Which game had the toughest gym leaders?

Uh oh, out of my hole

Fr, what main series game did you think had the most challenging gym leader lineup, and why - was it their Pokemon, or yours?

Alternate question: how do you think a player can make gym battles harder for themselves? No points for doing a Nuzlocke, haha.

BW1 had very challenging ones. Bad one to try a Nuzlocke on.

Yes, anyone can make them harder by not being at the right level. Any game, not doing that could spell doom.

Emerald still gives me the most trouble. Probably because I start with Treeko, and it matches horribly against the Gym Leaders. Even the water gym leader has a partial ice type, and it can't do much against Kingdra.

GSC, each gym has that one ace that give at least one person on this planet a hard time. And given the available pokemon and crappy level curve and you got some challenging gyms on your hands.

Eh Yellow can be pretty nasty if you go in underleveled or with Pokemon that don't outright own the Type the Gym Leader uses. Misty and Lt.Surge are particularly nasty due to the power of their Ace move at that point in the game(Bubblebeam for Misty(65 power) and Thunderbolt for Lt.Surge(90 power. If you use Sandshrew or another Ground Type, he has Mega Punch(80 power) and Mega Kick(120 power!)). The jump from Erika to Koga is also pretty difficult to handle if you don't grind a bit beforehand.

Enpatsu Shakuga said:

BW1 had very challenging ones. Bad one to try a Nuzlocke on.

Yes, anyone can make them harder by not being at the right level. Any game, not doing that could spell doom.

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Oh yeah, fuck Lenora. She's the run killer. Only needs two Pokemon.

Not leveling is, like, the not-fun way of adding challenge though, least for me. It's a number's game - I'm already tilted when I see my number's lower than the opponent.

ZeoStar said:

Emerald still gives me the most trouble.

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Emerald's a goood choice. There's some leaders where there's a severe drought in counters, like Wattson - there's another run killer. Everyone except Roxanne has given me trouble at one point, really. Not the easiest lineup at all.

strangerhypno said:

GSC, each gym has that one ace that give at least one person on this planet a hard time.

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GSC with the clutch aces. Emerald has tough all-around teams, but you're right, in the Johto games there's that one.

CodeHelmet said:

Eh Yellow can be pretty nasty if you go in underleveled or with Pokemon that don't outright own the Type the Gym Leader uses. Misty and Lt.Surge are particularly nasty due to the power of their Ace move at that point in the game(Bubblebeam for Misty(65 power) and Thunderbolt for Lt.Surge(90 power. If you use Sandshrew or another Ground Type, he has Mega Punch(80 power) and Mega Kick(120 power!)). The jump from Erika to Koga is also pretty difficult to handle if you don't grind a bit beforehand.

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Lt. Surge gets T-Bolt that early? Wild. I remember that level gap between Erika and Koga/Sabrina too in the Kanto games - not very fun. Misty is among the hardest hitting for the reason you gave with Starmie. I can't remember too much about the Kanto games difficulty-wise though off the top of my head, haha.

Surprised no one's mentioned Platinum yet! There's some good variety here answer-wise, though. Might have to hand it to Emerald, personally. ZeoStar brought back a lot of.... memories. (Namely when Brawley swept my Nuzlocke team, and I ended up later having to stall out Wattson's Magneton with a Swalot.)

Junier said:

Oh yeah, psyduck Lenora. She's the run killer. Only needs two Pokemon.

Not leveling is, like, the not-fun way of adding challenge though, least for me. It's a number's game - I'm already tilted when I see my number's lower than the opponent.

Emerald's a goood choice. There's some leaders where there's a severe drought in counters, like Wattson - there's another run killer. Everyone except Roxanne has given me trouble at one point, really. Not the easiest lineup at all.

GSC with the clutch aces. Emerald has tough all-around teams, but you're right, in the Johto games there's that one.

Lt. Surge gets T-Bolt that early? Wild. I remember that level gap between Erika and Koga/Sabrina too in the Kanto games - not very fun. Misty is among the hardest hitting for the reason you gave with Starmie. I can't remember too much about the Kanto games difficulty-wise though off the top of my head, haha.

Surprised no one's mentioned Platinum yet! There's some good variety here answer-wise, though. Might have to hand it to Emerald, personally. ZeoStar brought back a lot of.... memories. (Namely when Brawley swept my Nuzlocke team, and I ended up later having to stall out Wattson's Magneton with a Swalot.)

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Lt.Surge has had Thunderbolt since Red/Blue but his Raichu was level 24 instead of level 28 and only had Electric moves in his movepool. Meaning if you went up against him with a Ground Type, he was extremely easy. In Yellow they removed the Voltorb and other Pikachu he has and buffed the crap out of that Raichu. Granted Yellow version was loosely based on the Anime, hence Lt.Surge just has the Raichu because that is what he has in the Anime. Erika's ace is also Gloom(like in the Anime) while its Victreebel in all other versions. The jump from Erika to Koga in Red/Blue is not as severe as it is in Yellow. In R/B, Koga's ace is level 43(level 43 Weezing) while in Yellow, his first Pokemon starts at level 44(level 44 Venonat). Sabrina's Pokemon range from 38 to 43 in R/B while in Yellow they're all level 50. While Sabrina's Pokemon are much stronger, her team has a glaring weakness that can be exploited(her Abra knows only Flash and Teleport). Blaine and Giovanni are also much stronger with Giovanni having a far better moveset.

Even the Elite 4 are more capable in Yellow than they are in Red/Blue. TLDR: The third game in any Generation(Yellow, Crystal, Emerald and Platinum) ultimately turn out to be the best and most challenging games.

I can only speak for my experiences in Gens 1-3 so far.

For me the hardest gym leaders so far, in all 3 Gens, have been in Emerald. It took 3 tries to beat Roxanne. I haven't managed to beat Wattson yet and will probably level up my double act about 10 levels before I go again. I don't know what will be in store for me after him yet, am not very far into the game yet.

Gym leaders in Gen 1 and 2 are quite achievable for me first time, back in the day Chuck and Whitney may have caused issues but in my more recent playthroughs they haven't been an issue.

Emerald had the toughest gym leaders on average for me too. There were no gym leaders in that game that I could count on to sweep, as compared to any other game where there are two or three tough gym leaders and everyone else goes down easily so there is hardly even time to see how they battle. Every leader in Emerald can hold their own for enough turns to make it a real fight.

I can say for Heartgold and Soul Silver that the toughest gym leader, Claire, ended up being more difficult for me to beat than anybody in Emerald had been. I had to rematch her three or four times and even the Jynx I had caught in the ice cave barely helped weaken her Pok?mon. I might have just rushed that game too much though.

Gen 2. Each of them has an ace that is really hard to take down. Combine that with an awful level curve and you get a recipe for a very hard game.

idk none of them in particular were really that challenging for me, at least not that I remember.

then again, I'm a person that likes to overlevel, so...

I wanna say that I had the biggest trouble with the Unova Gym Leaders, but aside from going in unprepared for Roxie in W2, there aren't many other that stood out. Maybe it was because I did very little grinding in those games, so that's why it felt like a little more of a challenge than the others.

I'm not gonna lie I merk every gym leader. The hardest fights are the elite 4