Admittedly, i did chuckle at that. No Xenoblade without your local lvl 80 raging King Kong somewhere in the first non tutorial area :D. Although, Slaking should be a giant Sloth and not a Gorilla, but details.
Pokemon ruby: let's give slaking and interesting mechanic in order to force the player to think how to beat it Pokemon colosseum: let's use skill swap in slaking in order to make him destroy all the opposing team
Normen also uses skill swap in his emerald rematches. By using a skill swap blissey & spinda, he's able to either give slaking serene grace OR own tempo. Serene grace making it even scarier and own tempo making it immune to spinda's teeter dance. If blissey or spinda survive after their first skill swap & traunt cycle, they're then able to skill swap traunt onto you lol
@@mertensiam3384 yep, it's his lead in every rematch team (skill swap chansey/blissey + slaking). If he gets in a situation where both blissey & spinda are on the field he'll ever skill swap pass truant from blissey onto spinda during a truant turn lol. The other rematch teams employ similar "advanced" tactics. IIRC tate & liza will use role play to copy levitate onto their few mons that get hit with friendly fire earthquakes & use wish tactics, flannery goes all-in on sun abuse, roxanne goes all-in on sand abuse, juane abuses swift swim & thunder rain dance, wattson abuses paraflinch, etc etc. They're all double battles on rematch and get progressively stronger until they have a full team of 6 elite four level mons.
@@jaernihiltheus7817 it really sucks that emerald has such a shit way of handling rematches, with all that stupid stuff of having a 33% of triggering a rematch after a set number of trainer battles and wild battles, cause I wish I could experience all this first hand without all that hassle
@@mertensiam3384 well there's this video with all of them at full power, most don't really get a good showing since the ai decided to be dumb and spam protect (also the player got insanely lucky with paralysis/freeze chances a lot). Normen gets a good showing though, bringing the player with a rayquaza down to 1 pokemon. Juan also gets to show off his perish song + double team/attract shenanigans, as does flannery with her helping hand arcanine & a full team of white herb + overheat combos: ruclips.net/video/b_TWDqjsa8g/видео.htmlsi=jbMAMdfBy1Y5b61M
The funny thing is that Shedinja was a much more conventional puzzle boss, but it went pretty much unused (the only exception is a post game Emerald Boss in the Battle Frontier)
If I remember correctly, there are a few trainers who use Shedinja in Colosseum and XD, and not exclusively in the post game either. Another reason to love those games.
I'm pretty sure the only occurence of shedinja in colosseum is the 99th battle on mt battle, because 7-year old me got very frustrated with it way back when. i dont think i encountered any others, and i 100%-ed the game. Dont remember if there were any in XD though.
I'm kind of glad because the reality of not having the Shedinja counter is the player waiting an unthinkable amount of turns to either game over or wait for the Shedinja to struggle out. Very fun gimmick though
@@NinjaskKing As someone who's done more Treecko or starter-less runs in the past 5 years than the other 2 starters, I can tell you that RSE Treecko is the worst starter (particularly in Ruby) in all of Pokemon. Even gen 5 starters that I don't find useful at all still are more useful than Treecko is in his own game. Treecko starts and faces Pokemon that are either normal, dark, water/grass, grass, bug, flying or poison type, with a few ground/bug, steel/rock and the occasional Geodude or Nosepass (there are less than 4 trainers with Nosepass in the whole game). He's neutral in 50% match-ups approx, advantaged in 10% max and at a disadvantage or hitting not very effective in 40% of the fights. Then you look at Treecko's stats and movepool. Treecko is a special sweeper with less than ideal sp atk, his atk is crappy for gen 3 that tends to have quite defensive tanks and his level up movepool is abysmal, he learns only 10-40 power moves until level 29! Stuck with absorb, the weakest grass move until 29 when he learns a 70 move with crit (but crit has been nerf hammered since gen 1 so the crit rate is barely noticeable compared with a regular crit rate move) that only has 15 PP despite being a grass move, while Slash, a normal move with the same stats has 20 uses and has better type match-ups than leaf blade. The TMs Treecko learns (well, his evolutions, since Treecko is also a lightweight and lacks the arm blades its' evolutions have) are mostly physical except for bullet seed (which isn't much better than absorb) and giga drain and most of the time you get an useful TM/HM AFTER the gym in which it would be a godsend. Then you look at synergy. Treecko's synergy is garbage. His movepool relies 90% of TMs, so he's gonna be stealing all the coverage moves if you want him to do anything but OHKO a Whiscash in the last gym. 30% of the game is water? Let's put Tentacool and Tentacruel and bird water Pokemon EVERYWHERE on these routes so that even when the grass type could be useful, he still faces lots of neutral match-ups! 8th gym is water? Let's give every Pokemon ice beam to remind the player how much better water is at everything than grass. Oh, and some water Pokemon have extremely well made movepools with moves like calm mind, while Treecko learns exactly 0 atk or sp atk raising move, so he always hits like a wet noodle. In gym 2, Treecko struggles to deal damage and takes much more than he can throw. In gym 3 he's got defensive type advantage...yeah but the enemy has 2 steel types and the only fighting move your can teach it has a wonderful...20 power. Why would you even teach rock smash to any pokemon if you weren't forced to use it to advance in the world map? You wouldn't, because strength comes right after and hits for the same damage as not very effective as rock smash when super effective, while it has 4x more damage in neutral match-ups. In gym 4 Treecko's a liability, in gym 5 he's one of the worst Pokemon to use due to his lack of damage (and he's a sweeper) and absolutely non-existent defenses and HP. Detection is the only way it can get past Norman, or dig if you want to deal 15% of Slaking's HP every 2nd turn, knowing you have 10 PP and he has 2 hyper potions IIRC. In BW, the starters suck, the best one for early is fire for type advantage but it still gets overshadowed by any other fire type that is faster than it, like the monkey (Darumawhatever) you can catch to destroy the 3rd gym while preparing it to evolve into Darumacho, a 150% better Pokemon than the fire starter could ever be (speed making Darumacho much more effective at sweeping while its' bulk is still enough to take a hit). The water starter is bland and uninteresting, a poor man's Walrein, but it's decent for a water type in BW where you barely find any decent water type that looks like something you'd like to use in combat (BW has atrocious water type designs for the 1st half of the game). The grass starter is the worst grass type in the whole game, overshadowed by 1 or 2 grass Pokemon in everything it does. Atk? Leavanny does it better with a better movepool and a second stab that can down psychic and dark types which are very common (Leavanny would be an interesting starter). Sp atk? Liligant is everything Sceptile wishes it could be as a grass type, while the 5th gen grass starter lacks any sort of offense. Tank? Good luck with that garbage HP stat and not enough def/sp def to make up for it. There's a reason so few tanks are fast: they need their stats to go to tanking and one damage stat or they're crap. Mudkip actually trivializes most Pokemon games from beginning to end, might need a generic bird to get past Treecko due to speed + 4x effective absorb/leaf blade. Mudkip is the pinnacle of water tanks, only 1 weakness that isn't very common or powerful in-game and that it can later gain coverage against. Compared with Treecko, I wish we had Torterra one generation earlier to slap the game with a tanky physical attacker in the grass starter and didn't need a full team to beat the early game when choosing it over fire or water. With stage 2 that should be ground already instead of waiting t3 for no good reason, learning magnitude at 18 would make it an awesome Pokemon and make it a perfect counter to Wattson, bringing back the grass starter to the gen 1 days where it was the best starter for the 1st half of the game (without having a team to cover for its' weaknesses) and it could even take down gym 4 alone with mid-high diff.
I do think there's one aspect of design you've overlooked somewhat. The game does convey that the upcoming boss fight will be a unique puzzle boss through the unique set up of the gym itself. Most gyms in the game are straightforward puzzles, where you find the right path, maybe hit some switches, and get to the gym leader while avoiding as many gym trainers as you can. Norman's gym is a major shift from that philosophy, you make it to the gym leader by going through a series of themed gym trainers, in rooms centered around a particular stat. If you enter the attack room, the trainer will use an X Attack and Swords Dance, if you enter the speed room they'll use an X Speed and Agility. Norman's gym is the only gym in the game where you are forced to face so many gym trainers, and you must read the signs and choose which one you fight. This is teaching the the player how to approach the puzzle. Slaking has a giant stat lead over your Pokémon, so the gym trainers encourage you to raise your own stats so that they match up to Slaking. You can use set-up moves and items on the turn that Slaking is truant like using an X speed and outspeed the next turn, or you can use defense boosting items on Slaking's attacking turns so you can live the hit and set up further, and if the player does this properly, they will have the stats to combat Slaking while having an extra turn of advantage. The puzzle isn't just about taking advantage of truant, but also about what methods you can use so your weaker Pokémon can stand up to it's huge stats.
You just reminded me about that Critical Hit room where a trainer has the Zangoose and gave him a Dire Hit and spammed Slash. That was PTSD right there.
@@TheDeathmail They won't know until facing it, that's just how boss battles in JRPGs work. But when they face a Pokemon that they can't get around or damage well, that requires puzzle thinking. If Slaking is close to the same level as your Pokemon, but you can't withstand its attacks, deal much damage to it, or outspeed it, then the natural thought process would be that there's some factor other than level at play here, and that naturally must be stats. That Slaking can only move every other turn is also a clue, most players will immediately realize that it's a drawback to offset some crazy strength, and that it's something they're meant to take advantage of. And if Slaking's stats are that much higher than your own while being at the same level, then there must be some way to make your own team capable of matching up to it. After having gone through a whole set of gym puzzles about raising stats, that idea is going to be in the player's head. Obviously the clues aren't obvious, if they were obvious they would be bad clues and it wouldn't be much of a puzzle. All things considered, it's a fairly standard method that JRPGs use to create battle puzzles. Most of them even teach the player how to take advantage of basic mechanics with a similar method (in this case, that basic mechanic is stat boosting/lowering).
At first I felt a bit of a disconnect with this video. I defeated Norman without using protect or dig strats, I didn't overlevel and I didn't have much of a problem beating him. Then, you got to the Emerald part and it clicked with me. I played gen 3 a long time ago so it was hard to remember, but I never actually played original RS games. I played Emerald. It definitely did help that I was using Torchic. Now it all makes sense to me.
Norman was one of the best examples of how close Gamefreak would get to making a fight that really had weight thanks to it's combination of battle difficulty and narrative importance. We all tend to complain about the Normans and Whitneys of the world but frankly them being difficult is what made them memorable especially when many other Gym Leaders or bosses can't accomplish one or the other. Cynthia and some of the fights in Black and White are probably where they hit their stride, they could be difficult but didn't require a massive undertaking from the player to analyze their opponent and come up with a bunch of counters, although they certainly could if they wanted to. Not to mention, fighting a Slacking is just fun, it's a very unique experience in a game that holds so tightly to it's basic mechanics that when one Pokémon comes along changes the dynamic just a little it suddenly makes it much more interesting.
I definitely agree with this. You find quirks like these in the first three gens which I find more enjoyable. I mean even the valued special splits while being good game design has come along with a streamlining of gameplay quirks. I dont have a full thought on this, but my gut feeling is that I enjoy these quirks more than a balanced and streamlined experience. Ik I come back to play gen 1, 2, and 3 the most
There are two other examples. The first one is Ultra Necrozma, who is just Slaking on steroids. A fight that really force you to strategize to get through. (All of USUM is pretty good on that regard with fights that are more interesting than usuals) The other is Challenge Mode BW2. Challenge Mode Cheren forces you to really uses all your limited resources to get through it.
Gotta say, never realized Norman was supposed to be a puzzle boss when I played those games originally. Then again, my strategy for basically every Pokemon game going back to Red and Blue boils down to "be 15-20 levels stronger than whatever you're facing".
I would argue that USUM totem battles are the best examples of more strategic fights in the series. They employ damage reducing berries, weather conditions, status effects and are rather hard to just simply muscle over because of the 2 v 1 format and the stat buffs of the totem auras. Especially Mimikyu
@@ultimaterecoil1136Not a lot of people rely on Z-moves (or conventional teams), some Totems are difficult, and can tank Z-moves decently at times. While I didn't necessarily struggle I did not have an easy time beating them with the Pokémon in battle.
@@Magma-Idiot-2001 every single one barring mimikyu can be one shot depending on the mon/move used. And mimikyu it’s not that they are bulky it’s that they just always live 1 hit.
@@Magma-Idiot-2001 not really. It’s just that some of the mons you get like the trade hawlucha for example with maximum possible attack between its iv and nature are just that strong
Now I kind of wish Pokemon games had more puzzle bosslike elements. The result of them deciding not to use them is an increased reliance on the starter pokemon, which runs as a complete opposite to the game's premise of customising your team. While writing this, I started to wonder if HMs were designed to balance this out.
I think HMs were made as a way for the player to feel like their Pokemon are helping them even outside of battles, hence why the starters can learn many of the necessary HMs At least imo
i think they moved away from such boss fights because as a game ment for kids you dont want the player to be forced down a path that they might not even know is there.
It would be cool if every gym leader used a strategy, instead of a type. So the first has a type advantage, the second uses weather teams, the third used setup moves, the fourth is toxic stall, etc.
@@MrE987 it kinds feels bleh without true themes. It's part of why I'm doing gyms with battle strats like fairy being TR the ground having a sand setter ect
Slaking always spells death... It was built for double battles... just look at the final boss of Colosseum. Slowking uses skill swap on Slaking. *Chuckles.... I'm in danger
Ah yes, the ol skill swap wombo combo. Got really into doubles in gen 6 and had a magic bounce xatu I'd use for that. Best part is when you're opponent gets preoccupied with slaking and forgets you still have a xatu that can skill swap truant on to them.
Don't forget that you can find a Sableye quite early in the game & it can learn Rock Smash & is a mix attacker. Using type advantage in RSE helps a lot against Norman.
I have never thought of Norman as a "puzzle boss" I just always thought it was.. a tough boss just because of Slaking.. like how in many platformers a boss will just try to ram their whole giant body into you and leave themselves open when you dodge.. It's funny that removing a Slaking still led to a tough fight in Emerald since.. now there are other strategies Norman uses Yeah I noticed that there are not more attempts at "puzzles bosses" in Pokemon but at least there can still be overworld puzzles.. even if they are easy for most people
Less and less though (or at least not the same way). That's my main issue with Galar. Most dungeons aren't really that notable. And even the Wild Area is pretty empty. Paldea is trying to adapt puzzles to an open world environment, and the way you get to the Legendaries are interesting for that reason
I'd say Onix kinda falls into this category too, although its solution is more general than Slaking. It's also incredibly polarizing too, depending on your starter 😅
Not as much as you'd think. I think Onix (in Gen 1 at least...) was meant to try to teach players about the difference between physical and special attacks as well as the value of spending turns not attacking thanks to Bide. Even in Gen 1, Charmander can definitely get past Brock on its own if you ignore the "It's not very effective..." text and keep powering through with Ember and use Growl on Bide turns. The puzzle aspect is actually figuring out what Bide does, because not a single NPC gives a hint about it. If anything, Brock's Onix' design as a puzzle boss is even worse than Norman's Slaking because Bulbasaur and Squirtle are so strong against it that they get to ignore the puzzle entirely.
He made a video about Brock's Onix as well. So yeah but as the point stands. Brock and his Onix are teachers about the fundamentals of the game. You could make the arguement that Norman and Slaking teaches players on how abilities can affect the battle.
I'd say they tried "Puzzle-Bosses" as a concept again in S/M/US/UM with the introduction of Totem-Pokémon. Giving them an Aura-Buff and specifically designed Helper-Pokémon to give them a 2-to-1 advantage over you can be really challenging depending on your Team & Coverage. :D Especially Ultra-Necrozma. It's super-easy to defeat with unusual & creative Strategies, like Zorua's Ability or the F.E.A.R.-Strategy. But trying to Brute-force it is painful. Speaking of it, could you make a video on those fights? Totem-Pokémon? Pleeeease?
On my blind UM playthrough, the only thing that got me through the Ultra Necrozma fight was my Alolan Muk. It wasn't overlevelled, it was just immune to Photon Geyser, not hit super-effectively by its coverage moves, and tanky enough to not go down in one hit (unlike everything else in my party at the time!)
@@polwigle Nice. :D I got completely wrecked... and you'd have to travel all the way back when you're going to switch Team-Comp Q_Q The Nuzlocke-Killer claimed so many Souls xD I mean, the fact that those Route-Bosses had competitive Teams with perfect IVs and Moves was also pretty challenging O_O (compared to the slightly weaker versions in S/M)
This is quickly becoming my favorite channel. The pacing of your videos is great, the editing is great, and the meat of the content is really interesting. If you're looking for more video ideas, how about one about the Elite 4? Namely, if they're the end-of-game bosses, its reasonable to think that the player understands type match ups at this point, so why does the Elite 4 always have single type teams? Why not have a bigger type variety of Pokemon to make for more unique and interesting challenges for the player? It seems the only time during the main campaign the player ever faces a challenging trainer using a variety of types are rival fights and champion battles. Why limit them?
Granted, part of the challenge of the Elite Four is the gauntlet. Once you begin your challenge, you can't leave to heal or switch Pokemon until your challenge concludes - be it through victory or defeat. Whereas with the gym leaders you can bring a full team of six specifically to counter them, the Elite Four require you to bring a diverse team with diverse moves to handle them and the Champion in one go. (or your level 90+ starter if you're that kind of person)
I think it would be cool if Slaking recieved a new ability, that would still hinder Slaking, as well as other future mon. My idea is something like a worse Moody, where the user starts off with its high base stats, but at the end of each turn, one of its stats randomly drop one or two stages. Then you could give it a new signature move, that behaves opposite of Stored Power, where the lower the user's stats have dropped, the more damage it deals.
Slaking on it's own it part of a class called Achilles heel mons. Archeops palafin wishiwashi and regigigas all are other ones, just only gigas is on a same degree and Palafin is just not seeming this way cause it's weakness is soo easily negated. I am making a fangame myself and want to make a new cool Achilles heel mon, but it's hard to think of cool things. Just no new ability for slaking truant is his thing
I think Game Freaks should consider perhaps maybe introducing gym leaders or boss battles whose teams do not revolve around having a particular type, but instead embody a particular competitive archetype. Staples like "Hyper offense", "Stall", "Balanced stall", "Balanced offense with defensive core", but also they should do a puzzle boss like a gym leader that uses a 6-mon FEAR team, or a baton pass chain. Could be a difficulty settings option (Classic mode or competitive bosses).
Even if i wasn't fan of "quirky" pokemon such as Slaking and Munja, back when i played sapphire for the first time, I really start enjoying them when Archeops and Golisopod came around. They're 2 of my favorites pokemon to play with. Now i consider "quirky" pokemon as the most interesting, design-wise And God, Slaking's a Gorilla ? Always thought it was a groundsloth for some reason... I was blind, but now i see !
yeah dude, when you have a puzzle boss like that, it must be well comunicated... i remember in chrono trigger there was a boss (similarly hyped up as norman), that had a gimmick where he would use an elemental attack, and then he would be vulnerable to the damage type he just used, all other damage was weak in comparison, to telegraph that, there were enemies in the section right before this fight that would swap between being vulnerable to physical damage, and elemental damage, everytime you attacked them, so you got acostumed to swaping between attacks also fun fact, that boss has 6666 hp... and i nicknamed his lair "transylvania" because spooky.
Enjoying your Videos, watching them complete until the end. The quality and time you put in them can really be felt while watching. Keep up the good work man!
Honestly, this puzzle boss would work better if the Protect TM was earned earlier and made obviously useful with a small boss that has a multi-turn setup to a massive OHKO move. That would teach the players the importance of Protect. They could also have a character say that you need to "Protect yourself" (with Protect highlighted in a different color from usual text to make it obvious how important it is) when it does its powerful move. Maybe have a tutorial that requires you to play defensively and shows you an example of using Protect and switching Pokemon to resist dangerous moves, kinda like how Walley introduces catching later on in case a player manages to get that far without catching anything. Maybe after the third gym would be a good time for this tutorial by watching Walley battle someone else, or something like that. I know Pokemon isn't really balanced around this type of play, but competitive Pokemon is, especially doubles. Maybe Pokemon should take a lesson from their own competitive scene for this
I never knew that Norman was 'the Whitney' of RSE and don't have any particularly strong memories of facing him despite never being one to really use protect etc. in a playthough. I wondered how I might have gone about it until you showed the Luxord battle, in which nearly 20 years later I still haven't learned the (KH2) mechanics of and always brute-forced it. Safe to say that's probably how I handled Norman as well. Anyway, great vid as usual.
But that's the thing about Slaking to me in the gym- there are multiple ways a game designer could have broken players out of the ways and warned the player. Emerald could have had a gym utilize rental pokemon for some rooms showing ways to potentially solve problems. A room focusing on debuffs, a room focusing on protect, and maybe a few readable scrolls highlighting Slaking's stat difference could have helped inmensely (maybe a hidden local myth about timing, and maybe with some more encouraged defensive move use at, say, Flannery). Heck, the room concept gym of rooms with varying tactics could have featured move tutors in ways the strengths of those areas could be used to beat the gym or choose your challenge (which could then make Facade "I shouldn't status this earlier but maybe it's appropriate now") with moves like Substitute, Charm, Endure, and Disable after seeing similar moves used against you (while also showing off normal type move diversity as opposed to just pokemon diversity).
I can’t wait to see your analysis on the new Pokémon in the DLC, which I won’t spoil the name of, but it’s a really strong special attacker with solid bulk, and poor speed (which can be remedied by Trick room) however, it has an ability that prevents its accuracy from being lowered, opponents evasion being raised, and allows it to hit any type. In addition, it’s signature move is a 140 base power, 100% accurate, special normal move, with the only drawback being that it may not be used back to back (but other moves may be used) I have absolutely no idea how anyone at gamefreak thought that could possibly be a good idea. It justifies TR in singles even more than ursaluna, and will be crazy good in VGC for sure.
I feel that this is moreso a competitive metagame topic compared to a game design one. Most Pokémon nowadays tend to be designed with a competitive aspect in mind compared to the past when they were designed around the in-game campaign. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, since it prevents some “useless” Pokemon from existing, but competitive play dominating so much of Pokémon’s design influence does cause the online community to dismiss the main game somewhat… This isn't to say that I can't make an analysis on the new Pokemon, but I feel that a huge part about it's design revolves around the competitive meta. And without the full context and understanding of the current metagame, such an analysis would not be fully comprehensive. I would recommend you seek out a competitive expert’s opinion over mine. I’m sure Aaron Zheng, Wolfe Glick and other VGC players are losing their mind as we speak.
I don't remember very clearly since it's been so long ago, but I think I fell into the "easy" category vs Norman. I may have been blindsided initially by his first Slaking, but between choosing Torchic as a starter and putting a lot of focus on that Torchic, I got through with minimal scarring 😅
seeing so many people claim to struggle with norman making me question why i had never considered him hard as a kid, but i realize it's because i had my own slaking and knew all about truant before the boss came, and was taken off guard at first but quickly adapted on past knowledge
Whether the Slakings are a successful puzzle box seems to come down to whether the players picked up one bad habit: Getting rid of immunity-granting moves because the impatient trainer’s “best” strategy is to strike hard and strike fast! it’s for countering kids whose strategy is “The only stat that matters is HP, and how quickly I could get yours to zero”. Except because of Facade in Ruby and Sapphire, the people who put any status other than “asleep” on a Slaking also got punished… Oh well?
Yes. This was my experience when I would play Pokémon Sapphire as a child. I just used whatever Pokémon I liked, always spent hours each day level grinding, and only cared about teaching my Pokémon the strongest and most interesting moves they can learn. I continued doing the same thing for many years. Trying to overpower major bosses, including Red, by level grinding or spamming healing items was my only way to win. I trained a Trapinch all the way up to Level 34 (one level away from evolving) to try overpowering Norman. The only problem I had with Hoenn was the lack of Ground Type Pokémon and Ground Type moves available in the early game. I did not understand how to defeat Norman back then but I did not know how to get past May (Route 110), Wattson, and Flannery either because I chose Treecko and wanted to train as many Pokémon as possible. May would have been easier if her team was at lower levels. Wattson would have been easier if his Magnemite and Magneton were replaced with Electrike and Manectric. Flannery would have been easier if I was smart enough to plan a strong team in the early game. Finally, Norman would have been easier if I trained a Breloom or a Hariyama. They also would have helped me to defeat Wattson. It never occurred to me that Hoenn encouraged the previously terrible Fighting Type to finally be part of everyone's playthrough teams because I started with Pokémon Sapphire and knew literally nothing about Gen 1 and Gen 2.
I would love to put in a boss like this in my fangame, the closest though is the fairy type gym leader, they have a trick room team, this provides the player with an interesting obstacle that can actually *punish* overleveling to a degree, this is also enabled by my game not being focused on singles so trick room is easier to setup in general. I just hope that the open world nature of my game doesn't break it.
@Dick_Faggotson judging player intelligence is impossible, but they do scale. The games story and gyms are structured in a way so each gym has it's own plotline to go with it, this way no matter what order you go the games structured like a normal pokemon game asside from wild encounters (as you beat gyms more mons are added to pools, IE Nibian swablu(regional form) you can catch on any route in the rain with a weight of 20, once you get to the point Altaria becomes logical it adds to the pool at a rate of 2 then goes up each future badge you get. This also means once you beat the E4 you can catch any mon in the wild that evolves from a different mon in the wild
This type of battle is such a good way to teach players how certain more nuanced systems work, if only Pokemon had a way to actually force the player to figure out the puzzle... Once again, the Colosseum games nailed it - their version of puzzle battles are little self-contained micro-missions that only last a few turns and start you in a fixed situation with a fixed victory condition and team of pokemon. By only being beatable with one exact 'solution' to the puzzle, they're designed to teach the player how to think differently about certain aspects of the battle system and show how 'always picking the strong move' may not be the best option.
I like Norman's original fight a lot more because it feels so much more unique. There isn't many trainers that can brute-force you down in one or two hits like Slaking does to a normally leveled team (at lv30, most Hoenn mons are in their middle stage or unevolved, which widens the stat difference even more). In contrast, Norman's Emerald fight features Spinda's Teeter Dance predominantly, which has lost me more Norman fights than I care to admit - and confusion and other status are much more widely used by trainers and wild pokemon alike. Linoone also doesn't have as much of an impact because its stats are low enough that a decent attack can usually brush it aside after Belly Drum. I'm glad you touched on the option of overleveling, because the fight seems to be placed right before many available pokemon learn Protect naturally. Volbeat, Torkoal, Pelipper and Dustox are potential users of the move, while Anorith would necessarily be too fresh a team member to have learned it without grinding despite learning the move at lv31. If you go even a bit above Norman's regular level though, the pool of level up protectors starts to widen quite a bit. Many other mons that learn the move before Lv30 are only available right after beating Norman, like the Corphish line. I think it's really cool that they seemingly made the key to this puzzle box a reward to either sticking with strange or weak picks, as a reward to leveling diligently or as a reward for being social (since trading for a Protect user does make sense with the limited availability). The Dig TM being placed shortly before the fight as a fallback that's more widely applicable is yet another touch. Speaking of, I try to play the Pokemon games with minimal grinding nowadays, specifically to play around with how the predictable experience sources (that is, trainers) and the resulting level curve interact with the rythm of adding new team members. Most games seem to work out just so that if you add 1 team member per badge, you end up right at the gym leader levels. It gave me the impression GF designs their level curves specifically only by taking the main source (trainers and a handful of encounters) into account. But as I can't be sure, I think a video on level curves and their design would be very interesting (though it is admittedly a rather unspecific topic)
I mean, that's how Slaking was intended. But as you said yourself, there's a good chance you will have a fighting-type on your team (and a rock-type as a backup), so that's always been sort of a way around the puzzle: Just punch them really hard, and potentially use a couple of potions
I remember when I first played Sapphire that Slakoth introduced me to the truant ability. I think that helped me prepare for Slacking. I didn't use protect, I used healing items.
I must’ve had a completely different experience playing these Pokémon games growing up. I just watch your Cynthia video and commented that I never had any trouble what her going in with a pretty normal team for my play style. Larrion and Hariyama were staples on my sapphire teams pretty good mon to beat Norman to a pulp with.
This was me when I played any Pokémon game for many years. I wanted the Hoenn games to be designed differently so that more Pokémon to counter the first five gym leaders were available. For example, my "strategy" for Wattson as a player that had Grovyle and other weak early game Pokémon on my team was to use Ground Type Pokémon. However, the only one available early was Geodude. I did not understand that Fighting Type Pokémon were the solution to defeating Wattson and Norman.
Another great video! Do you think you could do a video on the odd refusal by players to use X Items (or rotom slots in USUM)? Or perhaps a video on how Ultra Necrozma has caused an exaggeration in how difficult USUM is (by being a single large difficulty spike in a relatively easy game)?
Another good video. Cool to see my past comment come up, thanks! If you’re looking for new ideas I would be very interested on your take on the power creep in Pokémon. More specifically how in the early gens a lot of Pokémon were designed to be really useless (most of which have since gotten evolutions). Gen 2 often cited as the worst (although personally it’s one of my fav gens). I liked the idea that not all Pokémon are viable or NEED to be viable for a play through team and some existed purely to be found and caught for the Pokédex. Nowadays I think any new Pokémon seems designed to be capable of adding something to the E4. In short, imo gens 1-3 were more about catching them all as the ultimate goal whereas now it’s more about just choosing your favourites and playing the story through.
I don't think any pokemon were specifically meant to be useless, as the "catch 'em all" slogan wasn't even in Japan. Plus, even if they were, that's still bad game design due to the game, as much as it likes to pretend otherwise, being mostly about the battles.
@@clanedogg1 dang, forgot about delibird, but delibird is easy to obtain and they attempted to make up for its awful stats when they added abilities an official pokemon guidebook argues that unown is good because you can just catch them until you get one that has a 70 power hp type of one you need for coverage so I think the idea was that they would be very flexible but then they didn't give them stats
I feel like if Truant used Protected Slaking on its active turns, it would make for a better puzzle boss. It would be more obvious that brute force isn't the solution. Players would be incentivized to buff themselves on Slaking's active turns or take advantage of Dig on a faster Pokémon like Ninjask. It would also make Slaking much better in pvp, since it would be able to safely switch in on more things or get a free turn in Doubles.
My favorite thing about a Puzzle boss is when you are told beforehand the method to beat said boss easily but, the developers found some way to reward those who are stubborn enough to try to beat it by using conventional means. My favourite example that is fresh on my mind is in Baldur's Gate III with Grym, the protector of the Grymforge. It's a giant Robot with WAY too much HP and lvl for this part of the game (even if you do EVERYTHING in act 1 before him you will still cap at level 6, and he's level 8 with 300 HP) and he is immune to all types of damage except when he's in the Lava where he becomes resistant to half of them (still immune to another half) and weak to Blunt damages. The intended path is to force him to walk through the lava that took over the forge up to the central "anvil" and then have one of your party members activate the hammer to inflict around 150 Damage to it. But the Devs said "you know what, if you are stubborn enough to beat him without using the hammer, you'll get an achievement", so guess what I and many others did ? I had an out all this time to make the fight easier for me, but I still slugged through for a long time to really use all of my knowledge of the game systems to ensure I could beat him using only conventional means (I used only blunt weapons, Speed Potions to get 2 actions for everyone etc and in the end, I managed to beat him before he could even move. This was satisfying and it made me feel like a boss for just brute forcing my way through a boss that I know the devs originally didn't envision should be brute forced through, but due to how many people tried anyway in the Early Access, they decided to reward us mad men anyway for our dedication. That's how the endless stubbornness of humans should be handled imo
Does anyone else remember the lessons from Elm's lab in Pokemon stadium 2? They literally teach you how to do this (granted with moves rather than an ability)
I like the idea of Norman in R/S as a Puzzle Boss, and it makes me think of another Normal-type gym leader who might also be a bit of a Puzzle Boss. Lots of us found Whitney is G/S difficult because of her Miltank - big stats with Stomp, recovery with Milk Drink, and introducing Attract as a status condition. Sure, there are some easy ways around it (trade for the Machop, who I think is female), but in the same way that Norman is a Puzzle Boss introducing the complexities of Abilities, so was Whitney and the introduction of Attract status … and also the first gym leader to actually use a Gen 2 pokemon….!
part of the reason why the I generally dislike the puzzle boss aproach is that they either force you to ignore every game mechanic you have learned and used so far, basically punishing you for playing good. Or that the solution requires you to use something that you will never use again because it is only a viable option in this specific circumstance If we use at Norman as an example, the obvious solutions are Dig and Protect. Dig is a generally average move, not the worst thing you could do but not great but because it takes so long to use, using it in every other fight kills the pacing of the game, so I am unlikely to even have the move at hand. And god forbid if you have wasted your one TM at a bad Pokemon or have already had the Pokemon forget it. And Protect is a do nothing move. If you use you aren't killing the opponent, you just are preventing from being killed. However this also leads me to a point of massive respect for Pokemon. Which is that enemy bosses are just as weak to status, as any other enemy. Meaning you can use powerful options like sleep, paralisys or stat drops on them. Sure it makes almost all of them very cheesy but most games don't let you do that. I am specifially thinking of games like Persona 5 where bosses are immune to those status conditions because they would make them way too easy.
Imo a boss is supposed to challenge your knowledge up to this point. Like a test in school. So if the boss is a puzzle never before seen, isn't that unfair ? Why not have gimmick/puzzle trainer elsewhere, like the ace trainers in Alola ? How about doing a video on Claire and the challenge she represents as the final gym in Johto ? I think she's the toughest 8th leader, especially in the original Gold & Silver. Unless you made space for an ice type, her Dragonairs will paralyze you and have good coverage. Her Kingdra has one weakness you're unlikely to have, and can paralyze you with a stab, surf stab and lower your accuracy.
You know, this makes me wonder two things. 1. Do you think there's no good place to grind between Flannery and Norman because GameFreak was trying to discourage winning the fight via overpowering Norman? 2. Is the Wynaut egg given to you in Lavaridge for another unconventional option to use against Norman?
I played through Sapphire and Emerald as a child and Alpha Sapphire as an adult and never noticed these intentions. I don't even remember that the fight was particularily hard or that I had to find a strategy.
I don't like using Slaking but I love its design within the scope of what it was meant for. As a mid-game boss having such monstrous stats is scary, but having that ability is really cool to balance it and give players a chance to flex their brains and work around it
dig, fly, dive, and protect are the solutions. but i used a dif strat in oras...paralyzing the stupid thing XD though i love how normal is considered meh but is the only type to have typically have constant strong gym leaders across the board.
I suppose the game does hint at it slightly with how each room in the build up employs a specific strategy. Maybe it could have been more explicit in pointing out that this was a puzzle…. Oh well.
I can't entirely agree that being able to brute force through a puzzle is a bad idea. If anything, I'd argue that open-ended puzzles are a good idea. The issue with Norman seems to be mostly about informing the player. The Gym Guide talks about how to reach Norman but says nothing about his team. I feel like it would have been a good idea to include some blurb about keeping an eye on what Norman's Pokemon do each turn, looking for a pattern, and then exploiting it or something like that. Some sort of hint to say "hey, player, you've got a particularly tough fight ahead of you but you can make it easier if you do things the right way".
My Swampert and Blaziken ripped the Slackings new ones even back on the day. Honestly he never gave me any issues because of how often I kept fighting type moves on hand. And managing to have a Ghost Type just shuts him down entirely in Ruby and Sapphire. My "Has no weaknesses yet" Sableye took Norman's lunch money in Emerald.
The fact that Slaking can be defeated by overleveling may be a good thing. Pokémon is still a game for children also, and many children will be too dump to use strategy. But those children can just overlevel their Pokémon in order to win without strategy. If you are smart then you get rewarded by progression without grinding, if you are not smart than you just need to "hyper-train your starter" or something similar. Or at least, that may have been the idea behind it.
I definitely saw Norman as a puzzle boss due to the gym setup, but I do agree that RS Norman is polarizing, so while I do think that RS was more fun I didn't mind Emerald's change (ORAS was definitely a nerf). I really do think all of the bosses should be "puzzle" bosses so that the concept is more consistent, and I've always been of the mind that, given how VGC and other competitive formats function, instead of doing type coverage they should focus on playstyle variations and team setups.
I barely recall fighting him like 15 years+ ago. I just straight up fought him, no playing around truant because was a blind run and went perfectly fine. I don't think I ever got 'stuck' in any of the Pokemon games like ever. Maybe on Pokemon yellow where I had to retry the Elite Four?
Everyone always complains about how Pokémon doesn’t have a difficulty selection but it does Selecting your starter Can you please make a video about how their subtle and unique approach to this through starter selection is actually really genius There are other factors that go into it like gym layout and team building But starter selection on its own still works as a difficulty options in a subtle and creative way
The issue with this is that the games don't adequately explain which starter is which difficulty beyond a single obscure sentence (which doesn't even exist past gen 3) and the difference is almost all in the earlygame.
I picked Blaziken. And when I realized I was up against a Normal type gym I just used his speed and strength to spam Sky Uppercut. In other words, I had no idea Norman was supposed to be hard.
I don't remember struggling too hard with Norman... but I probably did the grind first time and later just used dig (I never used to like non attacking moves...)
the only reason I found norman quite easy during my first time playing emerald was because I had caught a slakoth early on in my run, allowing me to immediately figure out how slaking worked; precisely because I had one myself
Puzzle bosses technically exist in the Pokémon Masters mobile game. Many of the extra-difficult challenges effectively boil down to “figure out which combination of abilities the opponent doesn’t have a counter for”. The issue with this is that this is only really necessary because CPU teams have way more HP than you and are given numerous high-level abilities (far more than the one your characters can have). So it really just comes across as unfair.
I've thought about this concept of a puzzle boss concerning Brock in the first games too. It doesn't quite succeed since 2/3 starters overpower Onix with type advantage- but by using bide as a glorified counter it -could- have been used to teach players to not just attack all the time because there are other methods to utilise like growl and tail whip while it's Biding. But again I don't think this lesson really gets taught to players. I didn't start thinking about more interesting strategies until Black 2 with some of the Pokéstar Studios 'puzzles.' It's a difficult thing to teach players but teaching them more stratagies than "being stronger" is something I also wanna see in more Gym fights- and not to just rely on type advantages.
There is one other fight thats somewhat a Puzzle Boss in Pokemon Lets Go Pikachu and Eevee. Mina during a candyless run. I had noticed that at this point in the game, if underleveled, the player doesnt have access to very many moves that can damage her Mr Mime well, except Mirror Moving Psywave. Beating her rewards you with a Bottle Cap, something only experienced players would be able to utilize. If you lose to Mina, the game continues. this isnt a true puzzle boss but it was something that I had personally experienced. I've also had this experience with Sada, facing her ace, Roaring Moon with a Flutter Mane, as there was nothing on my current team set up that could answer her pokemon. There's also the fact that if you maintain lower levels of pokemon across the board, a good chunk of the game transforms into a puzzle game. Then there's Lt. Surge's Raichu in Let's go, it's is too Strong for a newly caught diglett the most part, but if you use a Sandshrew the fight becomes way easier as its defense helps it survive hits, it could be several levels below and still be a formidable answer to Raichu unevolved.
Huh thats weird because Norman's fight never really gave trouble in the two instances that ive played emerald. I actually had more issues with the psychic gym but that because i was running both blaziken and breloom on my team. I ended up using my gardevoir's calm mind and double team to cheese my way through that fight.
I had less of a problem with Slaking beating me back in the day - somehow it kept trying to use Focus Punch, which is just a strange move for it to use? But I had more of an issue actually having the firepower to beat it, so it stuck around for quite some time...
![The Reasons behind the Difficulty of Whitney's Miltank [Game Designer Explains]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/_MqYfoj5HPA/mqdefault.jpg)
![The Reasons behind the Difficulty of Whitney's Miltank [Game Designer Explains]](/img/tr.png)
![How the Elite Four Gaslights every Pokémon player [Game Designer Explains]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/6ibKcU8QWJA/mqdefault.jpg)
![What people misunderstand about the World Champion Pachirisu [Game Designer Explains]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/veQgZDiCLlg/mqdefault.jpg)
A shame that the Xenoblade thumbnail wasn't well liked, but I did manage to sneak it in as a joke.
Admittedly, i did chuckle at that. No Xenoblade without your local lvl 80 raging King Kong somewhere in the first non tutorial area :D.
Although, Slaking should be a giant Sloth and not a Gorilla, but details.
Pokemon ruby: let's give slaking and interesting mechanic in order to force the player to think how to beat it
Pokemon colosseum: let's use skill swap in slaking in order to make him destroy all the opposing team
Normen also uses skill swap in his emerald rematches.
By using a skill swap blissey & spinda, he's able to either give slaking serene grace OR own tempo. Serene grace making it even scarier and own tempo making it immune to spinda's teeter dance.
If blissey or spinda survive after their first skill swap & traunt cycle, they're then able to skill swap traunt onto you lol
@@jaernihiltheus7817 do they really skill swap truant? That's really fucking cool
@@mertensiam3384 yep, it's his lead in every rematch team (skill swap chansey/blissey + slaking).
If he gets in a situation where both blissey & spinda are on the field he'll ever skill swap pass truant from blissey onto spinda during a truant turn lol.
The other rematch teams employ similar "advanced" tactics. IIRC tate & liza will use role play to copy levitate onto their few mons that get hit with friendly fire earthquakes & use wish tactics, flannery goes all-in on sun abuse, roxanne goes all-in on sand abuse, juane abuses swift swim & thunder rain dance, wattson abuses paraflinch, etc etc. They're all double battles on rematch and get progressively stronger until they have a full team of 6 elite four level mons.
@@jaernihiltheus7817 it really sucks that emerald has such a shit way of handling rematches, with all that stupid stuff of having a 33% of triggering a rematch after a set number of trainer battles and wild battles, cause I wish I could experience all this first hand without all that hassle
@@mertensiam3384 well there's this video with all of them at full power, most don't really get a good showing since the ai decided to be dumb and spam protect (also the player got insanely lucky with paralysis/freeze chances a lot).
Normen gets a good showing though, bringing the player with a rayquaza down to 1 pokemon. Juan also gets to show off his perish song + double team/attract shenanigans, as does flannery with her helping hand arcanine & a full team of white herb + overheat combos:
ruclips.net/video/b_TWDqjsa8g/видео.htmlsi=jbMAMdfBy1Y5b61M
The funny thing is that Shedinja was a much more conventional puzzle boss, but it went pretty much unused (the only exception is a post game Emerald Boss in the Battle Frontier)
If I remember correctly, there are a few trainers who use Shedinja in Colosseum and XD, and not exclusively in the post game either. Another reason to love those games.
I'm pretty sure the only occurence of shedinja in colosseum is the 99th battle on mt battle, because 7-year old me got very frustrated with it way back when. i dont think i encountered any others, and i 100%-ed the game. Dont remember if there were any in XD though.
I'm kind of glad because the reality of not having the Shedinja counter is the player waiting an unthinkable amount of turns to either game over or wait for the Shedinja to struggle out. Very fun gimmick though
Someone who chose Treecko or Mudkip as their starter would have been wondering how the frick they’re supposed to kill that thing
@@NinjaskKing As someone who's done more Treecko or starter-less runs in the past 5 years than the other 2 starters, I can tell you that RSE Treecko is the worst starter (particularly in Ruby) in all of Pokemon. Even gen 5 starters that I don't find useful at all still are more useful than Treecko is in his own game.
Treecko starts and faces Pokemon that are either normal, dark, water/grass, grass, bug, flying or poison type, with a few ground/bug, steel/rock and the occasional Geodude or Nosepass (there are less than 4 trainers with Nosepass in the whole game). He's neutral in 50% match-ups approx, advantaged in 10% max and at a disadvantage or hitting not very effective in 40% of the fights.
Then you look at Treecko's stats and movepool. Treecko is a special sweeper with less than ideal sp atk, his atk is crappy for gen 3 that tends to have quite defensive tanks and his level up movepool is abysmal, he learns only 10-40 power moves until level 29! Stuck with absorb, the weakest grass move until 29 when he learns a 70 move with crit (but crit has been nerf hammered since gen 1 so the crit rate is barely noticeable compared with a regular crit rate move) that only has 15 PP despite being a grass move, while Slash, a normal move with the same stats has 20 uses and has better type match-ups than leaf blade. The TMs Treecko learns (well, his evolutions, since Treecko is also a lightweight and lacks the arm blades its' evolutions have) are mostly physical except for bullet seed (which isn't much better than absorb) and giga drain and most of the time you get an useful TM/HM AFTER the gym in which it would be a godsend.
Then you look at synergy. Treecko's synergy is garbage. His movepool relies 90% of TMs, so he's gonna be stealing all the coverage moves if you want him to do anything but OHKO a Whiscash in the last gym. 30% of the game is water? Let's put Tentacool and Tentacruel and bird water Pokemon EVERYWHERE on these routes so that even when the grass type could be useful, he still faces lots of neutral match-ups! 8th gym is water? Let's give every Pokemon ice beam to remind the player how much better water is at everything than grass. Oh, and some water Pokemon have extremely well made movepools with moves like calm mind, while Treecko learns exactly 0 atk or sp atk raising move, so he always hits like a wet noodle.
In gym 2, Treecko struggles to deal damage and takes much more than he can throw. In gym 3 he's got defensive type advantage...yeah but the enemy has 2 steel types and the only fighting move your can teach it has a wonderful...20 power. Why would you even teach rock smash to any pokemon if you weren't forced to use it to advance in the world map? You wouldn't, because strength comes right after and hits for the same damage as not very effective as rock smash when super effective, while it has 4x more damage in neutral match-ups. In gym 4 Treecko's a liability, in gym 5 he's one of the worst Pokemon to use due to his lack of damage (and he's a sweeper) and absolutely non-existent defenses and HP. Detection is the only way it can get past Norman, or dig if you want to deal 15% of Slaking's HP every 2nd turn, knowing you have 10 PP and he has 2 hyper potions IIRC.
In BW, the starters suck, the best one for early is fire for type advantage but it still gets overshadowed by any other fire type that is faster than it, like the monkey (Darumawhatever) you can catch to destroy the 3rd gym while preparing it to evolve into Darumacho, a 150% better Pokemon than the fire starter could ever be (speed making Darumacho much more effective at sweeping while its' bulk is still enough to take a hit). The water starter is bland and uninteresting, a poor man's Walrein, but it's decent for a water type in BW where you barely find any decent water type that looks like something you'd like to use in combat (BW has atrocious water type designs for the 1st half of the game). The grass starter is the worst grass type in the whole game, overshadowed by 1 or 2 grass Pokemon in everything it does. Atk? Leavanny does it better with a better movepool and a second stab that can down psychic and dark types which are very common (Leavanny would be an interesting starter). Sp atk? Liligant is everything Sceptile wishes it could be as a grass type, while the 5th gen grass starter lacks any sort of offense. Tank? Good luck with that garbage HP stat and not enough def/sp def to make up for it. There's a reason so few tanks are fast: they need their stats to go to tanking and one damage stat or they're crap.
Mudkip actually trivializes most Pokemon games from beginning to end, might need a generic bird to get past Treecko due to speed + 4x effective absorb/leaf blade. Mudkip is the pinnacle of water tanks, only 1 weakness that isn't very common or powerful in-game and that it can later gain coverage against.
Compared with Treecko, I wish we had Torterra one generation earlier to slap the game with a tanky physical attacker in the grass starter and didn't need a full team to beat the early game when choosing it over fire or water. With stage 2 that should be ground already instead of waiting t3 for no good reason, learning magnitude at 18 would make it an awesome Pokemon and make it a perfect counter to Wattson, bringing back the grass starter to the gen 1 days where it was the best starter for the 1st half of the game (without having a team to cover for its' weaknesses) and it could even take down gym 4 alone with mid-high diff.
I do think there's one aspect of design you've overlooked somewhat. The game does convey that the upcoming boss fight will be a unique puzzle boss through the unique set up of the gym itself. Most gyms in the game are straightforward puzzles, where you find the right path, maybe hit some switches, and get to the gym leader while avoiding as many gym trainers as you can. Norman's gym is a major shift from that philosophy, you make it to the gym leader by going through a series of themed gym trainers, in rooms centered around a particular stat. If you enter the attack room, the trainer will use an X Attack and Swords Dance, if you enter the speed room they'll use an X Speed and Agility. Norman's gym is the only gym in the game where you are forced to face so many gym trainers, and you must read the signs and choose which one you fight.
This is teaching the the player how to approach the puzzle. Slaking has a giant stat lead over your Pokémon, so the gym trainers encourage you to raise your own stats so that they match up to Slaking. You can use set-up moves and items on the turn that Slaking is truant like using an X speed and outspeed the next turn, or you can use defense boosting items on Slaking's attacking turns so you can live the hit and set up further, and if the player does this properly, they will have the stats to combat Slaking while having an extra turn of advantage. The puzzle isn't just about taking advantage of truant, but also about what methods you can use so your weaker Pokémon can stand up to it's huge stats.
This. I was thinking of the same.
Well said!
You just reminded me about that Critical Hit room where a trainer has the Zangoose and gave him a Dire Hit and spammed Slash. That was PTSD right there.
But how were people supposed to know about Slaking's stats????
Also, while those are clues, they aren't the most obvious clues...
@@TheDeathmail They won't know until facing it, that's just how boss battles in JRPGs work. But when they face a Pokemon that they can't get around or damage well, that requires puzzle thinking. If Slaking is close to the same level as your Pokemon, but you can't withstand its attacks, deal much damage to it, or outspeed it, then the natural thought process would be that there's some factor other than level at play here, and that naturally must be stats. That Slaking can only move every other turn is also a clue, most players will immediately realize that it's a drawback to offset some crazy strength, and that it's something they're meant to take advantage of. And if Slaking's stats are that much higher than your own while being at the same level, then there must be some way to make your own team capable of matching up to it. After having gone through a whole set of gym puzzles about raising stats, that idea is going to be in the player's head. Obviously the clues aren't obvious, if they were obvious they would be bad clues and it wouldn't be much of a puzzle.
All things considered, it's a fairly standard method that JRPGs use to create battle puzzles. Most of them even teach the player how to take advantage of basic mechanics with a similar method (in this case, that basic mechanic is stat boosting/lowering).
At first I felt a bit of a disconnect with this video. I defeated Norman without using protect or dig strats, I didn't overlevel and I didn't have much of a problem beating him. Then, you got to the Emerald part and it clicked with me. I played gen 3 a long time ago so it was hard to remember, but I never actually played original RS games. I played Emerald. It definitely did help that I was using Torchic. Now it all makes sense to me.
Same but I had Treecko
Fighting Norman with secptile (in sapphire) was though. Still beat him in the first try i think ; or not, can't remember really...
Well, I didn't use Dig/Protect strats, but I brought three fighting types (Hariyama, Breloom and Combusken).
I first played with oras and didnt have issues with him either, but retaliate was a huge jumpscare
Played both S and E but don't remember that they were different with the gyms.
I love the design philosophy of _"one more Slaking, just to be sure"_
Norman was one of the best examples of how close Gamefreak would get to making a fight that really had weight thanks to it's combination of battle difficulty and narrative importance. We all tend to complain about the Normans and Whitneys of the world but frankly them being difficult is what made them memorable especially when many other Gym Leaders or bosses can't accomplish one or the other. Cynthia and some of the fights in Black and White are probably where they hit their stride, they could be difficult but didn't require a massive undertaking from the player to analyze their opponent and come up with a bunch of counters, although they certainly could if they wanted to.
Not to mention, fighting a Slacking is just fun, it's a very unique experience in a game that holds so tightly to it's basic mechanics that when one Pokémon comes along changes the dynamic just a little it suddenly makes it much more interesting.
I definitely agree with this. You find quirks like these in the first three gens which I find more enjoyable.
I mean even the valued special splits while being good game design has come along with a streamlining of gameplay quirks.
I dont have a full thought on this, but my gut feeling is that I enjoy these quirks more than a balanced and streamlined experience. Ik I come back to play gen 1, 2, and 3 the most
There are two other examples. The first one is Ultra Necrozma, who is just Slaking on steroids. A fight that really force you to strategize to get through. (All of USUM is pretty good on that regard with fights that are more interesting than usuals)
The other is Challenge Mode BW2. Challenge Mode Cheren forces you to really uses all your limited resources to get through it.
Gotta say, never realized Norman was supposed to be a puzzle boss when I played those games originally. Then again, my strategy for basically every Pokemon game going back to Red and Blue boils down to "be 15-20 levels stronger than whatever you're facing".
I would argue that USUM totem battles are the best examples of more strategic fights in the series. They employ damage reducing berries, weather conditions, status effects and are rather hard to just simply muscle over because of the 2 v 1 format and the stat buffs of the totem auras. Especially Mimikyu
You just z move ohko them. It is entirely impossible for single mon bosses in gen 7 to have any form of difficulty and that includes ultra necrozma
@@ultimaterecoil1136Not a lot of people rely on Z-moves (or conventional teams), some Totems are difficult, and can tank Z-moves decently at times. While I didn't necessarily struggle I did not have an easy time beating them with the Pokémon in battle.
@@Magma-Idiot-2001 every single one barring mimikyu can be one shot depending on the mon/move used. And mimikyu it’s not that they are bulky it’s that they just always live 1 hit.
@@ultimaterecoil1136 was your team higher leveled than them, cause I remember having my ass kicked (Multiple times) to several of the Totems.
@@Magma-Idiot-2001 not really. It’s just that some of the mons you get like the trade hawlucha for example with maximum possible attack between its iv and nature are just that strong
Now I kind of wish Pokemon games had more puzzle bosslike elements. The result of them deciding not to use them is an increased reliance on the starter pokemon, which runs as a complete opposite to the game's premise of customising your team. While writing this, I started to wonder if HMs were designed to balance this out.
I think HMs were made as a way for the player to feel like their Pokemon are helping them even outside of battles, hence why the starters can learn many of the necessary HMs
At least imo
i think they moved away from such boss fights because as a game ment for kids you dont want the player to be forced down a path that they might not even know is there.
Im working on a fangame with one boss that almost functions as such
It's a trick room team
It would be cool if every gym leader used a strategy, instead of a type. So the first has a type advantage, the second uses weather teams, the third used setup moves, the fourth is toxic stall, etc.
@@MrE987 it kinds feels bleh without true themes. It's part of why I'm doing gyms with battle strats like fairy being TR the ground having a sand setter ect
It's so fun to use in gen 6 triple battles though. Provided you have the right support for it Slaking can completely wreck even a well made team.
Slaking always spells death... It was built for double battles...
just look at the final boss of Colosseum. Slowking uses skill swap on Slaking. *Chuckles.... I'm in danger
Ah yes, the ol skill swap wombo combo. Got really into doubles in gen 6 and had a magic bounce xatu I'd use for that.
Best part is when you're opponent gets preoccupied with slaking and forgets you still have a xatu that can skill swap truant on to them.
Thank god it doesn't make you redo all of the five fights before it
Don't forget that you can find a Sableye quite early in the game & it can learn Rock Smash & is a mix attacker. Using type advantage in RSE helps a lot against Norman.
Must have been a long and painful slugfest with 20 base-power Rock Smash
@@bavarian_mapping + Thief (to deal with its berry) & Rock Tomb. It was slow AF, but it was a good fight.
If you're playing Sapphire, sure. Ruby on the other hand?
@@Going4Broke2528 Sapphire & Emerald
@@Going4Broke2528only played S and E. Wonder if Mawile has been enough for R players
I have never thought of Norman as a "puzzle boss" I just always thought it was.. a tough boss just because of Slaking.. like how in many platformers a boss will just try to ram their whole giant body into you and leave themselves open when you dodge..
It's funny that removing a Slaking still led to a tough fight in Emerald since.. now there are other strategies Norman uses
Yeah I noticed that there are not more attempts at "puzzles bosses" in Pokemon but at least there can still be overworld puzzles.. even if they are easy for most people
Less and less though (or at least not the same way).
That's my main issue with Galar. Most dungeons aren't really that notable. And even the Wild Area is pretty empty.
Paldea is trying to adapt puzzles to an open world environment, and the way you get to the Legendaries are interesting for that reason
Reborn and other fangames have some sick puzzles
I'd say Onix kinda falls into this category too, although its solution is more general than Slaking. It's also incredibly polarizing too, depending on your starter 😅
Not as much as you'd think. I think Onix (in Gen 1 at least...) was meant to try to teach players about the difference between physical and special attacks as well as the value of spending turns not attacking thanks to Bide. Even in Gen 1, Charmander can definitely get past Brock on its own if you ignore the "It's not very effective..." text and keep powering through with Ember and use Growl on Bide turns. The puzzle aspect is actually figuring out what Bide does, because not a single NPC gives a hint about it. If anything, Brock's Onix' design as a puzzle boss is even worse than Norman's Slaking because Bulbasaur and Squirtle are so strong against it that they get to ignore the puzzle entirely.
He made a video about Brock's Onix as well. So yeah but as the point stands. Brock and his Onix are teachers about the fundamentals of the game. You could make the arguement that Norman and Slaking teaches players on how abilities can affect the battle.
Well always remember teddy using nose laser
Not many content creators used Slaking. Luckily Chugga gave it a big moment in the limelight
Chugga loves using the under used/appreciated Pokémon.
Aides also brought slaking up when talking about balanced hackmons due to it being op without truant
@@SporianSummiteyy fellow aides viewer
I'd say they tried "Puzzle-Bosses" as a concept again in S/M/US/UM with the introduction of Totem-Pokémon. Giving them an Aura-Buff and specifically designed Helper-Pokémon to give them a 2-to-1 advantage over you can be really challenging depending on your Team & Coverage. :D
Especially Ultra-Necrozma. It's super-easy to defeat with unusual & creative Strategies, like Zorua's Ability or the F.E.A.R.-Strategy. But trying to Brute-force it is painful.
Speaking of it, could you make a video on those fights? Totem-Pokémon? Pleeeease?
On my blind UM playthrough, the only thing that got me through the Ultra Necrozma fight was my Alolan Muk. It wasn't overlevelled, it was just immune to Photon Geyser, not hit super-effectively by its coverage moves, and tanky enough to not go down in one hit (unlike everything else in my party at the time!)
@@polwigle Nice. :D I got completely wrecked... and you'd have to travel all the way back when you're going to switch Team-Comp Q_Q The Nuzlocke-Killer claimed so many Souls xD
I mean, the fact that those Route-Bosses had competitive Teams with perfect IVs and Moves was also pretty challenging O_O (compared to the slightly weaker versions in S/M)
Came here to say this. Definitely think Gen 7 was another attempt at Puzzle Bosses in Pokémon.
This is quickly becoming my favorite channel. The pacing of your videos is great, the editing is great, and the meat of the content is really interesting.
If you're looking for more video ideas, how about one about the Elite 4? Namely, if they're the end-of-game bosses, its reasonable to think that the player understands type match ups at this point, so why does the Elite 4 always have single type teams? Why not have a bigger type variety of Pokemon to make for more unique and interesting challenges for the player? It seems the only time during the main campaign the player ever faces a challenging trainer using a variety of types are rival fights and champion battles. Why limit them?
Granted, part of the challenge of the Elite Four is the gauntlet. Once you begin your challenge, you can't leave to heal or switch Pokemon until your challenge concludes - be it through victory or defeat. Whereas with the gym leaders you can bring a full team of six specifically to counter them, the Elite Four require you to bring a diverse team with diverse moves to handle them and the Champion in one go. (or your level 90+ starter if you're that kind of person)
I think it would be cool if Slaking recieved a new ability, that would still hinder Slaking, as well as other future mon. My idea is something like a worse Moody, where the user starts off with its high base stats, but at the end of each turn, one of its stats randomly drop one or two stages.
Then you could give it a new signature move, that behaves opposite of Stored Power, where the lower the user's stats have dropped, the more damage it deals.
Slaking on it's own it part of a class called Achilles heel mons. Archeops palafin wishiwashi and regigigas all are other ones, just only gigas is on a same degree and Palafin is just not seeming this way cause it's weakness is soo easily negated.
I am making a fangame myself and want to make a new cool Achilles heel mon, but it's hard to think of cool things. Just no new ability for slaking truant is his thing
Reverse speed boost. Every turn, you get slower. Maybe attack down instead.
Oh, so a more gradual Defeatist?
I think it should be called “fatigue”
This was one of those gym fights that was hard when you were kid but then you realize how easy it is when you're an adult.
I think Game Freaks should consider perhaps maybe introducing gym leaders or boss battles whose teams do not revolve around having a particular type, but instead embody a particular competitive archetype.
Staples like "Hyper offense", "Stall", "Balanced stall", "Balanced offense with defensive core", but also they should do a puzzle boss like a gym leader that uses a 6-mon FEAR team, or a baton pass chain.
Could be a difficulty settings option (Classic mode or competitive bosses).
Even if i wasn't fan of "quirky" pokemon such as Slaking and Munja, back when i played sapphire for the first time, I really start enjoying them when Archeops and Golisopod came around. They're 2 of my favorites pokemon to play with.
Now i consider "quirky" pokemon as the most interesting, design-wise
And God, Slaking's a Gorilla ? Always thought it was a groundsloth for some reason... I was blind, but now i see !
yeah dude, when you have a puzzle boss like that, it must be well comunicated... i remember in chrono trigger there was a boss (similarly hyped up as norman), that had a gimmick where he would use an elemental attack, and then he would be vulnerable to the damage type he just used, all other damage was weak in comparison, to telegraph that, there were enemies in the section right before this fight that would swap between being vulnerable to physical damage, and elemental damage, everytime you attacked them, so you got acostumed to swaping between attacks
also fun fact, that boss has 6666 hp... and i nicknamed his lair "transylvania" because spooky.
Enjoying your Videos, watching them complete until the end. The quality and time you put in them can really be felt while watching. Keep up the good work man!
Your channel is the best discovery ever. Also, i always thought what you said on onix video. Keep the good work!
As a kid Norman was a challenge for me his slaking was like a tank. Slaking was designed to loaf around because it’s stats are insane
Honestly, this puzzle boss would work better if the Protect TM was earned earlier and made obviously useful with a small boss that has a multi-turn setup to a massive OHKO move. That would teach the players the importance of Protect. They could also have a character say that you need to "Protect yourself" (with Protect highlighted in a different color from usual text to make it obvious how important it is) when it does its powerful move. Maybe have a tutorial that requires you to play defensively and shows you an example of using Protect and switching Pokemon to resist dangerous moves, kinda like how Walley introduces catching later on in case a player manages to get that far without catching anything. Maybe after the third gym would be a good time for this tutorial by watching Walley battle someone else, or something like that.
I know Pokemon isn't really balanced around this type of play, but competitive Pokemon is, especially doubles. Maybe Pokemon should take a lesson from their own competitive scene for this
I just fought the Ghost Tera Slaking without being overleveled, and that thing was a beast.
I just caught a ghost Tera Slaking. Can't wait to put it to good use
Love how you add Ghost Trick sound effects in
Video production off the charts! Keep up the good work!
I never knew that Norman was 'the Whitney' of RSE and don't have any particularly strong memories of facing him despite never being one to really use protect etc. in a playthough. I wondered how I might have gone about it until you showed the Luxord battle, in which nearly 20 years later I still haven't learned the (KH2) mechanics of and always brute-forced it. Safe to say that's probably how I handled Norman as well. Anyway, great vid as usual.
Thank you for posting another great video, because I forgot to subscribe to you and then forgot that I forgot, but now I remembered!
But that's the thing about Slaking to me in the gym- there are multiple ways a game designer could have broken players out of the ways and warned the player. Emerald could have had a gym utilize rental pokemon for some rooms showing ways to potentially solve problems. A room focusing on debuffs, a room focusing on protect, and maybe a few readable scrolls highlighting Slaking's stat difference could have helped inmensely (maybe a hidden local myth about timing, and maybe with some more encouraged defensive move use at, say, Flannery). Heck, the room concept gym of rooms with varying tactics could have featured move tutors in ways the strengths of those areas could be used to beat the gym or choose your challenge (which could then make Facade "I shouldn't status this earlier but maybe it's appropriate now") with moves like Substitute, Charm, Endure, and Disable after seeing similar moves used against you (while also showing off normal type move diversity as opposed to just pokemon diversity).
I can’t wait to see your analysis on the new Pokémon in the DLC, which I won’t spoil the name of, but it’s a really strong special attacker with solid bulk, and poor speed (which can be remedied by Trick room) however, it has an ability that prevents its accuracy from being lowered, opponents evasion being raised, and allows it to hit any type. In addition, it’s signature move is a 140 base power, 100% accurate, special normal move, with the only drawback being that it may not be used back to back (but other moves may be used) I have absolutely no idea how anyone at gamefreak thought that could possibly be a good idea. It justifies TR in singles even more than ursaluna, and will be crazy good in VGC for sure.
I feel that this is moreso a competitive metagame topic compared to a game design one. Most Pokémon nowadays tend to be designed with a competitive aspect in mind compared to the past when they were designed around the in-game campaign.
It’s not necessarily a bad thing, since it prevents some “useless” Pokemon from existing, but competitive play dominating so much of Pokémon’s design influence does cause the online community to dismiss the main game somewhat…
This isn't to say that I can't make an analysis on the new Pokemon, but I feel that a huge part about it's design revolves around the competitive meta. And without the full context and understanding of the current metagame, such an analysis would not be fully comprehensive.
I would recommend you seek out a competitive expert’s opinion over mine. I’m sure Aaron Zheng, Wolfe Glick and other VGC players are losing their mind as we speak.
Damn that match at 3:35 seems kinda familiar... must be my imagination tho. Nice vid :^)
I tip my hat to you. From one glue sniffer to another
@@GoldenOwl_Game bless, keep on busting brother
I don't remember very clearly since it's been so long ago, but I think I fell into the "easy" category vs Norman.
I may have been blindsided initially by his first Slaking, but between choosing Torchic as a starter and putting a lot of focus on that Torchic, I got through with minimal scarring 😅
That ta gent showing an early strive tier lists is absolutely hillarious knowing how that game's meta developed
seeing so many people claim to struggle with norman making me question why i had never considered him hard as a kid, but i realize it's because i had my own slaking and knew all about truant before the boss came, and was taken off guard at first but quickly adapted on past knowledge
Whether the Slakings are a successful puzzle box seems to come down to whether the players picked up one bad habit:
Getting rid of immunity-granting moves because the impatient trainer’s “best” strategy is to strike hard and strike fast!
it’s for countering kids whose strategy is
“The only stat that matters is HP, and how quickly I could get yours to zero”.
Except because of Facade in Ruby and Sapphire, the people who put any status other than “asleep” on a Slaking also got punished… Oh well?
Yes. This was my experience when I would play Pokémon Sapphire as a child. I just used whatever Pokémon I liked, always spent hours each day level grinding, and only cared about teaching my Pokémon the strongest and most interesting moves they can learn. I continued doing the same thing for many years. Trying to overpower major bosses, including Red, by level grinding or spamming healing items was my only way to win.
I trained a Trapinch all the way up to Level 34 (one level away from evolving) to try overpowering Norman. The only problem I had with Hoenn was the lack of Ground Type Pokémon and Ground Type moves available in the early game. I did not understand how to defeat Norman back then but I did not know how to get past May (Route 110), Wattson, and Flannery either because I chose Treecko and wanted to train as many Pokémon as possible. May would have been easier if her team was at lower levels. Wattson would have been easier if his Magnemite and Magneton were replaced with Electrike and Manectric. Flannery would have been easier if I was smart enough to plan a strong team in the early game. Finally, Norman would have been easier if I trained a Breloom or a Hariyama. They also would have helped me to defeat Wattson. It never occurred to me that Hoenn encouraged the previously terrible Fighting Type to finally be part of everyone's playthrough teams because I started with Pokémon Sapphire and knew literally nothing about Gen 1 and Gen 2.
I would love to put in a boss like this in my fangame, the closest though is the fairy type gym leader, they have a trick room team, this provides the player with an interesting obstacle that can actually *punish* overleveling to a degree, this is also enabled by my game not being focused on singles so trick room is easier to setup in general. I just hope that the open world nature of my game doesn't break it.
@Dick_Faggotson judging player intelligence is impossible, but they do scale. The games story and gyms are structured in a way so each gym has it's own plotline to go with it, this way no matter what order you go the games structured like a normal pokemon game asside from wild encounters (as you beat gyms more mons are added to pools, IE Nibian swablu(regional form) you can catch on any route in the rain with a weight of 20, once you get to the point Altaria becomes logical it adds to the pool at a rate of 2 then goes up each future badge you get.
This also means once you beat the E4 you can catch any mon in the wild that evolves from a different mon in the wild
This type of battle is such a good way to teach players how certain more nuanced systems work, if only Pokemon had a way to actually force the player to figure out the puzzle...
Once again, the Colosseum games nailed it - their version of puzzle battles are little self-contained micro-missions that only last a few turns and start you in a fixed situation with a fixed victory condition and team of pokemon. By only being beatable with one exact 'solution' to the puzzle, they're designed to teach the player how to think differently about certain aspects of the battle system and show how 'always picking the strong move' may not be the best option.
I like Norman's original fight a lot more because it feels so much more unique. There isn't many trainers that can brute-force you down in one or two hits like Slaking does to a normally leveled team (at lv30, most Hoenn mons are in their middle stage or unevolved, which widens the stat difference even more). In contrast, Norman's Emerald fight features Spinda's Teeter Dance predominantly, which has lost me more Norman fights than I care to admit - and confusion and other status are much more widely used by trainers and wild pokemon alike. Linoone also doesn't have as much of an impact because its stats are low enough that a decent attack can usually brush it aside after Belly Drum.
I'm glad you touched on the option of overleveling, because the fight seems to be placed right before many available pokemon learn Protect naturally. Volbeat, Torkoal, Pelipper and Dustox are potential users of the move, while Anorith would necessarily be too fresh a team member to have learned it without grinding despite learning the move at lv31. If you go even a bit above Norman's regular level though, the pool of level up protectors starts to widen quite a bit. Many other mons that learn the move before Lv30 are only available right after beating Norman, like the Corphish line. I think it's really cool that they seemingly made the key to this puzzle box a reward to either sticking with strange or weak picks, as a reward to leveling diligently or as a reward for being social (since trading for a Protect user does make sense with the limited availability). The Dig TM being placed shortly before the fight as a fallback that's more widely applicable is yet another touch.
Speaking of, I try to play the Pokemon games with minimal grinding nowadays, specifically to play around with how the predictable experience sources (that is, trainers) and the resulting level curve interact with the rythm of adding new team members. Most games seem to work out just so that if you add 1 team member per badge, you end up right at the gym leader levels. It gave me the impression GF designs their level curves specifically only by taking the main source (trainers and a handful of encounters) into account. But as I can't be sure, I think a video on level curves and their design would be very interesting (though it is admittedly a rather unspecific topic)
I mean, that's how Slaking was intended. But as you said yourself, there's a good chance you will have a fighting-type on your team (and a rock-type as a backup), so that's always been sort of a way around the puzzle: Just punch them really hard, and potentially use a couple of potions
I remember as a kid not really doing the protect thing but using the truant turn as a free heal.
I remember when I first played Sapphire that Slakoth introduced me to the truant ability. I think that helped me prepare for Slacking. I didn't use protect, I used healing items.
By the time you get to Norman you should know about moves like protect and dig though. Even a child should get it
I must’ve had a completely different experience playing these Pokémon games growing up. I just watch your Cynthia video and commented that I never had any trouble what her going in with a pretty normal team for my play style. Larrion and Hariyama were staples on my sapphire teams pretty good mon to beat Norman to a pulp with.
Definition of insanity: doing things over and over and expecting a different result
Gamers:
This was me when I played any Pokémon game for many years. I wanted the Hoenn games to be designed differently so that more Pokémon to counter the first five gym leaders were available. For example, my "strategy" for Wattson as a player that had Grovyle and other weak early game Pokémon on my team was to use Ground Type Pokémon. However, the only one available early was Geodude. I did not understand that Fighting Type Pokémon were the solution to defeating Wattson and Norman.
Another great video! Do you think you could do a video on the odd refusal by players to use X Items (or rotom slots in USUM)? Or perhaps a video on how Ultra Necrozma has caused an exaggeration in how difficult USUM is (by being a single large difficulty spike in a relatively easy game)?
X items are very cheap in battle
Another good video. Cool to see my past comment come up, thanks!
If you’re looking for new ideas I would be very interested on your take on the power creep in Pokémon. More specifically how in the early gens a lot of Pokémon were designed to be really useless (most of which have since gotten evolutions). Gen 2 often cited as the worst (although personally it’s one of my fav gens). I liked the idea that not all Pokémon are viable or NEED to be viable for a play through team and some existed purely to be found and caught for the Pokédex. Nowadays I think any new Pokémon seems designed to be capable of adding something to the E4.
In short, imo gens 1-3 were more about catching them all as the ultimate goal whereas now it’s more about just choosing your favourites and playing the story through.
I don't think any pokemon were specifically meant to be useless, as the "catch 'em all" slogan wasn't even in Japan. Plus, even if they were, that's still bad game design due to the game, as much as it likes to pretend otherwise, being mostly about the battles.
I see your comment, and I raise you an Unown! And Delibird to boot
@@clanedogg1 dang, forgot about delibird, but delibird is easy to obtain and they attempted to make up for its awful stats when they added abilities
an official pokemon guidebook argues that unown is good because you can just catch them until you get one that has a 70 power hp type of one you need for coverage so I think the idea was that they would be very flexible but then they didn't give them stats
As a child I didn't believe in non attacking moves, eventually figured out that I needed to dig my way out
I feel like if Truant used Protected Slaking on its active turns, it would make for a better puzzle boss. It would be more obvious that brute force isn't the solution. Players would be incentivized to buff themselves on Slaking's active turns or take advantage of Dig on a faster Pokémon like Ninjask. It would also make Slaking much better in pvp, since it would be able to safely switch in on more things or get a free turn in Doubles.
Diantha is underrated
My favorite thing about a Puzzle boss is when you are told beforehand the method to beat said boss easily but, the developers found some way to reward those who are stubborn enough to try to beat it by using conventional means.
My favourite example that is fresh on my mind is in Baldur's Gate III with Grym, the protector of the Grymforge. It's a giant Robot with WAY too much HP and lvl for this part of the game (even if you do EVERYTHING in act 1 before him you will still cap at level 6, and he's level 8 with 300 HP) and he is immune to all types of damage except when he's in the Lava where he becomes resistant to half of them (still immune to another half) and weak to Blunt damages. The intended path is to force him to walk through the lava that took over the forge up to the central "anvil" and then have one of your party members activate the hammer to inflict around 150 Damage to it.
But the Devs said "you know what, if you are stubborn enough to beat him without using the hammer, you'll get an achievement", so guess what I and many others did ? I had an out all this time to make the fight easier for me, but I still slugged through for a long time to really use all of my knowledge of the game systems to ensure I could beat him using only conventional means (I used only blunt weapons, Speed Potions to get 2 actions for everyone etc and in the end, I managed to beat him before he could even move. This was satisfying and it made me feel like a boss for just brute forcing my way through a boss that I know the devs originally didn't envision should be brute forced through, but due to how many people tried anyway in the Early Access, they decided to reward us mad men anyway for our dedication.
That's how the endless stubbornness of humans should be handled imo
Does anyone else remember the lessons from Elm's lab in Pokemon stadium 2? They literally teach you how to do this (granted with moves rather than an ability)
I like the idea of Norman in R/S as a Puzzle Boss, and it makes me think of another Normal-type gym leader who might also be a bit of a Puzzle Boss. Lots of us found Whitney is G/S difficult because of her Miltank - big stats with Stomp, recovery with Milk Drink, and introducing Attract as a status condition. Sure, there are some easy ways around it (trade for the Machop, who I think is female), but in the same way that Norman is a Puzzle Boss introducing the complexities of Abilities, so was Whitney and the introduction of Attract status … and also the first gym leader to actually use a Gen 2 pokemon….!
part of the reason why the I generally dislike the puzzle boss aproach is that they either force you to ignore every game mechanic you have learned and used so far, basically punishing you for playing good. Or that the solution requires you to use something that you will never use again because it is only a viable option in this specific circumstance
If we use at Norman as an example, the obvious solutions are Dig and Protect. Dig is a generally average move, not the worst thing you could do but not great but because it takes so long to use, using it in every other fight kills the pacing of the game, so I am unlikely to even have the move at hand. And god forbid if you have wasted your one TM at a bad Pokemon or have already had the Pokemon forget it. And Protect is a do nothing move. If you use you aren't killing the opponent, you just are preventing from being killed.
However this also leads me to a point of massive respect for Pokemon. Which is that enemy bosses are just as weak to status, as any other enemy. Meaning you can use powerful options like sleep, paralisys or stat drops on them. Sure it makes almost all of them very cheesy but most games don't let you do that. I am specifially thinking of games like Persona 5 where bosses are immune to those status conditions because they would make them way too easy.
Imo a boss is supposed to challenge your knowledge up to this point. Like a test in school. So if the boss is a puzzle never before seen, isn't that unfair ?
Why not have gimmick/puzzle trainer elsewhere, like the ace trainers in Alola ?
How about doing a video on Claire and the challenge she represents as the final gym in Johto ?
I think she's the toughest 8th leader, especially in the original Gold & Silver. Unless you made space for an ice type, her Dragonairs will paralyze you and have good coverage. Her Kingdra has one weakness you're unlikely to have, and can paralyze you with a stab, surf stab and lower your accuracy.
Top Tier Editing for the intro😂😂😂
You know, this makes me wonder two things.
1. Do you think there's no good place to grind between Flannery and Norman because GameFreak was trying to discourage winning the fight via overpowering Norman?
2. Is the Wynaut egg given to you in Lavaridge for another unconventional option to use against Norman?
Golden. Absolutely golden. Also, thank you. X3 lol!
Hai, golden (owl) desu
Slakiing: Undefeatable
My Level 57 Blaziken with Sky Uppercut: *Saul Goodman 3D meme
Never had a problem with Norman, but I was around from gen 1. I guess I was a grizzled middle school veteran by gen 3. 😂
I played through Sapphire and Emerald as a child and Alpha Sapphire as an adult and never noticed these intentions. I don't even remember that the fight was particularily hard or that I had to find a strategy.
I don't like using Slaking but I love its design within the scope of what it was meant for. As a mid-game boss having such monstrous stats is scary, but having that ability is really cool to balance it and give players a chance to flex their brains and work around it
dig, fly, dive, and protect are the solutions. but i used a dif strat in oras...paralyzing the stupid thing XD
though i love how normal is considered meh but is the only type to have typically have constant strong gym leaders across the board.
I suppose the game does hint at it slightly with how each room in the build up employs a specific strategy. Maybe it could have been more explicit in pointing out that this was a puzzle…. Oh well.
I can't entirely agree that being able to brute force through a puzzle is a bad idea. If anything, I'd argue that open-ended puzzles are a good idea. The issue with Norman seems to be mostly about informing the player.
The Gym Guide talks about how to reach Norman but says nothing about his team. I feel like it would have been a good idea to include some blurb about keeping an eye on what Norman's Pokemon do each turn, looking for a pattern, and then exploiting it or something like that. Some sort of hint to say "hey, player, you've got a particularly tough fight ahead of you but you can make it easier if you do things the right way".
Love Slaking, my favorite Mon ever
My Swampert and Blaziken ripped the Slackings new ones even back on the day. Honestly he never gave me any issues because of how often I kept fighting type moves on hand. And managing to have a Ghost Type just shuts him down entirely in Ruby and Sapphire. My "Has no weaknesses yet" Sableye took Norman's lunch money in Emerald.
a third way of outsmarting Slaking is switching between 2 or more Fake Out users
Great vid!! What do you think about challenge mode in pokemon, do you think it should come back?
I can’t believe Slaking flicked off Dwayne the Rock Johnson like that.
The fact that Slaking can be defeated by overleveling may be a good thing. Pokémon is still a game for children also, and many children will be too dump to use strategy. But those children can just overlevel their Pokémon in order to win without strategy.
If you are smart then you get rewarded by progression without grinding, if you are not smart than you just need to "hyper-train your starter" or something similar. Or at least, that may have been the idea behind it.
I definitely saw Norman as a puzzle boss due to the gym setup, but I do agree that RS Norman is polarizing, so while I do think that RS was more fun I didn't mind Emerald's change (ORAS was definitely a nerf).
I really do think all of the bosses should be "puzzle" bosses so that the concept is more consistent, and I've always been of the mind that, given how VGC and other competitive formats function, instead of doing type coverage they should focus on playstyle variations and team setups.
I came for the manga images, stayed for the information
I barely recall fighting him like 15 years+ ago. I just straight up fought him, no playing around truant because was a blind run and went perfectly fine. I don't think I ever got 'stuck' in any of the Pokemon games like ever. Maybe on Pokemon yellow where I had to retry the Elite Four?
Everyone always complains about how Pokémon doesn’t have a difficulty selection but it does
Selecting your starter
Can you please make a video about how their subtle and unique approach to this through starter selection is actually really genius
There are other factors that go into it like gym layout and team building
But starter selection on its own still works as a difficulty options in a subtle and creative way
The issue with this is that the games don't adequately explain which starter is which difficulty beyond a single obscure sentence (which doesn't even exist past gen 3) and the difference is almost all in the earlygame.
I fought these Slaking the same way every time: Use Brelloom's Spore and fightning moves and have Combusken as a backup.
It's a puzzle with more than 1 solution. And sometimes, that's good. You are not forced to use a specific strategy.
I picked Blaziken. And when I realized I was up against a Normal type gym I just used his speed and strength to spam Sky Uppercut. In other words, I had no idea Norman was supposed to be hard.
Slackking with wheezing in doubles is god
I don't remember struggling too hard with Norman... but I probably did the grind first time and later just used dig (I never used to like non attacking moves...)
the only reason I found norman quite easy during my first time playing emerald was because I had caught a slakoth early on in my run, allowing me to immediately figure out how slaking worked; precisely because I had one myself
Puzzle bosses technically exist in the Pokémon Masters mobile game. Many of the extra-difficult challenges effectively boil down to “figure out which combination of abilities the opponent doesn’t have a counter for”. The issue with this is that this is only really necessary because CPU teams have way more HP than you and are given numerous high-level abilities (far more than the one your characters can have). So it really just comes across as unfair.
As a kid who, I never had a problem with Norman as I loved Aron.
On my most recent playthrough of sapphire, i was able to brute force it with a level 28 hariteyama
Yes, yes emerald Norman is kinda hard, I really had to think about the order of things, confusing and poisoning, accuracy, I love how hard it was
Damn. Now I need a video on Lenora’s hellspawn known as Watchog
Norman's RS ace is essentially free if you bring an Aron/Lairon. He'll just Focus Punch every other turn.
I never thought that he was that Hard... my "Strategy" was "Just having a Fighting-Type on the Team"
I've thought about this concept of a puzzle boss concerning Brock in the first games too. It doesn't quite succeed since 2/3 starters overpower Onix with type advantage- but by using bide as a glorified counter it -could- have been used to teach players to not just attack all the time because there are other methods to utilise like growl and tail whip while it's Biding. But again I don't think this lesson really gets taught to players. I didn't start thinking about more interesting strategies until Black 2 with some of the Pokéstar Studios 'puzzles.'
It's a difficult thing to teach players but teaching them more stratagies than "being stronger" is something I also wanna see in more Gym fights- and not to just rely on type advantages.
There is one other fight thats somewhat a Puzzle Boss in Pokemon Lets Go Pikachu and Eevee. Mina during a candyless run. I had noticed that at this point in the game, if underleveled, the player doesnt have access to very many moves that can damage her Mr Mime well, except Mirror Moving Psywave. Beating her rewards you with a Bottle Cap, something only experienced players would be able to utilize. If you lose to Mina, the game continues. this isnt a true puzzle boss but it was something that I had personally experienced.
I've also had this experience with Sada, facing her ace, Roaring Moon with a Flutter Mane, as there was nothing on my current team set up that could answer her pokemon. There's also the fact that if you maintain lower levels of pokemon across the board, a good chunk of the game transforms into a puzzle game.
Then there's Lt. Surge's Raichu in Let's go, it's is too Strong for a newly caught diglett the most part, but if you use a Sandshrew the fight becomes way easier as its defense helps it survive hits, it could be several levels below and still be a formidable answer to Raichu unevolved.
I wish they release a Hidden Ability Slaking as an event
My tip for Cynthia use a weak move before your strong move or she will heal her pokemon
I wanted to apologize because I think my last comment I left was overly mean but I am happy to say your intro to this video was much stronger!
Huh thats weird because Norman's fight never really gave trouble in the two instances that ive played emerald. I actually had more issues with the psychic gym but that because i was running both blaziken and breloom on my team. I ended up using my gardevoir's calm mind and double team to cheese my way through that fight.
I had less of a problem with Slaking beating me back in the day - somehow it kept trying to use Focus Punch, which is just a strange move for it to use? But I had more of an issue actually having the firepower to beat it, so it stuck around for quite some time...
I remember only ever being able to get past norman once as a kid only because i caught a skarmory lol
Oh great owl i humbly request you to explain what is going on with ledians base stats in a future video perhaps 🙏
Or just, gen II pokemon as a whole