Well, let's just try to count how many "Easy Modes" there are in XY and ORAS already...
1. Exp. Share. The obvious one. Much has been said about it already. Even if you're too young to understand how the mechanics of party rotating works, this little item will help give your entire team Experience. Not only that, you'll quickly rake up those 512 EVs on all Pokémon too, which even when distributed randomly still yields a rather nice stat boost compared to a Pokémon trained without the Exp. Share.
2. Lucky Egg. Requires a little more insight to use, but will help boost the growth of the Pokémon you're giving it to by a whooping fifty percent.
3. Free Megas. Lucario+Kanto Starters/Hoenn Starters+Lati@s (not a mathematical expression, by the way) are given to you without you putting in any effort at all. Once Mega Evolved, these things can hammer their way through most of the battles in the game, even when at a type/level disadvantage, and win nearly every single time. Press that big, glowy, blinking button, and all your worries will be history.
4. The rest of the Megas. Same story, but require a little more effort to acquire. Either way, most of them are strong enough to nullify most resistance you ever come across.
5. Mandatory-capture Legendaries. Lati@s in ORAS, Xerneas/Yveltal in XY. Okay, you have to catch the latter two, but on the other hand, you have to catch them. You literally can't miss out on the capture of an Ubermon. You're even urged to put it directly in your party right before that big fight you're about to enter.
6. Pokémon-Amie. A fully Amie'd Pokémon has the equivalent of Lucky Egg, Brightpowder, Shed Skin, Focus Band AND Scope Lens (some of them with much higher chance of success), while also being able to hold an item and have an ability like normal. Combine this with Megas or the aforementioned free Ubermons to get ultimate brokenness.
7. Battle style "Shift". A free switch in any Trainer battle, helpfully pointing out to you what Pokémon you're going to face.
That's a lot of features to make the game easier that are literally thrown in your face as you go through the story. Many of them you have to make an effort not to put to immediate use once available to you. And the game still isn't that hard without them. If you want to make it a challenge, you have to restrict yourself even further. I wouldn't mind having all those "Easy Modes" if the base game was hard enough to warrant them. That way, you could have a game challenging enough for experienced players without making it too hard for newbies, because those who need the "Easy Modes" probably won't figure out how to disable them anyway.
Or yet better, just implement that Hard mode again, but put the option at the start of the game and not at the end. The way it is now, we're given an easy game with lots of options for making it even easier, and you need some purposely contrived self-restrictions if you want it to be harder - even though very many fans do.
As for an opinion that's unpopular - I figure all the above is sounding rather familiar to anybody who've ever reflected on the base difficulty of a Pokémon game, especially in the past couple of generations - I think the "difficulty question" is a bit of a symptom. The fandom is slowly losing interest in the in-game aspect of the games. Just like there seems to be a surprising consensus that the Anime is crap, more and more often do I see people agreeing that the "beat eight gyms, defeat villainous team, beat elite four" formula is starting to wear. The Pokémon games become less about the journey and more about what you can do afterwards. Luckily GameFreak seems to acknowledge the popularity of postgame stuff - how good IVs became radically easier to get this generation is proof enough of that. I'm not sure what this will imply about the fans' relation to the franchise in the long run. Pokémon has been surfing on a very large, active and vocal fanbase for a LOT of free marketing over the past decade - we make way more buzz about their product than any marketing department could ever hope to achieve, and if this fan base starts to determine that certain aspects of the games are becoming dated, that notion will quickly reach a very large part of the consumer base (as the two bases have a very large overlap).
GameFreak is walking a very narrow path with the Pokémon games. Change too little, and the games will grow stale (or be perceived to grow stale, if you like). Change too much, and the fans go bananas en masse. Some people will always be angry about any small change, but they're usually drowned out by the large majority thinking the change is just fine. But if any sort of consensus develops stating that things are going badly, then... well, I don't know. I made the sustainability thread to discuss what will happen when Pokémon eventually reaches a critical mass, and how it will happen. I think they'll be fine in the short run, but in the long run... no idea.
1. Exp. Share. The obvious one. Much has been said about it already. Even if you're too young to understand how the mechanics of party rotating works, this little item will help give your entire team Experience. Not only that, you'll quickly rake up those 512 EVs on all Pokémon too, which even when distributed randomly still yields a rather nice stat boost compared to a Pokémon trained without the Exp. Share.
2. Lucky Egg. Requires a little more insight to use, but will help boost the growth of the Pokémon you're giving it to by a whooping fifty percent.
3. Free Megas. Lucario+Kanto Starters/Hoenn Starters+Lati@s (not a mathematical expression, by the way) are given to you without you putting in any effort at all. Once Mega Evolved, these things can hammer their way through most of the battles in the game, even when at a type/level disadvantage, and win nearly every single time. Press that big, glowy, blinking button, and all your worries will be history.
4. The rest of the Megas. Same story, but require a little more effort to acquire. Either way, most of them are strong enough to nullify most resistance you ever come across.
5. Mandatory-capture Legendaries. Lati@s in ORAS, Xerneas/Yveltal in XY. Okay, you have to catch the latter two, but on the other hand, you have to catch them. You literally can't miss out on the capture of an Ubermon. You're even urged to put it directly in your party right before that big fight you're about to enter.
6. Pokémon-Amie. A fully Amie'd Pokémon has the equivalent of Lucky Egg, Brightpowder, Shed Skin, Focus Band AND Scope Lens (some of them with much higher chance of success), while also being able to hold an item and have an ability like normal. Combine this with Megas or the aforementioned free Ubermons to get ultimate brokenness.
7. Battle style "Shift". A free switch in any Trainer battle, helpfully pointing out to you what Pokémon you're going to face.
That's a lot of features to make the game easier that are literally thrown in your face as you go through the story. Many of them you have to make an effort not to put to immediate use once available to you. And the game still isn't that hard without them. If you want to make it a challenge, you have to restrict yourself even further. I wouldn't mind having all those "Easy Modes" if the base game was hard enough to warrant them. That way, you could have a game challenging enough for experienced players without making it too hard for newbies, because those who need the "Easy Modes" probably won't figure out how to disable them anyway.
Or yet better, just implement that Hard mode again, but put the option at the start of the game and not at the end. The way it is now, we're given an easy game with lots of options for making it even easier, and you need some purposely contrived self-restrictions if you want it to be harder - even though very many fans do.
As for an opinion that's unpopular - I figure all the above is sounding rather familiar to anybody who've ever reflected on the base difficulty of a Pokémon game, especially in the past couple of generations - I think the "difficulty question" is a bit of a symptom. The fandom is slowly losing interest in the in-game aspect of the games. Just like there seems to be a surprising consensus that the Anime is crap, more and more often do I see people agreeing that the "beat eight gyms, defeat villainous team, beat elite four" formula is starting to wear. The Pokémon games become less about the journey and more about what you can do afterwards. Luckily GameFreak seems to acknowledge the popularity of postgame stuff - how good IVs became radically easier to get this generation is proof enough of that. I'm not sure what this will imply about the fans' relation to the franchise in the long run. Pokémon has been surfing on a very large, active and vocal fanbase for a LOT of free marketing over the past decade - we make way more buzz about their product than any marketing department could ever hope to achieve, and if this fan base starts to determine that certain aspects of the games are becoming dated, that notion will quickly reach a very large part of the consumer base (as the two bases have a very large overlap).
GameFreak is walking a very narrow path with the Pokémon games. Change too little, and the games will grow stale (or be perceived to grow stale, if you like). Change too much, and the fans go bananas en masse. Some people will always be angry about any small change, but they're usually drowned out by the large majority thinking the change is just fine. But if any sort of consensus develops stating that things are going badly, then... well, I don't know. I made the sustainability thread to discuss what will happen when Pokémon eventually reaches a critical mass, and how it will happen. I think they'll be fine in the short run, but in the long run... no idea.