You guys say that Pokemon is too easy and that it doesn't pander to people that want it to be harder. Well, how do you make it harder then? I have a few thoughts with rebuttles, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on whether or not each of these work, which would be the best, or if you have a better idea of how to increase the difficulty.

>Increase the levels of trainers/gym leaders
At what point does this stop being difficult and start being tedious? Yeah, you could give Brock level 40's while you train against level 4's to get up to his level. Can this be balanced? Let's say there's 2 routes between gyms, each route is a 5 level increase, each gym is a 10 level jump. This exp scaling makes leveling easier, but are you just putting more time into the game or are you actually making it harder?

>Denial of good Pokemon
DP gave you the option of Chimchar or Ponyta as a Fire type. If you didn't want it, you didn't have to take it. Fire beats Grass types, so you'd just have to run an Ice or Poison type. You don't necessarily need a Fire type, but considering the game has a Steel gym, a Grass gym, an Ice gym, AND a Bug type E4 member, you're pressed to have one. Does this increase difficulty, or encourage different ways to win the rock paper scissors fights?

>Mixed teams
The aforementioned 4 important persons could all be wiped by a Fire type, but what if gyms were no longer mono typed? Teams are now mixed, and can't be swept with a single Pokemon. The gym leaders Pokemon are still predictable, unless it's your first time you'll know what they have. You can just swap put and kill them one by one.

Cont.