>14 legendary pokemon in the 4th gen and 13 in the 5th one

>>26982636
3 catchable,no trio and the other two you can only get through events...

3 of those are events, and until gen 6 we had sub-legendaries in-game.
Keyword being in-game, not locked back to events.

>>26982636

Nobody complained though

Gen 6 having only 6 legendaries was great

>>26982636
>Remember when legendary pokemon used to mean something?

>fire bird, ice bird, zappy bird

>>26982666
>Phoenix, Simurgh and the Thunderbird

>>26982666
Honestly if you think about it, Gen 1 didnt have any legends at all besides Mewtwo.

>the birds werent the only unevolved Pokemon
>while exceptionally strong, so was shit like Arcanine, Dragonite, Gyarados, and even tauros/Scyther.
>breeding wasnt a thing, thus the incompatibility of it didnt matter
Essentially, the only thing that seperated them from non-legends was a) an Overworld sprite and b) being part of a trio

And Mew didnt even really exist, it was just part of background lore like "the War" and "America".