As a lifetime fan of Pokémon, I was very interested to read my classmates’ retro game reviews of Pokémon Blue, Red, and Yellow, as I know that generation one games greatly differ from the more recent titles in a multitude of ways. Now, the pokédex is vast, the characters are no longer represented in black and white pixels, and the number of abilities, types, and movesets is ever-growing. This ever-growing variance would seem to complicate the franchise, making every game harder than its predecessors.
So why was the retro pokemon games’ difficulty something almost every review mentioned? With 151 pokemon, merely a fraction of the current (not counting Paldea mons) 905, fewer types, more simplified battle mechanics, and no abilities, there is significantly less variance involved in the competitive aspect of Blue, Red, and Yellow— and yet they are regarded as far more difficult than modern titles like Sword & Shield or Sun & Moon, each released in the last decade. So what other mechanics are utilized to make the games harder?
One thing that makes generation one games difficult is their lack of forgiveness, which relates to the demographic and relative popularity of the franchise at the time of the games’ release. When Red and Blue first hit the shelves in 1996, pokemon was not the pop culture giant that it is today— it was a game like any other, appealing to a largely male population looking for a challenge with an interesting premise. There was none of the expository catering to new players that exists today (more on that later)— rather, gamers are thrown into Kanto with only their starter pokemon for a significant amount of time before they can expand their team. You are given nothing but the level 5 pokemon in its pokeball, forced to earn money through player battles against trainers with surprisingly diverse teams given the limited pokédex. The developers did not care that you are figuring out type match-ups and individual pokemon stats as you go on— you need to get to the first gym, which may be super effective to potentially your only ally. Underleveled? Tough luck— once you’ve beaten the available trainers, your only option to gain EXP is through low-level random encounters.
Even today, with hundreds of type combinations and team compositions, the game’s final boss, Champion Blue, is still regarded as one of the most difficult champions in the franchise. Much of this reputation comes from Blue’s Alakazam, the most powerful psychic type pokemon other than the legendary Mewtwo. Psychic was already a broken type due to its lack of effective counters; add in a pokemon with insane stats and powerful moves at its disposal and you get a nearly unstoppable force. In this sense, the difficulty of the games differs from its lack of clarity and forgiveness shown in the exposition: it relies more upon the strength of one’s enemies, especially relative to what they have on their own team. It may be effective, for example, for a trainer to have an Alakazam of their own— except they were a pain to come by, since the only way to come by one was to trade its pre-evolution with another trainer with a GameBoy of their own.
Many of the unbalanced quality of life issues that made the early pokemon games difficult were later fixed— for example, a starter pokemon now comes with an initial supply of pokeballs— but the aspect of ‘forgiveness’ did not arise until the games started to expand outside their initial target population. Though many pokemon fans are adults, at the end of the day, the games are made for children. It might have sufficed to throw an eight-year-old into Pallet town with no guidance in 1996, but now, pokemon is not just a game. It’s an experience, a storyline, an omnipresent facet of modern pop culture. New users want to see their beloved Pikachu and Charizards, not calculate damage outputs and selectively breed for perfect IVs.
There’s more to say about difficulty in the nine generations of pokemon games, especially as someone who has played through nearly every title and loved every second. Things like fan-generated “Nuzlocke” runs, competitive multiplayer battles (both within the games themselves and on Showdown), and in-game options that modulate difficulty come to mind— with such a vastly global fan base, it only makes sense that an answer for the newer game’s ease would arise. I for one am glad that new games cater more to newer, younger players, who are, at the end of the day, the target audience, because it means that more people will get to experience the joy that pokemon games have brought me.
I disagree in that I find the new Pokemon games easier difficulty to be a hinderance rather than something that makes the games more enjoyable for kids. I think that a truly great games can appeal to children and adults alike. And while nuzlockes have given an option for those adults who would like a little more difficulty in the newer pokemon games, not everyone wants to play these new games in the nuzlocke form and would like to play casually but also enjoy the game by feeling like they are accomplishing something. I find that despite the original Pokemon games difficulty, a majority of the people who played those games and recall their enjoyment of them were children when they played it. I don’t think the newer Pokemon games give enough credit to the intelligence and resilience of children, making a game that is bland and boring (perhaps too childish) for even most children let alone adults. Again, I suppose this is all dependent on the type of player and I may be projecting here, but there is definitely something to be said about the newer Pokemon game’s difficulty especially after our discussions and appreciation for difficult games a few weeks ago.
I was just talking about this with a friend who recently got Pokemon Violet. He hasn’t played any Pokemon games besides Emerald, and that was when he was much younger. His one complaint when nearing the end of the game was the sudden jump in difficulty that actually made the game more engaging, as, according to him, the difficulty forced him to actually plan out attacks and moves, where he was able to breeze through much of the rest of the game.
I think the open-world concept of a Pokemon game adds some difficulty for players, as, if you’re not aware of the areas of the map, you can accidentally walk into an area with high-level Pokemon and trainers and be at a huge disadvantage. However, knowing that Pokemon is now a series that appeals to multiple generations, perhaps a sliding-scale difficulty setting would keep the series engaging for all ages – if you want a harder experience, a harder difficulty setting would increase the intelligence of AIs, trainers would have more well-rounded teams, maybe you start off the game with fewer or no pokeballs to start building your team with, and you may find yourself relying more on strategy to progress. A lower level difficulty may be as the games are currently, where your rival picks the Pokemon that is weak to your starter, the AI trainers have smaller teams, and the player starts with more resources to collect Pokemon in the early game.
I also like how you touched on nuzlockes. I think it’s a really interesting development in the community – usually when I think of players giving themselves restrictions to abide by, it’s for speedrunning, like playing the game without collecting X item or completing Y task to finish the end objective faster. However, nuzlockes are purely to create a challenge for more experienced players by limiting their resources, forcing them to rely on strategy over other tactics like over-leveling. There’s also the world of pokemon modding, where passionate fans create versions of titles that drastically increase the difficulty of the game.
I really like pokemon on an aesthetic level – I’ve never finished a pokemon game besides Lets Go Pikachu (yes, really), but I play GO! very regularly. To me, GO! has a lot of elements of pokemon that I enjoy, and leaves out the parts that I don’t like. Catching and leveling up pokemon is much more straight-forward, and I can engage with PvP or PvComp battles whenever I feel like it. I can create personal goals for myself in the form of catching/evolving a series of pokemon, as well as completing objectives set forth to me by the game. Actually, the innovations of Scarlet/Violet have made me curious about picking up a modern Pokemon title, as I think the auto-battling feature is a huge quality of life improvement for many players…if only it ran well.
I find it interesting that the newer generations of Pokemon games have gotten easier to their predecessors. I would’ve thought the added gaming options would make playing more difficult. I definitely understand the want for
I definitely understand the want for more difficult games, especially when as player may appreciate success more if they achieve it after a particularly difficult game. However, knowing that there are people who simply want to use games to destress, it’s comforting knowing that making newer games easier can also mean attracting more adults who might not appreciate a difficult game. I would probably fall on this side of players who would prefer an easier game to take my mind off of things outside the magic circle of the game.