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Rank the Pokémon games by difficulty


Ronnie
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Difficulty can be from your own experience with the boss battles or dungeons and such. I'm gonna rank the ones I actually beat.

From hardest to easiest:

  1. White
  2. Sun
  3. Platinum
  4. Colosseum
  5. White 2
  6. FireRed
  7. Alpha Sapphire
  8. Sapphire
  9. HeartGold
  10. Y
Edited by Ronnie
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Just for normal mode, or is challenge mode separated ?

Anyway, memory is kinda fuzzy for older game, but let me try.

  1. Black2/White2 Challenge Mode (especially early game)
  2. Diamond
  3. Crystal
  4. Heart Gold
  5. Yellow
  6. Emerald
  7. Black/White
  8. X
  9. Omega Ruby

Sun/Moon is hard to place for me, because it was actually quite hard for me, but it's because I rotated between 18 or so Pokémons, and never used Multi Exp (until the very end). But since it isn't really "optimal" gameplay, it doesn't really count.

Blue/Red are excluded since it's the first game I played. It was all new for everyone, so difficulty is hard to gauge...

Changed order many times, and I still am not entirely convinced...

It's actually not that easy to judge a Pokémon game difficulty, since it can dramatically change depending on which pokémon you use (the starter in gen 1 is the most well known example, deciding if you will steam role the first two arenas (Bulbasaur), or needing more carefull planning (Charmander)).

 

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Is there really a point to ranking them, when they are all about the same in terms of how easy they are. It's basically 

BW2 Hard Mode 
Everything Else

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55 minutes ago, Jedi said:

Is there really a point to ranking them, when they are all about the same in terms of how easy they are. It's basically 

BW2 Hard Mode 
Everything Else

Idk that Wishiwashi trial was pretty intense. The Elite Four in SM had me using more revives and hyper potions than any other game. All in all though the gaps in difficulty between games are not that great but still fun to think about.

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1 hour ago, Jedi said:

Is there really a point to ranking them, when they are all about the same in terms of how easy they are. It's basically 

BW2 Hard Mode 
Everything Else

They're not really the same. Games like Sun/Moon and Gen IV games are much harder than the Gen VI games, for example. 

But back on topic, my list:

1. Platinum

2. Sun

3. HeartGold

4. Black

5. Black 2

6. FireRed

7. Emerald

8. Crystal

9. AlphaSapphire

10. Yellow

11. X

EDIT: I forgot to add the Gamecube games! I would put Colosseum between Platinum and Sun and XD between Black and Black 2.

Edited by Water Mage
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3 minutes ago, Water Mage said:

They're not really the same. Games like Sun/Moon and Gen IV games are much harder than the Gen VI games, for example. 

But back on topic, my list:

1. Platinum

2. Sun

3. HeartGold

4. Black

5. Black 2

6. FireRed

7. Emerald

8. Crystal

9. AlphaSapphire

10. Yellow

11. X

EDIT: I forgot to add the Gamecube games! I would put Colosseum between Platinum and Sun and XD between Black and Black 2.

Thing is, once again, it depends heavily of your team. Mimikyu and Mudsdale are quite top tier in SM, for example, and trivializes parts of the game. (My Mimikyu was underleveled, but still 6-0 Hala the first time I did the league.)

Experience may varies heavily depending on players.

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1 hour ago, Tamanoir said:

Thing is, once again, it depends heavily of your team. Mimikyu and Mudsdale are quite top tier in SM, for example, and trivializes parts of the game. (My Mimikyu was underleveled, but still 6-0 Hala the first time I did the league.)

Experience may varies heavily depending on players.

I'll admit, the difficulty of Sun/Moon depends entirely on the team. For example, Totem Lurantis is usually considered very hard, but with a Fire type, it becomes a pretty easy boss. Another good example is Lusamine. If you have something to kill her Clefable quickly, like A Mudsdale with Heavy Slam or a Alolan Muk, Lusamine's Clefable won't give much trouble, but if you don't lead with a Pokemon that can defeat Clefable quickly, it will likely use Cosmic Power and Moonlight, and it becomes a chore to fight. As I said before, Sun/Moon's difficulty depends entirely on the team you have, and to be honest I actually like that. That what I believe how things should be in Pokemon games, that the difficulty of the battles depends entirely on the team of Pokemon you have.

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Ah...half of these I haven't played in a decade, but I'll try based on things I remember.

Hardest to easiest:

  1. Yellow
  2. Black 2/White 2
  3. Colisseum
  4. Sun/Moon
  5. Red/Blue
  6. Emerald
  7. Gold/Silver
  8. Black/White
  9. XD Gale of Darkness
  10. Ruby/Sapphire
  11. Diamond/Pearl
  12. X/Y

Haven't played Platinum or Crystal. Everything from Black/White down is basically games with no particularly difficult parts, and newer conventions like Move Deleters and Reminders, not losing half your money on a game over, or re-usable TMs. Emerald is easy until you fight the champion. He's the only mono-type champion in the series, and if you didn't pick Treecko, there aren't really any other pokemon that can hope to sweep his team. That battle alone may be enough to push it up to the top 3.

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1-  Emerald- kind of wins by default, only played once. Used sceptile. I think the rivals were toned down, but I can't remember. 

2- Sapphire- For some reason the may/rival has relatively high level teams in some of the fights. also wild pokemon typing feel limited up to the electric gym. However after you get past watson and the second rival fight the game is pretty trivial. However marshtomp/swampert will even trivialize the game's early difficulty hump. The double gym leader gave me problems the first time I played it.

3- Coloseum - I kind of feel like Umbreon is mediocre, but gen3 espeon is a REALLY strong starter pokemon, and confusion/psychic are tremendously damaging on most opponets in the game. You can also take advantage of the double battle format more than the computer's by packing around surf users and the like early on. There are some annoying things like the status effect trainers I think the female cipher admin. The shadow pokemon's high crit chance can sometimes be a problem.  

4- Red - the last time I played Red I did it to import a team to finally put Stadium R2 out of it's misery. I didn't really use the starter because it wasn't part of the  gang I had in mind. game did not give me problems, especially as one of the guys was golem. 

5- Yellow - not really that much different from red. Having to grab a butterfree or nidoran before brock kind of primes you to play abusively compared to just breaking him with a starter though 

6- Pearl- I went with infernape. I remember almost the entire game being trivial.

7-XD - Ursaring is the god emperor. Eevee is also pretty good (assuming jolteon, vaporeon, or espeon). I feel like the "diversified" shadow attacks are less dangerous than the high crit shadow rush from the first game.

8- Silver- I remember taking a level 35ish poliwhirl through the elite four. It's also the only game I bothered to nuzlocke, and it kind of made me decide that nuzlockes were pointless in general due to how easily the game was. 

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7 hours ago, Reality said:

1-  Emerald- kind of wins by default, only played once. Used sceptile. I think the rivals were toned down, but I can't remember. 

2- Sapphire- For some reason the may/rival has relatively high level teams in some of the fights. also wild pokemon typing feel limited up to the electric gym. However after you get past watson and the second rival fight the game is pretty trivial. However marshtomp/swampert will even trivialize the game's early difficulty hump. The double gym leader gave me problems the first time I played it.

I just checked, and the rival uses diferent pokémon (Ludicolo, Pelipper, Slugma instead of Shroomish, Numel, and Waimer. Swellow is replaced by Tropius.) Since they never eolves his Pokémon in RS and does in Emerald, that would actually makes him harder by default.
Anyway, I never really get how they are considered hard? They have an amazing theme but are total pushover.

S/M however have pretty hard rivals. Even Haru is challenging with his Alolan Raichu. The first time you encounter that thing, he's faster than most of your team, and ht like a truck. I remembe the battle at Malie City, between Alolan Raichu and Vaporeon who just never dies. And you can't fully prepare yourself before this battle, since it's immediately aftr the Aether Foundation events.

11 hours ago, Water Mage said:

I'll admit, the difficulty of Sun/Moon depends entirely on the team. For example, Totem Lurantis is usually considered very hard, but with a Fire type, it becomes a pretty easy boss. Another good example is Lusamine. If you have something to kill her Clefable quickly, like A Mudsdale with Heavy Slam or a Alolan Muk, Lusamine's Clefable won't give much trouble, but if you don't lead with a Pokemon that can defeat Clefable quickly, it will likely use Cosmic Power and Moonlight, and it becomes a chore to fight. As I said before, Sun/Moon's difficulty depends entirely on the team you have, and to be honest I actually like that. That what I believe how things should be in Pokemon games, that the difficulty of the battles depends entirely on the team of Pokemon you have.

It's actually already the case since... pretty much the beginning. But it became more obvious starting with BW2. Since then, you have access to a large pannel of Pokémons from the very beginning. It is quite relevant in BW2, but Challenge Mode makes sure you'll always have a difficulty ahead. The experience system also makes sure you'll never be way ahead everyone else X/Y is far too easy for the difficulty to be releant (return to the old level up sytem, but capturing also gives exp now). Sun/Moon works well, since the overall difficulty is already slightly above most games, but you have plenty of usefull tools and Pokémons easily available.

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I don't think I can rank everyone I've played but I've found Red/Blue the hardest by default just because of the level scale at the end of the game being absolutely nuts - and the AI being particularly confusing so that you cant fully predict everything. It's just a lot of grinding which I feel shouldn't be necessary. Any Pokemon game could be easy if you grind btw - so I'm counting like natural progression of the game (while not trying to avoid everything in the game). I guess you can catch the legendaries and trivialize the end but I don't like doing that either. I know I'm not the only person who thinks that the OG ones are among the toughest though, so I guess they're really polarizing as a set of games.

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6 hours ago, Tamanoir said:

S/M however have pretty hard rivals. Even Haru is challenging with his Alolan Raichu. The first time you encounter that thing, he's faster than most of your team, and ht like a truck. I remembe the battle at Malie City, between Alolan Raichu and Vaporeon who just never dies. And you can't fully prepare yourself before this battle, since it's immediately aftr the Aether Foundation events.

YES! That little rat fucked my team up. The game was pretty easy so far and Hau was a pushover in the previous battles. I thought I'd make the battle more interesting by making dumb choices so the battle lasted longer. Big mistake. I got swept by his psychic attacks, blacked out, and rematched him with a more serious intent lol.

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On 8/14/2017 at 8:37 AM, Umbran Darros said:

I don't think I can rank everyone I've played but I've found Red/Blue the hardest by default just because of the level scale at the end of the game being absolutely nuts - and the AI being particularly confusing so that you cant fully predict everything. It's just a lot of grinding which I feel shouldn't be necessary. Any Pokemon game could be easy if you grind btw - so I'm counting like natural progression of the game (while not trying to avoid everything in the game). I guess you can catch the legendaries and trivialize the end but I don't like doing that either. I know I'm not the only person who thinks that the OG ones are among the toughest though, so I guess they're really polarizing as a set of games.

I actually replayed the G1 games sometime ago. Those games are also easier when you try to limit your team to a core team of about 3 or 4, no legendaries necessary, and pretty minimal grinding. Dugtrio and Clefable, for example, can help clear a big chunk of G1. And this is before taking something like the starter or Jolteon into consideration.

Edited by Just call me AL
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26 minutes ago, Just call me AL said:

I actually replayed the G1 games sometime ago. Those games are also easier when you try to limit your team to a core team of about 3 or 4, no legendaries necessary, and pretty minimal grinding. Dugtrio and Clefable, for example, can help clear a big chunk of G1. And this is before taking something like the starter or Jolteon into consideration.

How can you forget the value of a Kadabra or Hypno? Team Rocket packs a lot of Poison IIRC, and it lets you sweep through Koga and Eirika (save for the Tangela) as well. I used one of those two, a Blastoise (I'm pretty sure it was that), and the Legendary Birds, namely Zapdos (no EVs, no IVs, no Natures- so there is nothing to worry about when catching them). That plus the necessity of HM slaves was good enough to get me through the game.

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7 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

How can you forget the value of a Kadabra or Hypno? Team Rocket packs a lot of Poison IIRC, and it lets you sweep through Koga and Eirika (save for the Tangela) as well.

I only listed the examples I gave because that's what they were, examples. I didn't forget about Kadabra at all. However, didn't Hypno learn Psychic late without TMs? Not to mention, Clefable and Dugtrio can take care of Team Rocket, Erika (which is more of Clefable's fight than it is Dugtrio's), and Koga as well, hence my previous "big chunk of G1" comment. 

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  • 2 months later...

White: Every single gym is a tough challenge, the the final battle is two fights back to back, plus DENNIS (Ghetsis) and Haxdreigon.

Emerald: Pretty challenging all throughout. Sky Pillar was worse than Rock Tunnel multiplied by ten.

LeafGreen: My first game, I was so stupid that when I went to Victory Road, I only had a decent Blastoise and underleveled Dugtrio + Exeggutor. Blue's Venusaur stomped me so hard that I had to navigate Seafoam to capture Articuno. I ended up somehow fighting my way through the Elite Four using those two. Lorelei was such a pain. Somehow, I manage to do it, and then after doing the postgame sidequest, I duplicated Rayquaza from Emerald and used him to support the other two in the rest of my runs. (Right now, I duplicated EXP Shares so Dugtrio and Exeggutor can help too.)

Moon: Mister Can of Sardines (Totem Wishiwashi) versus Torracat and Slowpoke. Do the math. Also, Guzma before you fight Lusamine. Also, in the final battle, I only won due to Vanilluxe's Snow Warning chipping off the last bit of Primarina's health after a Freeze Dry.

X: It was so easy that I had a Vanillite on my Hall of Fame team. (Now it's level 100. Hey, I was stupid a few years ago.)

That's all of the ones I've played, although Red Rescue Team is unforgiving and the FireRed hack LiquidCrystal gives the Elite Four Leftovers of all things in their rematches.

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Sure!

1. D/P - Between Cynthia being THE hardest champion, a couple tough gym leaders, and the Pokedex being stupid...yeah.
2. Platinum - See above, except the levels of Cynthia and the E4's teams were lowered, so not quite as hard as before.
3. Sun/Moon - Those Totem Pokemon sometimes, yeesh.
4. Black/White - Some tough gym leaders and stuff. Ghetsis was a tough final boss too.
5. Black 2/White 2 - Also a tough gym leader here and there.
6. HGSS and RSE - Because of their damned Normal gym leaders, mainly. xP
7. ORAS - Easier than the originals for reasons like secret base abuse and the changed Exp. Share.
8. X/Y - Pretty easy thanks to the Exp. Share again.
9. Yellow - For an old game, absurdly easy. lol

I never played Red, Blue, Gold, or Silver. I did play Crystal, but barely since HGSS became a thing not long after I got it.

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1. BW/B2W2 - Late game stomps on you with good counters to weaknesses, and that damn Hydreigon in BW. B2W2 only stays with it's prequel it due to the existence of Challenge Mode, which while very difficult to access, is a very good challenge. Also Gym 1 in B2W2 is the most frustrating Gym ever.

2. Sun and Moon - This game kicks your ass without a proper team comp, er, unless you use the EXP Share, anyways. Plus some nasty Totem Pokemon combos, assuming you can't just ohko the Totem turn 1 with a Z-Move that is (Hence why Mimikyu is a good Totem, since you can't do that). On top of that, easily the hardest early game in any Nuzlocke. Thanks, Smeargle...

3. DPPt - With a lop-sided Pokedex and fully-evolved Gym Leaders, not to mention Cynthia's existence, DP's got more than just slow movement and battle speed preventing you from rushing through it. While Platinum fixed the slowness and slightly fixed the Pokedex, the Gym Leaders and E4/Champion were really just as hard, with ever so slightly lower levels but much more diverse movepools, meaning you had to be on your feet with strategy even more. On the plus side, it makes for pretty interesting Nuzlockes, debatably harder than SM (Much easier early game assuming you don't get screwed, harder late game).

4. HGSS - Uh, Whitney... exists, I guess? Never really thought she was even that hard personally. I struggled more with Morty, myself. Damn you, Hypnosis! Other than that, it was pretty standard, not too easy, not too hard. Gyms 9-16 are a bitch to start off since you're underleveled, but it gets flattened out eventually.

5. RSE - Not really much to say. Brawly isn't even required until you get to the League and need his, so he's honestly not that tough when you think about it. Plus, Tailow and Sableye. E4 and Champion isn't too hard imo, and I used Cacturne. But Gyms 5 and 6 can go screw themselves. Damn you, Slaking and Altaria!

6. Red, Blue, Firered and Leafgreen - Not particularly hard, although Rival 3 is a pain in the ass. Damn you Pidgeotto!

7. XY and ORAS - Mega Evolution.

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39 minutes ago, L9999 said:

Why are Sun/Moon considered among the hardest? They are braindead.

The AI is actually smart, and things like totem Lurantis, totem Mimikyu. Things like that.

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13 minutes ago, Michelaar said:

The AI is actually smart, and things like totem Lurantis, totem Mimikyu. Things like that.

They seem more like gimmicks than difficulty, just like Whitney's Miltank. S/M is easy. "Just turn off the exp share and don't use the amie." That doesn't solve how pathetic the enemy trainers are, or how there is too much money, or how Spawn#2 heals you every corner, or how there are so many piñata NPCs that give you stuff, or how many NPCs flat out skip areas for you. Also, an RPG that requires to restrict yourself of clearly overpowered resources on completely arbitrary terms to grasp something that resembles difficulty is obviously poorly designed.

Edited by L9999
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  • Diamond and Pearl-I remember that that game had some pretty difficult sections like Mt. Coronet and Victory Road. The Gym Leaders were also pretty difficult. On the other hand when it's been a long time since I played that game and when I first played it I was younger and I was very bad at Pokemon(DP was my first pokemon game). 
  • Sun and Moon-Some Totem Pokemon like Lurantis were very difficult.
  • Emerald- Don't really remember the game well but the caves were pretty difficult, especially the ones where you needed Flash.
  • Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire-Cruised through this game
  • X and Y-Mega evolution and easy gyms made this game a joke.
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