Eh, I don't think the OG games were difficult at all, the trainers didnt have that many strong Pokémon until the very end of the game and you have Pokémon centers everywhere, or you could buy potions too. Yellow was the first game I ever finished when I was 4 and it wasnt that bad.Who are they making these changes for?
An entire generation beat Pokemon Red and Blue, two obtuse games with almost no tutorial or hand-holding on the GameBoy. The tricky parts only encouraged building a community ("Hey, I'm stuck in Cerulean!" "Just go through the house that was burglarized" etc). These games were difficult and punishing, where routes between towns were long and filled with trainers with 4-5 Pokemon that were higher level than yours, and often of a different type than the wild Pokemon, and you'd have to have 1-2 of your team filled with HM 'mons and you had to let the opponent land a free hit because you had to keep switching Magikarp in and out.
Like, I don't want to be the "back in my day" guy but we know kids aren't stupid and can beat hard games. It's not an unproven.
The hardest part was knowing where to go at times, especially after getting to Lavander Town.