than older Pokemon games is I actually feel like training a full team is worth it over just catching the same few easy, efficient Pokemon, skipping the last slots of my team and just coasting with High BST until the end of the game.
It also smooths over dumb edges like Slow Exp. Pokemon that otherwise take so much more grinding, Pokemon like Magikarp that used to require switch training, and more.
The Open World basically lets you choose how much Exp. you get, to be frank.
I'd say the Gen 7 games are far more difficult than the Platinum games because they actually have good trainer designs. You don't have to be underleveled for the game to have difficulty. In fact controversial statement here: BDSP is actually the better "challenge game" given that you can actually fight the overly-abbrassive Exp. and affection gain in that game, with the trainers actually being challenging far before the Elite 4.
I have zero respect for Sinnoh's "difficulty".
After Gen 4 they made it so you can fight them in any order.
I can promise you that 90% of people think N and Ghetsis are great bossfights, and Iris is still well-liked. Cynthia is just overleveled anyways.
The bosses really are not hard in Gen 4. Sure, level jumps are "difficulty" in a sense but I don't find it to be a respectable form of difficulty. Is Cynthia's Garchomp really that hard to fight or is it 10 levels above the player? How does Cynthia's team combat the fact that if you click the super-effective move they probably die, besides just being overleveled?
And frankly, the idea that Gen 4 has tons of "good options" I don't agree with, with most of the good Pokemon being final evos of old dex Pokemon (usually with wonky evolution methods), weird method Pokemon, and in general a lot of the dex was mid. The reason everyone makes a team early on is because they give most of the good options at the start and then the region gets pretty bad from there.
To actually go further on how I feel about leveling and difficulty: Obviously a level jump is "difficulty". The leveling contributes to the gamefeel in some sense too, and how people perceive Cynthia to this day, but I don't respect it as a bossfight because of that. I see it as an eye roll, "I gotta plan my game around the fact the game is going to jump up levels at the end", and when I get to those levels I'm not going to have any real difficulty. I see it as a Grind Check rather than a Skill Check, in a way I don't think Ghetsis is. Ghetsis levels are more reasonable, but I think his team is genuinely just way scarier. Several of his Pokemon have less obvious types to hit, be it only one type that is super-effective or maybe two. Elektross basically has no weakness. Grass is a good answer, except it has Flamethrower and Acrobatics. Seismitoad needs Grass, but it also has Sludge Wave which can be scary, alongside Swift Swim + Rain Dance making it faster than your entire team with great coverage. The Hydreigon has Dragon-Water-Fire-Fighting coverage which means it probably has something for all of your Pokemon. Cofagrigus straight up has Toxic Stall and Psychic coverage. The Bisharp is mid we can skip that one.
I mean, it's not like Cynthia's team doesn't have coverage. It just doesn't feel like the movesets are coherent in favor of that coverage. Spiritomb didn't have Ghost-STAB in favor of Silver Wind and Embargo in DP, in Platinum it gets it over Embargo. 4 attacks, I guess. Roserade drops Shadow Ball for Toxic in Platinum, which I like but think Toxic Spikes would be a better move for this team and make it a stronger bossfight overall. Other than that 3 Attacks. Togekiss has Air Slash / Aura Sphere / Water Pulse / Shock Wave, first two make sense, last two uh. I guess? Lucario is a mixed attacker with Shadow Ball / Aura Sphere / Stone Edge / Extreme Speed which is ok given its stat spread, but also it'd probably be more threatening with setup of some sort, but that's a nitpick. Milotic has Surf / Ice Beam, good enough options. Except for some reason they add Dragon Pulse which doesn't even help against Dragons since it already knows Ice Beam. Last move? Recover could make it a lot stronger of a Pokemon - Mirror Coat. Garchomp is not nearly as scary as people make it out to be, its best move is definitely just Earthquake. If it clicks Giga Impact that is entirely a throw move I don't see why it's on there, Flamethrower can be annoying but it's not off of a very good Special so it's fine.
Overall mid team outside of BST + overleveling. I have no question that given the levels, the average player and team can easily fuck it up. Now let's look at BDSP, a game with a bad level curve, where people actually just don't see actually well-designed bosses because they overlevel over all of it:
Alright so first of all this shit is mostly EV trained so keep that in mind.
Now THIS is a GENUINELY hard bossfight. This is an actual test of knowledge at the game. Spiritomb is still 4 Attacks shit, whtever, Roserade goes into that too but it has Expert Belt and Timid which makes it genuinely a threat. I brought Honchkrow and it got OHKO'd by Dazzling Gleam every time. Gastrodon is still mid as fuck, but it has Leftovers which helps with it only having one real weakness and good stats. Recover on this one AND Milotic is probably overkill for Little Timmy, but we have upgrades in the form of Scald. Lucario is a Special Attacker first with Nasty Plot + almost perfect coverage, Wise Glasses helping it and Timid, this shit is going to outspeed most Pokemon. Milotic isn't fucking around anymore and they put Recover on top of its Dragon Pulse slot alongside Flame Orb to give it a 50% Defense boost. Garchomp isn't mixed, it also has Swords Dance and YACHE BERRY.
This is a genuinely well-designed fight outside of IMO the EV training, the EV training is overkill. But actually giving her Pokemon better items and moves actually makes it feel like she's a good trainer and you have to be better at it. If Sinnoh had more good Pokemon, I'd enjoy this bossfight's design even more.
It even has a core weakness to exploit, too, and when I played BDSP on par (I was Level 57 average) I had to actually plan in ways I've never actually had to plan for DPP Cynthia.
Now again, three real problems here: 1. BDSP is almost impossible to not overlevel in. 2. I think the EV training is overkill, and 3. I don't think Sinnoh's regional dex is actually good. A team at this level would fit right at home in a lot of modern Pokemon games, but the fact is that in Sinnoh if you want to find good BST Pokemon outside of basically just Luxray/Staraptor/Roserade/Garchomp you will need to find weird evo methods or weekly events, and I think that sucks. Yeah, you can get a Milotic, but how many people are getting their own Milotic? This bossfight would fit right in at home nowadays because nowadays they throw way more Pokemon at this tier.
Still, I want to give props to the BDSP team for taking the Sinnoh Cynthia and IMO giving it more depth than just being BST + level fight. These sets make more sense and are actually brutal.
"Brilliantly designed region" (10% better than Kanto [in some cases I'd say it's worse]) "the crown jewel of crown jewels" (most people didn't actually care about this, it's just that the internet makes people think it was way more important)
I'm pretty sure that if you polled 90% of people who played any Sinnoh game in 2010 if they knew what the Battle Zone was, 80%+ would say no. 80% is actually a very conservative estimate.
I can promise you that most players didn't even beat the game (probably because its balancing sucks and it's slow as hell), as is the case with most games (especially in this era. Nintendo was struggling to get people to complete fucking Mario games), and if they did that doesn't mean they did anything in the post-game. Playing the post-game of a Pokemon game is 100%, distinctly nerd shit, so things that people on this website do that most players wouldn't do.
This end bit just makes me think you are deeply nostalgic for Gen 4. This is fawning over it at the end. And I don't care if you are, like that's fine everyone has their preferences, I just don't think this is an actually well-reasoned take. Sinnoh's difficulty mainly coming from leveling is just not that good of design in my honest opinion + the fact that most of the Pokemon options that are easier to get have shit BST, and I don't think Platinum actually has that many good Pokemon.
Hoenn is a region I'd say is stronger for its dex. It gives you tons of good options early on but good options never actually stop coming. The regional dex feels well-balanced and Pokemon you find all over the region are probably more than adequate to do the job and take on the game, and not just in a "well it's Pokemon you can do it any way" game. Mightyena having no STAB for its best attack stat might suck, but if you get one with Intimidate it's still going to put in a good amount of work. Linoone is the rat but it's actually pretty consistent throughout the game. Ralts, Tailow, Lotad, Wingull, etc. early on. Makuhita, Aron, Meditite, Electrike, Carvanha, Numel, Trapinch, Swablu, Barboach, Feebas, Duskull, Bagon,
Hoenn is probably one of the most solid Pokedexes for just how many singleplayer viable evolution lines it drops on you, which is good because it's rewarding to level these up and there's enough for several teams. And this is just Hoenn evolution lines, because there's other Pokemon from other dexes and there's solo stages, too. Hoenn also has a better level curve, it still has high levels at the Elite 4 but it eases the player in easier with more sources and just in general having the better balance of Pokemon mean a smaller level difference means less.
edit: also I'm moving on from this because this is the second reply I've made here that took 30 minutes, and I literally just woke up and all I've done today is write this
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All five GSC voters,
We duel at dawn.
We duel at dawn.
So let me get this straight. The thrill of the game comes from learning new moves, but using these moves is boring. You can't make this up.
Exploring is bad, fighting is bad, I dunno, just play Amie/Refresh or whatever. We're here to actually play the game.
Incredible post to username relation
I'll bite. I think Johto's level curve is good because it has the most realistic portrayal of gaining experience in real life just like the rest of the game's living world. Not every challenge is going to be something you are appropriately prepared for and sometimes it might seem like life is unfair. But even prodigies have to go to the gym/library and put in the time and effort of hard work, you can't gain experience without directly participating. Even then at some point you'll hit a plateau, which Johto represents in the lategame, and most trainers don't even go beyond the level of hobby battling. If you want to be a champion of your craft then you have to start thinking outside of the box or dedicate your life to it, and Red himself embodies the latter with the reputation of the highest levels in the game, posing the unwritten question of if you want to work just as hard to match him or work smart instead. In a way Johto's level curve says something deep about life which may hit too close to home to be appreciated.
I disagree with most of this post because, in my opinion, the problem with Johto isn't the Clair level spike.
The low trainer levels make them the epitome of boring fodder, and assuming you do have to grind, you're outta luck. The wild levels are abysmal.
I would say that's also a realistic part of life, it's not like you can become a master of anything just by competing with random people you meet on the street, and the practice isn't always going to be exciting or rewarding. A lot of trainers are ordinary people just living their own life like the pokefans or the fishers, and sometimes they call you about it. If they were all super competent I think it would defeat the point the story is making up to that point.
The idea that Johto trainers are fodder reminds me of when Silver says that he hates battling weak trainers, and his viewpoint is supposed to be proven wrong by the narrative. The Dragon's Den quiz also points out that you have to be willing to fight anyone, not just the strong. I think the other games have just forgone the nuance of gameplay story integration in favour of a more approachable power fantasy where you and everyone else just linearly get stronger as you reach each new location. I don't think it was the wrong decision in terms of making the games more approachable, but I think the question of what it really means to live as a trainer and become champion is lost when there's no pushback to pursuing such a prestigious goal.
Even at the start of the game, you can choose to leave money to your mother or leave home without talking to her, a choice that wouldn't be given to you again in future games. It's a powerful piece of emergent gameplay that really gives meaning to leaving home, another very realistic life event.
EDIT: Also regarding wild levels, this is something I feel like Unova does terribly in terms of worldbuilding by just adding postgame parts of the region that are higher level than everything else for no particular reason other than being postgame. I think the Pokemon world would realistically look more like the Johto games in terms of wild level distribution not suddenly being higher in a new place just because it's after other places.
Kanto Route 1 across Kanto to Johto has the same level 2 Pidgey and Rattata. This makes sense.
Unova Route 1 goes from having level 2 Unova native mons to invasive Level 50 Jigglypuffs in B2W2. I think this is a travesty and is never explained.
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It's especially comical in light of Masuda's comment in an interview that wild Pokemon levels are in fact tied to geography ("Isn't it difficult for trainers who grow up in Sunyshore City to start their journey when the wild Pokemon nearby are all level 40?" M: "Yeah, they should probably consider moving somewhere else"*).
That said, if you're wanting an explanation a lot of people seem to think that B2W2's influx of non-Unova species is down to them escaping from the PokeTransfer, which afaik is based solely on the pre-battle dialogue of an NPC stood nearby. As good as anything else I suppose.
*yes, I know he probably wasn't being totally serious when he said this
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I’m not sure about LGP/E either, but I think they should be in the poll just in case there’s someone who thinks they have a good level curve (I haven’t played them as said, so I have no idea). Good points about L:A, I also think the game is too different from the rest of the series (and I guess that’s why I had a hard time giving a fair opinion on its level curve) so I’m fine with it not being added.
And thanks, though now I wish I had spent more time on writing that post since I think it could have been better.
I disagree completely. In fact, my opinion is pretty much the polar opposite of yours.
It seems we have different perspectives on this subject. For me, levels are purely a gameplay element, they do not add to worldbuilding or realism in any way whatsoever. In addition, realism is one of the last things I look for when I play Pokémon, I find the Pokémon games to be very unrealistic (and I consider that to be a very good thing). I think B2/W2 Unova does the levels of the post-game areas much better since they are altered to fit the player's progress in the new way you explore the region, they were not kept from how they were in B/W just to make it “realistic”.
Kanto Route 1 in the Johto games having level 2 Pidgey and Rattata just like in the Kanto games makes no sense whatsoever. Why should you be fighting wild Pokémon at level 2 when you have already beaten the Champion with a level 50 Dragonite, and when you are right next to the city where the Gym Leader has a level 60 Pidgeot? To me, that’s nothing but a prime example of bad game design. I assume it was that way in G/S/C to match how it was in R/B/Y, but that's not a good reason since it makes the games worse. The fact that it wasn't fixed in HG/SS is a complete and utter travesty.
Meanwhile, Unova Route 1 having high-leveled Pokémon in B2/W2 makes sense because at that point, the player has already beaten the Champion with high-leveled Pokémon, so the levels were increased from how they were in B/W to match the player’s progress. To me, this does not need an explanation, it is simply that way because the levels increase as the game progresses. In contrast to the Johto games, I think this is an example of good game design.
All in all, I think this is just one of the many instances where B2/W2 succeeded at being sequels, while the Johto games failed.
Regarding your other opinion about Johto having the “most realistic portrayal of gaining experience in real life”, I disagree about that as well (or at least I don’t see it as something good), but I’m having a hard time formulating a counterargument towards it without getting too personal or subjective, so I’ll pass for now. Maybe another time.
I also agree with Volt about the low levels in the Johto games making grinding a chore. In fact, my biggest issue with the Johto games isn’t the level curve, but the lack of good training spots (which is partly caused by the bad level curve). When I played Crystal earlier this year, I just gave up trying to grind in the post-game since there are no good training spots anywhere. This wasn’t that much of an issue when I played G/S/C as a kid, but nowadays, I can't do it. I think I have been heavily spoiled by the great training spots in the generations after Gen 2, especially Gen 5 and 6, but also 3-4 and 7-9 to some extents.
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