>>53130824Another thing I didn’t want to do was fight the same Trainer twice. So, if I lost after knocking out one of their Pokémon, I just reset and fought them again from the beginning. I did this to avoid getting experience, and I found it to be especially relevant with the Elite Four. Losing to any of them means having to start the gauntlet over, which means you could hypothetically accrue lots of experience and just keep leveling up until you’re so strong they’re not one-shotting you. In what world does that mean the game is easy? You lost a bunch of times before getting that win. How do you lose to somebody a bunch of times, finally beat them, and then say beating them was easy? If it was easy, why did you take so long to do it?
I didn’t even get into whether small children would be inclined to use strategies revolving around moves like Bulk Up which see a delayed return on investment, over just spamming attacks, which provide instant gratification. Maybe they would. After losing a bunch. But that’s a point in Pokémon’s favor, because it teaches children to THINK.
On that note, starter-only runs are challenge runs. They just are. Using one Pokémon, no matter which it is severely limits the ways you can interact with your opponent’s type, forcing you to think about how you can maximize the profits of interacting with YOUR type. In other words, STAB. It also forces you to think about Pokémon stats. Type interaction is at the heart of battling in these games, and I would say that not interacting with anyone’s type at all is the only way to play Pokémon “incorrectly”, which brings me to my last point.
Although you have every incentive not to, the fact you can do something close to a starter-only run is actually really good game design. (3/3)
