Sword And Shield's Crown Tundra Galarian Star Tournament Is The Game's "Hardest Challenge"

You can probably do this on showdown

whew, looks like I got here before all the inevitable sword and shield hate comments.

Gen 1 wooo!! Alpha!

Being classed as the game's hardest challenge isn't exactly a feat as overall anything in the game lacks too much of a challenge in general. Even the battle tower is a breeze because nothing is restricted. I will no doubt explore every corner of this new place on day one but I am not expecting too difficult. The isle of armor was great to explore at first but after doing everything once there was little left to do and I expect the same with this so not going to expect too much that is game changing.

Well, seeing how easy these games are I don't think that's hard to achive

Been enjoying IoA and looking forward to Crown Tundra. Ready to take some so max raid battles with my kids to catch some of the legendaries.

I'll wait and see, the toughest challenge in an easy game doesn't mean much.

A genuine hard mode would be great - even if it was DLC.

How is that hard to unlock? It's like any other game that has a long story and quests to do like MH.

"Hardest Challenge" doesn't hold much weight with this series.
Unless your ally is like the NPC guys from the G-max raids.

Remember the Pokémon World Tournament?
'cause Game Freak sure hope you don't.

People are legit so hard to please. This game is designed for I repeat "children" and while a kid can play and beat... I don't know Final Fantasy X, that game is not designed for them as a target audience and they will struggle with it while we'll breeze through the game. Most kids quit playing a game because it is too hard and that is not what Gamefreak wants to happen. Pokemon is not meant to be hard and the combat system just so happens to be deep enough that a lot of adults love competitive play and this game has catered to them by adding an easier way to level up, accessible EV boosting item, move relearners at every pokemon centre and now an item to swap for hidden abilities. But, the game cannot cater too much to that audience by making a Dark Souls-hard boss rush mode because that is not fun for kids. Kids enjoy a modest challenge and yet still being easy enough for them to beat the game and feel accomplished.

Would it be nice for Pokemon to get a hard mode? Sure! But, will this be a nice challenge if you approach it with appropriately levelled pokemon? Yeah, the same way every Pokemon game is! So take a chill pill and just enjoy your time with the DLC because it looks fantastic!

@Wexter "But, will this be a nice challenge if you approach it with appropriately levelled pokemon?"

Too bad the EXP-Share is always on and therefore all your pokemon are overlevelt olo

@mariomaster96 You're at the end game I'm sure you can take the whole 10 minutes to grind a team that will be lvl 75. Considering wild encounters are maxed at lvl 65 that should be very do-able to not be overleveled unless you are into competitive pokemon and all of them are lvl 80-90.

Excited for the DLC. Mostly because the Isle of Armor really added some value to the game and hoping for the same results with Crown Tundra.

@Wexter I completely understand and agree. I will say I think there are ways to have a game be accessible to everyone and still present some level of challenge for more experienced players. Someone elsewhere made the point that just about all Nintendo games find that great balance. Mario Odyssey is a fairly accessible game. But there is some stuff there for veteran gamers to chew on as well. It boggles my mind that Game Freak couldn't do it here.

I don't need a hard mode. I'm not into frustrating gameplay for the sake of creating a challenge or having to spend 2 weeks trying to figure out how to defeat a Gym Leader. But on that same token, what we got here wasn't necessarily kosher either.

Yes this what I’ve been waiting for!

Yeah, let's keep recycling the gym leaders. If they couldn't be bothered to have an Elite Four, of course they're not going to make anyone new for the tournament mode.

@UmbreonsPapa That's fair as I too despise artificial difficulty. But, I find most people complaining about difficulty in a Pokemon game tend to also be the group who grind and over level. This was the same stuff I heard about Final Fantasy games a lot too that they just grinded their way past every boss and made the game too easy as most JRPG games tend to be designed around an assumed level based on the rough estimate of encounters a player will make till the boss fight. So if you grind or do every sidequest the game balance will always take a hit in comparison to just a basic run-through and will be "too easy." Though I also hated how XIII capped levelling up to story segments.

I think Pokemon can adjust the difficulty by rebalancing the XP Share a bit and adjusting how they do gym leaders and can probably address most of the concerns (maybe make XP Share optional again, but that does not solve the grinding problem just makes it longer to grind). But, I feel the gameplay loop itself is very well designed and the game mechanics themselves are very deep as the joys of Pokemon are more the collecting aspect of the game, and battling your friends. I feel the people complaining about difficulty tend to miss the forest for the trees if you know what I mean.

@Wexter Honestly, the big issue with difficulty is if you simply explore every route fully and fight every trainer (which I don't consider grinding, just normal playing), you'll be hilariously overlevelled. So you have to make a choice between exploring your environment and having a challenge.

@Wexter It's funny you mention one of the joys of a Pokemon game being the collecting aspect. If I had to describe what kind of Pokemon player I am, it's most definitely a collecting/catch 'em all player. I like the story and the overall experience. But I most certainly enjoy finding and catching Pokemon more than anything.

Double battles are inherently more complex than single battles, that alone makes it more interesting. But with an idiot AI partner, I have no doubt this would be harder than the base game.

I know it's absolute blasphemoy to say this on NintendoLife, but I've loved SW/SH and the Isle of Armor. I have every expectation of enjoying Crown Tundra too.

I'm most eager to learn how the VGC format is going to change, and I still have the slim hope they add a spectator mode for multiplayer battles and add a longer time limit for singles battles.

@Octane Why? The rest of the single player adventure is rather easy, it wouldn't be much of a stretch to make this harder than it. The only battle that was remotely tough in the main story is Leon, and that's only if you keep your own levels moderate throughout the game.

Furthermore, double battles are considerably more challenging than singles. There's a lot more to plan for - and in this case, you have the massive handicap of an idiot AI partner.

@link3710 As I said before this is not even a hard game. If we are talking gaming on a spicy scale, Dark Souls would be a ghost pepper while Pokemon would be a jalapeno. Which is fine! Some people love ghost peppers and others just want a little jalapeno. And I'd argue Pokemon has never been a hard game and the difficulty of the older games are just random level spikes during the Elite Four or in Gen 2's case Red. Once again complaining about difficulty is the forest for the trees issue for me. Can Pokemon be harder? Sure it can and I'd probably enjoy the challenge! The question is should it be harder? This is a series whose main target audience is children so we can't make these games too difficult for them to no longer enjoy it or feel they are missing out. And before you say kids like hard games take a five-year-old and hand them Dark Souls and they would stop playing at the tutorial.

@UmbreonsPapa and that is the same appeal to me! I like catching all the pokemon I can, breed them to get a shiny of my favourites and take the best team I can to play with friends! To me, the joys of Pokemon is immersing myself in the world and story and just having a casual fun time. So to me I don't care if Pokemon is an easy series as to me that is not the point of the franchise.

Not saying I would not mind a "Champion Mode" or something for a little more bite for when I'm replaying a game.

Umm... What is the "end" of Isle of Armor? I just realized that I spent all my time exploring and catching new pokemon, but I don't have the slightest clue what the story was or how far it goes.

@Octorok385 I think it is just evolving your Kubfu to Urshifu and beating Mustard in the serious battle at the end of the DLC. I think that is all it means. I think it will be something similar for Crown Tundra.

@Wexter

First of all, my point was that allowing people to turn off XP share isn't about grinding, it's about letting them actually explore without being overleveled.

Secondly, that's a broad generalization, on top of being a ridiculous example. I couldn't beat Super Mario Bros 1, 2, 3 or the Lost Levels as a 5 year old. That didn't stop me from playing it every chance I could get, hoping to finally beat them. And I played all of them, even Lost Levels. Some kids will enjoy being challenged, others not so much.

Thirdly, the games being as difficult as Red / Blue were isn't a high bar, and half the five-year olds on the planet played and beat those games.

Fourthly, good game design is such that people at multiple different skill levels are challenged. Look at something like Super Mario Odyssey. The game is designed around the main story being completable for people of any age, with assist mode for those who are especially young. Then, optional content gradually cranks up the difficulty, while much of the main content has faster but more difficult paths allowing people to choose their own difficulty naturally.

Now, how can this be done with Pokemon? Let's look back at Red/Blue:
1. Provide difficult challenges, but always provide an easy way to overcome them if you're stuck. (i.e. adding Mankey / Butterfree by Brock, Digletts by Lt. Surge, Seafoam Islands right before Blaine and Giovanni etc.)
2. Balance the game around people actually exploring the world. Most people are going to see 90% of what's on routes, especially when they're as tiny and narrow as ever. So the game shouldn't be balanced around people skipping half that content. Young kids will wander and get lost, so they'll likely hit even more battles.
3. Provide bonuses for backtracking. If someone has trouble and heads back to look around, they should be able to find new items in order to help them that weren't accessible the first time. This will help make them stronger to get past what they struggle with.
And as an addendum from later titles: Provide post-game challenges. The Battle Tower / Battle Frontier / PWT / Battle Tree are places you can take your team after the game for serious challenges. That said... those areas should be balanced expect you to enter with a random story team, and only ratchet up the difficulty as you go. Especially with bottle caps now being a thing, it's not like making your team perfect requires hours and hours of breeding.

Now were R/B perfect about difficulty? Certainly not. But there are thing that could be used to help keep the difficulty curve slightly better while also allowing for young kids to keep up. A game doesn't have to be literally unlosable to appeal to children. Many kids don't like being talked down to, and making a game so easy they don't have any trouble at all is basically that. If a game offers no challenge at all, do you think they'll see it through or get bored?

@link3710 Have you played R/B recently? They are a cakewalk except for the physic gym and that is because the game is legit broken and Ghost types were not super effective as they should be. Secondly balancing a JRPG is waaaaaay different from a platformer (it is a terrible example don't use it). There are different factors you need to take into account as Final Fantasy (IV-IX) as an example I can tell you from experience while I loved those games as a kid I didn't beat them and there is no way I could have beaten an SMT game as I didn't beat one till I was 16 (SMT III is so hard) as I was not the target audience for them at the age of 6. Pokemon is more similar to SMT in design and even then the combat is far more simplified as you're given 1 v 1 battle rather than 4 v 1-4 that changes the difficulty dynamic a ton and gives more variables to consider. That and 2 v 2 while is nice to mix-up kills the general pacing of Pokemon which tends to be brisk. JRPG games have to be very finely balanced as they cannot just shift difficulty without the player noticing like in a platformer or a shooter. Check out RE4's hidden difficulty settings as an example of how AAA games trick you into thinking your good at the game.

I think instead of looking at R/B you should be looking at Colosseum and XD for ques of how Pokemon can be difficult. They limited you to a certain group of Pokemon and the trainers used complex and competitive strategies to make each encounter difficult. But, even then it was far easier than the average Final Fantasy game as Pokemon has NEVER BEEN HARD for an experienced gamer.

So if we are going to talk about how to improve Pokemon here are a few ways.

1) Rebalance the XP share. Have it so the main Pokemon gets the EXP 100% and the following pokemon in your party by 50%. They still level up at a frequent pace to cut down on grinding, but you are still incentivized to change your party.

2) Make double battles more frequent in Gyms. It has been mentioned before, but once you have more Pokemon to take into account battles by nature get more complex. Keep it singles for out in the field, but have double trainer battles be a bit more common and have some of the later gyms be doubles only (like the Dragon Gym in SW/SH which were fairly difficult for an average playthrough)

3) Have two difficulty modes. Name them Normal Mode and Champion Mode. In Normal mode, the challenge is the same as the average pokemon game so kids can play the game without hitting artificial walls and can generally beat the game. In Champion mode, you cannot use potions in trainer battles and you're pokemon hit cap limits in growth based on what Gym you are on. Gym 1 (lvl 15) Gym 2 (lvl 25) etc as this now makes it that you cannot just grind over your opponents to win as now you need to take advantage of your typing. And now all gyms are straight double battles to increase the difficulty curve.

CONTINUED :

That is how'd I rebalance Pokemon. I've said this before, but Pokemon is meant to be casual for the main playthrough with more challenging side areas in the post-game. It is a collect em' game and is not designed to be hard. And for those who want a challenge, there is the Battle Tower (SW/SH's is fairly difficult to get to Master Ball ranking) or Online Play and catching legendary Pokemon and completing the Pokedex is hard! As that is the challenge of the game which is catching pokemon. I don't think we need to radically change the design of how Pokemon works, but a few small tweaks I don't mind. Though I will repeat complaining about difficulty in a kids game is missing the forests for the trees. There are other JRPGs out there that have a similar gameplay loop as Pokemon but are far more challenging like Shin Megami Tensei as an example. That is why I used the spice analogy because I enjoy Pokemon because it is a brisk and easier game that I can just zone out and enjoy and the aspect of collecting cute little cuddly creatures that I train to battle friends is the main appeal of the game, not the difficulty. I like SMT because it is a ballbuster with a more mature story. As I've said before complaining about difficulty in Pokemon is missing the forest (competitive play, collecting pokemon, max raid battles, shiny hunting, light and brisk pacing, deep gameplay mechanics) for the trees (the main game is too easy a kid can beat it. Me gamer me want a challenge from kids game).

Sorry if this sounds harsh I'm just beyond tired of hearing Pokemon is too easy and ignoring the good aspects of the games.

@Wexter I don't need the games to be hard, I need them to not be so easy I can literally set a move to the first slot that does damage, mash a, and always win after the first gym or so. SS was so easy to overlevel I stopped paying attention to super effectiveness after awhile since it literally didn't matter. The only thing that stopped me was immunities. And it's not like I spent much time in the wild area or battled wild Pokemon much at all (I only captured one of each as I went, but now you get XP for that so...)

Aaaaanyways, back on topic, the main game is one thing, but the fact of the matter is... the post-game in SS is all either terribly easy (max raid battles) or terribly boring (shiny hunting, battle tower). It's not like you can say 'oh it gets good after the end' because... it doesn't. It's probably the first pair of Pokemon games I've gotten basically 0 enjoyment out of the post-game from.

And again, I don't want the game to be dark souls levels of challenging. I want it to offer just enough challenge that I actually have to think while playing, even if only barely. Asking for a smidgen more ability to control my own difficulty, or even difficulty in the main game isn't too much to ask for. I don't think it's unfair to expect the game to require the barest level of strategy while playing and seeing everything.

EDIT: Also yes, I have replayed R/B recently (on 3DS) and they're just a tiny bit harder than SS. Which is all I want.

@Wexter You can't use 'but it's for kids' as an excuse when it's ALWAYS been for kids, and past games like Emerald & Platinum still hold up as fun experiences that can't be steamrolled a quarter as easily in 2020. So are you and GameFreak just out of touch, or do you think modern children are too stupid to be able to complete games like those in current year? If so, feel free to address anyone saying they're a parent in the Comments from now on that you think their kids will be flipping burgers & pumping gas as careers, since you seem to think they struggle with simple tasks.

"The Hardest Challenge in the game"? IDK chief, gonna be hard to top getting 3 trash AI teammates for Raid Battles that should take 5 minutes max.

pretty sure hardest thing is still shiny hunting/breeding

Article: "unlocking it takes time"

Also article: "basically just complete the previous content"

@Wexter

Did you play black and white2?
That game had a great endgame.
The Tournament Fights where not easy, the fights in the Metro where also a good challange.
The Tree/Tower where a great way to Level and have a challange.
Sadly the newer games had from game to game lesser and weaker endgame stuff.
That is my biggest complain.
Red and Blue had with Stadium a expanded great challange

@shoeses What I'm saying is that this franchise is designed for kids first and foremost. And I would not say SW/SH is any easier than X & Y or Sun and Moon. We also have to understand that when I'm saying a game is for kids I'm saying is that we found these games harder when we were kids and as adults now we need to change our expectations because I've been hearing Pokemon is too easy since X&Y came out. I found Red brutal when I first played it in the late-90s. Now it is kinda walk in the park and maybe, just maybe mildly harder than SW/SH, most because the game is kind of broken in places so it has artificial difficulty and you have to grind so much.

Also, I've recently replayed the DS games and they are no harder than SW/SH not at all! The only hard part to them is the grinding for the Elite Four because the game creates an artificial wall to force you to grind.... which is not fun. I repeat GRINDING IS NOT GOOD GAME DESIGN! And kids especially kids HATE grinding. I know I hated grinding playing Pokemon Red for the first time, and I hated it just as much when I played Final Fantasy IX at the end of the first disc. That is why designers have made all party members gain levels in recent JRPG games (even when not in battle aka EXP Share) to stop needless grinding. Pokemon pre-X&Y are not any harder than modern Pokemon they are just grind-ier and kill gameplay progression by jacking a trainer level 10lvls higher out of nowhere to make it more "challenging" and make you grind for 3 hours to make all your pokemon the same level.

The only two Pokemon games I'd call even remotely challenging is Colosseum and XD. But, that is because you are given a much slimmer pool of Pokemon to catch and everything is Double-Battles which changes how you play the game. Even then it is not harder than your average Final Fantasy title. What I'm saying is for us complaining that a game is too easy for a kid between the ages of 5-10 who are the target demographic the game is probably just right difficulty wise. Hard enough to feel challenged, but easy enough to not feel overwhelmed when facing gym and wanting to give up.

And I'm not calling kids stupid. In fact more than once parents have commented in these comments how much their kids LOVE this game. You only see adults complaining about difficulty not the kids. The kids are having a fun time challenging Leon, catching their favorite Pokemon and having a great time with the game. There have been NO parents telling stories of their kids hating the game or calling it "2 EZ" so stand by my statement that kids are enjoying this game and its difficulty.

Here is a challenge for you. Go get an old Pokemon game you have not played in a while and play it and tell me with a straight face it was any harder than Sw/Sh and if it was if it was due to grinding or legit challenge.

@Azuris I played Black and White 2 and they have quickly entered my top 3! Since it was a sequel Gamefreak had more leeway to make the base game more challenging... except screw the Champion being a dragon type trainer and all the good Ice Types being locked to the post game... like why GF would you put the ice types after when I need ice types?

Overall rather solid! I still would not call it hard, but probably on the higher end of difficulty for a Pokemon game.

@link3710 That's cool dude. I agree it's a bit easier, but I think that is because we have access to the Wild Area which has more tools for us to train our Pokemon and have our team balanced earlier. That and if you do raids you get EXP Candy that majorly cuts down on grinding. I found the hardest part of Red was more finding a place to grind that I would not fall asleep to because the EXP give out was so low. I don't think Pokemon has gotten easier, I feel we are better at the game and Gamefreak has catered to the online play aspect too much and now gives out far easier ways to grind to get the best mons. And if you even dabble in that it makes sense why you'd wouldn't because as adults we try to take advantage of every opportunity we have do that. Maybe the issue isn''t the games are easier, but the game is too accessible?

I recommend going to Easy Allies and go to Brandon Plays Pokemon. This is the Chief Editor of Easy Allies (also formerly of Gametrailers) and he had no issues steamrolling Red with just his Charizard (he never played a Pokemon before). It's a fun little series and confirmed what I thought about our nostalgia goggles giving us the impression that the games are harder than they are.

@Wexter Oh, of course it's easy to steamroll Red with just a Charizard. It's actually easier to beat Pokemon games if you only train one Pokemon instead of all 6, at least until this permanent XP Share thing. It's because they rapidly overlevel if they're the only one getting XP. In order to maximize difficulty, you need to train 6 separate Pokemon in those games.

It's not thaaaat difficult to make some difficulty for myself in any game outside of SuMo and SS (USUM actually fixed that for those two). It's really not just nostalgia goggles, I'm playing through Emerald at the moment and not having any trouble staying engaged. The fact that SS bores me when I play it despite the fact that I actually enjoy the cast more than usual isn't something that's been a problem with literally the past 7 generations. And for the record, I didn't use a single XP candy, or do more than a handful of raid battles. Also, I turned the battle mode to Set rather than Shift.

The issue isn't that it's too accessible, it's that even with avoiding all the opportunities it's still too easy. And there's plenty you can't avoid now that you used to be able to, like the exp share. Again, I don't care if the main difficulty isn't raised, so long as I'm given options to make my own life harder like in previous titles. Even sticking to relatively low stat Pokemon wasn't enough this time. Like, I probably could come up with something now that I've played the game, but going in blind I couldn't prepare a run hard enough. And that's the problem. I just want options to raise the difficulty enough.

@link3710 I guess that makes sense. I really did not have that problem remaining engaged with the game and found some challenging spots. Like the Fire Gym, Dragon Gym and Leon. Maybe I've just been so enamored with the wild area I just had no real issues with it... hmmmm...

Eitherway I do hope GameFreak makes some adjustments to GEN IX or D&P Remakes to allow players to adjust their experience more. Because that would be frustrating. Glad you cleared that part up more as now I can see things more from your perspective.

hard challenge you say bet