My book of randomness.

Diffiiculty in Pokemon

Difficulty in Pokémon is coming guys I swear

Next time we'll talk about difficulty in Pokémon

Two years later
Uhm. Well, here it is. I actually deleted the old draft I had for this piece since I didn't like how it was turning out and I've kinda fallen out of doing Wattpad stuff but hey I've got this here right now.

I finally remembered to post. Maybe I'll do another Coming Soon? Ahahaha! Maybe once I actually finish some of my projects.

I always see people complaining about how Pokémon is too easy now and that it was super hard back in the day and I'm genuinely baffled

Look, Pokémon is more convenient than it used to be. And there are options that make the game easier. And in Let's Go's case it's not even optional. Of course, Let's Go is also a game with a mean bit of challenge but I'll put a pin in that.

Pokémon is definitely a bit easier. Because it's not unfair. Except for the EXP Share which is a broken EXP All. But for example, your

Pokémon had way worse moves because there wasn't a physical special split. So Flareon was just worse than it should've been.

Not only this but the games just had a lot more limiting moves. There wasn't a good physical bug move until Megahorn which only became widely available in Gen 5.

Of course, now they've buffed Leech Life and made it a viable move in a lot of instances and it's worth using.

And then you can also reuse TMs. This is purely good because it lets you actually try out Pokémon without worrying about maybe using that TM later on. But it also means a lot more Pokémon have access to the better moves in the game.

These all contribute to Pokémon being easier. But let me tell you, the AI has improved marginally. And Pokémon just hit harder. Like seriously I found my team in Lets Go struggling quite a bit because the enemies just hit hard.

I didn't exactly lose but that's because I'm competent at the game, spam items, and generally I'm not 5.

I actually almost lost the champion battle in Sun and Moon because Kukui had a well put together team and just played well. It really came down to the wire for me.

Of course, using the EXP Share can completely unbalance the game and it looks like it might not be optional in Sword and Shield based on early demos which I hope to god not because the games really don't need to give me another reason to complain. I have plenty.

But back to the point. Pokémon has always been relatively easy. For example, I beat Gen One with a group of mid to low-level 40s because guess what? It's easy!

I knew how to build a well-rounded team, use items, and effectively distribute moves. And Pokémon games reward that by not forcing you to just out level the enemy team.

This is partially because Gen 1 is simply broken of course. Which is also why it can be considered harder in ways. Psychic types exist and my team had an Alakazam. Psychic types are completely busted in Gen One.

This applies to most Gens though. I beat red by spamming my Typhlosion's Blast Burn. He was the only Pokémon I used and yet I still beat the hardest challenge in the game.

Pokémon likes to pretend it's difficult but in the end, I managed to stupid my way through Gen 5 with just an Emboar no items and losing like 10 times.

Pokémon Games just aren't difficult. I've played most of them and a lot of them were in my youth before I understood or even had a reason to build a competent team.

Now I'm not saying difficulty doesn't exist in Pokémon. There are plenty of challenges in Pokémon's late game that are very difficult. Like the Battle Frontier.

That's why people made challenges like Nuzlockes. Long before Gen 6 was a thing people were challenging themselves in Pokémon. And let me tell you Pokémon gets hard really fast. Whether it be limiting heals, items, Pokémon, levels, etc.

Of course, I'm not going to argue this is ok. To the contrary. I really don't think people should HAVE to do these challenges just to get some challenge in their video game.

Yes, it's overdone at this point but Pokémon needs to make a hard mode. Maybe even a Veteran Mode that also lets you skip tutorials.

Yeah, it took them 20 years to remove HMs and now they're literally deleting the National Dex. Words can't describe how doubtful I am that Pokémon plans on improving anything in the core formula after Let's Go sold over 10 million copies in just a few months.

To conclude Pokémon has always been easy. The new games are arguably harder in some instances and a lot of things that make them easier are just results of removing so much tedium from the game. There have always been hard elements but Pokémon games have been and always will be made for the kiddies.

Can't wait for the 7 hour start in Sword and Shield with the tutorial on how to catch Pokémon for the ninetieth time.

That's one thing the old games have over the new ones. Open-endedness and optional tutorials. I don't agree with the stance that Sun and Moon is just one big tutorial (literally Akala is just 'play the game for a bit we'll do the big story stuff later.') but damn the first two hours are suffocating and they really should try something like Red and Blue and Gold and Silver where we can decide the order of some gyms. Not all of them but just two would be great. Please.

In the end, even if pokemon doesn't improve at all, we'll always have nuzlockes. Wait shit how are we going to do Nuzlockes with the new Wild Area?

Even with Let's Go you could modify it (not really because of Koga's gym.) but if you're only allowed one Pokémon in the entire wild area then you could have a serious Pokémon shortage.

Welp.