Difficulty

>>33560839
Pokemon is not a game of skill. The battle system is very basic. Brute force wins every time.

as far I know it still is a kids game.

>>33560839
well the xp system in BW(2) made it a notorious PITA to level only one pokemon
and the BW2 challenge mode does provide enough challenge you actually have to think about movesets

sure you could in theory overlevel the crap out of everything but it would take ages and it'd be miserable

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>>33560839
>Was there ever a gen where the optimal strategy for beating the game wasn't to just overlevel your starter and whatever XP shared or legendary pokemon that you felt like using
Gen 1 the optimal strat was overleveling nidoking which is neither your starter or legendary

>>33560883
Why Nidoking? The horn drill exploit?

>>33560886
Probably because it's just well balanced and has a surprisingly wide move pool for gen 1.

>>33560886
huge movepool and you can get it as a common encounter on the second route you go threw

DPPt

>>33560883
I guess there's Platinum with Cynthia due to her diverse team (Except maybe if you brute it with legends), or BW's N battle.

>>33560920
Why's that? I can't remember having any trouble with Diamond.

>>33560839
No there isn't. I've beaten every single Pokemon game with an overleveled starter. It's really easy, especially if you make use of coverage moves and save up all your Rare Candies until the end, since the E4 is the only part that might be somewhat hard.

The most I've really made use of other Pokemon was in Yellow, I used the legendary birds without training them for some the E4, because Pikachu was pretty weak even at level 80-something. And in Emerald I used Rayquaza against Drake since Sceptile was taking too long. Even the Gen V games were easy, it helps they give you a free Lucky Egg.
I actually did make some use of my team in SM though since the EXP Share made them all properly leveled, and the scaled EXP and lack of free Lucky Egg meant that my Primarina wasn't ridiculously over-leveled. It was the first game in a while where my starter didn't hit Lv100 by the time I beat the Champion.

>>33560948
>The most I've really made use of other Pokemon was in Yellow
Same here. I pity anyone who didn't catch a Mankey early on. Pikachu is probably the worst starter that we've ever had.

>>33560948
>It was the first game in a while where my starter didn't hit Lv100 by the time I beat the Champion.
Weird, I've never had that happen. I don't think I've ever finished a game at above level 70.

>>33560948
Other than XY, what the fuck are you doing to get your starter to level 100 before the champion?

>>33560839
>Was there ever a gen where the optimal strategy for beating the game wasn't to just overlevel your starter and whatever XP shared or legendary pokemon that you felt like using for either double battles or fighting whatever your starter struggles with?

Yes, hitting the opponent for supereffective moves.
If you unironically need to grind in a fucking pokémon game (aside for building comp teams) and you're older than 5, you're retarded.

I can't believe people complaing about SM's level curve being "fucked up" if you remove the exp share and only battle trainers along the way without touching a single wild pokémon.

>Hurr Hapu is like 10 levels higher than you when you get to her this way

And who cares, her AI is shit and the games should be piss easy regardless.

>>33560964
>>33561001
I'm mainly thinking about the Gen VI games. If you're soloing the game it's real easy to hit Lv100 in XY and ORAS. Especially XY since you can get a free Lucky Egg and the enemy level curve is all fucked up due to them trying to compensate for the EXP Share. In either one though you get the Amie bonus, you can make use of the unevolved bonus if you want (I think I did a bit with Grovyle), and you can find around 10 Rare Candies. In XY my starter would get to about 90 by the time I entered the League and Rare Candies would buff them the rest of the way up. In ORAS they were more like 80-85 and the E4 battles and Candies would get them to 100. Or if it wasn't 100, they got to like 97-99 and hit 100 soon into Delta Episode.

That said, if I'm remembering right I did get my starter to the low 90's by the end of FRLG and Platinum, which is pretty close. And HGSS too if you count Red as the end of the game.

>>33561030
>Yes, hitting the opponent for supereffective moves.
I'd agree, but unfortunately in most Pokemon games it's not easy to get those moves on a Pokemon that's at a good enough level to make them worth using.

>If you unironically need to grind in a fucking pokémon game
Maybe I should've been more specific, but with the exception of gen 2's final boss, I've never needed to grind in a Pokemon game. In my experience using almost nothing but the starter has always been sufficient to overlevel it.

>>33561073
>I'd agree, but unfortunately in most Pokemon games it's not easy to get those moves on a Pokemon that's at a good enough level to make them worth using.
What

>>33561524
I'll return to the gen 1 and gen 2 examples. In gen 1 the movepools suck so much that even if you find a pokemon at a good level you'll be lucky if it has any moves of its own type, while in gen 2 the wilds are underleveled throughout. Heck, even in gen 3 I could push the "too much water" meme.

>>33560839
Gen VI. The optimal strategy was to not play XYORAS at all.

>>33561541
>the optimal strategy to beat the game is not to play it
Strange game.

>>33560920
My six year old brother beat Pearl with an overleveled Infernape when the games first came out. Easily, I might add.

>>33562493
Funny, I did the same for Diamond. I believe that I had a Kadabra for my EXP-Share and double battles.