• Our software update is now concluded. You will need to reset your password to log in. In order to do this, you will have to click "Log in" in the top right corner and then "Forgot your password?".
  • Welcome to PokéCommunity! Register now and join one of the best fan communities on the 'net to talk Pokémon and more! We are not affiliated with The Pokémon Company or Nintendo.

Easiest and Hardest Pokemon game?

Seth Rollins

Holding on to You |-/
  • 2,398
    Posts
    11
    Years
    In your opinion, what were the easiest/hardest pokemon games? For me the easiest was definitely X and Y. The exp share was broken, you could choose one of the kanto starters, and no matter which one you chose, they had powerful megas, and not to mention you get a free Mega Lucario too. The trainers were underleveled too. Not challenging imo

    The hardest for me is a tie between Platinum and Pokemon Yellow. Platinum I guess, there's Fantina, Cyrus, Cynthia... ugh
     
    Really? Because I thought the trainers in XY were really high leveled and hard to keep up, in fact they actually prove bigger threats than the Gym Leaders since they have so much variety. But i'm not gonna go too much into that.

    And Yellow being the hardest? I think the Kanto games are likely the easiest, including RBY and FRLG, just because in Generation I the AI can be easily exploited, and in FRLG opponents feel dumbed down and there are a lot of resources that can work well. The Gym Leaders aren't that great either.

    But hardest would be Platinum, for reasons i've discussed before, such as Team Galactic admins, even the Gym Leaders have really strong stuff (every single Gym has at least one Pokémon with triple digit base Attack/Special Attack). And Cyrus and Cynthia, of course.
     
    XY on easy scale; broken EXP share, Gym leaders starting bit edgy and later piece of cake, Elite four and champion no biggie either, no need to grid and just beat the heck outta of it.

    Platnium and Pearl/Diamond, while facing galactic admins in a double battle or Cyrus it be more intense and very frustrating to take it down also LG/FG, blue is major pain to dealt with
     
    Easiest: basically every Pokemon game, that makes you overpowered. If you focus on your starter only, it makes the first games so extremely easy, while the EXP Share in gen 6 just allows you to overlevel your complete party.

    Hardest: gen 2+remakes, mainly because leveling is so terribly tedious
     
    I always, ALWAYS struggle against Team Galactic in Gen IV. There's something about the Pokémon they use in those games that make them very annoying to face.

    In overall game play though, I'd probably say Platinum is the most difficult. The gym leaders and variety of Pokémon (much improved from D/P) seem to be troublesome across every play through for me. A close second would be Black and White as a lot of the later trainers have very good competitively viable Pokémon. That's probably saying more about my choice of Pokémon rather than the games themselves though to be honest.

    The easiest I would probably put X and Y or Fire Red and Leaf Green. Just very basic really, with levels of wild Pokémon being so low.
     
    Last edited:
    Hardest is probably the entire 4th Generation. D/P/Pt are pretty long and there's tons of tough NPCs in those games, especially Cyrus (his Gyarados in Platinum is to be feared) and obviously Cynthia, not to forget Pt Fantina (damn Mismagius of hers having such OP coverage moves at the point she's faced) and the rematches in general. HG/SS have the same struggle G/S/C had of having some tough Gym Leaders and also being a pain to grind levels in due to the weak level curve of the wild Pokemon.

    Easiest might be X/Y, as many would say. I recall beating the main story in only 1 or 2 days and that was me speedrunning through everything.
     
    X was the easiest game I've played since I had the Exp. Share. Platinum was a bit tough for me because I felt like I had to grind a whole lot just to be able to keep up.
     
    Platinum was very difficult for me when I was younger. I couldn't beat the elite four for my life lol.

    XY was pretty easy, but coming back to pokemon made it a little harder with catching the major legendary and I was forced to use my master ball...
     
    Easiest: FRLG. They stuffed a million tutorials into these games and dumbed down almost all of the trainers from the originals. It's as if these games were made for preschoolers. The only thing that could possibly make them difficult is the lack of Pokémon variety, but even that is abated by (slightly) better movesets from the originals and the opponents all having equally mediocre teams.

    Runner-up: XY. EXP Share + dumbed down opponents = insultingly easy Story Mode than you can blast through within a day.


    Hardest: Platinum. Major NPCs all have good teams with great movesets and a smarter AI. Champion Barbie, in particular, has a perfect team with perfect stats and perfect coverage, including cheap ass Pokémon like Garchomp, Spiritomb, and Lucario.

    Runner-up: Yellow. Brock's not so much of a pushover when you're forced to start with a Pikachu, and it's not like the thing will ever evolve, either. And, have fun fighting Koga and his L50 Venomoth with the L35 Pokémon you beat Erika with, or Sabrina's L50 Alakazam in a game where Psychics had no weaknesses and were broken as heck. NPC movesets, in general, are vastly improved from RB and aren't nearly as exploitable.
     
    Really? Because I thought the trainers in XY were really high leveled and hard to keep up, in fact they actually prove bigger threats than the Gym Leaders since they have so much variety. But i'm not gonna go too much into that.

    And Yellow being the hardest? I think the Kanto games are likely the easiest, including RBY and FRLG, just because in Generation I the AI can be easily exploited, and in FRLG opponents feel dumbed down and there are a lot of resources that can work well. The Gym Leaders aren't that great either.

    But hardest would be Platinum, for reasons i've discussed before, such as Team Galactic admins, even the Gym Leaders have really strong stuff (every single Gym has at least one Pokémon with triple digit base Attack/Special Attack). And Cyrus and Cynthia, of course.

    X and Y trainers are high leveled and hard to keep up? What

    And I dunno about yellow I played that game when I was 10 so i obviously didnt have much experience like I do now, I remember facing Brock with a Pikachu....jesus. And Misty's Starmie sweet jesus I couldnt beat that thing...Sabrina's Alakazam...ehh let's just move on. And you can't say Blue (the rival) was easy.
     
    Last edited:
    Well it's true. Other trainer than Gym leader/Elite Four are proven much harder and more versatile
     
    The hardest pokemon games that I've played are mostly around the gen 4 era such as platinum and soul silver. Leveling up is the main reason why those games were so difficult especially when challenging the pokemon league since it takes ages to level up your team to be equal to the elite fours, and even then, you are almost guaranteed to be lower leveled than the champion. I agree with many people that XY is way too easy since exp share makes it possible for the whole team to level up at the same rate which led to many instances of my team being 5-8 levels higher than all of my opponents.
     
    SS I'm finding a bit of a pain. Grinding is literally that and just very slow. FRLG the easiest by far
     
    I think the earlier version (RBY) is easier to me so far. The hardest one for me is in Pokemon Crystal, i have a really hard time to beat Lance and Red in there. If its wasn't my cousin, i wouldn't make it. xD
     
    For me, Red and Blue are difficult to rate. The battles themselves are laughably easy thanks to the crappy AI. The map, on the other hand, is probably the hardest. The dungeons seemed a lot more cryptic (seriously, screw the Silph tower), and finding my way around was a lot more confusing than the other games. Now, not so much since I know what to do, but back then it was a nightmare.

    Gold/Silver, besides a couple of screw yous (the damn button puzzle in Goldenrod, for example) seemed to have a much easier map, but the improved battle system and weird difficulty curve made the battles much harder. Whitney, Morty, and Red were pretty much brick walls when I was a kid.

    I found gen 3 to actually be not that hard with either the battles or overworld (at least not the main quest. The extras are cryptic as hell). Neither was gen 4 (though by then I was much better at video games in general). Gen 5's map was really easy, but the difficulty of the battles really depended on whether I used the Lucky Egg in my runs. Gen 6... Do I really need to explain the easiness of this one?
     
    I see a lot of posts saying XY was easy, and I got to agree. That being said, it takes way too long to get through. I have to push myself into wanting to finish the game.

    Gen IV overall was difficult. It's the only Gen in which I actually lost to both sets of the Elite Four. The level curve in HGSS is just plain nuts. Team Galactic and Cynthia are OP. If you didn't choose Chimchar as your starter in DP and wanted any other Fire type, have fun with... Ponyta? Really?
     
    also I like to add;
    HG/SS was another hardest pokemon game due to alot of low level pokemon and not even pokemon under/above your entire team which makes bit harder to level and chansey only found on route 13 - 15 and only good source of EXP
     
    Back
    Top