4th Gen Difficulty

[Sapphyres]

So... Is it just me or is this game much harder than it used to be?

I'm playing SS and HG.

At first I thought it was just my challenge, mono type unevolved mono coloured group. But on my other game, where I have no challenge it's been equally hard!

I don't care what people say, totodile is much harder than chikorita/cyndaquil. Cyndaquil is just overpowered, but to me, chikorita is equally powerful. In fact Silver's Bayleef gave me lots of problems.

Maybe it's the fact that even though I have no challenge, I'm using pokemon I love rather than just powerful.

The cycle of power over love started way back in my Red version, where I got my butterfree after the painstaking level ups from a caterpie so that the metapod would have tackle, and then just stopped using it as soon as it got to the point where it just wasn't strong enough.

The cycle continued in my yellow version, where I caught my Nidoran (male), got his "double kick". Walked into Brock's gym:

Brock, "Oh crap here comes that kid again, let's just hope he picked charmander instead of bulbasaur OR squirtle..."

Geodude, "Who are you kidding, even his ember freakin' hurts..."

Brock, "I know... bu-- wait... is that a Pikachu? Oh yeah we got this! I may be someone who was deserted by his parents to provide for himself and his countless brother's and sisters because his parents couldn't find something else to better spend their time on like collecting stamps and then just left for some reason or another... But now I can finally have some happiness by winning this! Oh a nidoran... that's cute... Go Onix! Splatter him! Oh look how cute, he's trying to use double kick, ha, like that would hurt a huge rock pok-- Holy @!# %! !#$ AHH !@# $"

But then quickly discarded the nidoran when it wasn't usefull.

This playthrough I decided to stick to the pokemon I loved regardless of usefulness, so I had my Nidoran, Machop, Mareep, Totodile, Houndour, and an HM servant.

But still, every single gym I reached, I was underlevelled. The ghost gym I won by sheer luck!... It's been hard, but soooo much more fun! I just don't understand how a little kid is supposed to win when I'm having a hard time, I don't know if it would've been doable if I was the same age as I was when I played red.

How about you guys? How has it been? Did you find it harder?

I'm really enjoying this :)

 

[EJ]

Chikorita is indeed the hardest starter in this game. The first two gyms are strong against your starter, plus Meganium itself isn't very strong. It is more of a support pokemon rather than an offensive one. In fact, people with Chikorita will have a tough time with Falkner, Bugsy, Jasmine, Pryce, and Clair. The "easy" gyms are Whitney (lolololol miltank), Morty (his ghost types are part poison so that's a no on Grass moves) and Chuck (heavy hitters!)

While Totodile (Feraligatr) can perform just fine against them as long as you let him learn the right moves and surround yourself with decent pokemon like the ones you have.

But other than that, this game IS hard....I blame the low-level wild pokemon! lol

 

[Sapphyres]

I guess it has to do with personality types. I'm more of the status/death-over-time person than all out offense. Chikorita's razor leaf made most battles regardless of type easier, her sleeping attacks + reflect + synthesis made for easy wins. In fact my underleveled chikorita beat falkner with ease just using rzor leaf and poison powder. Cyndaquil is just a rock cannon, meaning not only was it one hit kills, but he lived long.

The reason I'm not in love with cyndaquil is that I honestly feel like his evolutions look almost the same, very anti climatic.

I guess people would find chikorita worse since people tend to focus on direct attacks, but honestly her sleeping moves/poison, combined with a dig TM or something was just way too powerful way too soon. Maybe she has problems with the gym leaders, but everything else on the way is cake with her.

Totodile on the other hand, is very limited. Granted Ice Bite gives him a whole different dimension than older games. He's basically water, strong against rock and fire... which are pretty rare in game. Giving him dig and bite/crunch, combined with ice bite makes him a jack of all trades, but I feel like the other pokemon can be stronger without all the strategizing. Chikorita requires thought, but not exact type match.

I don't know, every game I find that the fire type is like the easy cake walk, the leaf type is sort of the early game cake walk, gets harder later, but once you give up grass moves for ground and status they still clean up too well. Whereas the water type are just water... Bite gives them the psychic edge, but still, you have to give them everything but moves from their own type to make them work and just hope that if the other pokemon springs an electric pokemon you can attack first.

 

[Gymnotide]

The difficulty of this game is absolutely superb! While some gyms like Jasmine and Pryce are really stupid in both execution and design, the rest of them I found really nice. Falkner's upgrade really struck me. While in GSC, I would easily waltz right through him with Ember, his Pidgeotto actually gave me trouble with Roost and Wing Attack in this game. Bugsy wasn't just the worthless guy who everyone ran over in two seconds -- now with X-Scissor, he's something worth calling Mother about. Whitney became, I daresay, much more challenging than before, oddly. Morty actually required some strategy, predicting Sucker Punches, switching out frequently to avoid Curse and Dream Eater. Chuck overwhelmed the majority of my Pokemon with Focus Punch... And Clair, I had to catch a Swinub just to beat her.

Some may not have found the game hard, but my play-style dictates that I not train my Pokemon any more than the absolute minimum of minimums, leaving me a good 5 or 6 levels below the gym leader. I was almost 10 levels under Blue just now, but I managed to defeat him regardless, having to rely on every one of my abilities -- Light Screen, Reflect, Charge, Water Absorb, the works. Even his underlings, who all used Trick Room, defeated many of my Pokemon just because of how the move works -- very devious of the designers of the game... And that Sudowoodo!

The rival difficulty was sort of disappointing though. At the beginning he would be the hardest trainer you fought, with his titan of a Croconaw/Bayleef/Quilava early game, but his skill peters out by the end of the game, when I almost defeated his team with a single Pokemon.

The Elite Four saw some nice improvements. At first I was disappointed at the first two battles because Will saw little to no real changes and Koga got totally nerfed, having all his Pokemon wall-able by any Steel-type Pokemon... But then, when Bruno came around, I saw myself struggling against his Technician-boosted Hitmontop, his now Physical Hitmonchan, and his No Guard Machamp which could destroy anything it wanted to at its level. Karen was also as tough a cookie, with her annoying Umbreon and Nasty Plot Houndoom. Lance, I beat with relative ease, but only after much perseverance in trying to keep Mamoswine up for its Ice Shard.

 

[Timepiece]

I agree that Morty was really great this time around. I'll admit that I was sad to see how obvious and bland the first ghost gym leader was in Gold, but now he's got some crazy stuff going on.

 

[Tyros]

I liked the difficulty level of this game a whole lot. Maybe it was the Pokemon I chose to go with, but I always ground my way up to the highest level of the gym leader's top Pokemon before even setting foot in the gym. Even still, it was a challenge in many places.

Something interesting was that this game... Well, it seemed like each gym had some sort of strategy going, rather than just ATTACKATTACKATTACKATTACKDAMMIT. And each gym leader had that one Pokemon to watch out for that really defined them.

Falkner's hacked Pidgeotto.
Bugsy's painful Scyther.
Whitney's terrifying Miltank.
Morty's crazy Gengar.
Chuck's powerful Poliwrath.
Pryce's bulky Piloswine.
Jasmine's huge Steelix.
Claire's horrible Kingdra...

They all, once they got down to that last Pokemon, always seemed to make an epic "Oh yeah, stuff's about to go down." kinda feeling for me. I loved it a whole lot. Though my team never tasted all-out defeat at any part in this game... I still felt the challenge was there the entire time. And it went down to the wire time and time again against many gym leaders.

- Tyros

 

[Sapphyres]

Yeah, I don't grind in pokemon games, it kind of defeats the purpose for my style of playing. I do fight every single trainer though :)

But yeah, every gym leader had me thinking, "Okay, how the heck is that pokemon that strong?" Specially that pidgeotto xD

U-Turn was, omg...

Shadow ball was the hax of the year, one hit ko everything xD

No battle was cakewalk but I gotta admit, the steel gym is so... poorly made. In my opinion all gym leaders should have at least 5 pokemon, at their last evolution maybe too. 2 magnemites and a steelix? The sad part is she still kicked butt xD

 

[Tyros]

That's fair enough. n.n I didn't do ridiculous grinding. All in all, maybe 1/10 of the main game was grinding for gym leader fights. I really did it to take time through a remake I was so looking forward to. Worked out beautifully for me. <3

XD Yeah, U-Turn a surprising lot. O__o And I know how you feel on the Gengar. That would've probably been one of my closest calls... If not for Furret and that one move that let me hit ghosts. I used that all the way up to the E4. XD;

I was actually looking forward to seeing Jasmine again. n.n She was one of my favorites in the originals for some reason or another. Probably because I was so astounded back then to see a freaking level 35 Steelix when I was around level 31-32. XDD It counts for two Pokemon in itself.

This time, I did Pryce first, though, and made myself 34 for his Mamoswine and then 35 for her Steelix... Just made logical sense to me when I realized Pryce's highest Pokemon was lower than Jasmines. XD;

- Tyros

 

[ctf_fancore]

I think that these versions are simply more difficult than the original silver and gold because the poke's are much lower lvl than they were in the first ones causing less speedy lvl ups for your poke's

 

[bobbob620]

I actually found the game pretty easy. The only problems were Falkner and Clair.

I never had to do any grinding:\

 

[Sealia]

Mmm...for me it wasn't anymore difficult than the original versions. But yet, I tend to overkill and destroy any trainer or gym leader that crosses my path...
I had a 37 Feraligatr, 35 Ampharos, 35 Arbok, 30 Togetic and a 35 Embreon by the time I got to Ilex forest (Yes I did transfer an eevee from Pokemon Pearl but in its egg so I raised it to that level from lvl 1)

I looked forward to battling Karen in the Elite Four because of her choice of type <3 She had no chance though against my team...the pokemon league I destroyed as well...so it really wasn't much of a challenge for me...too easy.
Maybe I should try the un-evolved pokemon team team challeng. Heheh..

 

[Impo]

i thought only lance and bugsys scyther were hard,
the level gap between chuck and jasmine are annoying, as there isnt a gap :P

 

[EJ]

Last time I checked....Pryce has a PILOswine...not a MAMOswine ^.^

 

[Ninja Caterpie]

I liked the difficulty level of this game a whole lot. Maybe it was the Pokemon I chose to go with, but I always ground my way up to the highest level of the gym leader's top Pokemon before even setting foot in the gym. Even still, it was a challenge in many places.

Something interesting was that this game... Well, it seemed like each gym had some sort of strategy going, rather than just ATTACKATTACKATTACKATTACKDAMMIT. And each gym leader had that one Pokemon to watch out for that really defined them.

Falkner's hacked Pidgeotto.
Bugsy's painful Scyther.
Whitney's terrifying Miltank.
Morty's crazy Gengar.
Chuck's powerful Poliwrath.
Pryce's bulky Mamoswine.
Jasmine's huge Steelix.
Claire's horrible Kingdra...

They all, once they got down to that last Pokemon, always seemed to make an epic "Oh yeah, stuff's about to go down." kinda feeling for me. I loved it a whole lot. Though my team never tasted all-out defeat at any part in this game... I still felt the challenge was there the entire time. And it went down to the wire time and time again against many gym leaders.

- Tyros

I agree, those were all crazy.

Except I found Morty all-round easy because of Aipom (Tail Whip away those Sucker Punches, then smash with Astonish!) and Jasmine...I found her second Magnemite painful, actually. @_@ I KO'd Steelix with my Quilava, but it fell to the second Magnemite...as did the rest of my team.

 

[Chunes]

Totodile on the other hand, is very limited. Granted Ice Bite gives him a whole different dimension than older games. He's basically water, strong against rock and fire... which are pretty rare in game. Giving him dig and bite/crunch, combined with ice bite makes him a jack of all trades, but I feel like the other pokemon can be stronger without all the strategizing. Chikorita requires thought, but not exact type match.

I sort of disagree. Granted, I don't have experience starting with Cyndaquil or Chikorita, but I think Totodile is absolutely fantastic. Crunch, ice fang, surf/hydro cannon, and another move of your choice is absolutely wonderful. He is strong against more pokemon than any other pokemon I've ever seen. Combine that with his great defenses and you've got a very solid pokemon that you can rely on in practically every situation.

He fits my playstyle quite well. Sacrifices some offensive oomph for the ability to take hits well, but you can't ignore him for very long. :)

 

[LethalTexture]

I only grinded in this game because I chose to, and I like all my Pokémon to be at a certain level before each badge.

The bit of the game that I find harder is the battle against Red. Oh by the way, I started with Totodile, too. I always do in Johto-based games, because I don't find Chikorita useful enough and Cyndaquil is really overused.

 

[Kikaito plush]

The game was easy because I trainned over my togetic and genger of pain

 

[Tombstone975]

To be honest, I didn't find this game as challenging as Ruby/Sapphire was.

At the start I had a bit of frustration with money, Spending all my money on Potions so my Totadile could keep up with Roost. But what most people forgot in this game, Is the old fashion Pidgey. With Gust at level 8-9 it pretty much wiped those early game Grass types, Making Bugsy and my rival a sinch to beat.
Whitney's Milk Drink was an insanely hacked move, I had to relay on Crocnaw's critcals to beat it :\

Getting around to the 4th gym was just a mixture to be honest. I just used Fallfy, Vulpix, Todadile to do most of the work and use Pidgey as a scape goat for Curse and switch back to the battle.
After that I just caught the dogs and they pretty much knocked down the rest of gyms along the way.

Elite Four was eaiser then I expected. 1 attempt and I was done. Everyone was telling me how rough Lance was, But I just don't see it.

 

[bruteroot]

I gotta say im finding it quite easy and I started with chikorita. Its all about natures maybe I suppose. I just got the best natures for that pokemon. I've hardly grinded and now im on my way to the league. Ah well I still love it and cant wait to go to kanto baby!

 

[og_loc-TATOO]

Yeah you're right, it is true that the levels have increased (except for wild pokemon ^ ^) and is very good because it's much more fun and allowed me to better lead my TOTODILE compared to older versions ^ ^