Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl proves that you don’t want a hard Pokemon game

[ad_1]

For as long as I can remember, brutal netizens who take great pride in how they complain about Extremely Online have complained about Pokemon getting too easy. There are some merits to this argument – just last week, I talked about how simplistic certain aspects of Pokemon Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl were in my last review. I watched Infernape drop from 2HP to 1HP after a super powerful Garchomp earthquake eight levels higher than him because apparently he “didn’t want to make me sad.” I mean, come on – that’s even more difficult to believe the fact that I’m asking a monkey with fire for its hair to shoot itself head on as a shark made of rocks.

Basically, I understand. On the other hand, Pokemon is a kids game designed for kids. If a three-year-old can’t complete it, Game Freak has failed. On the other hand, there are a lot of twenty-somethings like me who want a little challenge now and then. I’d like to think that Pokemon Black & White 2 has already found the solution to this with an optional hard mode, although we haven’t yet been able to see that implemented since then, so I may be wrong. [Editor’s note from the writer who is also an editor: I am never wrong.]

RELATED: I Couldn’t Time Travel to Drifloon I’m Crazy

TODAY’S VIDEO THEGAMER

Surprisingly, this is where Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl comes in. While you don’t have the option of restarting the game with more hurdles and fewer compromises, there is one aspect of BDSP that becomes almost absurdly difficult after you throw in the credits: Elite IV. Do you think Cynthia’s Garchomp was tough on the originals? Matty, wait till you see this boy now – the earthquake of man was responsible for breaking up Pangea.

There are a few reasons why the Elite Four becomes very difficult after the first round, but the main reason is that all of the members have teams that, while related to one genre, are designed with competitiveness in mind. Take Cynthia for example – to the untrained eye, Milotic’s Flame Orb may look like an insect. haha! Why does a large water snake burn itself? What an idiot!

I regret to inform you that if this sounds like you, then you, ignorant reader. Milotic’s ability is a Marvel Scale, which means her defense stat is boosted by a whopping 50 percent when she has a Status Scale. If this was the orb, things would be different – the amount of damage the Milotic would do at each turn would gradually increase in a similar way to how the banks package you with compound interest. With the Flame Orb, Milotic only has to trade about 15 horsepower per turn to increase its defense to 118.5. When you consider that its own defense is already working at 125, this strategy makes it a well-meaning tank. Imagine an anaconda with gills that is also immune to a bazooka. scary.

There are a lot of unique outfits like this in Elite Four. Aaron Heracross also makes use of the Flame Orb to stimulate the ability of bravery, which greatly increases the attack state. Moreover, on top of the STAB Bug and Fighting moves, it has interface access, which does double damage if used in conjunction with the status quo. That’s before we even talk about Training Four, which Elite Four and Cynthia blatantly dedicate a lot of off-screen time to. Describe it like this: Infernape has a stat speed base of 108 and Roserade has a stat speed base of 90. When Infernape was seven levels higher than Cynthia’s Roserade, guess who went first? I’ll give you a hint: the answer made me cry.

Personally, I like that Elite Four is designed this way. It’s not particularly challenging the first time around, but that’s probably just so you can become the champ and score credits without having to grind up to 20 levels above Cynthia’s team just to get a fighting chance. The truth is, I know for a fact that a lot of people would hate it. We’ve still seen them come out of the woodwork – the game hasn’t come out for a week yet – but I’m telling you now: the same people who groan from the first boss fighting in a game designed for kids who can’t read yet are relatively easy will shed a brick when they get to Cynthia 2.0.

Ironically, this is a very good thing. I usually stay calm when people start arguing about the difficulty in Pokemon games – Dark Souls’ rhetoric is bad enough – but when you start giving up on a game that your five-year-old nephew plays too… Look, let’s just say it’s time So tag your Glaceon Mirror coat so that you can not only get a good look at yourself but also get a punch for doing so.

Once you encounter the Elite Four and realize how hard it is, it will become very clear that very few of you actually want a really tough Pokémon, which means that even the first Sports Leader will run the Skill Link Cloyster or Weakness Policy Dragonite. Again, the optional difficulty increase for Black & White 2 is a solid solution – if you want to play an easy version of the game you can, but there’s also the option of a more challenging game mode. That feeling, combined with BDSP’s Pokemon League, is the perfect way forward for the series – simply making games rock it isn’t.

To put this in more perspective, I’m currently in the fifth round of the Fourth Elite and I’m in the process of being defeated. I, the person who did traditionally well in actual competitive Pokemon and successfully hit the Nuzlocked Shining Pearl on my first try, handed my ass to me on a brilliantly shiny platter designed to reflect the disintegration of my pride in real time.

Do you want a harder Pokemon game? No my friend. not do.

Next: Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl Complete Guide and Walkthrough

‘I quit the game immediately’: Trans players respond to Forza Horizon 5’s suspension

Forza Horizon 5 addresses you by the name on your Microsoft account, but for some casual players, this has unexpected consequences.

read the following

About the Author Sian Maher (1,125 articles published)

Sian Maher is the Principal Feature Editor at TheGamer. He has also published his work in The Guardian, The Washington Post, The Verge, Vice, Wired, and more. You can find him on Twitter @cianmaher0.

More from Cian Maher

[ad_2]