Personthing

Some of the things that really make Typhlosion good in this game is that it learns multi target hitting fire type moves which destroy a number of fields and replaces them with the burning field, which completely trivializes bosses like Noel (Cal and Charlotte too if it has Flash Fire, but with the move re-learner being made later it can't do this for Shelly anymore), and the fact that there are quite a few boss fights which are double battles rather than single battles, which allows it to often OHKO or severely weaken two Pokemon on the enemy team with Eruption. In the context of Reborn, I'd honestly rank it within the top 5 starter Pokemon.

I'd say In Reborn, Stoutland is one of the best normal types available to the player. Lillipup comes very early and is quite strong for the early game when it evolves into Herdier (and it's pretty easy to have a Stoutland before Shelly). Stoutland has pretty good stats overall, and has pretty decent coverage in it's moves. I'd argue it doesn't even fall off in the later sections of the game.

Yeah, even with Protean, Greninja's movepool is very lacking until it has access to a lot of TMs. It may be Uber tier in competitive Pokemon, but in Reborn I'd rank it as a mediocre water starter.

I beat Arceus by giving a Pokemon with thunder wave the focus sash you can find underneath the grand gate stairs when going to rescue Victoria. I have it spam thunder wave until El runs out of full heals. Then it just comes down to brute force.

In my first playthrough, I was hardly exploring so my team ended up being Typhlosion, Swampert, Honchkrow, Mightyena, and two random fodder pokemon. Let's just say Mightyena put in a lot more work than a Mightyena should ever have any right to.

I'm a bit surprised that Shofu had so much trouble with Blake, although the RNG really was against him the whole time. Ah well, now on to Terra the terrible!

Yeah, I think that Shelly's field effect only amplifies her weakness to fire. I mean it's sort of useful to her, but any fire type completely nullifies any advantages it gives her. Speaking of fire types, I think Noel needs a new field effect. I know he likes the passive healing, but his field effect gives him both weaknesses to grass and fire, while doing little to help him against fighting types.

Typhlosion is my favorite Pokemon, so it's pretty obvious which one I voted. Plus I feel Typhlosion really benefits from the field effects, more so than the likes of Charizard. Feraligatr is my favorite water type, but whenever I don't feel like messing around with saves to give myself a Totodile egg, I use Mudkip as my water type in Reborn, so Mudkip gets a third.

Yeah, I was always kind of bothered by her having two Ninetales. Charlotte was also completely lacking in physical attackers as well, so I think Darmanitan was a good addition to her team.

Wow... With how much Shofu's struggled with the other puzzles, I'm impressed that he got by Blake's password puzzle relatively quickly.

Intimidate Stoutland + Baby Doll eyes. Then it just became a stall fest.

Yes you can modify the sprites. For example, I gave all of Vero's sprites blonde hair because I have blonde hair.

I both look forward to and dread future episodes of Shofu's reborn playthrough. Holy crap the comment section gets really heated. (Was just participating in a rather volatile debate)

With the way he's whining about field effects that can be figured out with basic common sense, I'm sort of anticipating a rage quit, or at least a ton of frustration and reluctance.

I understand where their complaints come from, but for the most part they are judging without even attempting to learn new mechanics. Even Shofu is doing this, immediately dismissing the field effects as stupid and having no place in a Pokemon game. This isn't some massive test (as Shofu repeatedly calls the field effects), it's just a new game mechanic to learn, which unless I'm mistaken, learning the basics of the mechanics is part of playing any game. They are also exaggerating the tone of the story, but hey people do this to everything. Also LMAO at the people saying you have to use the best pokemon to beat this game, I beat it my first time through with a team that is arguably worse than Shofu's, which was my fault as I wasn't really exploring. (Typhlosion, Swampert, Honchkrow, and Mightyena) I got through with strategy rather than just trying to blast my way through with brute force, as it became quite apparent that it usually wasn't an option.

Charlotte can be pretty brutal if you don't have a strategy that will completely stop her in her tracks. If you give her any leeway, she will give you hell, but she can be completely shut down.

I wouldn't say route 2's puzzle is awful, just sub-par and it stands out for it because Reborn has quite a few good puzzles. It was irritating on my first time through, but now it's just something that's kinda there for me, and it isn't a part of the game I dread whenever I start a new playthrough. (I don't dread any part of Reborn) An example of a puzzle I dread whenever I start a new playthrough of a game is the wind plant puzzle in Tales of Symphonia just for how irritating it is, and how long it takes.

When it comes to preventing leaders from being trivialized/made easier the only true way would be to cut any and all pokemon who have a type advantage against any of them, and make them come later. Which would be horrible. For example, if we followed this mindset we would not get any fire types until after Titania, and the game would suffer as a whole from this. EDIT: I'm not talking about things like Gyrados, I'm more talking about pokemon that are helpful but not overpowered like Makuhita.

Huh, neat. Thanks for getting these fixes out quickly! Tempted to do a quick playthrough to check for bugs...

Against Florinia is one of the few (maybe even the only) fights where Makuhita truly shines when compared to it's competition. If you were to move it later, I can guarantee that almost no one would ever use it. You may argue it has Thick Fat for fighting Serra and Charlotte, but by that point there are tons of better options to face off against those leaders with. Not to mention it is bad against Corey, Shelly, Shade, and Aya. Being useful in one gym battle, and being somewhat useful in two others when it's going to struggle through a very large chunk of the game hardly warrants being axed. Pancham's usage is another issue entirely. Perhaps move it into one of the back alleys in the Perdiot Ward, so that people may actually decide to use it?

I feel like a lot of the arguments in this thread basically become: "X pokemon is good against X gym leader. Therefore, we should move it to after that Gym Leader." I mean, isn't that the point of pokemon like Trubbish or Makuhita? Most people would completely ignore them if they didn't have the niche of being useful against Julia and/or Florinia, for example. (Trubbish is useful for both of them because Toxic spikes) If we move any pokemon who can be useful against a certain Gym Leader to after them, we're being needlessly limited option wise. It's not interesting to have no options to get around a challenge, and are instead forced to not have any advantage whatsoever even if we are willing to go the extra distance to gain that advantage.

I'm gonna assume he has: Julia, Florinia, Shelly, Shade, Aya, Serra, Radomus, and Luna's badges just by how he was talking and how he missed Noel. Although, I would not be surprised if he was talking crap to mess with the player, as with his team composition and levels he would get wrecked by Serra (5 of his pokemon are weak to Ice!), Radomus, and Luna.

Huzzah to Shofu beating Charlotte! It's funny how the comments complaining about how the game is "broken" have more or less disappeared now that Shofu beat Charlotte almost the instant he had a decent strategy for her. Now I really hope he goes back to 14.1 because of the broken partner double battles in 14.5. I would like to say he'll have an easier time with Blake and Terra, but with how the series has gone so far I don't exactly have my hopes up. That being said, I enjoy his LP of Reborn.

I really don't see how any of those Pokemon cause issues. I mean Tyrouge can quite useful against Luna and Samson, but that hardly warrants being pushed back. EDIT: I feel like I'm misunderstanding you here...

Oh? Could you perhaps name a few? I haven't seen any pokemon on route 1 feel like they cause problems balance wise.