Gen 4 The Leveling Curve in HG/SS

Being honest, I enjoy the curve. It makes the battles harder, yes, but I enjoy having to strategize and learn about people, even when they aren't real. It also adds a bit of spice that the current games desperately miss out on.

 

It is rather disconcerting at first, but believe it or not you can clear the Elite 4 without being at the same level they are - if you strategize (and carry a few Hyper Potions) and diversify your team well. This was the case even in G/S/C, though slightly harder due to smaller movelists.

 

Gen 4's A.I. during the main story wasn't exactly "clever", but it used well their move's type adventages. Despite that, it was quite easy to exploit, so the level curve of HG/SS was an ok tool to partially fix that problem. Also, I don't see the point of structuring the game so you will be almost certainly overleveled even without having played the game beforehand.

 

I'm fairly in agreement with this. While the levels of the E4 and Champ were much lower than normal, it still really wasn't enough to make me ready. Every other runthrough of the game, I've been on par level with the weakest E4 member and able to take them on no problem. Here, I had my starter the same level as Will's weakest.

I think they should've had Victory Road give some trainers like all the others. Thanks a lot rival Dickwad (What I end up naming him) so getting prize money as well as getting my team leveled up would be simpler.

Another aggravating thing about the Victory Road was that the wild 'mons were so underleveled. More than half the time I encountered Zubats and Golbats who gave me next to no XP. Even some of the tougher wilds like Donphan and Ursaring gave a little more, but the grind felt agonizingly slow to get everyone up to balance.

 

I never have much of a problem staying up to level in Pokémon games. I just train for 5 levels for each city I get to. So a lot of the time I end up challenging the elite four with level 70+ Pokémon. I think in my most recent playthrough of HG, I was around level 65-70 when I got to the elite four.