I agree with the whole Charizard thing. In the main storyline, when I finally got a Charizard, I was distraught by Charizard's crappy range. I used it in the Steel nation, and by the time it finally got there and attacked, there was only one member left over there. I understand stuff like Aggron and Emboar, who are really slow, but Charizard is pretty fast. The slow guys are still kind of important since most of them are really bulky, but Charizard isn't. He is still OK, but with a movement range of 3 he'd be so much better.
Darmanitan is such an awesome Pokemon in this game. It has a decent range of 3, a good HP stat and speed stat (thus accuracy) and an insane attack of course. But the big draw is FIRE BLAST. It hits, like, everything ever and has 5 star power. The 2 spaces beside it and a plus formation in front of it can really weaken the opponent's Pokemon and Fire has excellent coverage in this game too. That and you get Darumaka really early and he is relatively easy to evolve (Weavile...). Chandelure, Infernape, Vaporeon, and Lapras are also pretty cool.
I do remember the first time I challenged the final boss I got trolled so freaking hard thanks to that Lucario Ranmaru had. The first turn, Fire Blast did about 5 less damage than it was supposed to and left Lucario with 1 HP. After she healed 100 of its HP, Fire Blast and some other move missed and Lucario used Aura Sphere on Arceus, got a Critical hit, and made Arceus barely faint. Rayquaza destroyed the rest of my team after that. I re-challenged him immediately with the same Pokemon and only lost one Pokemon when I won.
Overall, out of the 3 and a half missions and main storyline, this is definetly the best Pokemon Spin-off.