You can't decline rival battles, Amulet Coin was there since Gen 2, and two starters isn't that big of a deal since the Kalos starters are pretty bad ('cept for Protean Froakie but that's not even until post-game).
>>15773524This is a shitty point because in the previous games, you can get more of those TMs, by grinding for cash and/or coins. Grinding is not difficulty, or at least not the kind of difficulty the games should have. Reusable TMs just cut down on that. Your post would only mean anything if you could only get one of each TM ever, which has never been the case within the franchise.
And this is ignoring the fact that: 1) a lot of TMs are shit and/or very circumstantial and 2) most of the truly good ones aren't available until post-game, where at that point the difficulty comes from the facilities and multiplayer, anyway.
That all being said, I do agree that X/Y is probably the easiest game in the series (though R/B certainly puts some competition for it) but the series hasn't really been progressively getting easier. Gens 3 and 4 were far more difficult than Gens 1 and 2, and as you said, BW2 was the game that added challenge mode.
