Victory Roads

[Hiatus]

In every main-series Pokémon games thus far, we have had this place known as Victory Road.

In short, Victory Roads are a place we have to get through prior to entering Pokémon Leagues. These locations contain high-level Pokémon, as well as some of the toughest trainers we would find in-game. Trainers tend to have some very challenging members on their team, but by defeating them, however, we would be rewarding ourselves with some decent amount of experience, helping us to level-up. Victory Roads contain various obstacles (sort of like a gym), but if we make it through, we're all good!

Of all Victory Roads we have went through in the past, which region's would we say is our most favorite, and why so? Which one did we find ourselves disliking most? If we were to change any aspect of this particular place, what would it be, and how would we go about taking it and whatnot? Let's go wild, everyone.

 

[Pave Low]

I found the Hoenn Victory Road really nice because it wasn't too tricky to get through and it wasn't necessary to get Flash because you can just use the walls to navigate yourself without really being mislead anywhere except maybe one small bit but you can easily find your way back. I think the trainers in there aren't either too hard or too easy, they're at the right levels to be able to get through Victory Road without having to go back to the Pokemon Center and you can level up a fair few times as well. Also, I've never had a time where I've tried to run away from a wild Pokemon and it says "Can't Escape!", this may hold true for other Victory Roads, but at least you aren't forced to waste your PP.

I dislike the Victory Road in FRLG the most, because a lot of things in there really annoy me. I'm playing LG right now so I'll update this post when I have a fresh idea of that hole.

 

[Guardian]

Indigo Plateau Victory Road is my favorite. One of the worst things ever is when you are trying to push through all the Lairons are whatnot and trainers keep battling you, as if Golbats arent annoying alone.

IG Victory road was so relaxing, few strong Pokemon, all easy to escape from and not so tough. Plus there arent huge puzzles that will make you want to throw the console into the wall. It was enjoyable with a dash I know that sounds like Cilan, my vocabulary is almost as poor as Team Rocket of challenge. ^^

 

[Bellsprout]

I'm torn sometimes. Part of me likes when you get to the end of the game and victory road is a breeze like in gsc/hgss. I believe only rock smash and strength were absolutely necessary to get through it. Which is great because I hate having to teach my entire team hms just to get through one part of the game. What I didn't enjoy was the lack of trainers to face.

At the same time I really enjoy a complex victory road full of tough trainers because I need that extra exp to level up my Pokemon before the E4/champion. With that usually comes with teaching my whole team all the hms as mentioned above.

Ultimately I think I like the Kalos victory road the best. It had a lot of trainers to face (though I could always go for more) and it had various areas that made it interesting. As most victory roads are just a ton of cave and some water.

Least favorite is kind of hard, none of them were that bad. I do like the victory road in gsc/hgss because of how easy it was, but in the end it left me so under leveled. Even the Pokemon within victory road were low leveled making it hard to gain exp at all.

I think an ideal victory road for myself would be full of tough trainers, but not big on hms. I don't mind surf&strength because those are actually useful to have for battle too, but stuff like rock smash, flash, even waterfall is an annoyance for myself. I'd also like it to be full of tough wild Pokemon for exp reasons tehe

 

[Emboar]

I liked a lot of the Victory Roads, but my favorite would have to be Unova's (surprise, surprise). It had a nice amount of trainers, it was really big, and it had a lot of stuff to do besides just go through it, like go down and visit N's castle.

As for my least favorite Victory Road that I've gone through, I'd have to say HeartGold & SoulSilver's is my least favorite. There were no trainers besides your rival in it, which didn't make it feel like a Victory Road, it was small anyways, only having 3 rooms iirc, the music didn't have the "epic" feel like all other Victory Roads, and it was an overall terrible place to train. The only good thing about HeartGold & SoulSilver's Victory Road was I found a shiny while grinding there.

 

[Pendraflare]

I think B2W2 had my favorite Victory Road - that one stems from the ruins of N's Castle, and it has so many separate areas to go through, including a ghost temple, a forest, a bird valley, a cave for both Rock and Dragon-types, a valley for Fighting-types, and there's N's Zoroark which leads you into his castle. And to top it off, it has some very scary trainers. On Challenge Mode, that place has always thrown me for a curveball when they're so high leveled at 58/59 and my team lingers around Level 52-55. It is just brutal, but I still enjoy it a lot.

 

[Hiatus]

To me, getting through Victory Roads is always a tough task, regardless of how prepared I happen to be.

First and foremost is, usually, these locations tend to have us utilize a lot of HMs in order to get past certain obstacles, which I find to be quite of hassle. Plus, wild Pokémon encounter rate seem to be slightly more high in these kind of areas as well, so if we don't happen to have much repels in our backpack, we would likely consider it to be frustrating.

As for my favorite, that would probably have to be Hoenn's. Hoenn's Victory Road might be more tricky than others, but good thing about it is that it has some valuable items hidden here and there, as well as some rare Pokémon. Trainers that are located here could be tough if our team is under-trained, but by defeating them, we do gain decent amount of experience!

 

[DyingWillFlareon]

Well the GSC(haven't played hgss- yet) Victory Road was small, had little challenge, and I can't remember if I had to use any hms. That was pretty nice I guess, but the sappy ending with your rival always gets me, because you don't fight him again after that. ;_; He made it to my favorite rivals list too....

But Kalos' XY Victory Road was really great too, it felt like a clearly marked path that trainers have walked down for decades maybe even centuries and today- you join them. The others always felt like a challenge or puzzle to me, so just how different this one felt was awesome for me. I honestly like this idea more, a well marked path rather than 'have fun and don't get lost'.

As for DPPt..... I only got a Diamond game for my birthday last October and I only have 7 or so badges. So I can't really say about that one.

Least favorite.... Probably White? It's one of my favorite games because of the story, and I didn't feel like going through it but that's ok. Kinda long........ >.>

(Back to Johto, I didn't mind the low levels we powered through the League the first or second try every time. XD)

 

[Dragon]

Personally, I do love Victory Roads that provide a little challenge for you, as a sort of testament to your skills and everything that you learned throughout your pokemon journey! Hm, well, If I would have to choose a favourite, I'd say one of my favourites it's.. a tie between Hoenn's and Kalos's. Now, Hoenn's Victory Road wasn't too bad since it had a good amount of trainers to compete against, and you don't have to worry about healing too much; you just had to watch your HMs wisely. But then there's Kalos's victory Road, which i REALLY loved how it looked walking in:

Gods, the flags or banners (whichever you wanna call them) that represented the Gym Badges were really well done! I also loved how Kalos's victory road had inside and outside groves to explore, so, you'll see more stuff that way, in which I really loved; I think Unova's Victory road had an 'outside' part too, but, in Kalos's, you really get to explore even further! I think that was well done!

Ah, in terms of music, I really loved Hoenn's from R/B/E, but ORAS did a really lovely job with it especially:



Serious ear candy as it feels like your at the last foot of your challenge, and the music just deeps in, getting louder and more epic, symbolizing that the greatest of trainers in the game are just up ahead, aaah. <33 Well, all this being said, I didn't really much care for Johto's, haha. I dunno, I just found it to be a bit boring and underwhelming.. well, you DO get to face trainers outside the cave, but, only the rival inside. Which was weird?

 

[mikey]

Hoenn and Kalos had great Victory Roads. They weren't that hard to get through. I liked that Kalos had an outside area to it. Hoenn had a lot of good training opportunities with trainers and wild Pokemon too. Also Wally was at the end which is always one of my favorite battles in the game :3

I don't really have a least favorite. I guess it would be Unova if I had to choose one. It was annoying to get through for me, and the wild Pokemon variety was disappointing.

 

[bobandbill]

Well the GSC(haven't played hgss- yet) Victory Road was small, had little challenge, and I can't remember if I had to use any hms. That was pretty nice I guess, but the sappy ending with your rival always gets me, because you don't fight him again after that. ;_; He made it to my favorite rivals list too....

Actually, in both GSC and HGSS you did fight him again. Mind you, it was only on specific days right by the entrance to the E4 (and maybe time-specific too), but you could refight him. (And there was one other fight somewhere in Kanto, I thought? Hgss certainly...)

As for posts about the GSC/HGSS victory road being too easy without any trainers, I had always viewed the trainer part to be the routes south of Victory road which you had to pass through. Being alone in that cave afterwards, save for the very end.... it was a different feel, and certainly less annoying given the lack of HMs required.

Not sure if it's my favourite though. Not gen 1 though, that was boring. Hoenn's is alright, the 4th was challenging yet frustrating at times (bike puzzles!) - I did like it had a whole sideroute to explore with a NPC post game). I quite liked the leadup to victory road in both the 5th gen games, but I much prefer how B2W2s was laid out. Kalos' was alright but not quite as fun in my opinion as B2W2s... so maybe that one is my favourite? Not too sure though, as it has been a while since I've seen some of them.

 

[DyingWillFlareon]

Actually, in both GSC and HGSS you did fight him again. Mind you, it was only on specific days right by the entrance to the E4 (and maybe time-specific too), but you could refight him. (And there was one other fight somewhere in Kanto, I thought? Hgss certainly...)

WHEN WAS THIS
WHY DO I MISS EVERYTHING

I never found him in Silver Version ever again so I assumed he left for good and others said he was gone too. I am planning on buying SoulSilver soon but have never played it beyond that.


THANK YOU FOR THIS INFORMATIOOOONNN~~~~~~

(and I kinda counted those trainers btw but for the most part ignored the poor npcs. )
<.<=>.>U

 

[Altairis]

I'm kind of torn between how much I like Victory Roads. On one hand, I like them to be a journey, but on the other hand, I really really hate it when I have to bring HM slaves instead of one of my team members. This is why I really think that they should implement items instead of HMs; Victory Roads are really fun when there are rock puzzles and places to Surf, but this often means that they have to put obstacles that can only be crossed by using some weird moves like Rock Smash, Strength, or maybe forcing yourself to have a Water-type Pokemon with both Surf and Waterfall.

I can't remember which Victory Road is which, so I'll get back to you on specific ones!