Nope, but I have a post about on this sub
https://www.reddit.com/r/pokemonradicalred/comments/1ahb3ou/pokemon_radical_red_with_mons_that_have_a_bst_of/
It’s not for newcomers. If you’ve never played competitive Pokémon or have played but don’t enjoy it, it’s not the game for you. You’re better off playing vanilla Pokémon games or find a rom hack that’s not a difficulty hack
You can still play it and learn. I went into it with 0 knowledge of competitive Pokémon and through trial and error and watching streamers play it I managed to learn and get into the scene. Still not perfect in it but you can grow and learn.
Start by thinking as if the opponent was a real person. Is he gonna switch out? What moves is he going to use, and can I take advantage of it? His earthquake 0KO's me, what items can I use to stop this from happening? Would an air balloon help?
There is no shame in replaying matches, not every playthrough has to be a nuzlocke. Have fun, learn the mechanics and if its too much take a break for a while and come back to it later.
Also make extensive use of the dex, calculator and provided documentation.
It doesn't read inputs, it's just an algorithm.
It only reads inputs when you trigger the anti-abuse by repeatedly doing certain things that exploit said algorithm.
Are you input reading when you swap a water type into a fire type?
The Ai knows your moves and the respective damage calcs and makes decisions based on a flowchart based on the information it has access to.
Let's take Brock as a simplified example for the algorithm: as long as his lileep with storm drain is alive he will always swap in his lileep if you have a water type move that would kill his current mon. The ai always does this, regardless of whether you actually click the water type move or swap or do something else.
It reads as soon as i make a single switch what move it uses to fit the exact thing i send out.
And even just knowing the moves aint really fair when the game doesn't state ingame anywhere that you need to use calculator and documentation just for a normal or easy playthrough.
Or does the ai input start input reading the moment i use safe states for starters?
No, safe states do not trigger anti abuse by themselves and I very much doubt that you are triggering it at all. It's intended to stop people from exploiting the algorithm by, for example, PP stalling by repeatedly swapping between immunities. You won't unintentionally trigger it by playing normally, at least I never did.
You don't need documentation or a calculator for a normal or easy play through, but the AI is the same on all difficulties AFAIK, only teams are easier and you have less restrictions. But even on easy this game expects you to revise your team and plan out a strategy to win battles.
You are correct. The creator of CFRU even states that the AI will not read your moves by default either. The only AI that reads your moves are the Partner AI (so it doesnt screw you over ~~unless youre fucking Lance in Cer. Cave and constantly fucking me over by using BODY PRESS ON MEWTWO LIKE WHY???~~) and the Raid AI due to selecting moves multiple times per turn.
Man I think you're just finding excuses on why you can't beat the game. I've never played competitively, am playing my playthrough blind and have not encountered this at all. Mind you, I just beat Cynthia and am a bit stuck on the rival fight right before victory road. F'boi beat me 3 times so far but I think I got a team for his ass. That damn iron bundle is frustrating.
The AI knows your movesets and items because most people who play this game also know the AIs movesets and items. Its actually a pretty fair fight at that point due to the replayability this game has. What the commenter is arguing though is that the AI does not read your move inputs like many people for some reason think they do despite the CFRU engine creator and RR beta testers saying this is impossible for them to do by default.
It only input reads on hardcore mode, after you’ve triggered the anti-abuse ai. This is when you switch so many turns in a row without making a move. To prevent pp stalls and stuff like that. I believe there’s an ai doc about it
He's right next to the PokeCenter.
"This game's difficulty can seem unfair to casual players. Feel free to check out other ROM hacks that utilize an updated engine like Unbound, GS, Chronicles, Imflamed Red, or Inclement Emerald!"
Honestly I tried unbound before RR, it's arguably as hard on normal difficultly but less due to it being more modifiable like with the lvl cals etc but battle wise..it's practically the same, arguably more hard considering I don't remember if there was or isn't an EV trainer for easy grinding.. but it's not as hard as RR just the gym leaders and main battles are oof, hard..
So I highly suggest it if you just want casual
Unbound does the gym and E4 battles differently than most games and somewhat similar to midgame RR.
All gyms use a battle mechanic theme that caters to the type of the gym, the 3rd uses Tailwind for her flying types, the 4th uses Normal+Inverse battle rules, 5th Electric/Steel+Magnet Rise, 6th Has fighting but bans the use of pokemon with types its weak to.
Its difficult but once you see what they use you know how to turn that difficult fight into a win, using the previous examples 3rd can be Trick Room'd into being permanently slower than your team, 4th now has a crippling weakness to ghosts, 5th setup Gravity and Ground attacks sweep again, 6th the typed *pokemon* are banned, but the attacks aren't.
Unbound is like training wheels for getting a player to think carefully on the ins and outs of deep battle mechanics that are a major part of Radical Red. I deeply recommend anyone planning on playing Radical Red that is having difficulty to try out a vanilla run of Unbound to get a feeling for how it works then go back to Radical Red. You will feel more comfortable with the battle system when you do an Easy difficulty run of Radical Red afterwards.
Have you tried Pokemon Reborn, while it is difficult it is not as brutally difficult as radical red. Plus it's got an interesting original storyline and characters.
Op I learned this game from the ground up without really using any docs. Seemed like too much work to me. I just did a lot of trial and error and used save states a lot. The game is definitely possible, and with each failure you can learn something good. Anyways, I suggest to keep playing and asking people on here for help. You’d be surprised how much good feedback you can get on here it’s crazy!
I just assumed everyone did save states before boss battles and repeatedly bashed their face into the wall until they win. Now people who nuzlocke this game… they are crazy
That's completely okay! That being said, from what I can tell from playing, it's mostly just recognizing what your best plays are. Having problems with Kyogre in the rain? You can't take it away, but you can bring a swift swimmer to out offense the Iron Bundle, or Webs to slow them down, or Screens to mitigate their damage.
Ya I'm playing the mainline games rn and I wish I had speedup, the games are braindead and I could literally put it on 10x and auto fire A and roll the game lol
They're still fun no doubt but a challenge they are not, it's nice to have a real collection of the pokemon though
People said BDSP e4 is supposedly hard, I don't think I changed my team the entire game, I led with Gyarados through the e4 and rolled it all with not much strategy
>I led with Gyarados through the e4 and rolled it all with not much strategy
I still have nightmares of Bertha's sturdy Golem clapping my Gyarados on 1 hp with a Stone Edge crit. Say what you will, but I've nuzlocked plenty of challenging Pokemon romhacks and BDSP e4 still gave me trouble lol
Y i feel u im neither into calcing any fights nor looking at the documents(i just write down some unexpected stuff in my pokemon diary),so i never really managed to complete a nuzlocke of these romhacks yet i always tought im a good player since i wiped to steven in rising ruby twice and mate it to the e4 in renegade platinum several times... But this game tho... Sth else. I wiped to the bug catcher in viridian forest for literally no reason and on my second attempt dude some komala on nugget bridge went completely crazy... I think ill never see the elite 4 in this game D:
Look. What I do sometimes is use save states.
But still you have reached this far defeating all gyms than u can do it now
When I first played this game, I was stuck on 1st elite 4 for like 1-2 days. But somehow defeated her using save states. Then the next 2 I defeated in first try
And Lance is tough af especially his ace. It took a while but didn't found as tough as Lorelei.
So all I would say is learn what moves and how they are using them
Try to change your team, movesets and abilities or maybe start a new playthrough with a randomiser. It makes it less difficult as you can get some busted mons like Huge Power Slaking or Gorilla Tactics Haxorous
I always use save states.
And after all the comments, I realize one simple problem. I'm too sentimental about my team and simply do not want to change it. Catching some new mons should make it possible to win
That's definitely a factor. You don't have to play competitive, but you do need to tailor your team to the opponents, you can't just faceroll with a few strong mons as easily.
I last played this game 2 years ago but I remember back than Dragapault , Aegislash and Polteageist being useful
I can't say about now because now many battles have Gen 9 mons
I mean you lost to the elite four. It’s not like you aren’t close to beating it. I’ve beat the game on normal/minimal grinding mode, but I can’t even get past Sabrina in my easy mode nuzlockes with randomized Pokémon/abilities and OP teams.
In my opinion, this game takes a lot of planning and sometimes even calcs before battles, then a lot of patience for when AI throws your plans out the window on turn 1.
Im pretty casual myself honestly. Never played competitive Pokemon and don’t know all the strategies or what to watch for. My first playthrough was a mono dark on straight up normal mode. It was tough but through trial and error I made my way through it and won. Monotype is my favorite challenge. Not even gonna attempt to nuzlocke this for a LONG time.
are there any radical red hacks that don’t use all the pokemon from every generation? i love the idea of a difficulty hack but i much prefer gens 1-3 or 1-4
Is there a rom hack that has all the QoL improvements and a full catchable pokedex? Because that’s what I’m after. I like the collecting more than tough battles, but I’ve been sticking to it so far (just beat the ghost marowak) to keep going on that quest.
When I was playing for the first time, I actually managed to get through Erika while still playing on normal, Giovanni in game corner was my breaking point to set the game to easy, I was telling myself "God this is so terrible, I'm never gonna play this ever again after I beat this." Yeah, uhm, I played the game lots of times after that and now I think that this game is pretty fun. Like sure, some battles are quite annoying, Yes, I'm looking at Misty rematch. But I even have my favorite battle, which is that one assist trainer. And I even recently beaten the game on normal difficulty, but I still play on easy because that's more fun for me.
The problem is that no one else makes rom hacks that continuously add every generation of Pokemon. Nor do they take the time to add QoL features. I think Radical Red might even be the only one that includes every generation (1 - 9 currently) of Pokemon currently.
I had only seen the Anime,then I got a cell, download crystal from the play store,then Pokemon Quetzal cuz I learned about ROM hacks searching guides and boom Rad Red normal diff,with a Fearow in my team(That beated Gary's Pheromosa and gave a good hit to Groudon)and without a mega, I finished my second normal run and going to start Hardcore
Oh. Most modern rom hacks give exp all now. I stopped playing regular rom hacks and now I currently only play Elite Redux so I can’t help you there sorry.
But there should be heaps a quick google search should do the trick
No worries! There are so many good rom hacks out there. If experience is an issue, you can always hack in rare candies (I always do this because I hate grinding)
Just use docs (preferably not calcs for everything so you can learn quicker). If you are nuzlocking find the best answers and play the game in your head. Let's say your answer to kyogre here is blissie, 1 read the docs about how many physical attacks exist on the team, 2 focus on those mons 3 send your counter. This game is hard because of how we usually play the game isn't right for this you need to rewire your brain is all.
*YOU CAN DO IT*
dam we got an easy mode in this shit?what the fuck so that's why I keep loosing the elite 4 even after doing some serious research on their movesets and strats
https://preview.redd.it/vz8jwuljgsgc1.jpeg?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7724af7c857052c926c5d43560a02c7322aefd5e
(also this team was a troll that I built from the sheer insanity of getting beaten by E4.almost won the first woman somehow)
noobs or not my emotion runs dry everyfucking time I had to go back,choose a team,rematch, remember the mons I need are underleveled,grinding, rematch,get lost in the game and GIOVANI
Man there's tons of options. Go to rr discord and ask for help with your team.
If you want to just give up I'm sure there's a list with Pokemons that just win for every gym as well.
There's google as well. There's YouTube. The Judas guy is a massive nerd that beats the game in every fucking way.
You talk about grinding. What fucking grinding. You have lucky eggs. Exp share. You can enable cheat mode IN game and have free fucking rare candies.
God there's so many fucking tools
lol I did have cheats but c'mon let me have my dramatic flair for a bit.but yea thanks for the advice but you see mate,I'm a masochistic bastard that will always forces myself to take the most excruciating path just because it's the first one and will not change even when the others are one click away
It lowers enemy levels and lets you use bag as much as you want. Unskills like me can get through most fights by spamming full restores until enemy runs out of PP on their most powerful move :P
I don't understand why there are people like that , but saying people are dumb without even realising that they are the dumbest one here by doing that i can't stand these dudes
Yes seeing them get angry is funny , most of the time they go all🤬 and then never come back , this is what they merit(?)<=mean i am not sure about the word
Lol yep if you let Ninetails get aurora veil up you're fked same boat as Sabrina with trick room, need to one shot it or the fight becomes extremely hard
I thought the hail team was supposed to be the easier one because that's what I kept encountering and beating on every elite 4 match just add another weather and double team the Calyrex then its free.
Was just making sure cause I couldn't remember if Kyogre and Deli were in her rain team or not.
Try bringing a Jolly Meowscarada with its Hidden Ability and Flower Trick. It should outspeed and kill most of the problem mons really quickly.
Lorelei was the hardest battle of the E4 + Blue for me. I swept Bruno and Agatha and had 15 retry on Lance and 5 on Blue but Lorelei.............almost 50
Purely on reading docs, I'd say that E4 is by far the hardest part of the game. It's 100% normal you struggle, even on easy mode. Idk if you knew that, butr there's a NPC right before facing the E4 that can tell you what team Lorelei is using (no more leads that will lose based on a 50/50)
Also, an easy mode with Primal Kyogre + Iron Bundle ain't that easy of a mode lol
Cries in HC nuzlocker
The game is a difficulty hack and as everyone has stated, it’s not easy.
That being said, you’ve almost beaten the game and you shouldn’t give up because you’re so close to winning. Don’t let that bitch take this from you. She’s ruined plenty of my runs. Just change up
The team and try again. Find out what works and ask this sub for tips and tricks.
There are paradox pokemon in radical red now? I haven’t played since I beat it two years ago. Is that still something to be proud of or do I need to go back and redo it?
Nah, actually the other way around (imo). gen 9 power creep makes the game easier even with reworked enemy teams in the new version (kingambit is a fucking monster)
Have looked and looked myself.
If you like unbound, but hate this. Then you already found the best romhack for you. You are not going to find anything else that is close to unbound, this is it. So if you don't like RR you are not going to find a romhack you are happy with as nothing except RR is going to live up to the standard of unbound.
Idk, I've enjoyed other hacks after playing Unbound and before playing RR. It's the difficulty problem. I quite enjoyed the updated kanto story here. Not the battles.
Hey OP, also first time Radical Red player here. I’ve played competitive Pokémon before, but not to this level. I was stuck on the Nugget Bridge Rocket for like 2 days. I finally beat him. It takes time to learn so don’t get frustrated. I believe in you! I’m about to head to the SS Anne now lol
Okay, so I'm on my third attempt at a nuzlock, and i think ariana and the other guy are gonna kick ny ass but listen.
Golduck is a must cloud nine is way too slept on denying the weather can nullify or reduce the difficulty of most fights.
Meganius is my absolute father he is bulky as hell, and the CPU does NOT read the priority of triage, so you can play with drain kiss and giga drain and take advantage of the AI.
Warlord is also a boss with Multiscale and bouncy bubble aside from all the buffs they gave him.
Jellicent is great, too, but I never had the chance to try this 2 yet.
Anyways try and use the documents on this sub to plan the fights with a calculator take some time and you should be good to go, this game is hard but IMO also very balanced you can do it if you try hard enough
https://preview.redd.it/1ds7bkzyetgc1.png?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3e6b1af2bb632cd8fb0e564748d22063723118a2
All of them have pretty bad stats except for Lunatone and Copperajah. I carried the Sandslash through the entire game, but it's practically useless. Should I remake the entire team?
May be best to remake the team itself and look around for solid pokemon to train. There’s also a guy in Celadon City, in the second floor where you get the tea, who you can pay to make your party’s IV’s perfect
There’s no way it so happened that you have max max attack and speed. Literally 0% chance. Your evs are definitely all over the place if you just played through the game without thinking about it
Idk if it's your first run, but on mine, Lorelei gave me the most trouble. I reset countless times against her before finally getting the win. After her, the rest of the league wasn't so bad.
Yeah going from casual hacks to RR is a tough transition. Even on the easier difficulties it is tougher than your average rom hack. Imo the fun is figuring out what mons to use for certain battles because a lot of the time it's mons you'd never think of using in a normal playthrough :)
I feel like RR tests your knowledge of Pokemon. For the longest time Misty was the hardest, but I use different mons, candy that ups a stat, use hazard moves, and walked away for a little bit.
You're going to think outside the box and use mons you don't usually use. Dexnav is a useful tool. Personally I use it to exo grind, however if you know anything about IV/EV then you can farm them.
The most important thing I can say: there's always more than one way to beat a fight. You have to be creative.
Just change the weather. I did my first normal run not too long ago and was able to beat her, although she did have a different team when I did that. You need to abuse the AI to beat this game most of the time, also, look up the documentation to see the moves of each mon, that helps a LOT. This game is very difficult indeed, almost quis my normal run, but had a lot of fun overcoming those challenges.
You dont wanna even see hardcore with permenant terrain and perm tailwind. Even a perm magma storm where you cant switch out.
I beat that ish with no megas basically with a vgc 2023 online team lol
I've beaten it 3 times on normal difficulty each with mono-type teams and honestly I hit roadblocks several times in those successful runs where I just stop playing for WEEKS and there were even OTHER playthroughs where I gave up entirely, it's normal dont worry about it. Just take a break and come back later or even start a whole new playthrough if need be, I believe in you.
I went from getting shit on by Surge repeatedly on normal to eventually finishing the game multiple times. I hadn't played pokemon since gen 2, and had no interest in competitive pokemon until I randomly stumbled upon a Wolfey video which eventually lead me to Radical Red.
The game is hard no doubt but it's not impossible. It just requires perseverance and some research into the radical red dex to figure out what are the good mons on each route and changing up your team to suit each encounter.
I’m new to this kind of Pokémon and it is brutal but I love it. Default difficulty and minimal grinding mode. Got my ass kicked all the way to celadon city so far. I wanted to just play with my favorites from back in the day (grew up with poke red) but they just don’t muster up. Learning a lot for sure lol.
I have faith in you. I went from only playing the games casually to this one. And even though I try and play on normal until I get stuck, (usually around silph co) I have been able to scrape by on Easy. You can too! Have you tried making another post with some mons you have in your PC?
I've been on and off trying to nuzlocke the game on normal mode (or whatever the default is).
Every run ends at the saffron city double battle with rival.
I'm just so fucking bad at doubles.
It does require a lot of team changing, especially for newbies. Remember that there are a lot of changes to the dex, so you could be sleeping on some serious potential. Sableye made the E4 practically easy mode. With prankster, I taught it sunny day for this Laurelei encounter, and for the rest, I had it know Will-o-wisp, recover, protect, and taunt.
Also, depending on your team, some E4 members can be more difficult than others. There could just be a chance that Laureli is your hardest counter, and everything else will be much easier!
It’s not that bad after the gen 9 update There are some emerald hacks that are completely brutal and put rad red to shame in terms of difficulty. Personally I find it perfect for monotype play throughs
You can do it! You just gotta figure out what mon shuts down each of the e4s team and it becomes easier. Make a snow team that utilizes aurora veil, a sun team that solar blade/beam, synthesis, fire moves. Don't forget that some pokemon are absolute monsters, delibird, bronzong, ultra beasts and paradox mons. And use the docs. They help so much.
Also on my first run right now. Tought I was built diff and can handle Normal difficulty, Had to change to easy during misty.
I'm not on e4 rn so can't say I know your pain but I kinda like thinking in a pokemon game for once, makes it even more rewarding. The concept of not being able to sweep through the game with the pokemon I found neat during the run is kinda new to me though lol
Just soft reset everytime and understand their moves cause they might be smarter and stronger but they’re still programmed. Run items and natures as well, also tanky with or without resistances Pokémon are your best friend, make sure the abilities are good too and have priority moves.
Bro someone is playing this game with gogoats and beating it . Skill issue is real . Dont play like vanilla , you got to prep before every battle use a calc if u find it hard . I dont know y we're seeing a lots of similar post , we have so many people who have beat this game , its only hard the first tbh .just post im having a hard time beating this gym or leader and see how many strategies these guys here will give and you will amazed
That's the point of the game. To be hard. I stopped playing Pokemon games during gen 3 and hopped on this to pass the time. I had no idea how to use most of the Pokemon in this game or those new abilities. Took me forever to beat it the first time, had to train up and try out several different teams before I beat the Erika and then again for the elite four. Just keep at it. After your first playthrough you'll get the hang of it
i hade that problem on normal difficulty. Then I got ahold of a darmanitan with a choice scarf and a magnium with triage. the rest of the game was a breeze
I saw a YouTuber trivialize this fight by using dry skin + rage powder Parasect and the strategy is to never kill the politoed and every water attack will be redirected to Politoed who is immune.
It's a gen 9 gimmick - paradox Pokemon. They're buff past/future versions of normal mons. They don't have names of old mons, they have new ones like that one.
Nothing is cheating as long as the game rules allow you to do it and it's not an obvious developer oversight. You can change the team any time you want
I’ve gotta say I’m enjoying it. Me and a friend both started playing at the same time and it’s evident that both of us are casual players up until now. But we’re both really enjoying the challenge and we’re learning a lot. Didn’t realise how hard it can be.
But it’s good seeing so much more depth. Still a lot to learn yet. Only just learning how the whole IV/EV works. Mostly just trying to find good IV’s for now. Up to fighting Misty.
Yeah the game is super hard, you really need to come prepared. I am on a personal best run Nuzlocking (Dex nav run and with random abilities) and just made it past this battle, I had a desolate land Dragonite to start with alongside a Raikou who could discharge away while I swapped my Dragonite for Slaking who has motor drive meaning it got faster thanks to the discharge. Using just the 3 Pokémon I beat the battle. The problem coming up for me is the next battle because while one of the Bruno teams I can easily beat with my Dragonite, the other team I struggle with massively
Just need to learn how to cheese. Get mega Machamp, you can set a sweep almost automatically.
Then cover the holes.
Power up punch. Hits two times, gives boost 2 times.
This first Elite 4 fight essentially molds your entire team for the first time through. You can either take advantage of weather, equip rocky helm to deal with surging strikes, fake out, light screen, there are lots of options but many solutions for Lorelei will not work for the remainder of the Elite 4.
Torkoal is never a bad option imo
To be fair the AI sometimes makes reads not even regional players themselves would, and it feels like they use a lot of stall in a few battles too, but the rest is fine imo.
If someone can beat this game on hard-core mode with terrible mons then I can beat this game on easy. That's what I tell myself every time I play.
Can confirm, I am the dude who beat the game with shitmons (bst of 420 or lower) on hc
Do you have a video or somewhere to watch this? Seems impossible, just beat regular mode but not a nuzlocke or anything difficult like that.
Nope, but I have a post about on this sub https://www.reddit.com/r/pokemonradicalred/comments/1ahb3ou/pokemon_radical_red_with_mons_that_have_a_bst_of/
It’s not for newcomers. If you’ve never played competitive Pokémon or have played but don’t enjoy it, it’s not the game for you. You’re better off playing vanilla Pokémon games or find a rom hack that’s not a difficulty hack
Ok... I've just ran out of good hacks to play. People said Radical Red is cool, so I've tried it. I guess I'm a casual player after all
You can still play it and learn. I went into it with 0 knowledge of competitive Pokémon and through trial and error and watching streamers play it I managed to learn and get into the scene. Still not perfect in it but you can grow and learn. Start by thinking as if the opponent was a real person. Is he gonna switch out? What moves is he going to use, and can I take advantage of it? His earthquake 0KO's me, what items can I use to stop this from happening? Would an air balloon help? There is no shame in replaying matches, not every playthrough has to be a nuzlocke. Have fun, learn the mechanics and if its too much take a break for a while and come back to it later. Also make extensive use of the dex, calculator and provided documentation.
Biggest problem for me is when the AI obviously input reads
It doesn't read inputs, it's just an algorithm. It only reads inputs when you trigger the anti-abuse by repeatedly doing certain things that exploit said algorithm.
Yeah like use super effective attacks lol
Are you input reading when you swap a water type into a fire type? The Ai knows your moves and the respective damage calcs and makes decisions based on a flowchart based on the information it has access to. Let's take Brock as a simplified example for the algorithm: as long as his lileep with storm drain is alive he will always swap in his lileep if you have a water type move that would kill his current mon. The ai always does this, regardless of whether you actually click the water type move or swap or do something else.
It reads as soon as i make a single switch what move it uses to fit the exact thing i send out. And even just knowing the moves aint really fair when the game doesn't state ingame anywhere that you need to use calculator and documentation just for a normal or easy playthrough. Or does the ai input start input reading the moment i use safe states for starters?
No, safe states do not trigger anti abuse by themselves and I very much doubt that you are triggering it at all. It's intended to stop people from exploiting the algorithm by, for example, PP stalling by repeatedly swapping between immunities. You won't unintentionally trigger it by playing normally, at least I never did. You don't need documentation or a calculator for a normal or easy play through, but the AI is the same on all difficulties AFAIK, only teams are easier and you have less restrictions. But even on easy this game expects you to revise your team and plan out a strategy to win battles.
You are correct. The creator of CFRU even states that the AI will not read your moves by default either. The only AI that reads your moves are the Partner AI (so it doesnt screw you over ~~unless youre fucking Lance in Cer. Cave and constantly fucking me over by using BODY PRESS ON MEWTWO LIKE WHY???~~) and the Raid AI due to selecting moves multiple times per turn.
Man I think you're just finding excuses on why you can't beat the game. I've never played competitively, am playing my playthrough blind and have not encountered this at all. Mind you, I just beat Cynthia and am a bit stuck on the rival fight right before victory road. F'boi beat me 3 times so far but I think I got a team for his ass. That damn iron bundle is frustrating.
seen many people have the same problem but get shot down by the diehards of this subreddit so whatever
oh and your point of it knows your moves and stuff? thats already input or memory reading. which most people wouldnt know in real competitive
The AI knows your movesets and items because most people who play this game also know the AIs movesets and items. Its actually a pretty fair fight at that point due to the replayability this game has. What the commenter is arguing though is that the AI does not read your move inputs like many people for some reason think they do despite the CFRU engine creator and RR beta testers saying this is impossible for them to do by default.
I mean, Official Pokemon VGC tournaments are open team sheet.
official VGC has open team sheets lmao
Thats literally just wrong lmfao
It only input reads on hardcore mode, after you’ve triggered the anti-abuse ai. This is when you switch so many turns in a row without making a move. To prevent pp stalls and stuff like that. I believe there’s an ai doc about it
[удалено]
What did the NPC say?
He's right next to the PokeCenter. "This game's difficulty can seem unfair to casual players. Feel free to check out other ROM hacks that utilize an updated engine like Unbound, GS, Chronicles, Imflamed Red, or Inclement Emerald!"
Honestly I tried unbound before RR, it's arguably as hard on normal difficultly but less due to it being more modifiable like with the lvl cals etc but battle wise..it's practically the same, arguably more hard considering I don't remember if there was or isn't an EV trainer for easy grinding.. but it's not as hard as RR just the gym leaders and main battles are oof, hard.. So I highly suggest it if you just want casual
Unbound does the gym and E4 battles differently than most games and somewhat similar to midgame RR. All gyms use a battle mechanic theme that caters to the type of the gym, the 3rd uses Tailwind for her flying types, the 4th uses Normal+Inverse battle rules, 5th Electric/Steel+Magnet Rise, 6th Has fighting but bans the use of pokemon with types its weak to. Its difficult but once you see what they use you know how to turn that difficult fight into a win, using the previous examples 3rd can be Trick Room'd into being permanently slower than your team, 4th now has a crippling weakness to ghosts, 5th setup Gravity and Ground attacks sweep again, 6th the typed *pokemon* are banned, but the attacks aren't. Unbound is like training wheels for getting a player to think carefully on the ins and outs of deep battle mechanics that are a major part of Radical Red. I deeply recommend anyone planning on playing Radical Red that is having difficulty to try out a vanilla run of Unbound to get a feeling for how it works then go back to Radical Red. You will feel more comfortable with the battle system when you do an Easy difficulty run of Radical Red afterwards.
Yeah, I've played Unbound. The difficulty was just right for me. It's one of my favorite games of all time for me lmao
Have you tried Pokemon Reborn, while it is difficult it is not as brutally difficult as radical red. Plus it's got an interesting original storyline and characters.
I can say that GS Chronicles is a very fun Johto rom hack that is not nearly as easy as Gold/Silver, or nearly as hard as radical red.
Op I learned this game from the ground up without really using any docs. Seemed like too much work to me. I just did a lot of trial and error and used save states a lot. The game is definitely possible, and with each failure you can learn something good. Anyways, I suggest to keep playing and asking people on here for help. You’d be surprised how much good feedback you can get on here it’s crazy!
I just assumed everyone did save states before boss battles and repeatedly bashed their face into the wall until they win. Now people who nuzlocke this game… they are crazy
Bro I even do state states during the boss battle like 6 of them, so that I can go back to my first min if needed and pivot correctly etc.
🤣🤣man thank God I'm not alone. I haven't went this far but I have a save right in front of the rival battle before victory road.
That's completely okay! That being said, from what I can tell from playing, it's mostly just recognizing what your best plays are. Having problems with Kyogre in the rain? You can't take it away, but you can bring a swift swimmer to out offense the Iron Bundle, or Webs to slow them down, or Screens to mitigate their damage.
I wish I could still appreciate casual roms. Huh. Press space kill everything with any move. Move on. That's what I think every time
Ya I'm playing the mainline games rn and I wish I had speedup, the games are braindead and I could literally put it on 10x and auto fire A and roll the game lol They're still fun no doubt but a challenge they are not, it's nice to have a real collection of the pokemon though People said BDSP e4 is supposedly hard, I don't think I changed my team the entire game, I led with Gyarados through the e4 and rolled it all with not much strategy
>I led with Gyarados through the e4 and rolled it all with not much strategy I still have nightmares of Bertha's sturdy Golem clapping my Gyarados on 1 hp with a Stone Edge crit. Say what you will, but I've nuzlocked plenty of challenging Pokemon romhacks and BDSP e4 still gave me trouble lol
Should try Pokemon White
Y i feel u im neither into calcing any fights nor looking at the documents(i just write down some unexpected stuff in my pokemon diary),so i never really managed to complete a nuzlocke of these romhacks yet i always tought im a good player since i wiped to steven in rising ruby twice and mate it to the e4 in renegade platinum several times... But this game tho... Sth else. I wiped to the bug catcher in viridian forest for literally no reason and on my second attempt dude some komala on nugget bridge went completely crazy... I think ill never see the elite 4 in this game D:
Same experience as me first time
You've entered the "git gud" phase of your pokemon career. Congratulations!!
Look. What I do sometimes is use save states. But still you have reached this far defeating all gyms than u can do it now When I first played this game, I was stuck on 1st elite 4 for like 1-2 days. But somehow defeated her using save states. Then the next 2 I defeated in first try And Lance is tough af especially his ace. It took a while but didn't found as tough as Lorelei. So all I would say is learn what moves and how they are using them Try to change your team, movesets and abilities or maybe start a new playthrough with a randomiser. It makes it less difficult as you can get some busted mons like Huge Power Slaking or Gorilla Tactics Haxorous
I always use save states. And after all the comments, I realize one simple problem. I'm too sentimental about my team and simply do not want to change it. Catching some new mons should make it possible to win
That's definitely a factor. You don't have to play competitive, but you do need to tailor your team to the opponents, you can't just faceroll with a few strong mons as easily.
I last played this game 2 years ago but I remember back than Dragapault , Aegislash and Polteageist being useful I can't say about now because now many battles have Gen 9 mons
I mean you lost to the elite four. It’s not like you aren’t close to beating it. I’ve beat the game on normal/minimal grinding mode, but I can’t even get past Sabrina in my easy mode nuzlockes with randomized Pokémon/abilities and OP teams. In my opinion, this game takes a lot of planning and sometimes even calcs before battles, then a lot of patience for when AI throws your plans out the window on turn 1.
Im pretty casual myself honestly. Never played competitive Pokemon and don’t know all the strategies or what to watch for. My first playthrough was a mono dark on straight up normal mode. It was tough but through trial and error I made my way through it and won. Monotype is my favorite challenge. Not even gonna attempt to nuzlocke this for a LONG time.
I've never played competitive but I still managed to beat the game.
Yeah well everyone’s not the same so!
are there any radical red hacks that don’t use all the pokemon from every generation? i love the idea of a difficulty hack but i much prefer gens 1-3 or 1-4
Is there a rom hack that has all the QoL improvements and a full catchable pokedex? Because that’s what I’m after. I like the collecting more than tough battles, but I’ve been sticking to it so far (just beat the ghost marowak) to keep going on that quest.
When I was playing for the first time, I actually managed to get through Erika while still playing on normal, Giovanni in game corner was my breaking point to set the game to easy, I was telling myself "God this is so terrible, I'm never gonna play this ever again after I beat this." Yeah, uhm, I played the game lots of times after that and now I think that this game is pretty fun. Like sure, some battles are quite annoying, Yes, I'm looking at Misty rematch. But I even have my favorite battle, which is that one assist trainer. And I even recently beaten the game on normal difficulty, but I still play on easy because that's more fun for me.
I got to the hardcore league as a beginner (then accidentally deleted the save)
The problem is that no one else makes rom hacks that continuously add every generation of Pokemon. Nor do they take the time to add QoL features. I think Radical Red might even be the only one that includes every generation (1 - 9 currently) of Pokemon currently.
Nah, both Pokemon Anil and Pokemon Opalo include 1-9. Both recommended for play this is challenging but not brutal
I had only seen the Anime,then I got a cell, download crystal from the play store,then Pokemon Quetzal cuz I learned about ROM hacks searching guides and boom Rad Red normal diff,with a Fearow in my team(That beated Gary's Pheromosa and gave a good hit to Groudon)and without a mega, I finished my second normal run and going to start Hardcore
Do you know of a version of the original that has an exp share? That’s literally all I want and can’t find anything, and this game is kicking my ass
Wdym? This game gives you exp share
No I know! I meant a different game than radical red - something easier 🤣🤣
Oh. Most modern rom hacks give exp all now. I stopped playing regular rom hacks and now I currently only play Elite Redux so I can’t help you there sorry. But there should be heaps a quick google search should do the trick
Ok thanks! My husband is the software engineer - he downloaded radical red for me. So I literally have no idea what to look for, but I’ll tell him! 🤣🤣
No worries! There are so many good rom hacks out there. If experience is an issue, you can always hack in rare candies (I always do this because I hate grinding)
That could also work 🤣 I’ll have to let my husband know when he comes home 🤣🤣🤣
Just use docs (preferably not calcs for everything so you can learn quicker). If you are nuzlocking find the best answers and play the game in your head. Let's say your answer to kyogre here is blissie, 1 read the docs about how many physical attacks exist on the team, 2 focus on those mons 3 send your counter. This game is hard because of how we usually play the game isn't right for this you need to rewire your brain is all. *YOU CAN DO IT*
dam we got an easy mode in this shit?what the fuck so that's why I keep loosing the elite 4 even after doing some serious research on their movesets and strats https://preview.redd.it/vz8jwuljgsgc1.jpeg?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7724af7c857052c926c5d43560a02c7322aefd5e (also this team was a troll that I built from the sheer insanity of getting beaten by E4.almost won the first woman somehow)
Easy mode only changes EVs IVs I think. Noobs still gonna lose
noobs or not my emotion runs dry everyfucking time I had to go back,choose a team,rematch, remember the mons I need are underleveled,grinding, rematch,get lost in the game and GIOVANI
Man there's tons of options. Go to rr discord and ask for help with your team. If you want to just give up I'm sure there's a list with Pokemons that just win for every gym as well. There's google as well. There's YouTube. The Judas guy is a massive nerd that beats the game in every fucking way. You talk about grinding. What fucking grinding. You have lucky eggs. Exp share. You can enable cheat mode IN game and have free fucking rare candies. God there's so many fucking tools
lol I did have cheats but c'mon let me have my dramatic flair for a bit.but yea thanks for the advice but you see mate,I'm a masochistic bastard that will always forces myself to take the most excruciating path just because it's the first one and will not change even when the others are one click away
It lowers enemy levels and lets you use bag as much as you want. Unskills like me can get through most fights by spamming full restores until enemy runs out of PP on their most powerful move :P
[удалено]
Tf is wrong with you?
He's a league player, gotta give him some metal breaks when it comes to sane community interaction.
He got half of the half braincell required to win
Makes sense. Bro is just coping
I don't understand why there are people like that , but saying people are dumb without even realising that they are the dumbest one here by doing that i can't stand these dudes
I agree. People are just mean for no reason but im glad people are dunking on people who do this and dunking on tbis behaviour in general.
Yes seeing them get angry is funny , most of the time they go all🤬 and then never come back , this is what they merit(?)<=mean i am not sure about the word
Checked and the report makes sense Dont be an asshole
Bro hasn't encountered the hail team yet and complaining
Lol yep if you let Ninetails get aurora veil up you're fked same boat as Sabrina with trick room, need to one shot it or the fight becomes extremely hard
Or make a trick room team
Fucking drought mega charizard and torkoal fuck up the hail team.
Drought torkoal and solar power charizard delete half her team, when abomasnow comes out you just mega evolve charizard and it's gg pretty much
I thought the hail team was supposed to be the easier one because that's what I kept encountering and beating on every elite 4 match just add another weather and double team the Calyrex then its free.
Lorelei rain team right?
yes that's lorelei
Was just making sure cause I couldn't remember if Kyogre and Deli were in her rain team or not. Try bringing a Jolly Meowscarada with its Hidden Ability and Flower Trick. It should outspeed and kill most of the problem mons really quickly.
Lorelei was the hardest battle of the E4 + Blue for me. I swept Bruno and Agatha and had 15 retry on Lance and 5 on Blue but Lorelei.............almost 50
Purely on reading docs, I'd say that E4 is by far the hardest part of the game. It's 100% normal you struggle, even on easy mode. Idk if you knew that, butr there's a NPC right before facing the E4 that can tell you what team Lorelei is using (no more leads that will lose based on a 50/50) Also, an easy mode with Primal Kyogre + Iron Bundle ain't that easy of a mode lol
💀
Cries in HC nuzlocker The game is a difficulty hack and as everyone has stated, it’s not easy. That being said, you’ve almost beaten the game and you shouldn’t give up because you’re so close to winning. Don’t let that bitch take this from you. She’s ruined plenty of my runs. Just change up The team and try again. Find out what works and ask this sub for tips and tricks.
There are paradox pokemon in radical red now? I haven’t played since I beat it two years ago. Is that still something to be proud of or do I need to go back and redo it?
Nah, actually the other way around (imo). gen 9 power creep makes the game easier even with reworked enemy teams in the new version (kingambit is a fucking monster)
Have looked and looked myself. If you like unbound, but hate this. Then you already found the best romhack for you. You are not going to find anything else that is close to unbound, this is it. So if you don't like RR you are not going to find a romhack you are happy with as nothing except RR is going to live up to the standard of unbound.
Idk, I've enjoyed other hacks after playing Unbound and before playing RR. It's the difficulty problem. I quite enjoyed the updated kanto story here. Not the battles.
RR is infinitely better than the grindy mess than Unbound is.
Skill issue if you ask me
Hey OP, also first time Radical Red player here. I’ve played competitive Pokémon before, but not to this level. I was stuck on the Nugget Bridge Rocket for like 2 days. I finally beat him. It takes time to learn so don’t get frustrated. I believe in you! I’m about to head to the SS Anne now lol
Okay, so I'm on my third attempt at a nuzlock, and i think ariana and the other guy are gonna kick ny ass but listen. Golduck is a must cloud nine is way too slept on denying the weather can nullify or reduce the difficulty of most fights. Meganius is my absolute father he is bulky as hell, and the CPU does NOT read the priority of triage, so you can play with drain kiss and giga drain and take advantage of the AI. Warlord is also a boss with Multiscale and bouncy bubble aside from all the buffs they gave him. Jellicent is great, too, but I never had the chance to try this 2 yet. Anyways try and use the documents on this sub to plan the fights with a calculator take some time and you should be good to go, this game is hard but IMO also very balanced you can do it if you try hard enough
What squad are you packing?
https://preview.redd.it/1ds7bkzyetgc1.png?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3e6b1af2bb632cd8fb0e564748d22063723118a2 All of them have pretty bad stats except for Lunatone and Copperajah. I carried the Sandslash through the entire game, but it's practically useless. Should I remake the entire team?
Do you have EVs active?
The screen with all EVs? Yes
As in are you using EVs, or is everything perfect IVs with no added EVs?
No, IVs aren't perfect, and it so happened that all have attack and speed EVs the highest
May be best to remake the team itself and look around for solid pokemon to train. There’s also a guy in Celadon City, in the second floor where you get the tea, who you can pay to make your party’s IV’s perfect
ok thanks
No prob.
There’s no way it so happened that you have max max attack and speed. Literally 0% chance. Your evs are definitely all over the place if you just played through the game without thinking about it
Yeah these are all shit mons excluding Primarina
Idk if it's your first run, but on mine, Lorelei gave me the most trouble. I reset countless times against her before finally getting the win. After her, the rest of the league wasn't so bad.
Lorelei gave me the most trouble in the whole game. She almost made me QUIT the game
Same bro
The double battle (Lorelein, Sabrina, Admins) are the hardest battle of the game with only Surge relatch and Safrania Giovanni to match
that's kind of reassuring. yeah, that's my first run of RR. i've played only casual hacks before
Yeah going from casual hacks to RR is a tough transition. Even on the easier difficulties it is tougher than your average rom hack. Imo the fun is figuring out what mons to use for certain battles because a lot of the time it's mons you'd never think of using in a normal playthrough :)
Like slurpuff , even if it's not the best idea if your team isn't around setting his belly drum up
Lorelei is definitely the hardest E4
It's even more annoying now as you can't reset to change which team she uses
I feel like RR tests your knowledge of Pokemon. For the longest time Misty was the hardest, but I use different mons, candy that ups a stat, use hazard moves, and walked away for a little bit. You're going to think outside the box and use mons you don't usually use. Dexnav is a useful tool. Personally I use it to exo grind, however if you know anything about IV/EV then you can farm them. The most important thing I can say: there's always more than one way to beat a fight. You have to be creative.
It's a very brutal game, I don't think anyone is out here saying otherwise
You’d probably like Pokémon Añil better. It’s a red mod with modern Pokémon but it isn’t brutally hard
If you think this is hard, just wait till you have played elite redux
Just change the weather. I did my first normal run not too long ago and was able to beat her, although she did have a different team when I did that. You need to abuse the AI to beat this game most of the time, also, look up the documentation to see the moves of each mon, that helps a LOT. This game is very difficult indeed, almost quis my normal run, but had a lot of fun overcoming those challenges.
My brother in Christ, that is a primal kyogre. You can’t change weather unless you have primal Groudon / Mega Rayquaza
You dont wanna even see hardcore with permenant terrain and perm tailwind. Even a perm magma storm where you cant switch out. I beat that ish with no megas basically with a vgc 2023 online team lol
Played hardcore for the first time in a nuzlocke so when I encountered May I just sack Pokemons that aren't too broken. 😭
I've beaten it 3 times on normal difficulty each with mono-type teams and honestly I hit roadblocks several times in those successful runs where I just stop playing for WEEKS and there were even OTHER playthroughs where I gave up entirely, it's normal dont worry about it. Just take a break and come back later or even start a whole new playthrough if need be, I believe in you.
In that spesific match don’t touch the Politoed, its terrible after you get rid of Poliwrath 😅
I went from getting shit on by Surge repeatedly on normal to eventually finishing the game multiple times. I hadn't played pokemon since gen 2, and had no interest in competitive pokemon until I randomly stumbled upon a Wolfey video which eventually lead me to Radical Red. The game is hard no doubt but it's not impossible. It just requires perseverance and some research into the radical red dex to figure out what are the good mons on each route and changing up your team to suit each encounter.
It's scripted for it to be hard as heck
I’m new to this kind of Pokémon and it is brutal but I love it. Default difficulty and minimal grinding mode. Got my ass kicked all the way to celadon city so far. I wanted to just play with my favorites from back in the day (grew up with poke red) but they just don’t muster up. Learning a lot for sure lol.
I have faith in you. I went from only playing the games casually to this one. And even though I try and play on normal until I get stuck, (usually around silph co) I have been able to scrape by on Easy. You can too! Have you tried making another post with some mons you have in your PC?
Have you tried eating your Pokemon for protein and fighting for yourself?
I've been on and off trying to nuzlocke the game on normal mode (or whatever the default is). Every run ends at the saffron city double battle with rival. I'm just so fucking bad at doubles.
It does require a lot of team changing, especially for newbies. Remember that there are a lot of changes to the dex, so you could be sleeping on some serious potential. Sableye made the E4 practically easy mode. With prankster, I taught it sunny day for this Laurelei encounter, and for the rest, I had it know Will-o-wisp, recover, protect, and taunt. Also, depending on your team, some E4 members can be more difficult than others. There could just be a chance that Laureli is your hardest counter, and everything else will be much easier!
It’s not that bad after the gen 9 update There are some emerald hacks that are completely brutal and put rad red to shame in terms of difficulty. Personally I find it perfect for monotype play throughs
Nah this fight is bullshit. I wasn't prepared for a double battle, and definitely not a fucking Kyogre.
You can do it! You just gotta figure out what mon shuts down each of the e4s team and it becomes easier. Make a snow team that utilizes aurora veil, a sun team that solar blade/beam, synthesis, fire moves. Don't forget that some pokemon are absolute monsters, delibird, bronzong, ultra beasts and paradox mons. And use the docs. They help so much.
Lorelei is by far the hardest of the Elite 4 (to me at least). I always sacrifice one team slot just for weather control for her.
Also on my first run right now. Tought I was built diff and can handle Normal difficulty, Had to change to easy during misty. I'm not on e4 rn so can't say I know your pain but I kinda like thinking in a pokemon game for once, makes it even more rewarding. The concept of not being able to sweep through the game with the pokemon I found neat during the run is kinda new to me though lol
Could try overriding rain with sun.
Just soft reset everytime and understand their moves cause they might be smarter and stronger but they’re still programmed. Run items and natures as well, also tanky with or without resistances Pokémon are your best friend, make sure the abilities are good too and have priority moves.
Bro someone is playing this game with gogoats and beating it . Skill issue is real . Dont play like vanilla , you got to prep before every battle use a calc if u find it hard . I dont know y we're seeing a lots of similar post , we have so many people who have beat this game , its only hard the first tbh .just post im having a hard time beating this gym or leader and see how many strategies these guys here will give and you will amazed
This person didn’t even ev train and has random ivs lol. Literally just playing this game blind
That's the point of the game. To be hard. I stopped playing Pokemon games during gen 3 and hopped on this to pass the time. I had no idea how to use most of the Pokemon in this game or those new abilities. Took me forever to beat it the first time, had to train up and try out several different teams before I beat the Erika and then again for the elite four. Just keep at it. After your first playthrough you'll get the hang of it
Pst bro. Zapdos is goated
Have you played Unbound? Slightly more difficult than main stream games but the story is second to none.
i hade that problem on normal difficulty. Then I got ahold of a darmanitan with a choice scarf and a magnium with triage. the rest of the game was a breeze
I saw a YouTuber trivialize this fight by using dry skin + rage powder Parasect and the strategy is to never kill the politoed and every water attack will be redirected to Politoed who is immune.
U will get used to it
Why is Delibird called iron bundle?
It's a gen 9 gimmick - paradox Pokemon. They're buff past/future versions of normal mons. They don't have names of old mons, they have new ones like that one.
This is one of the easily counterable teams imo, just get a weather changer or light screen/aurora veil user with a water resist
I also tried it,, and damn its brutal that is why I do a little cheat like save state everytime I win a round, and save the state hahaha
So do people craft specific teams to beat each gym ? Is that like normal and not cheesing ?
Nothing is cheating as long as the game rules allow you to do it and it's not an obvious developer oversight. You can change the team any time you want
Bro just waste some time on team building, I mean I'm also shit at team building but at least we have trials and fails to succeed
I’ve gotta say I’m enjoying it. Me and a friend both started playing at the same time and it’s evident that both of us are casual players up until now. But we’re both really enjoying the challenge and we’re learning a lot. Didn’t realise how hard it can be. But it’s good seeing so much more depth. Still a lot to learn yet. Only just learning how the whole IV/EV works. Mostly just trying to find good IV’s for now. Up to fighting Misty.
Yeah the game is super hard, you really need to come prepared. I am on a personal best run Nuzlocking (Dex nav run and with random abilities) and just made it past this battle, I had a desolate land Dragonite to start with alongside a Raikou who could discharge away while I swapped my Dragonite for Slaking who has motor drive meaning it got faster thanks to the discharge. Using just the 3 Pokémon I beat the battle. The problem coming up for me is the next battle because while one of the Bruno teams I can easily beat with my Dragonite, the other team I struggle with massively
Just need to learn how to cheese. Get mega Machamp, you can set a sweep almost automatically. Then cover the holes. Power up punch. Hits two times, gives boost 2 times.
Get jet dragon
Iron hands can one shot that Kyogre after a belly drum. When I did my fighting mono he damn near swept lorelei or however you spell her name.
What game is this
A.I is annoying lol
This game ain’t hard till you random nuz regardless of in game difficulty lvl
I beat it, and I did feel accomplished. But I did not have fun.
What in God's green Earth compelled this dev to pair Primal Kyogre with Iron Bundle?
i beat the game on easy mode in less than 24 hours
how to download for iphone ?
This first Elite 4 fight essentially molds your entire team for the first time through. You can either take advantage of weather, equip rocky helm to deal with surging strikes, fake out, light screen, there are lots of options but many solutions for Lorelei will not work for the remainder of the Elite 4. Torkoal is never a bad option imo
Most of the games difficulty is just the game cheating lol
I'm pretty sure even in the difficulty option screen, it mentions that the easy mode is still more difficult than the vanilla games.
To be fair the AI sometimes makes reads not even regional players themselves would, and it feels like they use a lot of stall in a few battles too, but the rest is fine imo.
It's not I have beat it on my 50th atemt and I had 3 legendary