4th Gen Difficulty.

Did you find D/P/Pt difficult? Was HG/SS easier? Or was there a certain battle that was too overwhelming?

Diamond/Pearl were definitely easier then Platinum. The Distortion World, the increased levels: Platinum was a tiny but more challenging. Even though you couldn't tell. I struggled on Fantina, and Volkner. Gawd her Mismagius is tough! ( I chose Chimchar >:D ) The battle with Cyrus in the Distortion World was relatively easy. But if you get no luck, boom :<

Now, I have mixed thoughts about HG/SS. It was fun playing through, but I really did STRUGGLE against some battles. And I think you know what I'm talking about. Yes. That cursed Whitney! :( Morty was also quite difficult. Much more then he was in G/S/C. That Shadow Ball really 1-Hit-KO's like... EVERYTHING. And Lugia was a pain to catch too! Throwing hundreds of THOUDANDS of Dusk Balls isn't really idea, especially when they're going to waste.

The Kanto Gym Leaders... were meh. They weren't too hard if you had the type advantage, and you knew what you were doing. They weren't level boosted enough, for the battle with Red. They're at 50-60's, while he's at 80s. :o He was tough if you weren't prepared. He would be a very easy target if your Pokémon were... like around level 60-70? But yeah, if you're like at level 50 it was a struggle... again. lmao :P

What about you? Post below! :D

beat soulsilver along time ago and the only thing for me was the elite 4/ champ the 1st time and serbinas gym. every thing else was a breeze I thought red would be super hard but na tranitar for the win.

I found Diamond, Pearl, and Platinum to be a lot more challenging. The Pokémon that NPCs had were very high-leveled. Not only that, but their teams were quite strategic as well. If one Pokémon had a certain weakness, they always had something to cover it up. From these games, one of the toughest trainers I had ever faced was Fantina. In D/P, she had a Drifblim. It had Minimize in its moveset, which it took good advantage of. Due to this move, it was nearly impossible to land a hit on this Pokémon. And in Plat, she had a Mismagius on her team, who was able to wreak havoc with Shadow Ball, Psybeam, and Magical Leaf. Volkner was also pretty tough. When I had first faced him, it took me three - four tries to finally defeat him. As for HeartGold and SoulSilver, they were quite difficult, too, but not as hard as D/P/Pt. d:

HG/SS was one of the easiest Pokemon games I've played. D/P/Pt caused me to struggle several times along the way, especially against Maylene, Fantina, and Cynthia, so yes; I do think D/P/Pt were harder. Not really hard per-se but harder than a lot of other Pokemon games I've played.

The only Pokemon game I really remember struggling with was Platinum. HG and Pearl weren't hard at all, I don't recall failing any gyms (I got a female starter so Whitney wasn't a problem.)

in D/P, it was mostly easy, but there were multiple struggle points:
-first gym's cranios. stop spamming headbutt and persuit.
-windworks' purugly. YOU KILLED MY NUZLOCKE TEAM (I started a new one).
-second gym's roserade. stun spore + sludge bomb means fire types have the potential to be KO'd
-fifth gym's mismagus. I hate confuse ray.
-sixth gym's bastiodon. used struggle last time.
-cyrus' crobat. bulk + power = electric types have struggles (electric monotypes even).
-bug elite four's vespiqueen. spammed defend order and heal order to waste your pp AND ko you
-cinthia's garchomp. extremely fast, OHKOs or 2HKOs most of your team, extremely high leveled, and at the end of the elite four. where do I begin...?

with platinum it took me seven hours of grinding before the elite 4. TBF I had done no training whatsoever throughout the entire game, and I came in leveled at about 39. After a few million years I got to level 57 all round and destroyed everything.

Ehh, I remember Cynthia being an absolute pain the first time I played Platinum. It took me about what, fifteen tries? And the only reason I succeeded was that Garchomp picked Dragon Rush over Earthquake. Lucky, I suppose. As for the harder between the two, probably D/P/Pt. They were some of the first games I had played from the franchise, so my adventure was basically an experiment. If I were to replay it again, it'd still be harder by a long shot. Higher levels, more challenges, good Pokemon, all that.

Onwards to HG/SS! It's an easy game if you ask me. There are probably about one or two challenging battles but with a good team, they're pretty easy. The only fight that I struggled with was probably Lance's rematch team. There was a huge spam of dragons everywhere and my only comeback was Ice Fang. Impressive I know. I still don't know how I got past him but oh well. :p

The games themselves weren't all that hard, I did struggle with the champions though.
Cynthia and her mixture of types, and she had a Garchomp, and my team was atleast 7 levels lower.
Lance and his mighty dragons.
Red, just omg =_=...

When I first played through Diamond back in 2007, it wasn't really challenging. Although, I do recall my first runthrough of Platinum to be somewhat difficult. Now, though, D/P are incredibly hard, and Platinum's way too easy.

HeartGold and SoulSilver were, is, and always will be cakewalks for me.

HG/SS was MUCH more challenging for me than D/P/Pt.

In Platinum (I have Platinum), you are against trainers and gym leaders with good leveled Pokemon and wild Pokemon were at a reasonable level. This made training far easier.
In Soul Silver (I have Soul Silver), the trainers and wild Pokemon are low levels, the gym leaders are higher levels. This mainly shows after the first two gyms. It is difficult to train and you really need the right type advantages, which isn't always possible.

In Platinum, I have 6 usable Pokemon (ones that will be on my team). When I got to the Pokemon League, they ranged from level 49 - 52, 10 - 13 levels below the strongest.
In Soul Silver, I have 4 usable Pokemon not counting Lugia*. When I got to the Pokemon League, not counting Lugia, they ranged from level 38 - 41, 9 - 11 levels below the strongest.

You may notice that my Platinum team has a lower level in comparison to the Elite Four. BUT, I have 6 Pokemon in Platinum, and 4 not counting Lugia in Soul Silver! That's kind of sad.

*I did not count Lugia because I have not yet leveled it up from its original level 45.

There was a massive spike in difficulty in HG/SS post Elite 4. I was under leveled against most of the Kanto gyms. Then there's Red...

HGSS was hella easy right up until Blackthorn. I never have a team very good against Clair's and then struggled through the E4 due to a hatred of grinding. And then it was smooth sailing again until Red, pretty much. DPPt was more balanced imo in terms of not getting so very stuck in places.

Of course, this is coming from a challenge perspective since that was the last thing I did on HG. So I had rare type advantages/it was rare when I wasn't at a disadvantage. But I still remember Platinum being challenging but never getting as atrociously stuck.

HGSS was easier only because I played Silver before, but there were things in the game that were added and I wasn't really familiar with it at all (like 4th gen items, evolutions, etc). The playthough was easy, just that there were some unexpected elements.

D/P/Pt were incredibly challenging. I got lost on my first playthrough...after beating the first gym, I headed to a different town which turned out to be the fifth gym O__o

HG/SS were such a pain went it came to grinding and training. The wild pokemon would always be 10 - 15 levels lower than what the trainers are. When you go to Kanto, all the pokemon there are the same levels as if you were starting over. When you are training for Red, the strongest is early 50s. So HG/SS were hard in that manner. But when I am not training and underleveled, HG/SS was just a breeze. To me, those games were kind of unbalanced when it comes to levels.

For me, HG/SS were a breeze for me, as I just gathered a good team by the second gym [Geodude, Ekans, etc] and just blazed through the game, I even beat red quite easily. D/P/PT however was a bit more challenging. Like X/Y, you don't get the best selection at the first of the game, and requires you to grind with four good pokemon till you get later in the game.

I actually found HG/SS quite difficult, especially if you're the one who picks Chikorita as your starter because it struggles against so many opponents in the game given that Johto is packed full of trainers using Bug, Poison, Fire and Flying-types meaning you'll often need a team that can back it up. I did find D/P/Pt slightly easier though because, unlike HG/SS the wild Pokemon in Sinnoh were not too weak to grind against and of course the Vs. Seeker is always there when you need to farm money or train your Pokemon against the trainers that give more EXP points. Also, another reason why I found the Sinnoh games quite easy was because of how strong the early route bird in said games, Staraptor, was.

And HG/SS has quite a big level spike once you battle the Kanto Gyms.

Both series of games (DPPt and HGSS) proved challenging for me at certain stages, but overall were pretty easy. The Elite Four in Diamond, I found brutal. Flint, Lucian an CYNTHIA has no problems destroying my team. In HGSS Whitney and Claire were tough opponents to defeat, but the Elite Four was easy.

Both games had their hard parts, but for me both series of games were actually rather easy.

I never found any of those games hard. Diamond and Pearl were easy, Platinum was a little difficult, HeartGold and SoulSilver were a little difficult but more difficult than Platinum.

Even though they are all easy, I found Platinum a little difficult because, Lucian actually knocked three of my Pokémon for the first time. HeartGold and SoulSilver were the most difficult of them all, the first time I found it a little difficult was the battle with Clair. The battle ended fast but you got to admit that it was destructive as I only had one Pokémon left with 3 Hit Points. The second time was with Blue, I knew Blue was going to be somewhat difficult so I planned things first before battling, but then things didn't go as expected but I still had two of my Pokémon. The last time was my rematch with the Elite Four, I first thought that they had the same team but with higher levels and new moves, but I never knew that they had new Pokémon like Absol, Salamence, Garchomp and Bronzong.

Overall they were quite easy, I felt cool after experiencing those battles and finishing the game for the first time.
I finished those games the year they were released in the English version, that is.

The Sinnoh League in Platinum has to be one of the most challenging Leagues in any vanilla game. The Pokemon used by each of the Elite had a great level of diversity. There were phyiscal attackers (Infernape, Garchomp, Scizor) and then there were walls (Spritomb, Bronzong, Rhyperior, Gliscor).

In addition, this Elite Four used FULLY EVOLVED Pokemon for the first time. There were no second evo's to be found. This League to me, was one of the first that was a real challenge. I beat it in my first try but not without using ~30 Revives and Restores.

This one was a real grind.