3rd Gen Emerald's Level

As per Crystal in Gen II, Pokemon Emerald had some adjustments to it's gameplay that sought to make it more challenging than Ruby or Sapphire. The game had an extended story, the inablility to switch out Pokemon in battle, AI changes, etc.

Did you actually find Emerald to be more difficult to play through? Why or why not? o:

if you want my answer, I personally didn't think that Emerald was hard at all. Your team could easily be on par with or stronger than any other trainer's team by the time you got to them in the game (the sole exception being Wallace perhaps, but he uses 6 water types so just use Thunderbolt or Leaf Blade and you're good). I'd even go so far as to say that Emerald was easy. They should really amp it up like this in OR/AS.

I dont think Emerald was hard. You could catch some strong Pokemon right from the beginning, plus gym leader weren't that hard to beat. Starters are pretty good too.

Honestly, it's not THAT easy either, but I enjoyed the story and the region so much I didnt really pay attention to other stuff like leveling up, how hard battles are etc.

I agree with Archer. Emerald's difficulty is somewhat on the middle of the spectrum, there's not really many tough battles aside from certain Gym Leaders (namely Norman, Juan and even Tate & Liza) and Wallace, but you do get some pretty tough Pokemon at fairly decent stages of the game.

On my end, Emerald wasn't all that difficult, thankfully.

Emerald version had a lot of trainers with same, exact Pokémon that they had in Ruby and Sapphire, and since I've already played those games a couple of times beforehand, I knew my way around them. Plus, I've also put decent training on my team on each and every one of my runs, which had definitely helped.

Of all trainers that I've fought, I would say the most difficult would likely have to be Wallace. His crew was slightly different than his RS version, in a way, as he is now champion; when I'd first went up against him in the league, I had to lose a couple of times before I was able to successfully defeat.

Yes, I don't know why they changed the champion. But the Elite Four was updated as well, Drake's Kingdra is definitely harder to beat than another Flygon.

Overall, Emerald wasn't hard nor easy in my opinion.

Emerald to me was no different than Ruby/Sapphire, other than the changes made to gameplay. I enjoyed the trainers that were facing each other that initiated a double battle sequence, and the animated Pokémon sprites.

Exploring areas was probably a bit of a challenge though because you had more to do such as interact and battle both teams, and even capture both Kyogre and Groudon.

Emerald was neither easy nor hard, it's in the middle. It wasn't as hard as the original Ruby and Sapphire versions in my opinion. In the original pair, Flannery and Norman gave me nightmares.

I didn't think Emerald was too hard, though I suppose some parts of it were tougher than R/S. I traded in some other Pokemon to use for my Emerald run (Kanto and Johto starters, mainly), so my team was a lot more diverse from the start than it was in Sapphire, which probably made the game easier than it would have been had I played through normally. Fundamentally, the main series Pokemon games have never been particularly hard, but I thought Emerald was a better difficulty level than some of the more recently installments (and it threw in the Battle Frontier for more of a challenge, too, which I liked).

I found Norman up to Tate and Lisa to be difficult (compared to their RSOrAs counterparts), especially the twins...

The Elite Four was a little harder, I suppose, but gameplay-wise I didn't find it very different from Ruby/Sapphire. I played Emerald so much more than Ruby/Sapphire, though, so if it were any different, I don't think I'd notice.

I didn't feel much of a difference to be honest. The Gym Leaders aren't generally too difficult to overcome in RSE, but in the E4 I do feel there is a slight difference in that Emerald is a bit trickier. This is probably down to a few differences with the Pokemon, for instance, Drake has a Kingdra and Flygon in Emerald instead of 2 Flygon which he has in RS, and Kingdra is a huge pain with DD, Double-Team and Rest. I don't believe there are any other Pokemon changes rather than Sydney using a Crawdaunt instead of a Sharpedo in Emerald rather than RS, respectively. There are also a couple different moves which probably makes Emerald that bit harder. Also, I found Victory Road a bit trickier in Emerald, there's always one or two Pokemon that can at least 2KO each of my roster.

As opposed to RS, the Gym Leaders in Emerald did have a major overhaul - Wattson got a fast Manectric in addition to Magneton, Flannery had Camerupt, Norman got Belly Drum Linoone, and don't even get me started on Tate and Liza...

The Elite Four weren't much different aside from Drake's having a Kingdra instead of a second Flygon, but Wallace is usually considered vastly worse a Champion than Steven is. I don't remember too much about how i've dealt with him though, because most of the time i've blitzed through the game with only five Pokémon or so.

For the most part, Emerald was really easy - probably even moreso than Ruby. The team diversity, rather than making the game more difficult, seemed to make things considerably easier to deal with somehow. The effect did wear out somewhere around the region of Fortree's gym, thoough. From that point forward the difficulty increased a lot - particularly Liza & Tate. Victory Road was rather difficult, but I honestly found it a pain in Ruby so there's not much change.
The Elite Four seemed to be hardly any different to in Ruby (the first three being relatively easy), with Drake still being a pain. That Kingdra caused some real issues, given the scarcity of Ice and Dragon-types (and with Swablu not being particularly easy to raise). Wallace was, much unlike any other Champion I've come across, easily doable on the first try without any additional runs for level grinding - the only real issue was his Wailord, but only because it could really take a hit.

I wouldn't call Emerald the easiest game - it certainly has its moments - but it is definitely one of the less challenging ones.

I think that Pokemon Gold/Silver/Crystal are harder because to beat the game you have to defeat Red who has Pokemon at extremely high levels. Plus, the mountain that Red is on has some higher level Pokemon as well, plus there are two sets of E4 you must defeat. Imo Emerald is harder and has more than R/S because of the Battle Frontier. The only thing easier in Emerald is fighting the champion because he has easier Pokemon.

Emerald's midgame is hard. The Maxie fight (in the Magma Hideout) always stands out to me as the hardest fight in the game, because usually I find myself between ~10 levels below him, and my Pokemon still aren't fully evolved by that time.

I skip pretty much every optional fight (including delaying Fortree Gym), and because of how few required fights are between Norman and Maxie, I only end up gaining a couple levels during that time, even though Maxie is ~8 levels about Norman.

If I actually played the way they intended - fighting the trainers on those routes and challenging Fortree Gym immediately - it wouldn't be a problem.

The only hard part was the champ fight for me (came down to Rayquaza and a Gyarados and I had more hp and speed).

Tate and Liza gave me a headache beating their combination and the Battle Frontier was kinda hard because of long battle requirements just to battle a goddamn Frontier Brain but overall the game was not hard nor easy but two words though :




Drake's Kingdra.

The Annoying Rollout said:

Drake's Kingdra.

Click to expand...

Not as annoying as Juan's though. They both have a move that affects your accuracy, but Drake's Kingdra has Smoke Screen which can be easily cured by switching, whereas Juan has Double Team which stays in effect and turns your chance of even connecting with it a Luck-Based Mission. Juan also has Rest which gets super-annoying because he's pretty much stalling your PP with a strategy like this, and Ice Beam gets better coverage than Drake's Body Slam.

I don't recall Emerald being too difficult, though the champion battle was quite tough. I think it had a good level curve with decent teams from the gym battles.