Commander

I don't know if its winnable due to me not wanting to figure out a team to counter all his strategies, but there's a very good chance it is winnable...just very hard. As for the Wide Lens+Dual Chop, yes that would make the fight harder...and easier at the same time. All you'd need to do is run a Sash Leech Seed Grass type (or Cottonee) and have a team of Magnemites so that he keeps spamming Earthquake then Fire Fang. Maybe he gets dumb and uses Dual Chop once, but due to the removal of Leftovers he'd die faster (you could also Supersonic+Sonicboom to make the battle go quicker). I'm going to keep the battle as it is in my version, but Jamak can run that strategy if he wants to. It's a losing war no matter what we do unless we just copy and paste his Episode XV team making it impossible.

Ep VII is almost done...ish. As for the Solaris fight, I don't know. I originally considered giving him a Mandibuzz but people could Focus Sash Destiny Bond Garchomp then Perish Song that thing for an easy win. You're definitely going to need a full team in the 44 range if you want to win it though. (I lost the fight if you're wondering). But yeah, I'm stuck at Aya and I need to strategize how to win this thing. Worse comes to worse, she'll be nerfed to her Pre-pre nerf difficulty (which is still quite hard). But from what I tested, I don't feel the need to nerf her yet.

Honestly, just grab a Pancham. It pretty much takes care of Cradily effortlessly. A Fire type, Fearow, and Toxic Spikes Trubbish will curbstomp her harder than Julia with a Marshtomp. The only reason people say she's hard is because of that Cradily because without it, she'd be really, really easy. Back in the days it had Curse instead of Stockpile, that thing could cut right through defenses.

Fun fact, Corey is the only Pokemon on Shade's team to have 0 friendship. Take whatever you want out of that.

Sorry to double post, but here's the link to my version of the game. Some of the trainers aren't leveled correctly so grinding before Julia will be a pain. However, Florinia to the end of Shelly should be good. In addition, the release ends after the Cain fight in Beyrl Ward. DO NOT GO TO THE ORPHANAGE AT THIS POINT!!! Shade hasn't been tested so please wait until I finish it. You can download it here. Edit: I tested it and everything seems correct.

Eh, I don't get why you people are thinking Skrelp and Grimer will be events. The three available have reasons as Nidorina and Croagunk are there to get early access to those two pokemon. Skuntank is there for a different event that includes a Toxic Orb at the end. Crobat is a mystery but likely will be in there for story purposes, but there's no real reason to include Skrelp or Grimer (they are available in the wild pretty early, not memorable, and likely won't add anything to the Corey story).

Hardcore in and of itself is just a modified version of Reborn (think of it as Rejuvenation's challenge mode). The idea here is to make the leaders challenging enough that you have to use Pokemon that are stronger than there's as well as find them so difficult you push yourself closer to the level cap and come up with plans and strategies to win. However, I can only do so much as many leader difficulties are hindered by Essential's AI being faulty and the Pokemon available. For example, Fearow is available before Florinia. That Pokemon alone is strong enough to sweep 4 of her six Pokemon. I could give Breloom a boost in speed EVs as well as T-punch, but that wouldn't be fair for the other Flying types available. I'd rather have a fun and memorable challenge over an insanely hard, grindfest that hardly resembles the leader. But yeah, Cradily has its old moveset back, but tbh, it's not going to feel nearly as threatening. I may up Florinia's difficulty a little bit though (mostly Whimsicott).

Is my game the only one that doesn't lag anywhere. But yeah, I'm kind of over the whole Forest thing at this point. The fight isn't so bad when you fight with lv 18-20, but yeah, I can understand the disappointment in decreased difficulty. The reason for its removal was to help lower the soft level cap.

Yeah...apparently, Jamak didn't run it in debug mode so every single change I recently made wasn't implemented (and he and I both did a lot). I would upload my version of it, but then you'd gain access to all the untested leaders.

That is definitely not the right battle. Actually, that's the battle I didn't want to get uploaded (glares at Jamak). Somebody forgot to switch her team around. But yeah, her team isn't too terribly difficult (and I didn't think Spearow was available that early). Your not missing much but the fight I designed was a little bit harder, but not overly difficult (it was designed for a 22-23 range). The team I used to face the real Florinia was a Pansear, Noctowl, Pangoro, Linoone, Mightyena, and Espurr. But yeah, I didn't think Fearow was available which is why I didn't worry too much about flying weakness (it probably made her a breeze). Whimsicott was kind of weak, but the other members weren't too bad for a second gym leader (imo Cacturne is a much better lead than Leavanny). She is the weakest gym leader now (but heck of a lot stronger than Reborn's version) as you could beat that one rather easily with Lv 20's. I struggled a bit and my Pokemon were in the 22-23 range which is good. Yes, Shelly is now stronger than Florinia (not by much unfortunately...due to AI). But yeah, the link will be fixed and Shelly will be in it (because I work fast). But yeah if I had to make a difficulty chart of the difficult fights they'd be: Corey (mist), Victoria (before Shelly), Corey (Field), Julia, Shelly, Taka and Zel, Pulse Tangrowth, Florinia, Scrafty Gang, and then Taka

Like everyone said, you hit F8 which will make a ding noise. To find the screencap, you go into the save file area (just look up multiple save files if you don't know how to do this). You'll need a site to upload them if you want to post them here kind of like this one here. (If you want to attach an image to a post click the tree icon above).