Did we just move from Gen 1 to Gen 2 meta? (Ch 75 spoilers)

So this week with the release of Chapter 75, I made some extensive remarks about possible future Replaced battles being these extensive offence-defence back-and-forth affairs.

Since then, upon further reflection I started thinking, these steady establishment of defensive techniques... doesn't it make the story even more Pokemon-like!? Allow me to explain.

In Gen 1 of Pokemon with Red/Blue/Green (and Yellow), the overall movepool available largely focused on attacking and raising/lowering stats (what we'd call de/buffing these days), but no defending moves existed. (At most, we only had Counter that inflicts damage based on how much damage the opponent did earlier in the turn)

Later in Gen 2 with Gold/Silver (and Crystal), GameFreak started introducing defending moves like Protect, Endure and Detect that block incoming attacks. However, you can't spam the same defensives because they come with catches - for example, a 2nd consecutive use of Protect has only 33% success rate.

(Defending moves are now so integral to the series these days that in the international Video Game Championships double-battle format, matches are all about predicting whether your opponent will be making defensive or offensive plays each turn. Try tuning into some VGC livestreams or VOD's, you'd be surprised at how much mind games go into a seemingly simple franchise)

Coincidence or not, it's like up until the Tai Sui battle we were mostly playing with Gen 1 rules, and now we're transitioning to the Gen 2 meta. Maybe Gen 3 if you consider this battle a double-battle.

However, if we ever get Tailwind or Trick Room-like field conditions from Gen 4, we shall know if Kondo-sensei will be full-on committing to progressing through Pokemon history...