Southeast Kanto in Pokemon Red and Blue was a Mistake

I think the devs didn’t see this area as being optional, rather as a choice the player could make if they did not get the bike in Cerulean. Only now with speedruns and such now is it seen as "optional".

On an ordinary playthrough, the level jump up to Koga and Sabrina from Erika feels quite significant, at least in my experience. The developers seemingly expected people to do Koga first, so to help players make up the gap without too much grinding against wild Pokemon, they put 2 paths to Fuchsia and densely populated both with trainers. The idea being that basically, if you reach Fuchsia and aren't leveled highly enough, you can go back through the route you didn't take previously to catch up. I'd say it makes sense! South Eastern Kanto is very annoying in my opinion, but I do honestly think that function it serves is a valid one, even if it could've been designed to be of more substance

I would say that SE Kanto is best for training. Especially when you are training a full team of pokemon and not what we do nowadays with single pokemon runs.

I'll be honest, Cycling Road is usually the path I ignore when heading to Fuchsia City, Fly is basically the only reason to go to the West of Celadon City, plus you get cool encounters at the end, more interesting looking routes, and the trainers are a bit more interesting than Koffing, Grimer and Machop. And as a kid I used to remember that being the more interesting way to go because of the battle it was to try to get through the routes without going back to heal. Getting to the end with no PP on some moves, and no PP on some Pokémon entirely, it was like the gauntlet path, but very rewarding for XP

i think when analysing the gen 1 games as adults some decisions seem to make no sense when viewing the games 'logically' - ie. some decisions were made primarily with the experience of a kid in mind the example i think of is onix - it's a Really bad pokemon to actually use, but its main purpose is to be an intimidating challenge for kids facing brock. then later on when you find onix in rock tunnel and have the opportunity to use it (and find it's bad), the takeaway is the feeling of having gotten much stronger since fighting brock likewise, i think a main reason for SE kanto being what it is is to give kids the feeling of exploration and discovery, even though both roads ultimately end at fuschia. and then past the experience of actually making it to fuschia, kids on the playground get to talk about how some of them went down a crazy steep hill (exciting!) and others found an entire fence maze and got the super rod (exciting!) (i do think the super rod is a very important reason to at least go a little down route 12 - no pokemon in r/b are exclusive to SE kanto but plenty require the super rod all over the region, again prompting more exploration and discovery) from a more practical perspective, i think packing routes 12-15 with so many trainers was an attempt to address the weird level curve in the mid-late game - they're monotonous but provide loads of exp to both train up your existing team and train up new pokemon to try out, so that ultimately if kids are feeling stuck on a gym there's trainers to fight before they're forced to grind wild encounters they also give out a decent amount of money - if kids want to grind money for vitamins, TMs, game corner etc., they can do it here (on a separate note, in yellow farfetch'd is exclusively found here (routes 12-13 iirc) which gives it more value, which you could take as an acknowledgement that they knew the wild pokemon here sucked ass) i do agree the final product is a long and boring slog to fuschia, but ultimately i think it really adds to the non-linear feel of kanto and overall it has a useful purpose :)

It is a pretty good representation of what that part of Chiba prefecture is like in real life. It really isn't interesting in the slightest.

I like that it has lots of trainers. It helps me train my newly caught Venonat and Staryu

To me, the purpose of this area is having a lot of trainers and helping you train your pokémon for the Fuchsia City gym. I always try to fight every trainer in the game in order to get exp, so this area is a good place for that.

My first thought is that, for many, this area was likely required to progress, as they never bothered learning how to get the bike, at least their first time. And I think when viewed as "a path that can be avoided with knowledge of the game" instead of "optional" it takes a new role. This is the Gauntlet of the game. This is the only real point on the game where i can see myself whiting out. Not because it forces you to do it all at ince, but because backtracking it takes so long. Runming out of PP on your typical moves is not only possible but probable. Your pokemon getting chipped at slowly across the routes makes you ask "did I make sure to bring healing? I dont want to walk all the way back, I'm so close, maybe i can just scrape by with whats left." This area is a slog, and thats really its best trait. It is a type of area that the game severely lacks, outside of maybe Victory Road itself, and maybe Viridian if your Poison Sting luck is bad like mine. It is the only part in the game where backtracking to the Pokemon Center is at its most punishing, and where the game pushes you to do it the hardest. Its the prep check, the gauntlet, the struggle bus, whatever you want to call it. It is where you are forced to push your limits, even if its in a rather mundane setting.

I think one thing worth consideration here is that the seafoam islands were most likely not intended to be an optional area, but rather part of the critical path. It's natural to expect the player to explore the ocean to the south of fuschia immediately after getting surf. After all, the ocean is right there in front of them. As such, they put a lot of effort into the seafoam islands, as this is where most players would end up going. Southeast kanto is a bit different, however. The critical path involves the player returning to cerulean after vermillion, where the player is expected to pick up the bike, which will later let them on cycling road. After traveling through lavender to celadon and then back to lavender, you're finally given the choice between taking cycling road and southeast kanto to get to fuschia. The question is, which snorlax did they find? Did the player check south of lavender when they got there? Did they check west of celadon? Which snorlax they know about will influence which way they go from here. Either of these could be the critical path, and there isn't a cut and dry answer. It's even possible that the player missed the bike, making SE kanto the only option. Since any given player could easily miss either cycling road or southeast kanto, it's natural then that neither should have anything you wouldn't want to miss. This is why you can find ditto both to the east and west of fuschia. Having a lot of trainers on these routes is likely intended as a catchup mechanic for players who are behind the level curve, giving players a natural way to level their pokemon without having to grind on wild encounters. It's worth noting that having to fight so many trainers en route to fuschia is in itself an experience, and is an exercise in rationing resources (HP, PP, items, etc). Limping into fuschia with your beat-up party is certainly a memorable experience, and I think having a skippable area that is all about endurance does in fact add something of interest to the game. Experiencing it once is probably enough for most players, but they can ignore it on repeat playthroughs once they know about cycling road, and use it as an exp bank if they need it later.

The practical point (possibly also the intention of developers) is to punish you for failing to complete the optional bike voucher sub quest.

It was inspired by the least populated part of real life kanto in Japan, Chiba!

Others have pointed out that you need the bike to get to Cycling Road which is not always a given. We forget after nearly 30 years and decades of folks mining this game to its very core, that when most of us were playing as a kid this might be the only way to get to Fuschia. I take the point it might be worth putting something here that can only be got here, but I can see why it was put there.

I have always found the bike lane to be the optional route. I have always found this routes to be the highlight of the game because the game reaches its peak here, because of the many water Pokemon and fishing opportunities and the atmosphere that reaches its peak here and in Lavender Town.

You to go southeast Kanto to level up your team. You only have a finite amount of trainers to level up on.

I think this area is just a backup area, so if a kid didn't find the bike they could still continue the game.

I like the area because it feels like the middle of nowhere, like you're out exploring the ends of the Earth.

Trite is correct. The bike is a side quest, an entirely optional side quest at that. There is no point in the game where you need the Bike to travel from point A to point B. Additionally, in order to get the Bike you need to: A) Find where the Bike store is and realize its impossible to purchase B) Find the Pokemon Fan building in Vermilion C) Chat with a specific NPC to get the Bike Voucher D) Head all the way back to the Bike Store and finish the quest. It is entirely possible for a player to skip that side quest and go straight to Lavender Town. This means their only available path is that Route. Additionally, I am willing to bet the higher number of trainers is to make sure such a player is ready for Koga's gym. If a player skips the bike, then it's reasonable to assume they haven't been exploring that much. And if the player isn't exploring, then their team might be lower leveled. It could be the devs put that route there as a way to allow such a player to catch up to a point where they can reliably fight Koga.

I like having it. It may seem pointless, but sometimes in a journey you go off the beaten path and thats okay.

Its a training area and a route you can take if you weren't adventurous enough to find the bike voucher. You can easily miss the bike voucher on your first playthrough.