"Pokemon X and Y are easy games."
On the surface, yes. They give you Mega Lucario, they give you the starters, everybody knows how wimpy the bosses get after Grant...but like...do a playthrough of the game
without that stuff, and you'll notice a lot, like, a
LOT of random field trainers have some really tough Pokemon.
If you look at
the Boos in Mook Clothing page on TV Tropes, discounting postgame stuff it is likely XY has the most of pretty much any game in the series. I quite like how X and Y generally have some oddly hard mook fights on the field. Might as well skim down the list and give some of my own thoughts on the dungeon trainers too.
It begins as early as Route 5 with the Rising Star with a Kadabra at only level 13. Sure it can derp with Teleport and Kinesis, but if Ai roulette happens to select Confusion prepare for Mt. Moon Rocket Grunt Raticate on crack barely two hours into the game.
Next is on Route 6 with the well-known Furfrou duo. They are completely optional, but considering they have only one weakness (Fighting, which you're unlikely to have at that point) and Furfrou's likely comparatively better stats than you, it's going to be tough to take out two-oh they have two Super Potions?!!
Also on that route (I think on the other section?) has Tourist Takemi, the guy with a Volbeat - oh guys it's just a Volbeat, the moves can't be that scary-
Confuse Ray, Double Team, Moonlight, and Tackle. Have fun, kids.
How about that chick on Route 8 with the Axew? Rising Star Paulette. Not as bad as Furfrou double, but remember Axew has Attack on par with Darumaka and Carvahna, some of the highest of unevolved mons at base 87 Attack and Dual Chop...and Dragon Rage, which 2 shots anything. I don't think you'd lose to it, but considering Dragon resists all three starter types and the only Fairy types IIRC at that point are Flabebe (lol) and Azurill (gets Play Rough at 50 in XY as opposed to
25 in ORAS as Azumarill) it's not exactly easy.
Cyllage Gym on the whole is rather tough mook-wise, which is rather unusual for gym trainers. Rising Star Didier can hit you kinda hard with Dwebble's Rock Blast to soften you up for
Relicanth. If you don't have a Grass move or a special attacker at this point this Relicanth can be
awful to kill.
You tend to encounter this thing late in most games, but at the second gym the stats are pretty beefy:
View attachment 324340
Cyllage Gym also has Rising Star Manon, while not as bad as the Relicanth guy, Solrock and Lunatone again have some relatively strong stats that early, and Cosmic Power makes them hard to kill despite the myriad of weaknesses. Also, Lunatone has Hypnosis.
But all these guys are just the warm-up for a recurring menace throughout the rest of the game:
Battle Girls and Black Belts, oh boy! This was sort of the case in Unova as well thanks to good natural learnsets, but they get really dangerous in X and Y.
You know how in most Pokemon games, the only rank and file trainers you have to really try against are basically Ace Trainers, Rangers and Veterans? Yeah, these Fighting trainers break that distinction and they are
painful. Everybody knows Battle Girl Hedvig in Reflection Cave is awful, with that Throh and the Hawlucha with Fighting/Flying/Rock coverage, and Brains and Brawn Frank and Sly outside Reflection Cave have Mr. Mime and Machoke when it's likely most of your team isn't fully evolved yet, and as such are very hard to kill and take hits from.
But back to Battle Girls and Black Belts in general. The ones in early on tend to have stuff like Bulldoze, Payback (I think, not sure), and Rock Tomb, which when combined with how strong mons like Sawk and Throh are early on, they will make those moves hurt. Later in the game around Frost Cavern it gets even worse, oh you're gonna use Vivillon on this Mienshao? RANDOM ROCK SLIDE,
PUNK, YOUR BUTTERFLY IS
DED.
Then after Team Flare is done for, Black Belts get full on insane around Terminus Cave! Most will generally have Rock Slide or even Stone Edge, and even
Earthquake as a random coverage move. I legit switched out my Aerodactyl on a Smack Down Hariyama (which cancelled Fly lol) which was smart enough to follow it up with an Earthquake (which my Seviper switch-in died to), and everyone knows Ground generally isn't the easiest thing to switch into.
It's around this time the game also likes throwing Pokemon Rangers at you with a lot of diverse Pokemon, which similar to Ace Trainers can have some diverse mons and occasionally coverage. Stuff like an Intimidate Miltank / Tauros double, or a Nidoking / Nidoqueen combo. And then you get Victory Road, where as usual the mooks get pretty tough, like the last trainer in Victory Road, a Veteran who has an Alakazam at Level 57 with the moves Psychic, Focus Blast, Dazzling Gleam and Shadow Ball.
But no mention of XY catching you off guard would be complete without mentioning the Sky Battles, which a good chunk of the time are so tough Game Freak straight up lets you lose to them without going back to a Pokemon Center. Here's some of their lineups.
View attachment 324343
They tend to give good money to compensate how tricky they can be. but what makes them scary is how
devious some of them are. Emolga, Rotom and Cryogonal are the obvious ones, but there's also Sky Trainer Sera on Route 19, which has the deadly combo of Reflect Noctowl and Stone Edge Aerodactyl. As for the rest of them, well, considering the fact you will likely only have one Pokemon for them, they have a good deal more stakes than most other random battles, even removing the "get booted back to the Pokemon Center upon a loss" thing.
There's also Psychic Inver on Route 18, who has IVed and EV mons (I think, not sure if they have them like most bosses in Alola do) at level 55 pre-League (65-post League, why did he get upgraded when the E4 didn't??) I know he's optional but like LOOK AT HOW MANY MONS THIS GUY HAS WITH GOOD ITEMS! My (slightly underleveled) Pyroar was OHKOed by Marowak's Thick Club
non-STAB Outrage!
View attachment 324353
And one other thing from that Boss in Mook Clothing page (my personal favorite):
"If you make the mistake of using the Lumiose City taxi service when you're extremely low on money, the driver will challenge you to a battle
. If you're lucky, he'll have as his lone Pokémon a level 33 Sandile, which still massively outlevels anything you'll have when you first gain access to the taxi, but is at least a first-stage Pokémon with multiple exploitable weaknesses. The other options for his lone Pokémon will be Sandile's evolved form, Krokorok, at level 55,
and Krokorok's evolved form, Krookodile, at level 66."
This random Krookodile guy more or less level matches the forgettable Champion Diantha! Said Krookodile has Foul Play, Sandstorm, Outrage and even STAB Earthquake if you plan on fighting it.
Remember, you're likely close to the 40s at this point, so lol.
I beat that level 66 Krookodile shortly after Clemont in the 40s. It's a really fun superboss almost no one talks about and I love how obscure it is.
So yeah. If there's one thing about X and Y that is fun to revisit, it's the route trainers. They generally have interesting lineups throughout pretty much the whole game (even discounting the hard trainers, you see Pokemon variety comparable to Orre in the mooks thanks to X and Y's huge dex). Do they make it a game that holds up years later for most people? Probably not, but I hope you enjoy this little retrospective on surprisingly tough trainers in the widely considered super-easy games.
And then Alola / SWSH goes back to one Pokemon for like 90% of mooks...why would you change this legitimately good aspect, Game Freak?
Also shout-outs to the SHOUTING HIKER IN FROST CAVERN Ai that legit pulled some Pokemon Showdown-level crap: The Ai used Bulldoze Graveler a few times to drop my Lapras's Speed so it was lower than the last mon Carbink, then used Skill Swap before I could move to get Water Absorb to make my Surf useless. THESE PLAYS MAN!
And yes I know this could go in unpopular opinions or hardest relative NPC but I don't really care. I just wanted to give some love to one of the most commonly-cited universally-bland games (which, to be fair, I also hold that opinion for the most part).
Thanks for reading!
