7th Gen Are sun and moon the easiest pokemon games?

[PageEmp]

Because in my opinion, YES, YES THEY ARE. Well tied with XY, but if I had to choose, I would lean slightly to SM. They were just that easy. I'll have you know that I wasn't even trying with my original playthrough (well, other than finding mons that didn't have shit natures, but that wasn't really progress), but I fucking breezed through the game.

Pretty much all of the parts of the game that seemed hard were more annoying than such, such as the random level jumps, and grinding up lower levelled creatures amongst SOS battles (I personally think SOS battles are alright. With regular teammates, they make for fun grinding and can be cheesed to get better encounters. But with lower leveled creatures you are trying to raise it can be annoying)

I made a similar thread on bulbagarden, and a recent post mentioned that what I thought were random trainers with Z-moves were actually route bosses, and I just misremembered it. Okay then! Thanks for pointing that out, unfortunately you made the game look even easier.

Oh, and remembered when I said XY was tied with this as the easiest game? Did you know, well, in XY, the grunts had a variety of creatures that were fully evolved eventually. Did you also know, in SM, the grunts NEVER FUCKING EVOLVED THEIR MONS. Did you also know that that is just insulting, because we had 2 generations of competent grunts in a row, right before this one.

Everything was just so damn easy. Even the totems, even random toughies I didn't have a counter for. The hardest battle in the game and the only battle I struggled in was the final rival battle. I did not expect his koala to have both Wood hammer and Earthquake, and that promptly eviscerated my starter and main Fire mon.

I'll definitely assure you all that I barely used the EXP share, but I still pretty much steamrolled through everything. So how hard did you think the original SM were? And yes, for the original SM, so no bringing up the ultras, I know those games have some hard parts.

 

[colours]

are they?

i distinctly remember totem pokemon being pretty difficult for me when i first played through them (particularly totem lurantis). this is without cheesing the fight by the way, so i had to do it the old fashioned way (through good ol' strategy). i'll admit however, that some of the totem pokemon are a joke difficulty-wise. kommo-o, i'm looking at you in particular. why this pokemon that can be technically one-shotted by any fairy type be the "final boss" totem pokemon of sorts is beyond me.

if we're talking about the elite four, i only remember hala and kukui giving me much of a challenge. but that's me personally, your mileage may vary on how challenging they are.

as far as villains are concerned, they're just about as "challenging" as other villains from past pokemon games to me. which is to say, not really much at all. that doesn't place sun and moon in its own special category in particular, it really means that Game Freak has no incentive to deviate or try anything different much from what they have been doing for the past two decades. i suppose seventh gen was quite the experiment, but fundamentally the core is essentially the same and the easy parts in previous pokemon games have remained simple.

other than that, the only big thing that sticks out difficulty-wise is maybe the battle tree? but i've barely touched that, so i can't really make an honest difficulty-assessment on that either way.

 

[Vagabond+]

I think these games can be slightly difficult depending on your team. As if the case with most pokemon games, lack of knowledge can make things harder than if you know what choices to make. While XY has almost zero remotely challenging battles, I'll say these games at least had a competent champion and Totems that could occasionally muster up more strategy than expected. And the level curve was proper (if I'm remembering correctly) whereas XY was flat out baby easy. But this all could just be my bias of comparing gym-based games more directly.

But yeah, SuMo is up there as one of the easiest for sure.

 

[moon]

No, I seriously think GSC are the easiest games. The incredibly slow level progression makes overleveling very easy, and aside from Whitney (AAaaaa) and Bugsy if you're not clever and fall victim to the growing Fury Cutter, iirc it was a breeze to just power through.

SuMo are so much more nuanced and there's more factors that can make things tricky etc.

 

[Lysander]

Personally I would say ORAS are the easiest games. Even without the Exp. Share, I've always found these games to be much easier than the original Hoenn games.

ORAS is definitely much easier than Sun and Moon imo. The latter at least has Totem Battles to provide a challenge, but the former doesn't really have anything.

 

[Megan]

XY are not easy unless you take advantage of all options put into the game to make them easy. Tbh. I found SM fairly enjoyable in terms of difficulty. Some parts were harder some easier. I have to admit, though, that team composition for me does not revolve around finding and using good Pokemon or even using my favorites, but rather I try and see how different often times forgotten Pokemon fare when put together. Sometimes it goes well and sometimes it doesn't. I also try to keep grinding at a minimum, only rarely use XItems, etc.

In terms of overall difficulty I still believe gen 1 is the easiest. The mechanics are very basic and there's a lot of really good moves and Pokemon only the player gets and of course some many exploits that steamrolling the game is practically a given even without trying.

 

[Pendraflare]

Yeah no. When I first played, I was amazed at how many times I had opponents be faster than me, survive hits they shouldn't, or take way less from my attacks than I felt like they would previously. It took me more than one run to figure it out: those EV trained big battles can be a chore.

 

[Sheep]

They're pretty easy, but I think I find GSC easier. The levels of opponents are low and getting through the main content seemed easier in comparison. SuMo are probably close, but I do think there are more factors that can make the game a bit tougher than Johto, especially in the beginning.

 

[Palamon]

Nope, they're not. The Totem Pokemon are actually pretty difficult challenge. Boosted stats and some summoning Pokemon that literally hinder your progress, like Totem Wishiwashi summoning an Alomamola. Yes, the game is super handholdy, and the first island is literally a tutorial,but that doesn't make them the easiest games ever. I'd argue X/Y are still the easiest because the gym leaders didn't even have FULL MOVESETS on their Pokemon. I also distinctly remember losing to Ilima at least a few times on the first island. A lot of the Totem Pokemon pretty much destroyed me, even when I had the advantage, I don't see why so many people claim all of Sun/Moon is "easy". They're definitely easier than Black/White, Diamond/Pearl, but they're definitely not d tier level difficulty as some people seem to claim.

 

[Sydian]

i don't think so. they're on the easy side of the scale in the large scheme of things, but i wouldn't say they're the easiest. but that also depends on a lot of things - your team, how many pokemon you're using, whether you use z-moves and/or mega evolutions, etc. they can be easy, but i think xy is holding that crown. i had way more fun w sun/moon than xy though, and difficulty wasn't something i was really looking at when playing. like yeah i like a challenge, but at the end of the day, i play pokemon to have fun and enjoy the critters, not to get my balls busted lol.

also obligatory mention of the wishiwashi totem bc like. lmfao fuck....... also i just remembered ilima beat my ass in sun like multiple times bc my team was.....lol...

 

[Janp]

I wouldn't say so. I still have a PTSD from Ilma and Emily's fights from the early game. But runs where I had problem with them were also Nuzlockes and Monotypes, so that might made them harder.

I think Totem Pokémon bring enough difficulty to the game to make it not easy. There were some nice combination there + Wishiwashi has legendary tier stats. That's quite the change from XY Gym Leaders' teams, where random Hawlucha in Reflection Cave is stronger than Korrina's Hawlucha.

 

[Dave]

Yes Sun and Moon versions are easier than the Previous Generations if you have been plaing Pokemon from Red and Blue- I am talking about purely original ones not Fire Red or Leaf Green- to sun and moon then you know what I am talking about.

 

[Megan]

Yes Sun and Moon versions are easier than the Previous Generations if you have been plaing Pokemon from Red and Blue- I am talking about purely original ones not Fire Red or Leaf Green- to sun and moon then you know what I am talking about.

Can you elaborate on this? I don't know what you're talking about but I'd like to know. :)

Also, does your opinion change if you were to include remakes like FireRed and LeafGreen? It sounds like you excluded them for a reason.

 

[Zeostar]

I can't see anything being easier than Gen 6. Even without the EXP share, it's hard not to one hit KO everything.

 

[BiggusWeeabus]

Nope, the Gen 6 games are.