3rd Gen Emeralds difficulty?

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 will disagree, as I find Emerald to be one of the hardest games in the entire series if you aren't going in prepared. Every gym leader seems to have something that makes them challenging. Flannery stands out in particular, with Sunny Day Overheat, which can pretty much power through anything you have by that point. Then it holds a White Herb, giving it another after the stat drop. I was disappointed seeing this sort of strategy gone in ORAS.

I just finished ORAS a couple of days ago, and the way I played was with the EXP Share off and battle style on set. Still, most of it felt easier than Emerald, and I only ended with one loss, to the Ice Elite Four member. (Poor luck also had a part, missing stone edge 3 times, and getting frozen twice). However I pulled it off without being properly leveled, which is something I have never been able to do in Gen 3.

One of the most noteworthy differences was Wattson. Easily one of the hardest gyms for me in Emerald, but I swept through him in Alpha Sapphire. I started with Treeko in Emerald, and the lack of an available ground type of you don't pick Mudkip probably makes it much harder. I don't remember if you can even get a Geodude until you get Rock Smash, which requires beating Wattson. His Manectric was gone, which is where I felt the biggest difference.

Some things I feel made Emerald more difficult were the old mechanics, and the fact that the remakes are not based on Emerald, but based on Ruby and Sapphire, which aside from Norman had weaker gyms.

Dragon said:

the inablility to switch out Pokemon in battle,

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You could only play with Set and not Switch in Emerald?

Nah said:

You could only play with Set and not Switch in Emerald?

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No. You could chose between switching (called shift in that game) or set.

i am the rse master. there is no copy of ruby, sapphire, or emerald i cannot conquer. flex muscles...........

anyway i don't find emerald all that harder than rs honestly. like even recalling my first time through (bc lbr i know old school hoenn like the back of my fucking hand at this point it's just NOT hard for me anymore) i don't recall struggling that much. i would say wallace is harder than steven and perhaps even juan more difficult than wallace (as a gym leader, mind you) and tate and liza definitely got better, but? overall? i don't find that the gym leaders get more difficult. the wild pokemon distribution and level scaling is the same, too. there are more trainers bc of the double battles, but that's just more exp for me to eat up. idk i love emerald, but i wouldn't call it...hard. i'd place it in the middle, if anything. just bc it IS older and i think with older pokemon games, due to their mechanics, you're forced to strategize a little more, but hard? nah.