Pokémon Spinoff: POKEMON STADIUM KAIZO: The first Pokemon Stadium Hard Mode Hack

Gym Leader Castle:

The majority of the gym leader castle is essentially free, as long as you pick the best gen1 pokes on your team, which would be Starmie, Zapdos, Tauros, and maybe Alakazam or Mew (up to preference). My other two pokes were
Nidoqueen and Charizard as niche picks for certain situations and team balancing.

Quick note: Make sure if you run into a team with Chansey, you bring two attackers. Like I would always bring Tauros and Zapdos to those fights. And remember, the recently found gen1 mechanic says if you Body Slam a normal
type i.e. Chansey, it will never paralyze (something with the game's code states that since body slam is a normal type move, the after effects won't occur vs. other normal type pokemon)

The first roadblock I ever ran into was Giovanni's gym. The lab man (2nd trainer) is just brutal. I had to switch my Nidoqueen for Golem instead, because the poison typing was bad for Alakazam (I stuck with Golem thereon). Basically, I would choose Tauros, Zapdos, and Golem for this fight. Start with Tauros because typically he started with Chansey. His Chansey will use moves in this order: Light Screen, spam Soft-Boiled if not at full HP (and CPUs dont lose PP in gen1), Minimize, and then after maxing evasion spam Seismic Toss. So, my Tauros can use Body Slam while Chansey uses Light Screen and then Hyper Beam for just enough to kill. Here's the catch. After that, he will send out Alakazam. While Tauros recharges, he'll be T-waved. Then, Alakazam starts Double Teaming. I switch to Golem, and basically before I use explosion, he will get off two double teams. So I had to grind hitting an Explosion. After that, I switched into Zapdos and he had starmie left who just spammed Minimize while I 2HKO'd it with Thunderbolt. That Lab Man is brutal.

Other than that trainer, the gym leader castle is pretty easy. Starmie is just an amazing pokemon, so bring along Starmie. Personally, I liked the coverage, so I picked the psychic, surf, ice beam, tbolt set.


Elite Four and Rival:

This is where its just ridiculous. I was on this challenge for a few days. To save yourself from sanity, use save states. Otherwise, good luck. Patience is key with this. The only huge challenges for me were Agatha and Gary. Agatha had a nasty Alakazam that she always ended up using and Gary had a Mew that was also pretty brutal. For these fights, I used a combination of an Alakazam of my own and Golem. Typically, I would T-wave the opposing pokemon, switch into Golem and explode. For Mew, you need to get off one earthquake before you decide to explode. I kind of forgot the big details of those two fights cause they didn't stick out in my head as well as the Lab Man fight did in the Gym Leader Castle, but you really have to be prepared.

This is the toughest roadblock I had thus far.

Pika Cup:

I would suggest to only bring along two Level 20 pokemon. Because then, you can choose from four different lv15 pokes per match. The trick is, a lot of these trainers have like four lv20 pokes, but theyre only allowed to bring one along. So, you will already know TWO of the pokemon that these trainers bring right off the bat, which will be there two lv15 pokes. The lv20 pokes I chose were: Starmie and Pikachu. You NEED to have level 20 pokes brought along with you, theyre power difference is pretty massive. Having lead level 20 Starmie is absurd, just broken. Every single match was a free win for me using Starmie (I actually used Pikachu for one of them cause the other trainer had an opposing lv20 starmie but never used it in my tries)

I DEFINITELY used my continues for all the attempts I did and here's why: The last two trainers are pretty ridiculous. The semi-finals trainer, Lass, always brings along either lv20 Raichu/Dragonair, which both have T-wave and amazing special to counter Starmie. And then she ALWAYS brings Lapras and Arcanine, two bulky mons equipped with Dragon Rage. The only time I beat her was when I got lucky special drops on Raichu and when she actually chose her lv20 Mr Mime, which was easier to take care of.

The finals battle is atrocious. The trainer ALWAYS picks the same broken ass lv20 alakazam in the vanilla version of this game and you have no idea what lv15 pokes he brings cause he has four of them now. Litterally, my win condition was this: Hope he doesn't pick Execuggtor. The lv 20 Alakazam was already enough to take care of. So having another broken mon that tanks a lot of hits is not what you can afford, its just a loss. Hope he leads Aerodactyl. My team was lv20 Pikachu, Tauros, and Golem. I lead Pikachu and he lead Aerodactyl. He immeadietly switches into Alakazam as I use T-bolt (I think if you use T-wave he stays in and uses EQ). I switch into Tauros and die to a Psychic. I needed a free switch into my Golem. Switch into Golem and Golem always barely tanks one Psychic. Tank a psychic and use Explosion to kill the Alakazam. Now, Im left with just lv20 pikachu because I litterally needed to pokes to kill that absurd Alakazam. Pikachu one shots Aerodactyl with T-bolt cause level difference. Clefable is the last mon, I use t-bolt, it uses twave. Then I use twave while it uses body slam. We both deal the same damage essentially. In the end, I win the para war and thats game. Thankfully, the AI doesnt switch into Clefable and t wave first because Aero has EQ. Pika cup will give you much trouble... but with continues its not as bad as Elite Four&rival was.

Petite Cup:

This place took the most re-entering for me, more than Pika Cup did. Because of Starmie, I was always able to get 3-4 continues under my belt prior to the semi-finals and finals matches. I don't know
if it's because I have less competitive knowledge in Little Cup or what, but I maybe got one continue in all of my attempts. And every trainer was a problem in some way shape or form, but not a problem
to where it was totally un-doable. I would get critted or para'd or just out-teamed in situations most of the time here, maybe it's just the nature of Little Cup that its harder to take hits. Either way,
I actually started off with a team full of pokes that I thought had some insane skill. My first team was Voltorb, Paras, poliwag, sandshrew, growlithe, and dratini. Voltorb is just good in general, with
access to T-Bolt, Explosion, decent Special, and incredible Speed, for me its a must have. Paras was hidden talent to me, I never thought I'd use it. But its actual a great tool for say, if you lead Voltorb,
and the opponent leads a ground type (which happens so often), its a free switch into Paras and a free Spore. And in gen1 Spore also hits grass types, so opposing Paras gets put to sleep aswell and theres a free
switch into growlithe with a free dragon rage/fire blast. Poliwag and Sandshrew were for team balance and I felt they had the best stats, with Poliwag having access to Lovely Kiss. Growlithe and Dratini
were both devastating Dragon Rage users, and they complimented each others weaknesses very well, so dual Dragon Ragers came in handy.

Then, I decided to make a huge flip in my team. I realized that Paras was just too slow and Pokemon often found workarounds. Both Paras and the growlithe/dratini method were weak to common Water types with
access to water and ice moves simultaneously. The team just wasn't cutting it, ground types even had rock slide or a suprise Blizzard, so Paras got hit by those often too with its abysmal speed stat.
Which meant ground types really had a field day with my team. Same with water types, Paras started to not be a very good check. Therefore, I restarted to fix my team composition completely, and looked
more carefully at stat spreads and movesets.

I changed out every Pokemon except for Voltorb. My final team was Voltorb, Abra, Goldeen, Geodude, Farfetch'd, and Nidoran-Male. I was hesitant on Abra since in gym leader castle mode, my Alakazam was
frequently outclassed by Starmie for its lack of Defense and hitting Super Effectively more often. But, in Petite Cup, Abra proved to be a good force to be reckon with. It was a great lead, that had very
nice speed and immeadiete power. Frequently, I would begin games just throwing off as many Psychics as I can team keep the momentum and kill mons. It's T-wave came in handy for Geodude to come in and
use heavier Attack stat moves too. Goldeen was chosen over Poliwag this time, as I prefered the extra bulk, extra special, and access to Double-Edge with a good attack stat against other Water types over
Poliwag's great speed and access to Lovely Kiss. It proved to be more viable in many situations, and I used double-edge a lot more than I thought. Geodude was taken over Sandshrew for access to Explosion
and better stats, although it has the nasty rock/ground typing, it helped a few times with opposing bird types. Farfetch'd was put on the team for team composition. If I wanted to go lead Voltorb, the enevitable
ground type switch in would be no problem, since I could switch into Farfetch'd. I liked this bird over all the others because it has decent bulk to take a few hits from the ground types, while also dishing out
decent damage and still outspeeding. Nidoran-Male wasn't used exactly too often, but a few times it helped since it has the extra two levels and offers bolt-beam coverage.

Shockingly, I actually did a continue-less run completion on this with the final team I made. This is because I barely ever got continues, so it was a grind but I ended up actually getting it with decent
luck along the way too. The final battle was actually really easy, I lead Abra knowing the npc would either lead Abra/Gastly since he has to pick them everytime. When they do so, all I do is click T-wave and switch into
my Geodude and its a free kill or free hit on lv30 mon. He switched into Dratini to take the EQ, then I switched into my Voltorb tanking the Blizzard. Bam, exploded on the dratini (got a crit aswell and killed it), and
my Geodude easily cleaned up the para'd Abra and Gastly with earthquake 1hkos.

The hardest match was the 6th trainer for me. I don't know why either, just had the most trouble with this one.

Critiques:

1. For a Kaizo, this game is only slightly worse than the original game so far. I don't really know how Round 2 is exactly cause I haven't gotten there (I'd imagine it's significantly worse), but if you want to truly make an insane Kaizo, I would suggest having the strats that the Giovanni "Lab Man" had on every single trainer. Stuff like that which encourages significant hax gameplay. Or even hacked moves on these Pokemon that would never be there otherwise, I feel like I remember the original Pokemon Blue Kaizo had all these mons running around with moves they werent actually meant to get. Maybe just absurd stats (although thats a bit much at that point, at least change the poke's level to indicate that). Also, another thing to make it harder is to just keep the rental mons at their original (although for me personally, I wouldn't enjoy this. I love the rental mons so much lol). Just suggestions on making the game harder because I litterally beat all the gym leaders in one day with barely much trouble. This is PRIMARILY because the rental mons are now actually good, with movesets that don't force you to play with Thunder and Hydro Pump and moves that just miss all the time. Definitely made Pokemon Stadium much more enjoyable with less hax this way then I usually see from say Werster's runs.

2. The Petite Cup cast seemed pretty balanced for the most part while the Pika Cup had mons that purely outclassed other mons. I understand why someone would pick Raichu over Pikachu even though the lv20 Pikachu is better in every front, so that they dont waste a lv20 slot. That makes sense to me and I enjoyed that decision making a lot. But in the Petite Cup, it has that same thing except all of the lv30 or lv27 mons were just utter garbage and it was more just balancing the meta? I liked Pika Cup's idea, but if you do want to make Pika Cup more difficult you could also try just balancing mons instead of giving lv20 leisure. Plus, lv20 Starmie is broken, straight up.

3. Something I noticed a lot in Pika Cup is that there would be four lv20 mons and two lv15 mons. I feel like it would be better if there were maybe 3-3 or 2 lv 20 mons and 4 lv 15 mons. This gives the AI a lot of leisure to mix up the teams, making them significantly harder to beat. It's way easier to counter all these teams when they can only leisurely choose to change around one pokemon, but theyre always stuck with the same other two lv15s. Just a way to make things more difficult.

I don't know if any of this stuff changes when you get to Round 2, but that's some of the things that could make the game more difficult or more enjoyable. I obviously don't think you should fix any of this in the current game at all, I'm just hoping you carry something forward in whatever next project you decide to do, whether it be Pokemon Stadium 2 Kaizo or something else you're interested in.