5 Ways to Make Pokémon Harder

When I was playing the most recent Pokémon title, Omega Ruby, I found that it was much easier than any other entry so far. This isn’t usually an issue for me, as I like a story more than a challenge and opt to play on easy whenever I start a new videogame. However, it did bug me that I was pretty much able to destroy any gym leader with a single Pokémon, due to how easily levelled its stats were. I figured it probably bugs other people too, so here are some ways to make things more of a challenge.

Disable Exp Share
When you obtain Exp Share, it starts giving experience points to all of the Pokémon on your team, without them participating in a battle. This is different from past entries where it was an object that needed to be held by whichever Pokémon you wanted to get experience. It’s in your Key Items bag and can be disabled - just find it in your backpack and tap on it. It will give you the option to Turn Off - which means no free experience points if a Pokémon doesn’t fight.

Rotate Your Team
If you’re playing Pokémon correctly, you should be catching a few between each gym. To help make the game more challenging, every time you reach a Pokémon Centre you should swap the Pokémon in your team for different ones. This helps you have different levels of difficulty - swap one for Easy, swap all six for Hardcore.

Don’t Use Super Effective Moves
If you’re fighting a Grass-type with a Fire-type, you would usually be assured a win if you use a Fire-type move. Make it more difficult by never using Fire-type moves against Grass-type Pokémon. If you have a Flying-type and come across a Fighting-Type, only use Normal moves, or switch to another type of Pokémon.

Go for a Nuzlocke Challenge
This basically turns Pokémon into a roguelike - if you fail, you’re dead and have to start from the beginning. The rules are really up to you, depending on how hard you want it to be. You can avoid certain items, not use berries, not capture certain types… But here are the two rules of the original Nuzlocke Challenge:
1. Only capture the first Pokemon encountered in each new area.
2. If a Pokemon faints they are considered dead and must be released.
If you faint from losing all of your Pokémon, you might want to take the Pokémon from your PC. However, if you have none or want it to be harder - it’s game over when the screen goes dark.

Catch ‘Em All
There are 719 Pokémon in the National Pokédex. Thanks to Wonder Trade, you can catch the ones which aren’t even in the game! Sure it will take a long time and a lot of luck, but if you keep trading level 5 Zigzagoon you will eventually own all of the non-event Pokémon. The laws of averages pretty much guarantee it!