What Are The Hardest Pokemon Games? 

What do you think the hardest Pokemon game is?

X/Y was so difficult they nerfed the gyms before release. GF knew we wouldn’t be able to handle the gym leaders with *checks notes* full movesets.

If we're including spinoffs then Pokemon coliseum and gale of darkness are by faaar the hardest. They're just straight up unfair at times. That stupid damn final mayor boss battle makes cynthia look like a joke.

You are forgetting two games, and those are the Gamecube games Gale of Darkness and Colosseum. These are two of the hardest pokemon games ever made.

S Tier Platinum 🙌🏽

PLA, USUM and BDSP have some SERIOUS trainer AI when it comes to switching out, using the most effective moves and using items. In USUM, I've seen major trainers use Full Heals the instant their Pokemon got statused in addition to their respective healing items. They're pretty good at switching as well. I love how in BDSP they make use of hidden abilities when beneficial. I also appreciate how most major trainers have helpful items on their Pokemon other than just Sitrus Berries and even have some EVs on their Pokemon as well as IVs greater than 0. Don't even get me started on the BDSP post-game rematches. Those are examples of how post game rematches should be. Overall in terms of difficulty, I think BDSP and USUM are examples of how difficulty should be in Pokemon (without the forced EXP share and busted affection mechanics of course).

The hardest game is Diamond and Pearl because of the will you must have to play through the slowness, the dumb pokedex, and the fact that it is not Platinum

I would put DP at the hardest instead of Platinum, the expanded Pokedex really helps in Platinum, as well as other things such as access to Gible way sooner and of course higher E4 levels (level 66 Garchomp is the stuff nightmares are made of)

BDSP had the hardest difficulty spike I've ever seen in a pokemon game. I had a deathless blind nuzlocke going until the pokemon league and I immediately wiped to the Elite Four because of their borderline-competitive teams and items it was ridiculous

The hardest Pokémon game is actually Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky. Firstly, due to the incredibly hard level one dungeons like Zero Isle and Destiny Tower. And secondly, because of Dark Crater where you have to take Cresselia with you and she uses up all of your reviver seeds.

I would expect to see Black and White somewhere on the list. Not only do you have to use completely new Pokémon but you also have absurdly high levels of evolution for some of the strongest ones and two consecutive champion battles

BDSP's boss battles have some crazy strategies, held items, and rematches. Kudos to them.

Since PLA was the one I went out of my way to explore outside of the main story, I found it to not only be the most engaging but also the most difficult. Noble Arcanine and Volo were especially difficult

I was thinking that BDSP was going to be #1 because of the Elite Four, Cynthia, the post game rematches, and even some initial gym battles like Maylene. The teams in it are CRACKED.

I remember having a bit of a hard time with Black 2 and White 2. The expanded selection of Pokémon comes with increased challenge for me

Shoutout to BDSP for constantly using the sleep status on the player. It’s very hard to beat when you’re always drowsy while playing it.

Personally I think Gale of darkness and Colosseum are the hardest in the series. Not only does the game aloud you to only have certain Pokémon but Shadow Pokémon are busted since every shadow move does super effective damage.

Currently playing Black 2 on challenge mode for the first time and it’s such a cool experience

Pokemon Ultra Sun and Moon are the games with my favorite kind of difficulty in the pokemon franchise. They give you all the ressources possible, but they still manages to be challenging for pokemon standards. And personally, I prefer games that are difficult because of raw challenge, rather than being challenging by handicapping you. That's why Celeste is one of my favorite games of all time. There are checkpoints at each screens in that game, which means the punishment for dying is extremely low, but it is still a really challenging game. Of course, USUM isn't nearly as challenging as Celeste, but that's because pokemon games aren't that hard in general, so for pokemon, I really appreciate the approach USUM went to.

New JPR vids are always something I look forward to on Fridays🔥

PLATINUM supremacy 🔥

I think Black and White deserve an honorable mention. It has some of the tougher gym battles, experience is fairly difficult to come by, Ghetsis is no slouch in terms of difficulty, and a lot of the good pokemon are locked behind optional areas like Sigilyph, Haxorus, and Volcarona, or high evolution levels like Volcorona and Hydreigon. Plus the post-game level jump is absurd, going from boss battles with the highest level pokemon being 54 to random trainers with level 60+ pokemon instantly.

Thing is with PLA is if you’re someone - like me - that got super into the game mechanics it’s way too easy to over level. Like I spent the first 20 hours in the obsidian fieldlands getting level ten on the dex entries and my team were early level 40 if I remember correctly. I haven’t fought arceus yet but the only battles I had any trouble with was the dialga and palkia battles against irida and adaman, and when I did path of solitude with my wyrdeer against ingos overquil. But I imagine if I went through again just for the story without filling out the dex it would be a lot more challenging

Platinum doesn't hold a candle to the Pokemon Stadium series (spin offs don't count I know) At least you can save before a tough battle; Pokemon Stadiums 1 and 2 don't do that. That's right, one chance, one screw up, and you'll have to start the 8 (4 for gyms/elite 4) battles all over again. Not to mention the game favoring the ai, so it's lucky to win some battles. Oh and I didn't even mention the rentals suck. The funny thing is..... THESE WERE MY FIRST GAMES! As a kid I would pick up and put down these games very quickly. However in the process, these games taught me how to strategize each move, and what Pokemon to bring in battles in a competitive manner.

I just started playing crystal again and i am supprised how difficult it is and how long it takes to get to the next town. Feels a lot fuller than any game IV played in a long time. The no special a&d makes it a tad monotonous though.

I played through platinum this year and made the big mistake of trying to run the elite 4 with a Toxicroak and an Abomasnow, did not go well

New to the channel, but enjoying the content. Keep up the good work!

That piano got me crying

"Satanic Cow" describes that cutely terrifying thing perfectly

It really does confuse me how Platinum or Diamond and Pearl (I guess Cynthia specifically) is remembered to be one of the hardest battles in all of Pokemon. I'm not denying it because it definitely makes sense given her team's coverage and levels but it's really not ingrained in my mind as something that took ages to get past. I remember wiping far more to Lance, Steven... Whitney... far more than I did to Cynthia.

The fact that a State Farm ad popped up saying “i should file a claim” right after JPR jokes about paying his editor made this video even better haha

Love the content man! Keep it up!

I didn't expect USUM to be number 2, I literally beat that game just mashing A (except for ultra necrozma, he had to die with a toxic and potion abuse). BW was a lot harder for me tbh, I remember having to throw myself against the elite 4 and get to ko some Pokémons before wiping out just to get enough levels to beat them stat wise (audino and lucky egg didn't give enough exp for leveling at that point)

Great Video. The spinoff pokemon games are much harder than the main series like pokemon xd, mystery dungeon and pokemon conquest

You might just be looking for main series games, but the Challenge Cup in Stadium 2 was the most difficult Pokemon gauntlet I've overcome

Cheesing Ultra Necrozma with Toxic/Protect stall is probably the most satisfying that strategy can get.

The hardest thing in pokemon is the part in X&Y when you need to chase that pokemon in the garden of the palace it took me 2 dam years

Colosseum and XD are the hardest, imo, but I like the list

People keep saying usum are the hardest but honestly i never really had any issue other than ultra necrozma. I think thinks like fairy typing/megas really made it not that bad. I remember having a much harder time in platinum and emerald than usum

I was playing Silver recently. I tend to be impatient, so I didn't grind that much. I got to Clair, and proceeded to give up. It's so hard to grind, and the pokémon in the Ice Path are comparably such low levels, it's infuriating. Also, her kingdra resists all but one of the starter types, and its only weakness is Dragon, which you have no access to.

Objectively, Legends Arceus. You can’t just cruise through the game like normal. ‘Bosses’ are something new and really your ability to beat them is based on the skills you learned in this game alone (dodging, throwing stuff), whereas for Gyms/ Trials it’s just another Pokemon battle. The Volo battle is also one of if not the toughest battle in any game. And the toughest thing about this game for me was NOT REALIZING YOU CAN USE HEALING ITEMS MID-BATTLE UNTIL LOSING TO GIRATINA 20 TIMES! Genuinely thought they took that out of the game because it wasn’t the same button/ familiar UI from SwSh 😂 I highly recommend doing a no-healing-mid-battle playthrough though! Until Girantina. Don’t try it unless you’re a masochist 😅

No mention of Colosseum? That game is brutal.

N64 Colosseum game was the hardest. -Trainers can heal, you cannot. -ingame Zapdos, the most broken version ever, Zap knows Sleep Powder (witch Zap can't learn in the original red blue classics)Sky Attack, Thunder Wave, and i think the last was Thunder Bolt. (I think the alternative Zap knew Rock Toss or some ish) - Ingame Raichu that knows surf (witch can only be learn in the yellow classic, when you teach your Pikachu surf) The list goes on, their was alot of pokemon that knew attacks but only for that game. No Mew or Mewtwo selection unless you actually caught them. The game was busted (but fun af)

9:55 "I'm not a simp, I just appreciate strong trainers." The old guy outside of Celadon Gym said the same thing and we all know what he meant. :)

While I'll argue that both Pokemon Platinum & USUM should at least be tie I stand by your opinion of choice on ranking the hardest games. However I feel there should be a honorable mention to Platinum's (somewhat) updated version BDSP. While for the most part this game is relatively easy, but until you reach the Elite 4 & Cynthia it gets really difficult more difficult than Platinum.

This made me start another Emerald playthrough. You highlighted all the best parts of the game.

When I think of hard pokemon games I go by a hardcore nuzlocking standpoint and to me here are the top 5: Honourable mention #1: BDSP purely because the elite 4 & champion are huge difficulty spikes. Honourable mention #2: 5) BW 4) Emerald 3) B2W2 2) Platinum 1) USUSM

i'm surprised platinum made top 1, but i see where you're coming from when you consider the context for every game. bw and bw2 were pretty difficult games as well, but game freak balanced both pretty well with their dexes and the lucky eggs. platinum had none of that and i remember having to decide which of the 6 eligible pokemon on my team to teach earthquake to

I think we are leaving out an unsung entry into the Pokémon Franchise, though it was not made by the company. Pokemon Colloseum: this game is difficult because of a few aspects. 1. Every battle is a Double Battle. Meaning you have to consider even more typings and match ups than before. Even more with Bosses cause they have gimmicks that make it DIFFICULT if you don’t plan around them. 2. Limited Roster - You don’t have access to a full Pokédex in this game. You have to catch Pokémon from other trainers.(which I’ll get to) and, of the Pokémon you catch, almost half of them are not exactly VIABLE. 3. Shadow Pokémon - the Pokémon you catch are Shadow Pokémon, which only know one move to start that is like Struggle. There are extra mechanics that you need to deal with and CONTINUE to deal with until you purify them.

Pokemon Colosseum is THE hardest. Being a Gen 3 game AND how limited you were to use as in pokemon and moveset pool. It was brutal for a 2003 game.

I love how X & Y isn’t even in this video lmao

[reads the video title] Either Pokemon Colosseum is solidly high on this list or we're not counting spin-offs. And as it turns out, we're not counting spin-offs!

jpr: saying about paying his editor towards the end: an ad comes in and cuts off jpr me: whoa, why was the video suddenly cut off? oh, an ad

Usum are by far the hardest to play because I just want to turn off the game with all the damn cutscenes you can't skip

I was surprised Colosseum didn't make this list. I think it might take the cake for #1.

How was XD Gale of Darkness not on here? Orre colosseum is soo hard But I would say anything with the battle frontier is top contender and BDSP final E4 teams can be pretty hard sometimes. Also the volo fight RIP.

The issue with Sun / Moon is that you can snipe a LOT of trainers with a Z-Move because most trainers have only one or maybe two pokemon, which make it stupidly easy IMO.

Does Arceus only being hard in the post game really make it more difficult than BW2? Even normal mode on BW2 is pretty tough throughout, at least in terms of just keeping your whole party on level.

if I had all games then I would pick the same as JPR but change the first place spot to BDSP. BDSP is the hardest version because of most of the trainer's having one of if not all of their Pokémon fully competitive

You can get lucky eggs by farming chanseys in i believe route 209. I did it in my nuzlocke and got in the end 12, cause it was a soullocke

I don't understand people who think that platinum is hard, I didn't lose a single battle

Cynthia in Pokemon Platinum she was challenging for sure.

Let's go was my hardest, because with no wikd battles I wasn't catching duplicates and XP for battling is lowered this game. And I ALWAYS build living dex along the way, so less XP for mons that stay for e4.

Think this is first time I noticed the Richard Petty Picture there.

ace trainers in platinum are legit skill checkpoints

Another thing that was difficult about Platinum was the puzzle in the ice gym.. that had child me stuck for longer than I care to admit. Also if you start with Chimchar (fire), the start of the game is significantly harder than if you choose Turtwig or Piplup, since the first gym leader Roark is rock type; so unless you grind in the caves to lvl Chimchar into Monferno you're at a severe disadvantage. However starting with this line is semi-advantageous after the first few gyms since your only other options for fire type pokemon at all in platinum other than Infernape are Houndoom, Rapidash (which sucks I'm sorry), Magmortar and Flareon. I always went with the Empoleon line and just pretended fire types didn't exist 😂 (which yes did make the ice gym that much more difficult for me)

0:49 I swear I can faintly hear a discord notif sound under your voice

I'm really hoping SV will have fights as hard/bs as Volo. That was one of the coolest gimmicks I've ever seen in a Pokemon game. Having to fight 8 mons with no free heals was fun as hell

None of the pokemon games are really hard they are designed to be someone's first rpgs but If I had to pick one it would be gen 5 bw/b2w2 mainly with b2w2 challenge mode or Colosseum because of the limited pokemon and double battles.

Platinum is a no for me! Colosseum would take my top spot. 2. BW2 3. USUM 4. Yellow 5. Emerald

USUM in set mode, without items in battle, no exp share & no affection is the single most fun way to play any pokemon game.

Ok, I’ve been going back to play platinum and I’m not going crazy when I thought it was genuinely challenging at points, even as an adult playing it, lmaoooooo (that damn, damn purugly…)

WTF?! Colosseum beats all of those games handily in terms of difficulty.

I'd say Colosseum is one of the harder games for two reasons: everything is double battles and you are stuck with mostly garbage gen 2 mons. With all the battles being double battles, it's fairly easy to get overwhelmed, especially since the game doesn't give you many of the tools that make gen 3 double battles good until late game, like a good Surf or Earthquake user. The only good Earthquake user you get before post-game is Flygon, and you have to use the TM to teach it to it. The other problem is that most of the Pokemon you get access to are from gen 2. While this was done to help Ruby and Sapphire fill their dexes, gen 2 is notorious for having bad mons. There are only 6 Hoenn mons and no Kanto mons in the entire playthrough. The biggest pluses, though, are that you start with Espeon, you get one of the Johto starters in the first town (both Quilava and Croconaw are good picks), and you get the three legendary beasts, with Entei and Suicune being fairly early on. I normally don't use Raikou, just because it doesn't get any good moves during the playthrough and its level is much lower than your team while trying to purify it, though its speed lets you set up Rain Dance for Suicune to sweep with Surf when you get it. The only problem with grinding is that there's only one grinding spot and it kinda sucks. Mt. Battle is one of the few places in the game where the trainers are repeatable. The main problem, though, is how long it takes to get to the section that actually gives good exp for your level. When you unlock it, you have just caught a level 40 Entei and the first set of trainers aren't even level 20. You've got to go through half the climb just to get to same level mons.

Of all the Pokemon games, I've had to grind the most due to most times, even the wild Pokemon are beating my team

I just started playing crystal again and i am supprised how difficult it is and how long it takes to get to the next town. Feels a lot fuller than any game IV played in a long time. The no special a&d makes it a tad monotonous though. No Mareep and such low level mons with nothing but normal moves made it take a lot longer. Side not this is the one pokemon channel I enjoy, all the rest are so... Well you probably know 😉

10:18 that reeeead

I recently finished the base story in Sword and the only battle that gave me any trouble at all was Leon

Hey jpr I know this isn't a main series Pokemon game but I think Pokemon major shadows of almia or the original Pokemon ranger are pretty tough either that or Pokemon trozei

I Don t think platinum is hard becous There is so much realy strong gift/Special pokemon that you can just use and just sweep all teams

platinum was the first game i owned for myself and i adore it as the best cynthia my beloved

I think Pokemon Colosseum deserves a spot (maybe not hardest, say 1st spot, but definitely in the latter half of the top 5). You have a lot of tough matches, struggles to fight trainers while simultaneously trying to steal Pokemon from your enemies, ALL WHILE HAVING A SMALL POOL OF CHOICES, making it difficult to make teams able to tackle all problems.

Pokemon ultra sumo are all of my top 5 and I was one of the lucky few who actually had a strategy just given to them on accident (I just like zoroark)

I haven’t played platinum in years, but honestly I feel like bdsp is harder. A lot of major fights actually have interesting strategies, hidden abilities, great held items, don’t forget the boost in stats

If i remember correct its Colloseum.

I would argue that the actual hardest is Pokemon Stadium. Sure, it fixes some bugs from Gen 1 but the fact still remains, its from Gen 1. The trainers there all use strategies to take you out-the most annoying is when you face the Wrap, Fire Spin, Clamp trainers... also Fisherman R2 is a nightmare. And its even harder if you use rentals

I just played a hardcore nuzlocke of Pokémon soul silver and I was in the elite 4. I blasted through will,koga, and Bruno then I got to Karen. I one shotted her umbreon and murkrow then she brought out her Houndoom and it used nasty plot… It crit flinched dark pulsed my kingdra and gyarados so I was left with heracross,ampharos,scizor,and gengar against Lance…

can you trade tradable pokemon from the newer games back to the older games like ultra moon using pokemon home ?

And this in my opinion is why ultra sun and ultra moon are pokemon difficultly perfection the battles are tough but you have ways to win every pokemon is at minimum usable and there's no crap such as grinding this game is pure challenge while keeping the ideal of use whatever you want

plantinum was Rough as hell and the first game i remember buying for myself

I played through platinum this year and made the big mistake of trying to run the elite 4 with a Toxicroak and an Abomasnow, did not go well 😦

I feel like GameFreak are slowly and slowly making the games more challenging as the years go by where I feel like we'll get to a point where they become even more harder than the Gen 4 games including Platinum by giving more competitive team, movesets and items to more of the NPC's

Imo platinum isn't very difficult with a bit of game IQ, you can grab a Gible at the secret section of wayward cave, put it on your team and just win. Staraptor is the strongest regional bird, and all the starters are very strong. Weavile can deal with Cynthia's garchomp and lucians team. Bertha's entire team is weak to grass. It's not that bad.

I just beat Omega Ruby again just for Deoxys RIGHT after beating my FIRST playthrough of Emerald. Both games I only used Sceptile and i've gotta say Emerald was so so so much easier. I mean I didn't die once. I didn't die once in Omega Ruby either except when fighting Steven when I had to send in my HM Latios to revive Sceptile like 3 times. I think having Steven in Omega Ruby could make it somewhat harder than Emerald. Emerald was also easier with Sceptile since all grass moves were Special.

nice content ima sub

I'd say try out drayano's hacks if you're looking for a real challenge, especially the hgss and platinum ones were a ton of fun

Ultra SM Emerald and Colloseum BDSP honerable mention too🤣

Surprised to not see the original gen 5 games here. The 1st gym can be really annoying due to a lack of trainers to get XP on and the gym always having type advantage. Plus in my nuzlocke a lot of random NPC's actually are fairly competent and snuck some kills that I didn't ever expect. The game also really barrages you with battles as you go due to there being 3 rivals. And most people agree Elesa is one of the hardest trainers in any generation due to her triple Volt Switch team and there being 0 ice types to deal with the Emolgas that early in the game.

When I was a kid I got pika to like level 30 to beat brock. It took many hours

i found heartgold pretty easy i got a zubat and literally used one pokemon the whole way through, rarely ever trained it and hardest time i had was pretty much the 6th gym leader with the steel pokemon. both bite and flying moves did little damage but i just used confuse ray and it kept hitting itsself.