[The absolute difficulty of this game.]

5 hours ago, Luna said:

I advice start EV training your mons as that should help. Also you can farm money easily at agate via the clown battles.  Also soft reset to get decent IV if you feel like it but you do not need decent IV to beat the game only decent EV and prolly good natures which are achievable. Anyways here is a list of mons you can beat to gain certain EVs around agate:

 

Atk-Hawlucha(Route 2), Ursaring(Route 2), Machoke(Route 2)

SpAtk- Golduck( Celestine mountain Surfing around F1-4, B1-12), Magneton(Route 3 the RSEA caves), 

HP- wailmer surfing around citrine/celestine/Ametrine mountain

Speed- Starly/Staravia(Route 3), Lumineon(surf around Ametrine mountain), Floatzle( Celestine mountain  F1-4, B1-9)

 

Also catch a few pick up ability pokemon(ambipom at ametrine city) they help you get some income and items while EV training. I know EV-training is boring but it helps a lot. with power items it is very fast and takes little to no effort to train.

 

Yeah, I JUST started doing that lol. I've been getting by barely with a handful of mons that I like, with absolutely disgusting EV spreads. I'm going to have to find some berries though, because I refuse to get rid of my bros.

The only mon I've actually EV trained is my Sneasel, because I love Sneasel. 

[The absolute difficulty of this game.]

7 hours ago, Mindlack said:

I remember beating that Sirius fight with revives, x items, and lots of save scumming (not that I didn’t struggle with many other fights as well!). This is one reason why 

  Reveal hidden contents

I now choose to not fight the Doctor at Yureyu. 

I don’t know where you are now, but if that fight is the one you remember, I think you still have lots of difficult battles ahead. Enjoy! 

Lol, I'm way farther in the game at this point. I'm grinding right now getting ready to fight Ciel. 

Because you get so little money in this game, especially early on, I've developed this mentality of "don't buy anything you don't ABSOLUTELY need to have," so most of the time I have no revives. 

[The absolute difficulty of this game.]

I often find myself restarting every major fight anywhere from 5, to upwards of 20 times. The worst offender being the fight with Sirius in the Belrose Mansion. That fight took me three straight days of grinding.

Now don't get me wrong, I love the difficulty. The thing I hate the most about the main Pokemon games is their lack of difficulty until you hit the postgame. This game rides you hard the whole way through, and I appreciate it.

[New player, need help with 1st gym.]

I got you.

Go into any alleyway, and start catching Poochyena. Once you have one with the ability "Rattled", that's your guy. Evolve him so he has Moxie, and wipe her entire team. 

That's how I got her.