Current Events > Hot Take: Pokémon has always been a little bit difficult >_>

(+) Yeah! (+)

I know the meme is Pokmon was only ever hard because you were 5, but tbh most of the games before the 3DS were a little bit challenging.

Its just that Pokmon doesnt give you any meaningful penalty for failure. And even if you dont fail, tbh, theres a lot of points that force me to burn through a lot of my resources. But heres a bunch of Pokmon trainers that have killed me over the years:

That one Rocket Grunt with the Raticate at the end of Mt Moon: Hyper Fang OP

Misty: Starmie is a hard level check if you didnt start with Bulbasaur.

Sabrina: another hard level check. Psychic OP

Lorelei: Her Pokemon are so bulky

Whitney: well obviously. To this day I make sure I have an direct counter to Miltank.

Morty: In games I forget to run a psychic move

Jasmine: because by this point Im underlevelled and too lazy to grind.

the entire Johto Elite 4: because Im like level 38 by the time I get here. Technically beatable even at this level though. >_>

Brawly: idk why but this guy has always been a little bit tough.

May: shes blindsided me at least a few times. Mostly under cycling road.

Wattson: lol Magneton

Norman: lol Slaking

Skyla: lol Earthquake

Wally: just kidding. I just feel bad for the guy.

Roark: I wasnt prepared for that Craniados.

Gardenia: her Pokmon were just generally pretty hardy and I never start with Chimchar because I dislike monkeys

That fat lady from B/W: I was not prepared for the Watchhog

That hot electric gym leader that turns me on with that aloof, indifferent stare: Emolga was surprisingly scrappy, and the rest of her Pokmon were generally tough.

The first Veteran Trainer you fight during Black/Whites post game: holy cats was not expecting that at all lmao

...and thats it mostly. Granted, I notice that most of the difficulty comes from the early game when you dont have as many team building options, which is probably why Johto is the only E4 or Champion thats consistently challenged me. (Because type advantage doesnt matter if youre15 levels weaker lmao)

i think...maybe Clementine killed me once in X but other than that Ive never even had to try once the games went 3D.

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Most of the people saying "it was hard cause you were 5" are either too young to have first hand experience with the older gens, or are trying to excuse the lack of challenge in newer gens.

Yes, pokemon was always easy on some level, but that doesn't mean it was always too easy, or that difficulty on an easy series is irrelevant.

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They had some challenging bits for sure, but there's been an obvious decline in challenge since X/Y. most trainers you encounter now have only 1 pokemon for some reason (including gymleaders), and there's a healer on every route, and before every rival battle.
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I skipped UltraSun/Moon so idk about Necrozma. But credit to the game if it was actually hard. Vanilla Sun/Moon certainly werent <_<

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The other issue is that people also misremeber certain fights being more difficult than they actually were.

"OMG, Brock was so hard if you picked Charmander!"

No. No he wasn't. Just spam Ember, his Pokes have no Special. Onix literally has the same base attack as Pidgey, and no rock type moves in RBY. He's cake.

Blue also isn't especially difficult in most of his encounters. The Nugget Bridge one maybe if your team isn't that leveled. Otherwise his only real threat is Alakazam.

...and I guess his starter once it gets its actual good move if you're the type to fight his starter with yours(Cause Charizard can tank Water Gun all day).
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I could beat any of the first four gens with my eyes closed. None of them are hard, but the games from the 3ds and switch are brain dead easy
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I think the problem re: difficulty in early Pokemon games is that it rarely required you strategically to switch between different team compositions or anything like that. Your best strategy was to level a few things a lot and as long as you weren't just completely type devastated you were good. HMs were the only thing that really forced you to box/unbox Pokemon.

Which meant that even elementary school kids stumbled backwards into the optimal thing.
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Post game of Emerald is a legit challenge
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That said I'm still upset at how they massacred the difficulty in X/Y.

Basically every gym leader besides the first and last(?) only had 3 Pokemon.

Elite Four only have 4 Pokemon, and no rematch (Black and White started the "4 Pokemon" thing, but at least their E4 had rematches, and we're tough enough to last through a song loop). Their champion is super easy despite having an actual variety in her team(Only champ easier is Wallace and his mono water team that is comprised of Pokes you've bested multiple times before).

As much criticism as I have with Sun and Moon, at least their E4 puts up a damn fight. I've actually had some of my Pokes faint against them. Because they were actual threats.
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Feline_Heart posted...

None of them are hard, but the games from the 3ds and switch are brain dead easy

Black and White 2 postgame: Say sike right now.
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Umbreon posted...

That said I'm still upset at how they massacred the difficulty in X/Y.

Basically every gym leader besides the first and last(?) only had 3 Pokemon.

Elite Four only have 4 Pokemon, and no rematch (Black and White started the "4 Pokemon" thing, but at least their E4 had rematches, and we're tough enough to last through a song loop). Their champion is super easy despite having an actual variety in her team(Only champ easier is Wallace and his mono water team that is comprised of Pokes you've bested multiple times before).

As much criticism as I have with Sun and Moon, at least their E4 puts up a damn fight. I've actually had some of my Pokes faint against them. Because they were actual threats.

I actually think X/Y can potentially be more difficult than most games in the series. The keyword there being "potentially". Obviously a good deal of the difficulty you need to create on your own. You need to turn off Exp. share for starters. And then of course you need to do some kind of challenge run, such as a Nuzlocke. Trainers specifically have some very dangerous Pokemon with surprising coverage moves. You can say that specifically challenging yourself will make any of the games in the series more difficult, and that's true. But I don't remember any of the older games having Trainer Pokemon with one or two high-powered STAB moves and some high-powered coverage options as well.
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Guide posted...

Most of the people saying "it was hard cause you were 5" are either too young to have first hand experience with the older gens, or are trying to excuse the lack of challenge in newer gens.

Yes, pokemon was always easy on some level, but that doesn't mean it was always too easy, or that difficulty on an easy series is irrelevant.

IDK man all I remember about the first two gens is soloing everyone with Gengar + hypnosis / dream eater.

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I still haven't beaten the elite 4. Then again I haven't tried in years.

Most RPGs are not difficult, they're just tedious if you're expected to grind in order to progress.

Pokemon is not difficult, it's tedious at worst.
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LordFarquad1312 posted...

Most RPGs are not difficult, they're just tedious if you're expected to grind in order to progress.

Pokemon is not difficult, it's tedious at worst.

Nah. Theres a threshold where Pokmon becomes pretty decent about forcing you to think about resource management and balancing risk vs reward.

The tedium you describe is usually used to push players towards a challenge. Players avoid tedium, and are forced to face obstacles in less than optimal conditions.

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Outside of the "I was too young to know what to do" times in the original first gen, I think Platinum and B/W were the games that gave me the most trouble in their first playthroughs. They were still fairly easy overall, but they had more tough moments than the earlier games and definitely more than the later ones.
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I still don't understand the meme about Whitney being hard. Don't remember having any trouble with her the first time I played GSC.

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sauceje posted...

I still don't understand the meme about Whitney being hard. Don't remember having any trouble with her the first time I played GSC.

While Clefairy was easy enough, Miltank had this habit of catching people off guard. It's fast, decently bulky, can screw you up with Attract (since your starter, more often than not, was gonna be Male), and hits just hard enough to be a problem. Plus, if Rollout got going, you were gonna have a bad time, and it could heal reliably enough with Milk Drink. Yeah, there were ways around it - a Ghost type only had to worry about Rollout, and I remember a Machop being available for trade - but it wasn't always easy. Then HG/SS gave Miltank "Scrappy" to remove the Ghost counter.

But after my last SoulSilver run, I think she's not quite as hard as she was in GSC. That might be because it's almost trivially easy to get the coins for a Dratini, and as long as you can Paralyze or put Miltank to sleep, you can just Dragon Rage it twice. Honestly, Bugsy's Scyther gave me a lot more trouble (I started with Totodile), because the combination of Technician and Quick Attack (made worse if it got a Focus Energy off) put a lot of hurt on my team.
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>slaking

I managed to sweep them in a nuzlocke+release everything used after each gym run... This was possible because leppa berry with fake out to keep them forever unable to do anything. Vigoroth was a jerk though.

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CTrunks posted...

sauceje posted...

I still don't understand the meme about Whitney being hard. Don't remember having any trouble with her the first time I played GSC.

While Clefairy was easy enough, Miltank had this habit of catching people off guard. It's fast, decently bulky, can screw you up with Attract (since your starter, more often than not, was gonna be Male), and hits just hard enough to be a problem. Plus, if Rollout got going, you were gonna have a bad time, and it could heal reliably enough with Milk Drink. Yeah, there were ways around it - a Ghost type only had to worry about Rollout, and I remember a Machop being available for trade - but it wasn't always easy. Then HG/SS gave Miltank "Scrappy" to remove the Ghost counter.

But after my last SoulSilver run, I think she's not quite as hard as she was in GSC. That might be because it's almost trivially easy to get the coins for a Dratini, and as long as you can Paralyze or put Miltank to sleep, you can just Dragon Rage it twice. Honestly, Bugsy's Scyther gave me a lot more trouble (I started with Totodile), because the combination of Technician and Quick Attack (made worse if it got a Focus Energy off) put a lot of hurt on my team.

Or just trade for the Machop in the same city
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No it hasn't

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Pokemon wasn't difficult even when I was 5

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I recently played through Emerald and FireRed, and... I disagree. They were really easy, Battle Frontier aside.
If anything, while they're generally very easy, the newer games tend to have more difficult parts to me >_>
I got walled by a fucking Togekiss in Shield earlier, even if I didn't end up losing.

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