A male Staravia using Captivate on Fantina's Mismagius + Plucking its Sitrus Berry, to set up Luxio Biting it to death is a pretty surefire strategy. Especially considering how common Luxio and Staravia are in Sinnoh playthroughs. Again, these are fun strategies that good games like Platinum force you to brainstorm.
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(Little) Things that annoy you in Pokémon
- Thread starter BriarRose
- Start date
A male Staravia using Captivate on Fantina's Mismagius + Plucking its Sitrus Berry, to set up Luxio Biting it to death is a pretty surefire strategy. Especially considering how common Luxio and Staravia are in Sinnoh playthroughs. Again, these are fun strategies that good games like Platinum force you to brainstorm.
I don't think plat is that hard, the only thing that really annoyed me (other than the game's slow as molasses pace) was the water guy actually. He's not super hard if you have a good grass + electric combo but I didn't want to use shinx line so I had to do a bit of switching around sometimes. Nothing too bad though. I've only played this game as an adult and I've always known what I was getting into it so maybe that biases it a bit
Crasher Wake is also a pretty well designed boss, though not that difficult compared to other Platinum bosses. Conveniently he has two Pokémon which aren't weak to one of Water's two weaknesses (Grass and Electric) in Gyarados and Quagsire, respectively, which forces you to think harder rather than attempt to sweep with one Pokémon.
But to your point, no Pokémon game is difficult if you grind, use healing items in battle, or play on Switch mode. If you do none of the above, trust me Pokémon games can at least be relatively challenging. I question if anyone can defeat Platinum Cynthia playing under the above conditions without having a plan. She has like four Pokémon that can absolutely roll your entire team if you are unprepared.
Disagree, I think her team is carried by Garchomp pretty hard. If you have a well-balanced team, everything else goes down pretty easily.
I brought it up in the Orange Islands Discord server some days ago but my strategy for Fantina's Mismagius was equally as funny. I had a Dustox and I made it use String Shot on Mismagius twice, then I sent in Luxio and spammed Bite on it. Usually String Shot is a move most people drop, assuming people even use the early game Bug-type at all, but I actually had Dustox lower its Speed by two stages before sending in my other mons for the kill.
Dustox is one of those weak early Bugs who doesn't see use past the mid-high 20's level wise but when I used it in Platinum it was an absolute life saver.
Dustox is one of those weak early Bugs who doesn't see use past the mid-high 20's level wise but when I used it in Platinum it was an absolute life saver.
I somewhat agree with The Mind Electric. The only pokémon I've really had to think about for cynthia is garchomp, but I often use bulky slowbro with icebeam, so it's never been an issue to me LOL. Garchomp can only 3HKO and Slowbro kills it in two moves
Milotic? Lucario? Togekiss? There aren't many Pokémon that can take these guys down 1v1.
Milotic out speeds a lot of Electric type options like Luxray and Magnezone and can 2HKO with Surf. Has Ice Beam to handle Grass types. And Mirror Coat to fire back at something like Jolteon if it goes for Thunderbolt.
Togekiss out speeds the above Electrics as well and has enough Special Attack to probably 2HKO with Aura Sphere, which also handles most Rock and Ice types. Jolteon is a good option however, as is Froslass. But Togekiss has a ton of bulk which means it might survive two Ice Beams unless Froslass is holding Choice Specs.
Lucario's Shadow Ball and Stone Edge complement its Aura Sphere very nicely, and it has Extreme Speed for good measure to take out faster but weakened opponents. You basically have to OHKO this thing unless you have one the few Pokémon that can survive two hits from it.
I disagree that Garchomp is Cynthia's only threat. It's the main attraction for sure, but she has more than enough firepower filling out the rest of her team.
Slowbro isn't in the Platinum dex but it would be a decent option if it was. I've found Glaceon, Mamoswine, Gyarados and Vaporeon to all be good bets against her Garchomp.
I've used some native mons with good success (some are better than slowbro, I just really like slowbro), I've just got kinda bored of the plat dex so I expanded to radar/non-available mons.
Milotic - I used Jolteon. I don't remember if Magnet boosted Thunderbolt was enough to OHKO it, but I do know that it didn't use Mirror Coat. The AI tends to be weird with the counter moves in general.
Lucario - Literally any EQ user that doesn't die in one hit.
Togekiss - See Milotic strategy.
If I don't grind I end up battling Cynthia at around level 50. And I find at that level many STAB Earthquakes won't OHKO, even Gliscor's. And I agree the Milotic AI doesn't always choose Mirror Coat. But if Joltoen absorbs a Surf, I find it to be too weakened to take out Togekiss as well.
My cleanest was Infernape 2HKOs Spiritomb while getting in Blaze range by getting hit by Psychic > switch out and sacrifice something (normally Tangrowth) to Milotic > kill Milotic with Luxray (it usually thinks I'm using Thunderbolt so it attempts Mirror Coat, but I use Spark instead) > Luxray dies to Garchomp > kill Garchomp with Glaceon > Glaceon dies to Lucario > get one hit on Lucario with Floatzel then die > kill Lucario with Staraptor CC > get off a Brave Bird on Togekiss before dying > kill Togekiss and Roserade with my Blazed Infernape
To me, it's a well thought out battle with fairly limited luck. Lance 1 on the other hand is a clusterfuck of luck most of the time.
To this, I'll agree. I don't find her hard but I think the fight can be pretty entertaining. I'm also biased because my grinding includes EVing (it's easier than most people think imo), though I usually try to enter at the same level as the first e4, so my mons are usually underleveled by around 5 levels to Cynthia's.
I do wish her roserade and her spiritomb were more interesting members though. Neither feel like they do much for the team
So lemme see if I got this straight.
You claim Cynthia is not *that* hard, but turns out you're using mons outside of Platinum's dex AND EV training to back up that claim.
I'm sorry, what the hell?
I EV train in all games! It's pretty fun to do. I've also fought Cynthia with no non-plat dex mons, I've just got bored of the plat dex rather quickly
EV training is the easiest it's been in Sword/Shield (Vitamins, easy grinding for coins to buy the vitamins, Lady Clear to help redo a Pokemon's EV if need be) and it's still my least favorite part of the competitive Pokemon experience. I could never do that in a casual playthrough, my Incineroar will have like 200 EVs in Special Attack and be proud of it dammit
Easy repetitive tasks are enjoyable for me to do, and they make grinding more bearable, so I only grind when EV training. Does it seem arbitrary? Probably, but it's just how I've always done it (and it's probably my autistic brain's fault LOL).
I don't like EV training in SWSH because I don't like that the exp all forces my EV training set up to be just that pokémon, otherwise I'll mess up. So thank god that game was super easy because I wasn't going to grind LOL. I just farm shit to sell and then buy all my proteins
For me it's not the repetitiveness that annoys me, I just hate having to keep track of how many evs I've gotten. It's especially difficult doing it manually, because if I lose track I'll go insane, which is easy to do with me. I know in a playthrough it doesnt matter too much if you mess up one or two EVs, but my brain thinks it is.
It's still not that easy keeping track of EVs with vitamins if it's a more complicated spread, but it's much easier than doing it manually for me
I don't write things down for a casual playthrough, I just fight 250+ of the same pokémon available for both stats I want to raise. Sure, means I probably fight more than I need, since my pokémon also have to fight other mons, but I don't mind.
It's kinda funny how despite Genwunners being a thing, not many document how Gen 1,2, and even some 3 mons got redesigned over the years, largely due to GF not sending design docs to the anime fast enough until Gen 3
For instance, Sugimori intended Clefairy to have schlera. His digital art for the 1997 OST confirms it
interestingly Togepi isn't meant to have schlera, the lines are strictly for meek cuteness
Though for Gen 2 oddities we have
-many sprites not updating palettes from 1998 data (and even some sprites given Skarm), except Celebi. Sneasel was the most affected, and Spinarak's palette is weirdly colored depending on lighting conditions
Ironically, Celebi wasn't distributed well in GSC, so not many would even see it
-Green Chikorita is sadly based on the anime having very little info on GSC mons when they started dev. It's based on its 1997 SW colors, before the GBC was a thing. Though despite being yellow in 1999 art, the following year for Cystal it was changed to green due to heavy merch pressure and uniformity
For gen 3, not many were changed. It was most starters for proportions, and Torchic's microscopic gender difference
Personally, not a fan of most changes. The only positive one was Eevee getting a white tipped tail after 1998, and Tochic's spot, but the rest either get toned down (4 fingers, fangs, spikes), or get dollified/big headed, or tubby (most starters, Nidoking)
For instance, Sugimori intended Clefairy to have schlera. His digital art for the 1997 OST confirms it
interestingly Togepi isn't meant to have schlera, the lines are strictly for meek cuteness
Though for Gen 2 oddities we have
-many sprites not updating palettes from 1998 data (and even some sprites given Skarm), except Celebi. Sneasel was the most affected, and Spinarak's palette is weirdly colored depending on lighting conditions
Ironically, Celebi wasn't distributed well in GSC, so not many would even see it
-Green Chikorita is sadly based on the anime having very little info on GSC mons when they started dev. It's based on its 1997 SW colors, before the GBC was a thing. Though despite being yellow in 1999 art, the following year for Cystal it was changed to green due to heavy merch pressure and uniformity
For gen 3, not many were changed. It was most starters for proportions, and Torchic's microscopic gender difference
Personally, not a fan of most changes. The only positive one was Eevee getting a white tipped tail after 1998, and Tochic's spot, but the rest either get toned down (4 fingers, fangs, spikes), or get dollified/big headed, or tubby (most starters, Nidoking)
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I've never found Platinum hard to be honest and I don't even grind. I just fight every trainer that's all.
Is there any Pokémon game you consider hard? I personally think Platinum's the hardest mainline game in the series from start to finish. Though it's obviously not *that* hard compared to many other JRPGs.
Honestly probably because it's barely a thing outside of America to begin with. So they're just prioritizing the 2 biggest markets: PC & Mobile.
I think HG/SS are harder, especially without grinding, but that's mostly due to exceptionally poor game design. For hardest well-designed Pokémon game, I go back and forth between Platinum and B2/W2. Keep in mind I haven't played Emerald, which I've also heard can be pretty rough.