Gameplay Derailment / Pokémon

• The entire One Game for the Price of Two design philosophy itself essentially broke upon hitting the players from day one. Really, the trope name says it all: the developers intended it as an incentive to play with your friends, but gamers instead decided to buy the game twice instead of having to rely on someone else. This calmed down somewhat after online trading became a thing, but even today the practice is often seen as a scummy attempt to double the game's price rather than the encouragement to socialize it was meant to be.
• One strategy that works very well in almost any Pokémon game is simply using only one Pokémon in battles. While you're supposed to be using a balanced team to counter the Pokémon that are strong against your starter, by simply using the same 'Mon over and over, it becomes so powerful that even super-effective hits deal almost no damage (and that's assuming they manage to hit you at all). Not until Pokémon Black and White was this strategy finally nerfed; your experience gains are based on the level difference between your Pokémon and the Pokémon you're fighting, so training just one Pokémon isn't really viable, since they'll be getting crap Experience in no time. It's important to note that you WILL get a lot more EXP at the same level though, making getting early levels much easier. And later in the game, you can still be so overleveled that you don't NEED more... It's not uncommon to see a level 43 or so Emboar (usually used because it has a great movepool and decent all around offenses) before the fourth Gym, when the Gym Leader uses level 30 at the most. Generation VI reverted back to the experience distribution of the previous games... and introduced the Exp Share which makes it even easier to turn your party into a One-Man Army. Thankfully, Pokémon Sun and Moon gave players a compromise, with the return of Generation V's experience distribution and Generation VI's Exp Share. A One-Man Party, while still more feasible than it was in Generation V, is once again no longer viable.
  • Even then, it's still quite doable in Gen 5, for one big reason: the Lucky Egg given to you roughly halfway through the game, at which point over-leveling is likely going to be more difficult. And, either way, in Generations 5 & 7, once you get a few levels ahead of the NPCs, that's still generally enough to start snowballing, as mentioned above.
• The single easiest way to get through any game is by having a friend who has already beaten the game and is willing to trade powerful mons. The first Gym Leader's level 15 or so Pokémon aren't exactly a match for a level 90 juggernaut, are they? To attempt to prevent this, the designers include the badge system; Pokémon not caught by the player will usually ignore them (doing things like sitting around, even sleeping in the middle of the fight) if they are above the level designated by the player's badges. The problem is that: 1. the Pokémon only has to listen to the trainer once, while in the meantime the opponents aren't capable of doing anything at all thanks to the super-Pokémon's ridiculous defenses, and 2. the badge system seems to think that the Trainers are much stronger than they are (for example, getting the fourth badge makes a traded Level 50 Pokémon listen to you, whereas the final boss has Level ~60 Pokémon in an average game). Even easier is if you have a friend further in the game who has a bit of patience. Trade them your Mons and have them level them up on the higher-leveled Pokémon late in the game (along with the boosted EXP for trading), and then trade back when they're sufficiently leveled. Then you won't even have to worry about the Pokémon ignoring you occasionally, as your own will listen to you no matter which badges you have.
• If you battle competitively, RNG abuse is probably your best friend. It allows players to use computer software to do some calculations, then set their DS's game clock to the right point and locate an exact right moment to catch or hatch flawless stats and even shiny Pokémon with relative ease. And because no external devices ever touch the game itself, many players do not consider it hacking.
• Pokémon Red and Blue: The Catch-Em-All speedrun of the game has very little to do with actually traversing the world and catching Pokemon. Instead, players use glitches, underflow their items to manipulate the game's code, and for the most part force the Pokemon to come to them and then catch them with Master Balls.
• Pokémon Stadium. Go to Pika Cup with a Level 20 Charmeleon, Dratini or Arcanine that knows Dragon Rage from a TM in Red, Blue, or Yellow and see what happens. It got nerfed on Stadium 2's Little Cup, though, where SonicBoom and Dragon Rage will always miss.
• Wonder Trade in Pokémon X and Y can become this, if you get someone's level 50 or 60 mon early in the game. You will deal with the disobedience problem, but even attacking every other turn can be enough to Curb-Stomp Battle if it's a good Pokémon.
  • Far more likely, you'll get a "breeding reject"- a level 1 leftover Pokémon from someone's breeding project. These Pokemon might be species you can't get until much later in the game (or even ones that can't be found in the regional dex). Usually these mons have good Natures, perfect IVs in most of its key stats (or if you're very lucky, all its usable ones), great egg moves, great abilities (hidden or otherwise), and an experience point bonus, and they'll listen to you due to being very low-leveled on top of all that. Basically these mons are often far better than other monsters at the beginning of the game, even your starter, and may remain useful when you want to start your own breeding project much later on.
• If you're willing to shell out the extra cash for Pokémon Battle Revolution and spend five minutes finding the proper codes on the internet, you can get your hands on two free Mystery Gift Pokémon for any DS game: Electivire and Magmortar. Both came stacked at level 50 with great physical and special stats (respectively), in addition to some hard-to-get moves that between the two, covered pretty much every type in the game. The only requirements? Have a Pokedex, be near a Poké Mart, and have access to Mystery Gift, all easily done through less than an hour of playing and some more net-surfing. Oh, and, have at least four Gym Badges, or they will disobey you. Together, these two could carry you to the Elite Four, no sweat. And if you actually did some work to win at the Wii game? Say hello to surfing Pikachu!
• Inver, the Inverse battle specialist on Route 18 in X and Y and in Mauville City in Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, gives out a daily reward whenever you defeat him. The more "super-effective" (that is to say, what would normally be non-effective) attacks you pull on him, the better the prizes. Of course, since Normal type is a Game-Breaker here, one can simply spam False Swipe over and over again instead.
• The Poké Bank completely trivializes trading Pokémon. You can load up all your Pokémon from Pokémon Black 2 and White 2 and transport them into Pokémon X and Y, and your Pokémon from both games into Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, letting you start your adventure with all the freshly hatched shiny Pokémon you spent so much time breeding, or the level 10 Tornadus, Landorus, and Thundurus you can get in the Pokémon Dream Radar game. In past games, you at least need to capture a few Com Mons first just to have trade fodder to get a few of your Pokémon over. That, and the trading process itself, takes some time to accomplish. Starting the game with every Pokémon already caught, and the Oval Charm in your possession as soon as you get your first gym badge, makes things a lot easier. The only caveat is that you have to get to a PC to actually use them; while X and Y don't provide a PC until Santalune City, forcing you to go through the first couple of routes and Santalune Forest with your starter and whatever you catch, in ORAS you can get to a PC as soon as you're past the (short) first route right out of Littleroot. With the upgrade to Gen VII, you can skip Gen VI entirely and transfer monsters from a Gen V game directly to Gen VII.
  • For the competitively-inclined player, Ditto obtained from the Virtual Console versions of the Gen I and II games via Poké Transfer. Pokémon brought over this way are guaranteed to have perfect Individual Values of 31 in three random stats, and since Ditto can breed with any Pokémon that isn’t Legendary/Mythical (sans Manaphy) or another Ditto, getting your desired Pokémon with perfect IVs in all its stats is only a matter of giving one of the parents a Destiny Knot (which will pass down 5 random IVs chosen from the two) and chain-breeding a few times until you hatch it. Back in earlier generations, this whole process was FAR more tedious, time-consuming, and dependent on sheer RNG.
• Funbro, the nickname given to a Slowbro holding a Leppa Berry with the moves Recycle^note Restores a used held item, such as Leppa Berry, Heal Pulse, Slack Off, and Block, and having the Oblivious ability. Start by switching Funbro in on a defensive Pokémon lacking Toxic or Poison Fang and no Toxic Spikes on the field, or one that can't two-hit KO Funbro. Block the opponent from escaping, run their PP out while Funbro stalls, heal when they get an attack in, Recycle the Leppa Berry when it gets automatically used to restore 10 PP to any of Funbro's moves that run out of PP, and let the opponent Struggle while Funbro spams Heal Pulse to prevent the opponent from dying via Struggle's recoil. If the opponent tries to use Taunt^note Which would block Funbro from doing its key moves, it fails due to Oblivious. It turns all matches against it into an Endless Game that is not only Unwinnable, but also Unloseable (only properly ending if the Funbro player decides to deliberately throw the match), forcing opponents to disconnect to end a match and generally pissing people off. Given that the original Funbro set was devised by members of 4chan's /vp/ board, it should come as no surprise. Smogon caught wind of this moveset and quickly banned it from Pokémon Showdown entirely. To wit, here's a taste of Funbro. All 164 turns of it. Fortunately, it doesn't work in the official games starting with X and Y due to the presence of a timer.
• In Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, specifically Omega Ruby, during the end game segment, when Groudon surfaces and the sun begins beating down on everyone, the Desolate Land conditions are active until the plot resolves. This would normally sound like a pain, but it is actually great for raising Fire-type Pokemon; it is quite literally possible to surf around the entire East coast of Hoenn and battle every trainer in the water. Watch while their water-type moves evaporate in the extremely harsh sunlight, leaving your Fire-type untouched, and you mow them down with any Fire-type move of choice.

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