I love all Pokemon games, but one thing has been going wrong for years

In November, the new generation will appear with Pokémon Crimson and Crimson, and I have only one wish for Nintendo: make the games harder again!

Hamburg – I love Pokemon. At the age of six I got the silver and the gold edition for Christmas and since then I can call myself an absolute fangirl. For hours I sank into the world of Ash and his friends. I sat in front of the ice cave in Johto for several days and was only able to sled my way thanks to a thick solution book. It took me weeks to fight my way through all eight arenas and the top 4, only to find that I had to defeat eight more arenas in Kanto. Long story short, Pokemon was really hard and I really struggled with it – and loved it.

Pokemon isn’t what it used to be

Now things look different. At the latest with Pokémon Sun and Moon, the difficulty was a thing of the past. In the past, you had to earn the XP divider and have caught a certain level or a specific number of Pokémon. Now you get it for free and it splits the experience points between all the monsters on the team, not just the Pokémon that has the XP divider.

I used to have to spend hours training and leveling up my Pokemon just to be able to successfully pass the first Gym. In the last few editions, I was able to race through the entire game instead and hardly had to buy potions or other items, let alone grind levels. I even got the top 4 the first time – top revives and top potions were a waste of money.

Of course, after more than 20 years as a Pokémon trainer, I am experienced, I know the weaknesses of each Pokémon type and can use my team effectively and strategically. But I don’t have a sense of achievement with the current Pokémon editions and their difficulty. What if you don’t even have to make an effort or think about a good strategy? I played through all of Pokemon Shield and then never touched it again. An absurdity, because editions like Rubin, Kristall or Feuerrot I could play over and over again and that is largely due to the challenge that these generations offer.

Give fans what they want: a challenge

Pokémon seems to have become easier with each generation and that’s not reprehensible, after all, Nintendo probably has the younger generation in mind as buyers. Maybe they shouldn’t be overwhelmed and throw the game into the corner after 30 minutes because they can’t make the first arena manager. However, a not insignificant part of the Pokémon fan community is my age. So how do you manage the balancing act between a child-friendly game and a challenge for fan girls and boys like me?

For me personally, the solution is obvious: different levels of difficulty that you can select at the beginning. Would it be that hard to let players choose between Easy, Medium, and Hard? Alternatively, one could also introduce new game modes where fans could set their own challenges. Trainers could always have to fight two opposing Pokémon while they can only send one monster into battle themselves, or monsters that are defeated cannot be revived. The possibilities seem endless.

In my opinion, Nintendo and Game Freak should take Pokemon Insurgence as an example. In this fan project there are three levels of difficulty, various game modes, endless possibilities to customize your own character and secret base, countless quests and of course hundreds of new Pokémon. An absolute dream for every Pokémon fan and hopefully also the future for the next generation of Pokémon games. The release of Pokémon Crimson and Crimson is planned for November.