1st Gen Is Yellow still considered one of the most difficult games?

Some people have called Yellow the hardest game in the (main) series, and that was understandable back then. This was due to things like us being new to the games then, areas that don't give you indication on where to go, and of course, the very overpowered Gym Leaders, with all four of the later ones going as high as at least Level 50.

But...do they still appear hard today? As someone who's currently doing a Nuzlocke on this game (Set mode + three healing items per battle, and I can count the number of battles I've used an item in on my fingers), just beat Giovanni a few minutes ago and has only had two deaths so far, I can say that the hardest thing about Yellow, by far, is all the grinding you have to do to make sure you don't get your stuff handed to you by the Gym Leaders. I said in the Challenger's Clan on Azurilland, but that in turn can make the rest of the game laughably easy if you've trained near those levels, at least until the league. It doesn't help that the AI is super weird, and you can easily take advantage of it if you understand how it works (which, admittedly, I don't as much as some). But I guess even that aside, Sabrina is very tough, because of how overpowered the Psychic-type is, so most would need something like their own Psychic-type or a fast physical attacker to win against her.

Nowadays, in the later games, we have opponents with much stronger moves, actual AI, and other things along those lines. Regular trainers later in the game also have varied teams and some with different moves than just the copy/paste level-up sets. (Fun fact, B2W2 is the only game since Yellow where every single regular NPC has all their Pokémon at the same level, at least to my recollection.) And that's before we even talk about the higher class opponents such as Gym Leaders, villainous team leaders, and the Elite Four and Champion.

So what do you guys think? Would you still consider Yellow difficult to this day compared to other games? Why or why not? And please don't just say "it's Pokémon, it can always be easy or hard based on what you have". Try to say what's different here that isn't in what we have now! Discuss.

It starts off fairly difficult if you don't know what you're doing or what Pokémon are best to use against certain trainers. Having to face off against Brock with mostly just Pikachu after getting out from a forest full of weak bug Pokémon that wouldn't be useful whatsoever was tough and set similar expectations for later in the game.

Honestly though, since you're given all the starters, the game itself shouldn't be very difficult but with a lack of good training areas and the starters being given to you at a whopping lv. 10 made some players look the other way. Swapping weak Pokémon out back and forth constantly for experience was tiresome. It was tedious for me as a kid to train up these guys after already being in the low 20s by the time I got to Cerulean.

Nowadays the Exp. Share and wide variety of training spots make the recent games very very easy. The Kanto E4 wasn't the biggest cakewalk either, especially since dragon types only had ice as a weakness (with no dragon-type damaging moves available at the time since Dragon Rage's damage was a fixed 40). ;c The first generation sure did teach me a lot of patience as a kid.

Seconding dealing with Brock in the beginning would be difficult in Yellow due to his Pokemon both Rock/Ground, with Electric attacks pretty much useless during that battle. Someone already mentioned Sabrina can also be tough even with ghost types since the Gastly family are also part poison and Psychic attacks are still effective. Otherwise, I didn't have too much a hard time with Yellow.

Sheep said:

Nowadays the Exp. Share and wide variety of training spots make the recent games very very easy. The Kanto E4 wasn't the biggest cakewalk either, especially since dragon types only had ice as a weakness (with no dragon-type damaging moves available at the time since Dragon Rage's damage was a fixed 40). ;c The first generation sure did teach me a lot of patience as a kid.

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When I went to the Elite 4 I made sure to at least have a water Pokemon that can learn an ice type attack. Usually I go for Vaporeon or Dewgong in a couple of my RBY and Gold/Silver playthroughs heh.

The Exp. Share I don't mind it making the games easier as it makes grinding a little faster.

I'd agree and say that it can be fairly difficult early on the game if you're new to Pokémon like I was when I first played Blue and Yellow. Brock and Misty are devastating Gym Leaders if you don't prepare well for, or understand type match-ups. My memories have faded from my time playing my set of games, but I do recall sailing somewhat smoothly after the first two Gym Leaders. Sabrina was a bit of an issue, but other than that, the Elite Four, Champion, and Team Rocket didn't really phase me that much.

In saying that though, in comparison to most of the current games: ala DPPt, HGSS and onward, I think RBY were more difficult, yeah. Sure, there might be stronger moves nowadays as there was before, but trainers, the Elite Four, Champions and Evil Teams are far too easy. I would make an exception for BW2. I just picked it up yesterday and realised I hadn't completely finished it because the post-game trainers were incredibly strong. We also have items such as Exp. Share that make it much easier to grind and beat major milestones of the games unlike back in the day. I personally think BW2 is the hardest mainstream game of them all, but I definitely agree that RBY posed a nearly equal challenge for the time.

...or perhaps it's just that I've grown up now and I can actually understand how the game mechanics work i.e. type match-ups, abilities etc.

The others definitely gave some strong points, such as lack of good counters to Sabrina, lack of good training spots, and Pikachu having a huge disadvantage to Brock (but at least you now get Mankey and the Nidos with Double Kick early) are the notable ones. However, there are some easy parts, but the difficult ones balance it out at the same time.

I'd probably call it having moderate difficulty.

I won't say it's a hard game, but it is hard at the beggining.

But I mean, after you beat Brock, you have a Bulbasaur, Charmander and Squirtle. Nothing can stop us after that!

Mawa said:

I won't say it's a hard game, but it is hard at the beggining.

But I mean, after you beat Brock, you have a Bulbasaur, Charmander and Squirtle. Nothing can stop us after that!

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Other than Mewtwo. Albeit admittedly it seems weird that he's seemingly been playing Pokémon Yellow.

In any case, Yellow didn't generally seem to be considered the most difficult per se, in a sense it was more of a thematic spin-off with the earlier games except featuring a Pikachu, and they were unlikely to want it to be too hard because then the player wouldn't get to experience the story and gimmicks, and it was intended to be mostly quite accessible. At the same time, the thing with Charmander, etc., is that they're very much pathway Pokémon, or Pokémon whose levelling up, etc., is associated with certain developments and story-lines, so levelling them up along with the Pikachu starter, while at some point mid-way through the game, seems like it would lose interest quite quickly for most players. That said, Yellow is a bit of an annoyance from the beginning - unless you're Ash Ketchum and beat Brock for no reason - so it's unlikely that such inclusions were meant to be used or trivialise the game, in any way.

I guess that it might also seem difficult because Pikachu has a reputation as the weakmon, but that can go either way. While it does trivialise Lorelei, for the player-character, and some other trainers there might have issues with it, Blue for instance might imply water and perhaps fire in that version, but in general it's not that lacking in straightforwardness and most later challenges would likely have come up earlier.

While I wouldn't call Yellow the hardest main series game ever (that would probably be Platinum), I'd say it is at least much more challenging than RB and GSC.

The biggest thing about Yellow is that you get a starter that is practically useless. Even aside from Brock, Pikachu still falls behind very fast without access to either Raichu or the Light Ball. Just keeping it on your team past the 4th badge will make the game significantly harder, even if your rival has Vaporeon. (Even with a type advantage, Vaporeon's attacks will likely damage Pikachu more than vice-versa, lest the yellow rat is massively overleveled.)

Compared to the other games, It is harder, It might be even more difficult if there was a longer game play like Crystal for example!

Despite the fact we are only stuck to a starter, the difficulty still differs for each players. That is because the players are allowed to capture different Pokemon, shortly after officially starting their adventure. (:

The players are allowed to evolve themselves a Butterfree, or capture a Mankey or a Pidgeotto (while not the most helpful Pokemon with Brock, it helps against Misty). Both genders of Nidoran can be encountered early as well, they also evolve at a fairly early level. As long as Moon Stone is obtained, completing the whole game isn't as hard as it sound like.

Meloetta said:

I'm not going to go charging into the first Gym with a low-level Pikachu and expect to win because Ash did.

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To be fair, didn't they lose initially doing that? Who told them to? Anyway, the win itself was a bit of a joke, but surely the point was made in that that Pikachu has problems with ground-types, although not so much that Brock used dual-types. You wonder if they also just take for granted that rock types would be resistant to electric types.

But it still provides you with the means to breeze through the game if you know what you're doing

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This seems valid, if by Brock you have two decently trained Pokémon, then you actually have a fairly good platform, especially with Misty next, to go on from there and have some freedom with Pokémon choices going forwards. It sort of adds a free-roaming segment at the beginning of the game, which allows you to consolidate if you're interested. You're then somewhat taking on future challenges (it's kind of fun that Brock is followed by a route with a Normal-type gimmick) with a Double Team and paralysis from the beginning, so to speak.

so...really? I don't think so.

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Sure.

Starting with a Pikachu makes it hard plus to the fact that the first gym has a team of Rock/Ground Pokemon which make things a little bit hard.But after you beat Brock,all is left is to grind lots of levels for the sake of beating the game.But you've gotta admit,Grinding in this game was DAMN HARD.

Nah i think yellow is not the hardest because you can get all 3 starters later on i think if you don't exploit red or blue maybe harder and emerald can be hard too ^^

It does seem interesting that people mostly seem to see it as more difficult because you get a Pikachu, or because of the beginning segment, while in truth R/B with all three starters wouldn't be that difficult, and adding a Pikachu would hardly be held to complicate that significantly. That is at least an option available in the game, such that it isn't going to be difficult unless you want it to be. That said, other than what was said previously about this, if there was a problem with R/B, that approach might not make things much easier than that. They'd still have to take care to divide time between the starters, others, and Pikachu, who is the guide and perhaps deserves respect, but in any case the game doesn't get much harder going forwards (G/S probably gets easier for most players, or would), especially as the beginning is slightly annoying as such go, so it shouldn't get that much harder otherwise. None of them should pose too much of an issue, though, really. Without these, you could still do quite alright, but you wonder if it's possible that a Pikachu-based spin-off isn't to be treated with that much respect, generally. Going through in too disjointed a fashion, however, might not be that useful. In addition, you wonder if many players just gave up after the perhaps challenge that is the Viridian Forest without a Pikachu.

Electricbluewolf said:

Yellow was my second game after Blue, and I never noticed a difference in the level of difficulty. Mankey was first choice to defeat Brock and then from there out it was picking up the starters, making the game quite easy.

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I'm with her on this one. Even though it's been years since I last played Yellow, I don't remember having a hard time with it. My final team existed of PIkachu, all 3 starters, primeape and Dodrio.

Depends on how you go about it. Every game has pros and cons. For Yellow, raise a Mankey or a Butterfree and that will more than make up for Pikachu's shortcomings. Imagine a situation where Charmander is chosen in Red/Blue, which is a lot worse.

Hardest is relative, is it the hardest of gen1/gen2 games? Maybe.
Its not really a challenge, though. While Pikachu is essentially a useless pokemon, you can make up for it by getting a mankey before you face Brock. Raichu is decent, but you cant evolve your Pikachu either way in this game.
I never had an issue with grinding, you will get your pokemon to 45-50 just doing the game normally, which will suffice for the elite 4.

Im currently playing Yellow, havent had any problems with this game. Well, tradebacks from Crystal helps :)

it's hard when you first start the game if you don't have mankey, rattata (iirc, rattata learned bubble back in the day), maybe butterfree or beedrill for status, but after that, you start getting access to the other starters which makes things considerably easy as far as type balancing. i would say that red/blue are harder in comparison cause you have less handouts and have to find alternatives to the other 2 starters and pikachu (if you don't catch one in veridian).