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The Best and Worst Boss Fights in Pokemon
- Thread starter Yung Dramps
- Start date
TBH I like this, seeing as Houndoom was the first legit threat you run into in SV in the Seaside Cave where your Raidon has to save you. Having it as the ace of the last gym leader (in terms of level progression) feels like a solid call back.
In retrospect, I should have seen a dislike of cinematic climax battles since BW. I still remembering OHKOing Reshiram with Chandelure my first attempt at catching it, and only grudgingly adding it to the team after the lamp fainted during the successful try. If I had known N started with a party heal, I would have avoided a showdown between the two dragons entirely, and I was always a little disappointed that Chandelure wasn't there in the 'first game clear' section of the hall of fame.
no
just no
the counter to volo is a well built team.
there are only a few very specific counters to ultra necrozma. unless you are mad overleveled, you have to cheese it.
Nah there are move tutors in Alola that give you great moves and lady that gives you Focus Sash upon defeating her. Not to mention plenty of Pokémon can live a hit from Ultra Necrozma unless the entire team is very underleveled, which can allow you to make the use of various items to benefit off this. A well-built or even just some sort of meme team solves Ultra Necrozma more than it does Volo. For example last time, I got through it with a Pikachu and Pumpkaboo. It's a lot more possible than it looks on paper.
Fought them both plenty of times enough to understand the differences.
Additionally in Volo's case, a well-built team means being forced to switch out certain Pokémon if you lack this (bulky Pokémon with recovery in particular or just mons strong against his team like ground and fairy types). Could also cheese it with the free Cresselia you get beforehand, any Hisuian Lilligant, or Weavile.
Again it's 1 omniboosted dragon in a game that provides many tools as opposed to a full team of 6 Pokémon and 2 omniboosted dragons in a game that doesn't provide many tools. This alone makes a world of a difference. Ultra Necrozma is definitely easier to overcome with strategy and/or a higher variety of mons than Volo.
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But see, doing anything more complicated than attacking and healing is cheese, so it doesn't count. Therefore a lack of options is a good thing. Wouldn't want The Plot to be overshadowed by an (ugh) player's individual quirks, after all.
I think this nails something about the Ultra-Necrozma fight for me, actually. Because you do need to "cheese" the fight, sure, but only insofar as you need to go into it with counters and a plan. Zorua+Toxic is cheese, sure. But you can also use Topsy-Turvy Malamar, Haze, any given Steel mon, Light Screen, Status abuse, Affection, or even just a SE STAB Z-move. If you go in planning to just mash A you're screwed, sure, but this isn't DMax. The usual tools the player has access to all still work, it's just a matter of actually using them.
+1 Lvl 60 0 SpA Necrozma-Ultra Dragon Pulse vs. Lvl 50 0 HP / 0 SpD Malamar: 201-237 (124.8 - 147.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO
ive used malamar in most of my playthroughs, and topsy turvey has been my strategy to beat it. but it has only been paired with quick claw or focus sash, because malamar alone cant survive it. thats the thing, its hard to do anything to it without focus sash, because you will just die otherwise.
See I would agree, but if the rather embarrasing first encounter with the cover wolf in the mist at the start of SWSH proves anything, is that GF is scared of fights the player has to lose. We are lucky you can even lose to Nemona and continue the story, or that the Houndoom scene with the Raidons happens.
Seriously, that moment is such a wasted opportunity. Specially the first time when yoy may not be aware of the wolf's typing. Sick music, but it turns into a stare contest because you don't attack it but it also doesn't fight back.
Yeah, we definetly don't agree on what a shonen moment is then (which as you said it's cool). For me, I can't turn my brain off and enjoy these legendaries duking it off and arriving at the last moment to save the day if I have to actually care about strategy. Since I have no connection to any of these legendaries, I want to at least have them feel powerful- with Necrozma you see it overpower Nebby, but without more context from a non-Ultra copy of the games I don't get the feeling it's as mad powerful as it's supposed to be. And since unlike with the Raidon scene in SV I don't have any connection to it, that hardly impresses me before going into the battle. Eternatus at least has a previous battle where you can see it's a powerful mon on its own before Eternamaxing- I don't need more context to buy it's powerful. Similarly, I don't think there is really a difference between giving Etwrnamax its absurd stats and the boosts Ultra Necrozma gets- if anything the later feels more artificial since it's the same that so many other bosses have in the series since Alola (the totems, the titans, Giratina, the wild UBs, you get the idea) while Eternamax is just so stupidly powerful you get to fight it in a max raid battle where *both* of the cover legendaries they have been building up during the game need to fight (and can get comically decimated by the Max Fire attack which is dumb). It makes the moment way more memorable for me than just a supposedly all powerful creature still being defeated by my team alone (same reason why as I mentioned the fused Kyurem was disappointing), even if it's harder to do so. If I late struggle with other opponents, I will just assume they could have done it as well so it isn't that special. However, no matter if I struggle with Leon or not, I know for a fact that neither me not him woyld have been able to stop Eternatus no matter how hard we tried or what strategy we used.
While the SV moment is way better, it doesn't have the same effect- my main takeaway from it is how ironic is that something the Professor could have never expected, someone using the other Raidon's ball, is the downfall to what was otherwise a perfect plan only even possible because of Area Zero's tecnology and the AI nor knowing about it. But I have never seen the second Raidon who protects Paradise fight not do I know how powerful mine can be as I have only seen it saving me from a Houndour group. I don't know if the group was really screwed up if they had been allowed to fight all together against the Raidon. It's extremelly satisfactory, clever, and gives the message that indeed as you could see during all the game, your mount was part of the team screen too, but it doesn't generate the same shonen energies to me because I don't feel there was an unstoppable enemy to begin with. It's also kind of lacking in the final Terapagos fight that is basically carried by the music and characters (well, Kieran), but gave me the impression it was trying to recreate the base game without knowing what worked there.
(forgive the typis, writing on mobile when I should be sleeping lol)
I can confirm, Cresselia cheese goes thru Volo
norman in emerald is a good example of both because i just played it after years of not playing emerald and the entire gym uses really interesting AI, not to mention i did not remember his vigoroth had faint attack as coverage (my poor solrock) and his slaking had counter (my poor swellow).
then his last mon linoone got a slash crit against my last actual mon and i was reduced to my hm slave.. which happens to be a sableye. the plan was to send it, get the swellow revived and win, but then i decided to test something and stayed. my lv10 sableye defeated his linoone after a billion rock smashes, taking no damage because the linoone's set is belly drum and 3 normal attacks (slash, facade, headbutt).
how did they get this so wrong? just give it any non-normal/fighting move, make it special if working around belly drum was the intention here. using a ghost is an acceptable strategy, just... not a lv10 hm slave one...
then his last mon linoone got a slash crit against my last actual mon and i was reduced to my hm slave.. which happens to be a sableye. the plan was to send it, get the swellow revived and win, but then i decided to test something and stayed. my lv10 sableye defeated his linoone after a billion rock smashes, taking no damage because the linoone's set is belly drum and 3 normal attacks (slash, facade, headbutt).
how did they get this so wrong? just give it any non-normal/fighting move, make it special if working around belly drum was the intention here. using a ghost is an acceptable strategy, just... not a lv10 hm slave one...
Norman is a neat example of a puzzle boss that I wish would come up in Pokemon more often; he is intimidating at first but becomes very easy once you figure out his vulnerabilities. The main attraction is obviously Slaking and figuring out how to exploit the dead turn, but the "high-damage Linoone that completely lacks coverage and is therefore walled by any ghost or the Aron line" is also a neat addition. This kind of puzzle fight isn't too common these days but it's a cool piece of design that your father is kind of testing your intelligence more than the strength of your Pokemon.
Speaking of Puzzle Fights, I'd bring up a very recent example from a non-traditional Pokemon game, Noland's Ultimate Battle from Pokémon Masters
The fight is designed around having to nullify moves that will guaranteed KO you, with the boss ignoring any passives that could try to prevent that like Endurance. He also just uses an old favorite strategy that was never actually legal, with a (pokemon masters equivalent version of) No Guard Fissure Machamp. It also has a gimmick that no other fight has never used in having a naturally reduced sync move cooldown that gets even lower every time he syncs.
The fight sounds difficult, and it is meant to be, but there are ways to counter it that aren't immediately apparent. First off, unlike Main Game No Guard, semi-invulnerability does prevent moves from hitting even through effects to guarantee moves hit, so moves like Fly or Shadow Force will let you get past that, then the moves don't hit as hard until you get past his first sync move and to the next big hit, a massively boosted damage Earthquake that, if it hits, will wipe out your entire team without question. Which is where the second tech option you don't often see comes in, Wide Guard. A move seen on maybe two characters in the game, that ends up being instrumental to this fight.
These two mechanics that are rarely seen, or actively seen as detrimental in the case of Semi-Invulnerability moves, end up being the keys to solving what is used to be one of the absolute hardest fights in the game, and I just find that neat tbh.
The fight is designed around having to nullify moves that will guaranteed KO you, with the boss ignoring any passives that could try to prevent that like Endurance. He also just uses an old favorite strategy that was never actually legal, with a (pokemon masters equivalent version of) No Guard Fissure Machamp. It also has a gimmick that no other fight has never used in having a naturally reduced sync move cooldown that gets even lower every time he syncs.
The fight sounds difficult, and it is meant to be, but there are ways to counter it that aren't immediately apparent. First off, unlike Main Game No Guard, semi-invulnerability does prevent moves from hitting even through effects to guarantee moves hit, so moves like Fly or Shadow Force will let you get past that, then the moves don't hit as hard until you get past his first sync move and to the next big hit, a massively boosted damage Earthquake that, if it hits, will wipe out your entire team without question. Which is where the second tech option you don't often see comes in, Wide Guard. A move seen on maybe two characters in the game, that ends up being instrumental to this fight.
These two mechanics that are rarely seen, or actively seen as detrimental in the case of Semi-Invulnerability moves, end up being the keys to solving what is used to be one of the absolute hardest fights in the game, and I just find that neat tbh.
You see a lot of people talk up how great of an early boss Pokemon Brock's Onix is and now it balances early-game approachability with physical intimidation. That's all true, but I don't think it's the best in the series at this.
While not occupying the first boss role, Gladion's Type: Null is such a cool encounter for the early stages of the game. Just seeing it immediately gets the player wondering who this mystery boy is and how he got a hold of this bizarre creature, especially if they take note of the Arceus iconography in the design. In terms of actually fighting it I also think it's pretty much balanced perfectly: It's a huge spike in terms of raw stats and Battle Armor shuts out crit-fishing as a way to break past it, but it's also got a pretty limited and basic move selection and its Normal typing makes it a great place to bring out the Fightinium Z you just got from Hala. Good counterplay exists, but none of it completely trivializes Type: Null due to the aforementioned stats and Gladion's other Pokemon helping out. It's strong, but not oppressive.
While not occupying the first boss role, Gladion's Type: Null is such a cool encounter for the early stages of the game. Just seeing it immediately gets the player wondering who this mystery boy is and how he got a hold of this bizarre creature, especially if they take note of the Arceus iconography in the design. In terms of actually fighting it I also think it's pretty much balanced perfectly: It's a huge spike in terms of raw stats and Battle Armor shuts out crit-fishing as a way to break past it, but it's also got a pretty limited and basic move selection and its Normal typing makes it a great place to bring out the Fightinium Z you just got from Hala. Good counterplay exists, but none of it completely trivializes Type: Null due to the aforementioned stats and Gladion's other Pokemon helping out. It's strong, but not oppressive.
common alola wYou see a lot of people talk up how great of an early boss Pokemon Brock's Onix is and now it balances early-game approachability with physical intimidation. That's all true, but I don't think it's the best in the series at this.
While not occupying the first boss role, Gladion's Type: Null is such a cool encounter for the early stages of the game. Just seeing it immediately gets the player wondering who this mystery boy is and how he got a hold of this bizarre creature, especially if they take note of the Arceus iconography in the design. In terms of actually fighting it I also think it's pretty much balanced perfectly: It's a huge spike in terms of raw stats and Battle Armor shuts out crit-fishing as a way to break past it, but it's also got a pretty limited and basic move selection and its Normal typing makes it a great place to bring out the Fightinium Z you just got from Hala. Good counterplay exists, but none of it completely trivializes Type: Null due to the aforementioned stats and Gladion's other Pokemon helping out. It's strong, but not oppressive.
Shoutout to the USUM version of this fight where he leads with a Zorua disgused as ZubatYou see a lot of people talk up how great of an early boss Pokemon Brock's Onix is and now it balances early-game approachability with physical intimidation. That's all true, but I don't think it's the best in the series at this.
While not occupying the first boss role, Gladion's Type: Null is such a cool encounter for the early stages of the game. Just seeing it immediately gets the player wondering who this mystery boy is and how he got a hold of this bizarre creature, especially if they take note of the Arceus iconography in the design. In terms of actually fighting it I also think it's pretty much balanced perfectly: It's a huge spike in terms of raw stats and Battle Armor shuts out crit-fishing as a way to break past it, but it's also got a pretty limited and basic move selection and its Normal typing makes it a great place to bring out the Fightinium Z you just got from Hala. Good counterplay exists, but none of it completely trivializes Type: Null due to the aforementioned stats and Gladion's other Pokemon helping out. It's strong, but not oppressive.
I'mma let it slide so I don't crashout.
Honestly, I'm not buying it.
While not occupying the first boss role, Gladion's Type: Null is such a cool encounter for the early stages of the game. Just seeing it immediately gets the player wondering who this mystery boy is and how he got a hold of this bizarre creature, especially if they take note of the Arceus iconography in the design. In terms of actually fighting it I also think it's pretty much balanced perfectly: It's a huge spike in terms of raw stats and Battle Armor shuts out crit-fishing as a way to break past it, but it's also got a pretty limited and basic move selection and its Normal typing makes it a great place to bring out the Fightinium Z you just got from Hala. Good counterplay exists, but none of it completely trivializes Type: Null due to the aforementioned stats and Gladion's other Pokemon helping out. It's strong, but not oppressive.
You have the Fighting Z-Crystal at that point, and Brick Break to give it enough juice. How is this thing not getting 2HKO'd at worst by any decent team?
I do appreciate him leading with Zorua using Zubat as a disguise. It made me look like an absolute buffoon when I tried bonking it with Mr. Mime's Confusion.
I think this discussion is running into the question of "what is the goal of a boss fight". Onix is scary. Type: Null is scary. Both are difficult early-game if you don't have a counter available, and easy if you do. But neither are hard. I think that's a perfectly reasonable slot to fit into for an early-game fight. Type: Null specifically is there to tell you not to waste your Z-Move early and to make sure your team has good enough stats(it's base 95 across the board, which is sizable for lvl 18). Onix says "you need to have leveled up" in RB and "you need to catch something other than your starter" in Y. Type: Null also has a lot of story associated with it and it's design, so introducing the player to that early is a good thing.I'mma let it slide so I don't crashout.
Honestly, I'm not buying it.
You have the Fighting Z-Crystal at that point, and Brick Break to give it enough juice. How is this thing not getting 2HKO'd at worst by any decent team?
I do appreciate him leading with Zorua using Zubat as a disguise. It made me look like an absolute buffoon when I tried bonking it with Mr. Mime's Confusion.
Of course I want fights in these games to be difficult, don't get me wrong. But I think the goal should be to push the player to get better at the game with each major fight. Learn type matchups, exploit design flaws in a mon or team, use the oppt's strategy against them, etc. Especially early game, I think fights that are just "have you mastered X mechanic" are a good thing.
I see it more as:
If you picked Bulbasaur/Squirtle, you need to use type advantages. Up to this point, almost every attack is Normal moves, so you can have just spammed Tackle/Scratch to get here off of your BST. If you do this on Onix, you're gonna lose most likely.
This is part of why LGPE's tutorial for gym 1 is imo pretty dumb. Like the original game taught you it. Subtly. Now you have the super effective indicator for newer players to teach you to use SE effects or try moves, and you're shown several Grass types in Viridian Forest.
If you pick Charmander it's still better to use Ember, but also it teaches you to just get different Pokemon, and in Yellow yeah you really do just gotta catch more Pokemon 100%. Charmander is weird IMO and while some see this as a cool part of the balancing, I think in the context of the first bossfight in the entire series it loses its luster. I don't like BW's boss design, but the Monkey made more sense I think for the lesson. Mankey in Y feels a bit obtuse imo, it's a slightly rare encounter in a side route and there isn't much indication it's going to learn a move you're gonna want.
I think Type Null is a really good boss mon, USUM in general has really good boss design (bite me.) The Totem encounters are great at showing different mechanics and some of the Totems have berries that guarantee the fight is lasting more than one turn for most players. I'm personal in the camp that a good Pokemon boss puts the player on the backfoot, and I think the 1v2 nature of Totems captures it perfectly- only problem is the performance bc god these games pushed the 3DS.
I see Null as more of a story boss tbh. It doesn't really introduce any new concepts. Not blowing your load on the 1st mon is something people learn against Hala since his team is a lot more troublesome to deal with.
It has somewhat notable stats, but that serves more to set up Gladion as an enforcer than something noticeable on its own.
Brock's Onix is straight-up the worst-designed boss in this franchise. I'd need to double-check the rest to be safe, but my point is simple.
Onix fails as a tutorial since it only induces bad habits in players.
Think about it, in the original Red and Blue, here are the possible scenarios.
- The player picks a starter with a type advantage. They easily power through by either having STAB, or reliable damage and healing through Leech Seed. The player learns nothing and continues to rely on their starter to be overleveled and plow through the game.
- The player picks Charmander. Fishing for burns with Ember is not an option as Brock carries Full Heals. They spam Ember and power through a bad matchup. They learn nothing from it.
- The player tries aiming for the sprinklers with Pikachu. There are none. They lose.
- The player has shitmons like Pidgey, Rattata, or Beedrill. Onix uses Harden. They lose.
- The player gets a Butterfree by copious amounts of grinding with a mon that is borderline unusable. They spam Confusion and win fairly handily. They fail to notice that Butterfree is 4x weak to Rock as Brock has no STAB and that's the opposite of what the game is all about.
Brock fails to teach the players anything meaningful other than Rock resists Normal. He actively discourages players from branching out and building a varied team by stonewalling most options. It's an objective failure from a game design perspective.
to be fair, normal attacks are basically the only ones a lot of pokémon have in gen 1, so it's not so much a bad lesson as it is severely outdated. that's why i feel like insisting on rock as first gym didn't really accomplish anything afterwards; even gen 3 already gives you tools to get past roxanne. at least they seemed to get over it (gordie we love u). next step, getting over ice as seventh or last gym please.
To me this argument falters when I keep in mind Pokemon, especially in the West, was Baby's First turn-based JRPG. Because while the games have always aimed broadly, that also includes the Lotta People who didn't really play JRPGs.
STAB? STAB who? I grew up with Gen 5 and it took me a while and NPCs directly telling me that STAB existed for me to get it, I'd have to pay a lot of attention to damage numbers to know that my Water Gun is better than my Scratch especially when either did the job for the entire game so far. I'd literally just pick based on what animation I was less bored with, until type advantages actually started making me think even the slightest bit.
I feel like a lot of people did learn about type matchups because this is the first time there was more than a cosmetic difference in real effectiveness. Yes, STAB was better the moment you had it, but the game doesn't really point it out and you'd have to observe the difference yourself- if you picked Squirtle this will be the first time you even see *not very effective* or *super-effective* outside of maybe the optional Rival fight. And for Bulbasaur? Leech Seed shows there is different ways around encounters.
Charmander is of course hard mode, and I do agree on that front that it's a bit badly designed. Ember being Special means that technically you can try to just little it down, but unless you get a Butterfree? Yeah, pretty much a grindfest. In a way it can technically teach you more about ways around fights, like Sand Attacking -> Ember spam, but the level of planning is much higher which is silly for the Pokemon that has the most broad appeal of the three.
However the super-effective lesson is already taught through Viridian Forest, so I think at the least that isn't something Brock needs to teach- but I still agree that Brock is badly designed for the Charmander route in general.
Again, though, this is Baby's first JRPG and depending on your starter this is either:
Squirtle - Third time possible in the ENTIRE game so far to see not-very-effective or super-effective (#1 being optional Rival fight, #2 being Pikachu in Viridian Forest? I think?)
Bulbasaur - Third time possible for same reasons
Someone's gotta be the first wall to either show the player the mechanics or force them to learn it, and I think Brock does that for everything except Charmander effectively.
I feel like Brock's Onix is also a case where it works in the context of RGBY itself and the specific era of time it released as well as the mindset behind it (ie it was basically a 90s JRPG).
Because nowadays the idea of Rock resisting Normal doesn't seem like a big deal to teach but looking back I can imagine this was a much bigger deal (I started with DP and Roark was still a fairly intimidating first boss).
Mainly because back in Gen 1 there was a very distinct dichotomy in mindset as far as attacks were concerned: Normal was the default, universal "physical skill" type that everything had at least one of that they could learn naturally, and then types like Grass, Fire, and Water were "magic skills". It didn't matter whether a Pokemon got STAB on Normal moves or not: those were what they had naturally and what in most cases, a new player is expected to spam since it does neutral damage.
So Brock in a way is designed to teach the specific value of "magic" attacks compared to the "standard" physical Normal attacks. Since Normal-types attacks are sufficient to get by in everything beforehand, including the field routes and Viridian Forest, but they won't be against the Geodude and Onix that Brock has, or even the Sandshrew the one Gym Trainer has. Onix being a giant rock snake really helped get the point across since beforehand you just face birds and bugs and rats and whatnot, but Onix is one case where "magic moves" aka your starter's STAB will distinctly be more effective than the typical Normal moves. Charmander less so but as stated above, Charmander players will find Ember more effective against the Kakunas and Metapods in Viridian Forest who spam Harden where Ember will one-shot them. It's not supposed to be trying to make other party members have more value but moreso to specifically be faced and beaten with your starter who will most likely be your first and at the time only "elemental/magic skill" user.
I feel the first "boss fight" in RGB that actually intends for you to try to build a more varied group of party members is Misty. In that case she is genuinely a danger with her Starmie who is fast and has Bubble Beam. If you're using Bulbasaur then this isn't really the case since Ivysaur can go toe-to-toe with Misty anyway, but with the other two it's much more of an actual challenge. Wartortle will have a harder time taking Starmie down while Charmeleon just drops to one Bubble Beam. This is especially obvious since the two side routes next to Cerulean introduce Oddish (Red) or Bellsprout (Green/Blue) who have an advantage over Misty and unlike everything else, has Absorb or Vine Whip as their only starting attack as well as status-inducing powder moves that they learn within the next few levels. Cerulean compared to Route 24+25 is set up in a way where you could try to challenge Misty right away but you will likely have a harder time if you do, so if you lose, you can go to the two side routes and get a lot of training in with Nugget Bridge and Route 25, while also picking up an Oddish or Bellsprout and training it up against the Hikers with several Geodude and Onix and Sandshrew so you have a fairly trained Oddish/Bellsprout that can lend a helping hand. This is reinforced by the next two Gyms which in both cases offer you some newly introduced team member options nearby to lend a helping hand: Diglett Cave is right next to Lt. Surge's Gym, while just before Erika you're treated to Growlithe or Vulpix whose Fire moves are effective against the Grass-types of Erika's Gym.
But yeah it's a pretty dated design that wouldn't really work in modern Pokemon games. Newer games since like...Sun and Moon just teach the value of type match-ups with the very first rival battle since Hau, Hop, and Nemona use the starter that is disadvantaged against yours while starters in newer games have STAB at the onset, not to mention the game also tells you what moves are super effective/not very effective if you're facing a Pokemon you've battled before.
(Maybe in that regard, they should start introducing early game Dragon-types and have Dragon-type Gym Leaders as the first boss in the future...)
Because nowadays the idea of Rock resisting Normal doesn't seem like a big deal to teach but looking back I can imagine this was a much bigger deal (I started with DP and Roark was still a fairly intimidating first boss).
Mainly because back in Gen 1 there was a very distinct dichotomy in mindset as far as attacks were concerned: Normal was the default, universal "physical skill" type that everything had at least one of that they could learn naturally, and then types like Grass, Fire, and Water were "magic skills". It didn't matter whether a Pokemon got STAB on Normal moves or not: those were what they had naturally and what in most cases, a new player is expected to spam since it does neutral damage.
So Brock in a way is designed to teach the specific value of "magic" attacks compared to the "standard" physical Normal attacks. Since Normal-types attacks are sufficient to get by in everything beforehand, including the field routes and Viridian Forest, but they won't be against the Geodude and Onix that Brock has, or even the Sandshrew the one Gym Trainer has. Onix being a giant rock snake really helped get the point across since beforehand you just face birds and bugs and rats and whatnot, but Onix is one case where "magic moves" aka your starter's STAB will distinctly be more effective than the typical Normal moves. Charmander less so but as stated above, Charmander players will find Ember more effective against the Kakunas and Metapods in Viridian Forest who spam Harden where Ember will one-shot them. It's not supposed to be trying to make other party members have more value but moreso to specifically be faced and beaten with your starter who will most likely be your first and at the time only "elemental/magic skill" user.
I feel the first "boss fight" in RGB that actually intends for you to try to build a more varied group of party members is Misty. In that case she is genuinely a danger with her Starmie who is fast and has Bubble Beam. If you're using Bulbasaur then this isn't really the case since Ivysaur can go toe-to-toe with Misty anyway, but with the other two it's much more of an actual challenge. Wartortle will have a harder time taking Starmie down while Charmeleon just drops to one Bubble Beam. This is especially obvious since the two side routes next to Cerulean introduce Oddish (Red) or Bellsprout (Green/Blue) who have an advantage over Misty and unlike everything else, has Absorb or Vine Whip as their only starting attack as well as status-inducing powder moves that they learn within the next few levels. Cerulean compared to Route 24+25 is set up in a way where you could try to challenge Misty right away but you will likely have a harder time if you do, so if you lose, you can go to the two side routes and get a lot of training in with Nugget Bridge and Route 25, while also picking up an Oddish or Bellsprout and training it up against the Hikers with several Geodude and Onix and Sandshrew so you have a fairly trained Oddish/Bellsprout that can lend a helping hand. This is reinforced by the next two Gyms which in both cases offer you some newly introduced team member options nearby to lend a helping hand: Diglett Cave is right next to Lt. Surge's Gym, while just before Erika you're treated to Growlithe or Vulpix whose Fire moves are effective against the Grass-types of Erika's Gym.
But yeah it's a pretty dated design that wouldn't really work in modern Pokemon games. Newer games since like...Sun and Moon just teach the value of type match-ups with the very first rival battle since Hau, Hop, and Nemona use the starter that is disadvantaged against yours while starters in newer games have STAB at the onset, not to mention the game also tells you what moves are super effective/not very effective if you're facing a Pokemon you've battled before.
(Maybe in that regard, they should start introducing early game Dragon-types and have Dragon-type Gym Leaders as the first boss in the future...)
Missing the forest for the trees.
My point was that if Brock's Onix had Rock Throw in RB, Butterfree would go from "viable" to "dead".
And realistically, only Squirtle/Bulbasaur are equipped to deal with Brock. Great way to throw everyone else under the bus.
That's correct.