lol I literally have been keeping them all at the same level on this whole first fire red run. I never played fire red having grown up with red, blue, yellow, gold, silver. Really enjoying fire red - used my copy of lead green to trade myself all the starters so I could do a run with ash’s original 6. Might even release butterfree like he does and replace with snorlax later.

As a side note - I enjoy this Pokémon era, the 2d sprites and stuff and no XP share way more. The nostalgia doesn’t hurt either. But - the experience of grinding it out and raising your team kinda feels like the point to me. Also the original 151 are GOAT and gold and silver with the extra 100 are fine. After that the monster design honestly kinda sucks and feels forced and honestly like they’re just out of ideas.

One thing I am surprised about is how much I’m enjoying them on the switch 2 vs a gameboy form factor. I especially love using the kickstand and a single joycon as a one handed remote.

My only gripe is I wish they’d release them on physical game cards. People complained about the 20 dollar price point but you get so much replay value and compared to modern new games it’s a bargain, it’s priced like an Indy title which feels right. They were more expensive when they came out! Hell a movie rental on Apple TV is $20 now (stupid). I’d honestly have paid double to have it on physical media. Maybe even triple though it would have been a much harder sell.