Amethyst and the game’s makers, when they started the Pokémon Reborn project, tried to make the game harder than the ordinary series. They succeeded, and that fact is most apparent with these particular opponents. Depending on your team build, any of the bosses could be this, but let’s not go into too much detail, and just list the particular ones that stand out even amongst their peers...
Pokémon Reborn Main Game
- The fight against Corey. His field effect, the Corrosive Field, damages every Pokémon that switches in with type-scaling Poison-type damage (so it's basically a Poison-type Stealth Rock that can't be removed). It doesn't affect his Pokémon, though; in fact, it actually boosts the power of some of his moves, such as Venoshock (essentially giving him a move with 130 base power and no drawbacks before your third gym battle). To top it off, his ace, Crobat, has a massive speed stat and can raise its special attack with Nasty Plot, giving it the power to fire off powerful moves (including the aforementioned Venoshock) left and right if it gets half a chance. It gets even worse on the story path where you out him as a member of Team Meteor; in this path, he floods the room with gas, turning the field into a Corrosive Mist Field. This field, rather than deal damage upon every switch, poisons every non-Poison/Steel Pokémon you have at the end of each turn. It also still boosts the power of his moves. Oh, and don't even think about trying to terminate the field effect, because as of Episode 15 doing so just reverts it back to the Corrosive Field.
- Shelly is the Bug-type Gym Leader. Yeah, yeah, laugh it up. Bugs are essentially the "weakest type" and all that, but... This is Reborn. Shelly gets the Forest field and her lead Illumise sets up Prankster-boosted rain, boosting her Bug-type moves while weakening Fire-type attacks, and will use Tailwind, Swift Swim, and Speed Boost to out-speed everything you can throw at her and to prevent you from burning the forest down. She also fights in the doubles battle format and abuses Struggle Bug's spread damage while punishing any special attackers. Doubles are so rare in mainline Pokémon games that you may as well ignore them, but they completely change the dynamic of Pokémon battles, which when combined with a competitive mindset for utilizing Bug-types in Reborn's ruleset will definitely catch some players off-guard.
- There is an NPC you can meet that will rant about how and why it's so difficult to beat Shelly. He rather fittingly gives you the Frustration TM.
- Your first battle with Solaris is one of the most well-known fights in the series, and arguably the Establishing Character Moment for the Team Meteor Leader is when he fights you on top of Pyrous Mountain saying he won’t need more than one Pokémon to defeat you. Yeah, he’s clearly joking... is that a level 75 Garchomp? This battle was intentionally made by Ame and the development team to be as close as possible to a Hopeless Boss Fight, and if you don’t have a very good plan for fighting him or a lot of luck with his attacks missing, you are going to be subjected to a Curb-Stomp Battle for the ages.
- In Pokémon Reborn Hardcore, his Garchomp is only level 50 ... but that's because he uses a full team, all of which have levels higher than or equal to the level cap at the time! His team is the same team you fight at the Fiore Mansion in Episode 15, and consists of a Scizor (a powerful bulky attacker that has only one weakness, albeit one that's powered up by the field), a Gyarados (a mighty offensive juggernaut that can boost its attack and speed), a Tyranitar (a massively bulky and powerful Pokemon that can also summon a sandstorm that supports his specially-built team and damages yours), an Excadrill (a crazy-strong Pokemon with great offensive coverage and that gets even faster in the aforementioned sandstorm), and a Mandibuzz (which has incredible bulk and isn't hurt by the sandstorm thanks to its ability. Oh, and the Garchomp, as mentioned above. Good luck defeating him.
- Aya, Cain's sister and the new Poison gym leader of the Byxbysion Wasteland. You fight her in a double battle, and the field for the battle is the Wasteland Field, which weakens the moves Earthquake, Bulldoze, and Magnitude (which, as they hit all Pokémon in battle, would have made the fight much easier) to a fourth of their typical damage; it also boosts her Pokémon's Sludge Wave (which hits every Pokémon except the user) and Gunk Shot attacks. Since the most common Ground-type moves are now out of the question, you might think that Psychic-type Pokémon will work better... and while they do for the most part, they usually run into trouble with her Drapion, which can ignore Psychic-type attacks and KO them with super-effective moves. Not only that, but her ace, Dragalge, is incredibly bulky specially, and most Psychic types attack using special moves. Put two and two together, and... well, you're gonna have a bad time. On the bright side, she actually gives you your badge this time.
- Serra, the Ice-type Gym Leader of Reborn, stands out among her peers. Enough that the developers had to go in and nerf her entire team to make her easier. And post-nerf, she's still one of the tougher Gym Leaders. To start with, there's her Mirror Arena, which boosts the power of many of her attacks (Signal Beam, Dazzling Gleam, etc), and also makes it even harder to hit the Pokémon on her team which have Brightpowder (which is a third of said team, by the way). Five of her Pokémon know the move Frost Breath, which always lands a critical hit, and has its power boosted by the field to boot, meaning that defensive buffs will not do you any good - but they will help her, since she has an Alolan Ninetales with Snow Warning (and an Icy Rock to boot) and four Pokémon with Aurora Veil - which doesn't need hail to activate on her Field. And boosts evasion when it activates.
- Both of the bosses fought in Tanzan Mountain are likely to drive you insane:
- First off, you have to fight a giant Steelix, which is Level 75 (a good 20 levels higher than the current cap) and is consequently packing insane defences and attack. What's more, its field strengthens Earthquake while also making it Rock-type, basically nullifying one of its weaknesses, and it is carrying a Sitrus Berry, which ensures it has even more HP. Oh, and you're stuck in the Tanzan Mountain depths until you beat it, ensuring you can't restock on items.
- PULSE Abra comes almost immediately after, and isn't much better. Its defences aren't too high, but its Speed and Special Attack are so obscenely high that it can OHKO anything it sees with Hyper Beam with impunity. Practically the only way to beat is to exploit the cool-down phase Hyper Beam provides, without it, the thing would be virtually impossible to kill. Oh, and don't even think you can turn it into a Zero-Effort Boss by using a Ghost-type, because it's packing Dark Pulse to make sure you don't exploit its Hyper Beam spamming.
- You think just because Noel is a kid and his team are all Normal-types, and because he’s not fighting you in his gym itself, that he can’t pummel you? HA HA HA—No. The Grassy Terrain of the battle heals his Pokémon every turn, which makes his typically high-HP Normal types even more of a headache to take down. Just for added pain, he has a Girafarig, Clefable, and Swellow, all of which take neutral or less damage instead of more from Fighting attacks, the traditional Normal weakness, while his Bewear has the Fluffy ability, meaning it only takes half damage from physical attacks. Porygon-Z and Cinccino bypass their weakness through being very fast. The latter comes with the horrible Skill Link ability and uses only multi-hit moves, which always land 5 times due to said ability. It's holding a King's Rock too, which means EVERY single hit of those 5-hit moves can flinch you. There's also Noel's Clefable, which enters the battle with a free Defense buff and Ingrain, healing it every turn ON TOP of the Grassy Terrain healing. Its entire strategy revolves around using Cosmic Power, boosting both its physical AND special defense to obscene levels, while healing through Softboiled. Its Magic Guard ability prevents you from simply applying Toxic to it as well. And to top all this off, three of his Pokémon have a Hidden Power attack that is Fire-type, which deals additional damage by setting the field on fire… under just your Pokémon’s feet.
- While the battle with El is entirely possible to win, it's not going to be easy - he only has one Pokémon, a level 75 Ditto... that has used its Voluntary Shapeshifting to turn itself into Arceus. Like Solaris before him, if you don't have a solid plan for surviving his attacks, you're going to lose badly. The best strategy is to have a Pokémon with Perish Song or Destiny Bond and equip it with a Quick Claw, if you don't have it, well, good luck.
- Radomus was not a particularly difficult fight in previous versions of the game, but the new Chess mechanics added in Episode 19 buff him to one of the trickier gyms. The Chess Board itself is a confusing field to get a hang of with how it now buffs every Pokémon in the party depending on their highest stat or position, and you only fight on it a few times before you're forced to face Radomus, who uses it extremely well. His lead Pokémon are 'Pawns', giving them a Focus Sash-like effect that will nearly guarantee he can set up Trick Room. This elevates his normally bulky, slow, powerful attackers like Slowking or Reuniclus to Lightning Bruiser status. His Metagross as the 'King' piece means it gets priority on all of its attacks, and his Gardevoir as the 'Queen' receives heavily buffed defenses and offense. The best strategy you can try to hope for is to utilize the highly complex Chess field for your own ends, but good luck with that.
- The Fire-type gym leader of Reborn, Charlotte, is the younger sister of Elite 4 member Laura and the Dragon Leader Saphira, and your fight with her earned its place on this page - so much that, instead of going over her specific Pokémon, we'll just describe her in general. Her Fire-type attacks are boosted by her Superheated field, which can easily become the even more advantageous to her Burning Field if she hits it with widespread Fire moves (which she has a lot of) and you don’t have Rain Dance set up. Also, several of her team members have a Grass type attack of some sort to cancel out their weakness to Water, Rock, and Ground Pokémon, and her ace, Ninetales (which is higher leveled than any of your Pokémon should be at that time) has Drought as its ability, ensuring that if you don’t end the fight or set up Rain Dance quickly, in addition to the sunlight, the field will become a Burning Field and make her even harder to beat. And just to boot, she has both a Heat Rotom and a Delphox, who respectively know Reflect and Light Screen.
- The battle with Terra in the Glitch World, which emulates the battle mechanics of the first generation. This means that the game will use the same value for both a Pokémon's special attack and special defense, whichever is higher, as these two stats were merged as the "Special" stat in the original generation 1 games. Naturally Terra abuses this and the worst offender is her high level, Assault Vest-holding Garchomp. It knows Draco Meteor, which it can spam with reckless abandon as the Special Attack drops are completely negated due to the much higher Special Defense stat value being used, no matter how low the actual Special Attack stat drops. To top it off, Dragon type moves always deal neutral damage on the Glitch Field. Her other nasty Pokémon is Quagsire, which boosts its Defense and Special Defense (and thus Sp. Attack) through its held item AND turns itself into the glitchy "BIRD" type, which is essentially a void type that has no weaknesses or resistances, thereby getting rid of its otherwise crippling x4 weakness to Grass type moves. It can use Amnesia to sharply increase its special stats, while using Recover to stall you out. Finally, its Unaware ability prevents you from brute forcing it with a sweep set-up. Due to this, it can potentially become unkillable really fast unless you land a critical hit or brought a Toxic user to the fight.
- The Team Meteor invasion of Amaria's house/gym. To start with, you have to fight two Meteor Aces, with your backup being Grass-type leader Florinia. While this isn't the worst start (both Meteor Aces are underleveled compared to both you and Florinia), she's still likely to be a worse performer than you in this fight, especially given her overall weakness to Ice. However, the next fight is much harder - a double match against Fern and Blake, and while Blake remains an Ice specialist (and has swapped out a few of his Pokémon and leveled all of them up, not to mention most of Florinia's team is weak to Ice), Fern has only two remaining Grass-type Pokémon, pretty much doing away with his former specialization entirely (and the two remaining, Decidueye and Roserade, are hardly easy enemies). This is all ended with you and Florinia (or if you beat him on Pyrous Mountain, Electric leader Julia) getting a rematch with Solaris, who previously fought you on Pyrous Mountain a long time ago now. And while this is a chance to see how far you've come, Solaris is still not going to go down quietly, and neither will his backup (a Orderly who works for Dr. Connal). Just to make this worse, while your team is healed between fights, all of your enemies are fought in order, and if you lose once, you have to start the whole gauntlet all over again.
- The final battle with ZEL starts off already difficult due to the situation you’re in (inside of a Team Meteor hideout, with all your Pokémon that aren't immune to Electric attacks probably already weakened by the electric floors dealing damage to them), meaning it’s entirely possible for you to start the fight with most of your team already fainted or low on HP if you didn’t bring enough Potions/Revives (which you cannot go back for more of) or ran out of them on the way (which is also entirely possible, considering you just fought Victoria and DJ Arclight, who both could qualify for this themselves). Their team is also everything you would expect from a Reborn boss, with the three Eeveelutions that you’ve been fighting since before the third gym joined here by an Alakazam and an Aurorus (which has Snow Warning and a Focus Sash). And their last, strongest Pokémon? A PULSE Magnezone, which has incredible Sp. Att, and the ability Levitate to cancel out its Weaksauce Weakness of Ground attacks unless you brought along a Pokémon with Mold Breaker or Smack Down.
- While not the final boss of E18, the "Gauntlet" battle fought between Amaria and Hardy is probably the toughest fight in the entire game up to that point. And it's made worse by the fact you can't change your team between fights or use items to de-level any level 91+ Pokémon. You start off by fighting a Brainwashed and Crazy Shelly and Cain at the same time in a 6 on 12 match. And afterwards, you are rendered Brainwashed and Crazy by the PULSE Hypno and fight Luna, who is a bit of a Breather Boss, relatively. And then you fight her adoptive parents Serra and Radomus at the same time in another 6 on 12, and due to the fight with Luna, might start it with at least one of your Pokémon fainted (your Pokémon who are conscious are healed between the second and third fight, but KOed Pokémon aren'tFun fact ). The Pokémon might all be underleveled compared to you, and you can access nearly every non-legendary in the game by now, but your opponents are using competitive teams and you alone are fighting off five Reborn Gym Leaders. As an indication of what you're in for, the first 6 on 12 fight opens with a Ribombee (holding a Focus Sash) using Sticky Web to slow down your team, the third fight has an Alolan Ninetales using Aurora Veil on turn 1 and both the second 6 on 6 and the third 6 on 12 battles feature a Pokémon capable of Mega Evolution each. It's 6 vs 30. Good luck.
- In Labradorra you are tasked with stopping a PULSE-Clawitzer. You have to fight through a bunch of Meteor Aces to get to it, no big deal... Upon reaching it, however, it is treated as one of Zero's six Pokémon, and it is programmed to always be sent out last. Fighting your way through Zero's five regular Pokémon is already a challenge by itself. Your reward for making it to his ace... is an encounter with one of the most destructive Pokémon in the entire game. True to its purpose, all of this draconic shrimp's attacks - Overheat, Draco Meteor, Fleur Cannon, and Origin Pulse - are insanely powerful. Given that three of its four moves lower Special Attack by two stages upon use, it would seem a viable strategy to just wait it out until its damage output has been diminished... except that this Pokémon has the Contrary ability. This means that with every use of one of these three already very powerful moves, it instead gets the effect of a free Nasty Plot. After only one such boost almost anything the player has will be downright demolished with a single attack, whether it resists the move or not. With a whole team of Pokémon guarding your right to fight it, you'll need to strategize to overcome this encounter.
- In the same city you'll eventually have a double battle with the PULSE-Mr. Mime whose barrier initially shielded Labradorra. This fight does not seem too bad, until you realise it has Wonder Guard. Naturally, it is a Dark/Ghost type, thus only leaving Fairy type moves (and status afflictions) as even capable of hitting it. Even if you do, it won't roll over easily as it comes in at level 100. Its worst trait, however, is that you fight it in a Double Battle, and it will use Entrainment on whatever Pokémon is currently out with it, granting them Wonder Guard as well. If you want to claim victory you'll have to get rid of Mr. Mime as fast as possible, or think of a way to get around the Nigh-Invulnerable teammates it has.
- The last gym leader, Saphira Belrose, isn't the Final Boss of Episode 19, but she's definitely one of the toughest fights in it. Charlotte and Laura's older sister fights you on the Dragon's Den field - and, since she's the Dragon Leader, this makes her even stronger. The field itself boosts Dragon and Fire moves, and weakens Ice attacks by half - and that's only the start of your problems. Half of her Pokémon are psuedo-legendary Pokémon, and her Signature Mon, Dragonite, is Level 100. She's also got a Noivern that boosts its Special Attack after entering the battlefield with a Seed (and boosts its Fire moves even further), plus a Haxorus and a Mega Charizard X. Fighting her is going to take either a lot of attempts, some very overpowered Pokémon (you can access literally every non-Legendary Pokémon up through Generation 7 at this point), changing the terrain, or Dragon types of your own. Do your best - it won't be easy.
- After Saphira, you get to fight Terra. And, because she's Terra, she makes things ridiculously hard by deleting your fonts. That is, you get to fight Terra without any text on the screen. No Pokémon names, no moves, nothing telling you how effective an attack was or wasn't, no item names, nothing. Hopefully, you can remember where everything is or remember what item corresponds to what picture. Good luck!
- Fittingly, since he's your most hostile rival, at the end of Victory Road you get to have one last battle with Fern - and it's a doozy. Half of his team is meant to take advantage of the Crystal Cave field you fight on - and the Contrary-wielding Serperior, Z-Move using Decidueye, and Mega Scizor, who aren't, are still not pushovers. Oh - and his team has the Pulse-2 as well, meaning they have the highest possible values in every stat.
Pokémon Reborn Postgame
- The Jirachi quest has - drumroll, please - a second Gauntlet. Yeah. After entering the New World and finding yourself in the Orphanage and getting a look at Sigmund's and Euphie's pasts, you are entered into a series of 12v12 battles on the Psychic Terrain. First, you fight Anna and Noel as a team, and they carry three Legendary Pokémon in total between them - both forms of Meloetta and a Diancie. Next up, you have to fight Laura and Charlotte at the same time under a Drought-induced Sunny Day (which makes Laura's Pokémon insanely fast), and have to deal with the Heat Wave spam from Charlotte's gym all over again, this time with her sister backing her up (did we mention Laura has a Celebi, a Magearna, and gave her Lilligant a Seed that essentially acts as a free Nasty Plot?) Finally, you fight Lin - yes, that Lin. Her team consists of Pokémon she stole from the staff, including several Togekiss, a Mega Alakazam, a Blissey and Chansey, among others. This fight is actually designed to be intentionally annoying too, as it revolves around flinch and evasion spam. While your partner, Euphie AKA Shade the Ghost Leader, isn't too bad, his team isn't by any means meant for the field you're fighting on, and the people you're facing are. Two gym leaders, two Elite Four members, and the boss of Team Meteor. Having flashbacks yet?
- The Magearna quest has you and Pokémon Rejuvenation character Flora going up against the Elite Four for a rematch. And while you've obviously beaten them by now, Round Two is going to give you issues - Flora only uses Grass types, and Heather and Bennett respectively specialize in Flying/Poison and Bug/Fire types. Plus, they're all double battles, and you can only select three Pokémon alongside Flora's selected three Pokémon, to keep to the 6 vs 6 requirement. And - well, literally every member of the Elite Four has at least one type that resists Grass. Whoof.
- The Shaymin quest has a particularly nasty battle against Ms. Craudburry, of all people. The fight itself is actually pretty easy since her team itself is not strong in any particular way; the main issue comes from the fact that to progress with the quest you have to level the Flower Garden field that the battle takes place on all the way up to level 5... And Craudburry's team is tailor-made to make this task as tediously complicated as possible. It doesn't help that if the field is changed into any other, even temporarily like the Rainbow or the Burning ones, it gets reset all the way back to level 1. So not only do you have to work your way towards leveling up the field itself, already a difficult task to do in a battle without a team made to take advantage of that field specifically, you also have to make sure Craudburry doesn't destroy it in the process. You can fight her as many times as you need to, but be prepared to have a lot of headaches on the way.
- The ending of the Zekrom-Reshiram-Kyurem quests has you fighting alongside Taka or Zero - versus 2 12v12 matches. You'll have less trouble if you're on the Reshiram route and defeated Solaris the first time, but either way, half of the 24 Pokémon you're going up against are Legendary, and the weather is permanently set to be Hail regardless of what the field is. Oh, and you can't save in between (but your Pokémon are healed). Good luck!
- Groudon/Kyogre is a major pain from start to finish. You have to first complete the Rayquaza quest, itself a tough fight and a roaming Pokémon quest. The actual fight to obtain Groudon/Kyogre proves to be the worst part about the whole quest, though - you'll be forced into a gauntlet of two 6v12s against Umbral Titania/Amaria, then one of the girls and their respective legends depending on relationship values and postgame route. The first fight is not terribly difficult, but it's there to soften you up for the real hell that is the second fight. The typical bullshit, like near max levels and the Umbral trainer being PULSE2, is already in play. Kyogre fights on the incredibly irritating speed-cutting Water Surface Field with 12 Pokémon ready to abuse the absolute hell out of it, and can drag you Underwater to make it even more lopsided. Groudon, meanwhile, fights on the Grassy Terrain, with sun, Chlorophyll users, super-bulky legends, and the ability to easily transition it to a Burning Field which makes the power of the Fire type moves used against you skyrocket especially if sun is still up. Even worse, on Anna's route, you only get a partial heal (no revived Pokémon or PP heals) between said fights, and can't save between them no matter what. At the very least, the legend you don't fight in this gauntlet is just a normal battle.
- The Mew and Mewtwo quest ends with a 6v12 battle against the Anomaly versions of said legends. The format of the fight isn't new by this point, but this is the first time that it's made blatantly completely unfair against the player, no level nerfs for the enemy, no IV nerfs, no easy or weak Pokémon that you can keep out on the field while whittling away at the other side, nothing. There are no less than 10 legendaries to defeat here, several of them Uber-tier, along with a Kommonium-Z Kommo-o and Tyranitar, all at the level cap of 145, all with perfect EVs/IVs, every single one capable of hitting like a truck. And of course, it's finished off with both PULSE2 Mega Mewtwo X and Y, already two of the most powerful Pokémon in the game with maxed out EVs in every stat.
- The True Final Boss of the game, Anna or Lin, depending on your postgame route, qualifies. Like the above Glass Factory and Jirachi quest, you will face a gauntlet of three battles in a row, this time as 6v6s. Unlike those battles, you receive zero healing throughout the entire thing. In case you thought the opponents would be easier to compensate, everything is at the max level, everything has PULSE2 and thus has the highest stats in every category possible, you'll be facing around a dozen legendaries on either route, and the fights take place on some of the roughest fields in the game like Glitch or New World. To cap it all off, the final fight is against Anomaly PULSE-Arceus, who sports a full team of legendaries, including the absurdly powerful PULSE-Arceus itself. On Lin's route, the game will give it a near-guaranteed double heaping of omniboosts using a Cresselia beforehand, and on Anna's route it becomes a typeless defensive behemoth that can spam Overheats and Roar of Times due to the Glitch Field's properties. The one saving grace is that you have access to every single Pokémon in the game bar Arceus itself, but this is regardless easily one of if not the hardest challenge in the entire game.
