For as long as I can remember, feral internet users who take inordinate amounts of pride in how Extremely Online they are have complained about Pokemon becoming too easy. There is some merit to this argument - just last week, I spoke about how disappointingly simplistic certain aspects of Pokemon Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl are in my review of the latter. I watched my Infernape drop from 2HP to 1HP after a super-effective Earthquake from a Garchomp eight levels higher than it because it apparently “didn’t want to make me feel sad.” I mean, come on - that’s more difficult to believe than the fact I’m ordering a monkey with fire for hair to launch itself headfirst at a shark made of rocks.
Basically, I get it. On one 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, there are plenty of 20-somethings out there like myself who just want a bit of a challenge every now and then. I’d like to think Pokemon Black & White 2 already found the solution for this with an optional hard mode, although we’ve yet to see that reimplemented since, so maybe I’m wrong. [Editor’s note from the writer who is also an editor: I am never wrong.]
Surprisingly, this is where Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl come in. While you don’t have the option to rerun the game with more obstacles and less concessions, there is one aspect of BDSP that becomes almost absurdly hard right after you roll credits: the Elite Four. You thought Cynthia’s Garchomp was tough in the originals? Mate, wait until you see this lad now - man’s Earthquake was responsible for breaking up Pangaea.
There are a few reasons for why the Elite Four becomes so tough after your first run, but the main one is that all of the members get teams that, despite being tied to a single type, are designed with competitive viability in mind. Take Cynthia for example - to the untrained eye, her Milotic’s Flame Orb might seem like a bug. Haha! Why is the big water snake burning itself? What an idiot!
I regret to inform you that if this sounds like you, then you, reader, are the ignorant one. Milotic’s ability is Marvel Scale, which means its Defense stat is bolstered by a whopping 50 percent whenever it has a status condition. If this was a Toxic Orb, things would be different - the amount of damage Milotic takes each turn would be incrementally increased in a similar way to how banks stitch you with compound interest. With a Flame Orb, Milotic only has to trade around 15HP per turn for its Defense to be increased to 118.5. When you consider that its Special Defense already clocks in at a whopping 125, this strategy makes it a bona fide tank. Imagine an anaconda with gills that is also immune to bazookas. Scary.
There are loads of unique kits like this in the postgame Elite Four. Aaron’s Heracross also makes use of a Flame Orb to trigger its Guts ability, drastically increasing its Attack stat. What’s more, on top of STAB Bug and Fighting moves, it has access to Facade, which does double damage if used in conjunction with a status condition. This is before we even talk about IV training, which the Elite Four and Cynthia have blatantly put quite a lot of offscreen time into. Put it this way: Infernape has a base Speed stat of 108 and Roserade has a base Speed stat of 90. When my 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 love that the Elite Four has been designed in this way. It’s not particularly challenging the first time, but that’s likely just so you can become the Champion and roll credits without having to grind until you’re 20 levels above Cynthia’s team just to stand a fighting chance. The thing is, I know for a fact that a lot of people are going to hate it. We’ve yet to see them come out of the woodwork - the game hasn’t even been out for a week yet - but I’m telling you now: the very same people who moan about the first boss fight in a game designed for kids who can’t read yet being relatively easy are going to shit a brick when they get to Cynthia 2.0.
Ironically enough, this is a very good thing. I usually stay quiet when people start arguing about difficulty in Pokemon games - Dark Souls discourse is bad enough - but when you start giving out about a game your five-year-old nephew is also playing… Look, let’s just say it’s probably time to teach your Glaceon Mirror Coat so you can not only take a long hard look at yourself, but also receive a kick up the arse for doing so.
Once people face the Elite Four and realise how challenging it is, it will become extremely clear that very few of you actually want a truly difficult Pokemon game, which would imply that even the first Gym Leader would be running Skill Link Cloyster or Weakness Policy Dragonite. Again, Black & White 2’s optional difficulty increase represented a solid solution - if you want to power through an easy version of the game you can, but the option for a more challenging mode of play is also there. That sentiment, combined with BDSP’s Pokemon League, is the perfect way forward for the series - simply making the games rock hard is not.
To put this into further perspective, I’m currently on my fifth run of the Elite Four and I am getting trounced. I, a person who has traditionally done very well in actual competitive Pokemon and successfully Nuzlocked Shining Pearl on my first attempt, am having my ass handed to me on a brilliantly shining platter designed to reflect the disintegration of my pride in real time.
You want a harder Pokemon game? No, mate. You don’t.