The Best and Worst Boss Fights in Pokemon

i joked about dragon rage because its the only good dragon move low level dragons can get and they cant even use it, because itd be too strong. truly a gen 1 classic of dragon being purely a defensive type
I’m playing Plat rn and using it on my gabbite. It’s so weird being at that stage in the game where everything is a two hit KO and no matter how many times you level up, the attack isn’t going to get stronger lol
 
I wouldn't be able to list all my favorite and least favorite battles if Rom Hacks are considered.
The forums are about official games unless noted otherwise though.

Can the first gym in G/S be considered a "boss fight"? Falkner has a lv 9 pidgeotto as his strongest pokemon. And his other pokemon is a lv 7
Honestly a good thing they made the Sprout Tower mandatory instead of optional in HG/SS, as it would allow some more leveling up and making Falkner’s Pokémon a bit stronger to a still manageable extent.
 
dragon breath
not a lot of dragons actually learn it, and of those only a few are actually pokemon you can use in a gym (so first form non legendaries/special mons) and of those, some only learn it around level 20 which would be too high for a first gym (unless you stretch the first part a lot), so its just like, deino, goomy, gible and frigibax. pick any other dragon, make up a new one since itd be a new region anyway, or just dont give it to those four if you really wanna use them lol
 
i joked about dragon rage because its the only good dragon move low level dragons can get and they cant even use it, because itd be too strong. truly a gen 1 classic of dragon being purely a defensive type
Everyone always forgets Twister exists.

(in fairness, so does Gamefreak when designing movesets).

I'm another one who has been advocating for an early Dragon-type gym, because it solves so many problems. It basically forces the player to catch something other than their starter, but it doesn't force them to use specific counters the way Yellow!Brock or BW does. No SE coverage lets any mon shine, especially the much-maligned early bug types with high stats and awful defensive typing. Pseudo-legends have awful stats in their first forms, so you can have a scary overleveled enemy as the ace but it's still beatable. Making this the first gym would also encourage GF to make Ice-types and the pseudo-legend available early, which would be a fun change from normal.

It just seems like they think there's certain weak and strong types(there are) and that that automatically makes weak types good options for early game bosses*, which is a misunderstanding of why certain types are weak and how they should be encouraging players to play.

*Fun fact, every first gym has been either Bug, Grass, Normal, or Rock except BW1(FWG) and Falkner(Flying).
 
can i be real fellas. not only did i forget twister exist i forgot its a dragon type move LOL.

twister is a fine stab, the flinch chance feels a bit mean but its 40 bp and the spatk of the dragon mons that learn it are so bad youll probably not even feel it. honestly giving them shit like headbutt might even be stronger than twister.

i think a dragon gym should be pure dragon at first though. the not dragons babies cause a more unbalanced lean towards one starter vs others (mainly that most of them are se on fire, that behing horsea skrelp trapinch, and water/grass have advantages on their moves)
 
Shout out to Lance's Dragonites in GSC trying to whirl you away with their mighty Twisters. Headbutt absolutely would be more powerful (hell even Swift).

The Johto games consistently produce some of the worst boss fights in the series to me, mainly due to poor Pokemon selection and moveset construction. Yes, including Red - from whom they thought it would be a bright idea to give his Snorlax Crunch and Shadow Ball in HGSS. His Blastoise - Flash Cannon instead of, I don't know, Surf? ... a final boss who's just utterly outclassed in comparison to the likes of Cynthia or even Iris, in my view.
 
Shout out to Lance's Dragonites in GSC trying to whirl you away with their mighty Twisters. Headbutt absolutely would be more powerful (hell even Swift).

The Johto games consistently produce some of the worst boss fights in the series to me, mainly due to poor Pokemon selection and moveset construction. Yes, including Red - from whom they thought it would be a bright idea to give his Snorlax Crunch and Shadow Ball in HGSS. His Blastoise - Flash Cannon instead of, I don't know, Surf? ... a final boss who's just utterly outclassed in comparison to the likes of Cynthia or even Iris, in my view.
no you see, he was preparing for you having one of the two dragon types in the game.
 
Shout out to Lance's Dragonites in GSC trying to whirl you away with their mighty Twisters. Headbutt absolutely would be more powerful (hell even Swift).

The Johto games consistently produce some of the worst boss fights in the series to me, mainly due to poor Pokemon selection and moveset construction. Yes, including Red - from whom they thought it would be a bright idea to give his Snorlax Crunch and Shadow Ball in HGSS. His Blastoise - Flash Cannon instead of, I don't know, Surf? ... a final boss who's just utterly outclassed in comparison to the likes of Cynthia or even Iris, in my view.
Why would they give Blastoise two water moves? I agree for Lax tho. That is a weird moveset for him. Crunch is good but Shadow Ball and Blizzard are weird af lol.

Cynthia is overrated imo.

Spiritomb - easy to wall
Garchomp - wouldn’t even have been annoying if not for flamethrower making Bronzong less effective lol. Also I assume ice pokemom should you try
Roserade - goes down to SE attack
Togekiss - Supereffective attack
Milotic - SE choice specs since it has mirror coat
Lucario - SE attack

I had a lot more trouble with Red and Lance in HGSS than Cynthia

Edit: i feel like i used poor reasoning here.

But basically, the power level in HGSS is lower due to the best tms being locked between a silly game, and the Pokemon selection being worse. Compared to Platinum at least, there were a lot less tools available
 
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Why would they give Blastoise two water moves?

Idk, same reason they gave Pikachu two Electric moves, Venusaur two Grass moves, and Charizard two Fire moves?

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Idk, same reason they gave Pikachu two Electric moves, Venusaur two Grass moves, and Charizard two Fire moves?

View attachment 703271
Fair enough. For some reason I was convinced it had Hydro Pump because I don’t remember the recharge turn. Maybe because they were concerned about difficulty (flare blitz has obvious downsides, giga drain is weaker, Pikachu sucks and is the easiest to wall) or because it’s another water attack when they also Lapras with Brine.

Fwiw, Pikachu had a penchant for Volt Tackle and Charizard for Flare Blitz into neutral matchups when I challenged Red

Edit: also Blastoise gets Blizzard which is gonna make grass types struggle more to counter and has a high likelihood of disruption.
 
I mean, Pikachu's Volt Tackle kills Pikachu and having it mixed adds some dificulty.
Venusaur's Special Movepool is so poor in Gen 4, that Hyper Beam and Hidden Power (move that rarely is used by in-game trainers) are the only coverage it can get. Synthesis could have been an option... but not in Hail.
Charizard truly has a terrible set, but only other options were Focus Blast and Earthquake. I guess they didn,t want to use Focus Blast in order to not repeat non-Blizzard (part of Hail strat of the fight) moves while EQ would be used from the weaker Charizard's Attack Stat. In a way, the set is pretty clever, since Flare Blitz's recoil combined with Hail and the damage player will be doing to Charizard, will allow the Mon to get to Blaze range, at which it can launch power Blast Burn before falling.
Blastoise's Flash Cannon hits Ice types hard while not having miss chance. Ice types could be used in this fight due to Hail.

Overall, except for lack of items, the only things I would change in movesets of the Mons would be:
1. Lapras's Body Slam for Thunder or Ancient Power. Non STAB Normal moves suck.
2. Snorlax's Shadow Ball for Earthquake. Dark and Ghost hit the same types effectively.

In-game boss battles are generally too easy even for 10 years old, but between those, Red's team is actually quite good movesets-wise, the whole team (except Pikachu) abuses Hail in one way or another and all have only offensive moves (except Venusaur's Sleep Powder, since it doesn,t have better moves anyway, lol). in order to not pointlessly set-up in said Hail while losing health.
 
I came up with another one: I think everyone remembers that Team Rocket guy from RBY with the underleveled Raticate, right? That got changed in FRLG, presumably because it was considered too strong (similar to Emerald changing the Milotic trainer in the rain route to a Kecleon).
Well, in Route 11 east of Vermilion there's an Engineer (called Bernie in the remakes) with two Magnemite and one Magneton all level 18, which in gen III can actually be harder than Lt. Surge if you don't have a Ground-type/a Dig user because they'll resist 90% of your moves. I fought him with a weakened team and I actually needed to SleepSeed and pray not to get Sonicboom'd to death because I just couldn't beat it fast enough. Like I guess you can argue it's there to train your Diglett or w/e for the gym fight but compared to every other trainer (plus the gym ones) that just seems out of place.
 
I came up with another one: I think everyone remembers that Team Rocket guy from RBY with the underleveled Raticate, right? That got changed in FRLG, presumably because it was considered too strong (similar to Emerald changing the Milotic trainer in the rain route to a Kecleon).
Well, in Route 11 east of Vermilion there's an Engineer (called Bernie in the remakes) with two Magnemite and one Magneton all level 18, which in gen III can actually be harder than Lt. Surge if you don't have a Ground-type/a Dig user because they'll resist 90% of your moves. I fought him with a weakened team and I actually needed to SleepSeed and pray not to get Sonicboom'd to death because I just couldn't beat it fast enough. Like I guess you can argue it's there to train your Diglett or w/e for the gym fight but compared to every other trainer (plus the gym ones) that just seems out of place.
I do love it when some random field trainer has an absolutely cracked team for no reason and whoops your shit out of nowhere. Probably wouldn't be fun if every field trainer was like this, but the occasional sucker punch is fun.
 
I came up with another one: I think everyone remembers that Team Rocket guy from RBY with the underleveled Raticate, right? That got changed in FRLG, presumably because it was considered too strong (similar to Emerald changing the Milotic trainer in the rain route to a Kecleon).
That's disappointing TBH. I always assumed Raticate guy was designed as a threat to check whether you're leveled enough to proceed. He's right at the start so retreating is fast, he only has one mon so you can reasonably win even if underleveled, but a lot of casual players will reach him, get smacked, and decide "maybe I should go grind", and I think that's a good thing to do at the start of a dungeon.
I do love it when some random field trainer has an absolutely cracked team for no reason and whoops your shit out of nowhere. Probably wouldn't be fun if every field trainer was like this, but the occasional sucker punch is fun.
Oh, you mean all of Kalos.
 
That's disappointing TBH. I always assumed Raticate guy was designed as a threat to check whether you're leveled enough to proceed. He's right at the start so retreating is fast, he only has one mon so you can reasonably win even if underleveled, but a lot of casual players will reach him, get smacked, and decide "maybe I should go grind", and I think that's a good thing to do at the start of a dungeon.

Oh, you mean all of Kalos.
Man the Fighting type Gym Leader in Kalos was really strong with her Throh and Hawlucha, kinda weird to have her in the middle of a cave tho
 
I like what SM did with having some explicitly strong trainers on some routes, I think that should be a standard in the series if the games are gonna be ultimately easy.

Also maybe sidequests, most people are gonna skip that and it's gonna be predominantly experienced players who go out of their way for sidequests. (This is why some JRPGs have the classic "this random enemy is harder than the final boss")
 
I do love it when some random field trainer has an absolutely cracked team for no reason and whoops your shit out of nowhere. Probably wouldn't be fun if every field trainer was like this, but the occasional sucker punch is fun.
B2/W2 post game was great here. They’d have 1-2 guys on a route/dungeon that would have great teams, and if you were unprepared, with your team at half health and 1-2 hm slaves plus a new team member you were training, you could get curb stomped.

Also the Colress fight in post game came as a big shock metagross?!

I got wiped there and came back with a real squad to finish the job





Either way, there should be some hard route trainers, nothing wrong with facing some resistance when pressing A and getting free xp.

On that first snow route in Platinum I always almost wipe to a trainer… last time, it was the Porygon one. There’s 1-2 guys there that have perfect counters to my team at that point.
 
My favorite unnaturally strong trainer is Rising Star Nicki on Alola Route 8. In SM she uses... a Level 21 Miltank... with Stomp, Rollout and Milk Drink...

I know it's just the level-up moves lining up like with any other regular trainer battle but c'mon they had to have known what they were doing lol. Alas, much like Jennifer she was nerfed in the followup with USUM replacing her Miltank with a Stufful
 
FurFrou.png

Route 6, aka Parfum Palace in Kalos. Those are the highest level mons you will have faced to this point, base 472 stats, Fur Coat, and they each have Headbutt, Sand Attack, Growl, Baby Doll Eyes. And it's a double battle. If you lack a strong special attacker(and at this point that's likely), this battle is going to be a disaster.
 
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