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SM has harder trainers (Z-Moves, good IV/EV and better movesets), but XY had harder level design.
Look at Victory Road here. Nothing in SM comes close to this. The closest would be Poni Canyon, but it's still much shorter, with less branching path, and you get healed three times while going through it. And XY has multiple huge dungeons like this. SM only has Poni Canyon and the desert. XY routes tend to have more unavoidable grass patch, meaning more random encounter, and PMC were more spread out.
