These days even the kids have a balanced team because of the EXP share.
Sometimes I think it’s really ruined the new games, but then I remember they’re made for children so it’s obviously going to be balanced for them.
Exp share is great, grinding for level is boring. I can't do level grinding like i can as a kid, only got somewhat an hour a day to play games.
My Steam Deck has been monumental in letting me play games as a busy adult. I leave the thing in sleep mode. Hit the power button and I'm back to my game in 2 seconds. I need to stop, I pause it and hit the power button and set it down. No prep, no worries about save spots. No pairing controllers or finding a place to set up my laptop or anything else. Just "boom". Back in or back out of the game. I've played more the last year than I have in the previous 5 years combined.
Starting to feel the lack of time for grind myself, but there's a better answer. I can't remember which gen did it, but you were able to toggle exp share on or off. So you could choose if you wanted to grind. I'd like to see that come back.
I really want a good pokemon spiritual successor targeted at adults. Like I hope it's still cute and wholesome, just balanced for adults, and without so much hand-holding.
I've heard Palworld is really good, but also that it's more like Arc than Pokemon.
I felt like my team was a little restricted by what I could find in the first two areas of the story, but TemTem is a generally good game with all double battles.
There are a lot of monster catching games, mostly aimed at old fans fed up with the current state of pokemon. One I played and really enjoyed is called cassette beasts. You can scale the difficulty so that enemy levels scale based on your level, it's also moddable so people can add new monsters, modes, etc.
I love the new exp share. I have a one year old now, there is now chance I'd ever have the time to train up a team otherwise.
I would love an adult-balanced pokemon, whether it be a difficulty slider or full game. Closest is ROM hacking and indie games. Nuzlocking doesn't quite scratch the same itch.
I remember playing Red over and over as a kid. Eventually I stopped being interested in grinding levels and would just rush to Cinnabar Island so I could MissingNo dupe rare candies.
Even then I wouldn't balance, I'd just throw them all on my favorite Pokemon of that run and get them to 100.
All I ever needed to beat anything or anyone was my naturally leveled level 100 Mewtwo. For some reason, leveling them up through grinding made them slightly more powerful than pokemon leveled entirely through Rare Candy. And since most kids I played with used the dupe glitch to level their Pokemon with the candy, I always beat them even if they also used a level 100 Mewtwo.
It's probably due to stat exp. You gain stat points by fighting different mons up to a certain point.
Not gona lie, I still play pokemon like an 8 year old. I find some mons I like, I level them up and I just play through the game. If my party is too heavy on one weakness I might switch one or two out, but that's the extent of it and I really don't think about it much.
We were playing somewhat Ironmon-style when we were 8.
I had a Pokemon Yellow cartridge with a dead battery. So I would play until the gameboy battery died and started over each time. I remember getting to or just past Misty.
Pokemon yellow was the first Pokemon game that I played (my friend lent me the game for a weekend). Long story short, I didn't complete the game and later on I got Pokemon Blue.
Now I remember, when Pokemon Stadium was released with the Gameboy adapter, me and my friends did the fragile abomination, N64 controller, the Gameboy adapter, GameShark connected to the adapter and Pokemon (Gameboy version) attached to it. This setup was cursed, you slightly tap it and all progress disappears faster than Abra.
A real adult orders their pokemon from lowest level to highest.
Last "standard" Pokemon game played was Let's Go Eevee. The game gave Eevee an amazing moveset. I beat the entire game with just Eevee out front. With the exception of a few double battles no one else made it into the field. Up to Misty or so there was a tiny bit of challenge, but after that just Eevee one shooting everyone.
New champ Butthead didn't stand a chance.
My Drowzee I taught dreameater to just annihilated everything in its path.
