Actually, hang on, my ragging on BDSP there is a telling point, because pretty much no one lauded it as “the best in the series,” and it’s pretty easy to see why that would be: It almost objectively doesn’t do anything particularly well. It is, at best, adequately but underwhelmingly serviceable.
I already got sniped for this response up above, but I'd like to once again reiterate that bdsp has arguably the best boss teambuilding choices in the entire series (mainline or otherwise, sometimes matched by battle facility mons but that's a separate topic altogether), which is extremely impressive considering how long the series has been going without this just...not being a thing in general. The complex battling system of Pokemon (even just its mainline series' one, not delving into the variations of the legends games) is one of the strongest points the franchise has going for it (and definitely what makes me still stick around to this day & come back for more), yet the fact that the very own games' main campaign (aka the part most people are going to use as a metric for the games/franchise for the most part) doesn't make as much use of it as it could've is just...a waste, really. Like, is it too much to ask to give enemy mons held items to give them an added edge in-battle? Alongside sensical move choices (both in general and also relative to the respective point of the game) to pose as adequate a threat level as possible (while covering up potential loose ends to not just make battles
mash super effective moves to win)? In that regard, it's actually most unfortunate that bdsp on this regard is bogged down by the pokemon choices (on main game teams) remaining firmly identical to d/p (not even platinum....), limiting further expression of creativity; yet, they were given the best possible tools to work with what was available.
This also neatly brings me up to the real intent behind this point, since
checks thread title it seems a most appropriate opportunity to bring this up: what does the term
romhack difficulty even...mean? To me it just seems like a handwaved buzzword that's used to dismiss design choices that step into unfamiliar territory: most mainline games don't use proper held items on enemy trainers' mons (never mind bosses), and often barely even use enough sensical move choices (often just opting for 4 attacks which're often redundant/not even synergistic....if they even USE 4 moves at all! Surely I can't be the only one baffled by boss mons using
less than 4 moves instead of even simply
their default lvup learnset moves (regardless of how good said moves would be or not). Like, said design choice makes sense for specific instances of choice-locked mons (for now, let's ignore how easily exploited a choiced mon used by the ai can be), but otherwise? It's just needless, senseless handicapping that reflects poorly on the boss fight's experience.
And yet...when such bosses ARE given the aforementioned tools to work with (aka bdsp) people suddenly...claim the game is romhack tier? Because it's not what they're used to expecting from your typical mainline games where
the goddamn main campaign is treated as an afterthought the majority of the time (which btw is incredibly sad considering such a thing is supposed to be the game's main defining trait...especially if/when it then leads to arguments like
johto sucks cuz some of its mons are stuck in postgame content)? (even though as an additional unpopular opinion, I don't really consider gsc/hgss kanto "postgame", but merely the second part of the game; true postgame to me is getting permission to access mt silver, with red being the final postgame superboss like gen 1 mewtwo)). And also, this is implying that romhacks (and also rpg maker fangames) are being put under an umbrella of generally being way harder than mainline, if not unreasonably so, which...is admittedly true for some of them (especially when such a thing is their main intent), but there's DEFINITELY many romhacks/fangames out there which are barely harder than mainline games (if at all), with more or less the same quality of teambuilding as said mainline games; typically said romhacks/fangames may prioritize aspects like story, aesthetics or presentation more instead, though.
And the final, actually-hottest part of all this which many are not willing to have an open discussion about...at the end of the day, we're talking about a pve (player vs environment) setting here; the player-ai report is clearly imbalanced and largely skewed towards favoring the player (who has infinite teambuilding options to tackle upcoming trainer fights when and how they wish, especially utilizing the aforementioned depth of the battling system)....most especially so in the most recent mainline games, where you not only get way more pokemon options off the gate through the wild area/open world nature of the region, but said options keep becoming better and stronger over time; if people keep being surprised at pokemon from the most recent gens being better-optimized stat/movepool wise (on top of basically-always having signatures these days) in even
competitive play, how do you think such strong mons fare on an ingame environment where the aforementioned pve factors are in play? This isn't even accounting for other ways to make boss fights challenging- utilizing proper strategies like weather, terrains and possibly even rooms; hell, fights later in the game could even up the ante and utilize these factors in a pre-set state to maximize immediate threat level. (ie. a water type specialist on an area that's raining for perma-preset rain, a grass specialist on a field full of meadow and grass for pre-set grassy terrain, etc) (also apparently since gen 7 onwards, overworld weather that becomes overriden by a weather move will return on its own once your own weather expires (ie. rain on a route gets replace by the player's sunny day mon; once sun is over, it becomes rainy again instead of there being no weather)? that's honestly so rad and really helps keep the added element of pressure around the battle at all times)
But kids can't grasp these- the supposedly intended audience for these games (6-y/o kids)? They're at a stage where they're more ready and willing to learn than ever; they definitely can and will find a way...especially if the games did a better job at explaining its own mechanics in further details, while ideally also
demonstrating this in practice. Oh but they'll run into a wall of a boss fight that's too difficult and risk quitting- again they're kids in their learning stages; if they want something badly enough, they WILL get it by any means necessary...whether that's coming up with a different strategy entirely or just bashing their head into the wall until something sticks (or the rng just favors them enough). And if nothing else, isn't trial-and-error how said kids are meant to grow in the healthiest way possible?
....This ofc ended up being way longer than intended, but this is a topic I'm rather passionate and invested about in this franchise and I couldn't just let it slide by. Oh well, still a good writing/venting exercise I suppose lol
