I get it, Cynthia's battle is not a walk in the park by any means but I've beaten her on my third attempt or so. Red on the other hand, took more than five attemptsndo beat and I though he was ridiculoulsy hard, harder than anyone I came up against so far.
But who knows, maybe those two are hard for different reasons, but what do you all think?
by HealthMother3125
39 Comments
Cynthia in the remakes definitely takes it, if we count that.
I don’t even remember fighting Red in HG, and I don’t remember how hard Cynthia was originally for me since that was so long ago and I have no memory of it anymore.
But my impatience of trying to “speedrun” Platinum a few years ago just to experience it firsthand personally made that fight against Cynthia a brutal nightmare, only because I was 10 or so levels underleveled against her.
Took about an hour of back and forth revives and Intimidation spamming against that stupid Garchomp to beat it.
Garchomp is a Nuzlocke monster for a reason in Sinnoh.
So for me the biggest issue with red wasn’t so much the levels of his team but the severe restrictions in team building. Purely to get to him you needed 4 HM’s minimum (surf, waterfall, rock smash, strength). Because of this there wasn’t really any strategy involved, you’d either go in with near lv100 legendaries and kill him in 5 seconds or spend hundreds of hours grinding out your team until you could beat him.
It’s absolutely Cynthia, Red is a joke once you actually level up to match his, even if you’re a little under he’s really easy. The margin for error is so much smaller against Cynthia.
Cynthia.
Red’s team is very standard. His only gimmick is that he’s like 25 levels above Blue, the next strongest trainer
Red for the grind alone, also you get better mons in sinnoh
Cynthia was a harsh challenge ’cause I wasn’t expecting that it would be a great challenge. Red was a challenge I was training to face.
Only lost one time between these two, but that’s because i wasn’t really expecting to see Red at the end of Mt. Silver. So imma go with him just for that moment. But i agree with the folks saying Cynthia because i know a couple of people who really had a hard time facing her.
Cynthia is harder but Red takes more preparation. If you want into HGSS Red without a plan to remove hail or boost up you’re gonna lose. Cynthia has stronger Pokemon on average but you don’t need like anything fancy to beat them.
I’ve never had a problem with Cynthia. Red is just a grindfest.
Red’s difficulty is really overrated. He’s definitely harder in HGSS even without factoring in the levels, but the main gimmick of why he’s hard is he’s absurdly high levelled. If you’re at his level you’ll beat him, he basically only has 5 Pokémon because Pikachu is so weak.
Cynthia is challenging even if you’re fairly levelled. However in DP specifically she has random AI. She’s tougher in platinum despite being slightly lower levelled because her AI is good and her Togekiss is arguably better than her Gastrodon (it really depends on what types you have)
You might say the whole point of red is that he’s higher levelled so it’s not fair to compare them in that way, but nah. If you’re saying Red is harder because of his level you’re basically admitting his team is worse
Neither
Whitney.
Cynthia Pokémon Platinum
Finding Red atop Mt Silver and him opening with a level 88 Pikachu was absolutely epic and I felt like I was fighting the absolute final boss of the franchise up to that point. 15 year old me has never been that hyped before.
Cynthia however was an absolute struggle to beat when I went up against her blindly. I didn’t even know who Garchomp was at the time, but did I ever learn how fast and hard he hits in a hurry. I still call her the champion of champions like 30 years later.
neither
Cynthia has a pretty balanced and well thought out team. Red is just like 30 lvls over everyone and grinding is a pain in the ass in HGSS.
Cynthia by a mile (I still think she’s the hardest trainer, even if I haven’t played all the games). I recently played Shining Pearl, and if it wasn’t for the “power of friendship” gimmick they added, that battle would’ve been impossible, even if I was overleveled.
Red is easier once your pokémon are at the same level or above
The only reason Red is a pain is he’s 25-30+ levels higher then the last person you battle, also good luck finding anything over 45 to fight for exp
I never had a though time with Red. Cynthia was def harder to beat for me
Whitney in HGSS
Both are tough for different reasons.
Cynthia is tough because Sinnoh has an abysmal Pokédex. The Sinnoh Six is an infamous meme for a reason. Red is tough due to the terrible level curve of Gen 2 games. Between the two, a bad Pokédex is harder to work around then having a bad level curve. You can’t grind your way into having more Pokémon to choose from.
Cynthia
I’d say her team is more well balanced
Red
Cynthia has a stronger team but you can grind against E4 by throwing against her to compensate
Johto youre grinding against level 30 wild pokemon
It’s definitely Cynthia, her team is always built well.
OG’s remember seeing Spiritomb for the first time and being “WTF IS THAT”. Garchomp and Lucario giving people a run for their money. Milotic, Gastrodon, and Roserade (and Togekiss) for that matter round out her team pretty well.
I have a fairly recent opinion on this because I played gen I and II to death, then had a massive break of about 20 years, and then got back into Pokemon a couple of years ago pretty much where I left off. I did a full Pokedex completion run of the gen I and II games again, then played through RSE and just recently have been through Diamond and HG. Currently playing Pearl.
I think they’re both difficult battles because if you don’t grind you’re going to end up underleveled, significantly so in Red’s case. Red I was prepared for, but that’s because I already knew pretty much what to expect. I can’t remember how strong I was when I first battled him in the original Gold or how the battle went, but back then I used to use very ‘standard’ teams. A strong water type, a fire type, grass etc. whereas since I’ve been playing as an adult I’ve sort of artificially made the games more difficult by playing with favourites teams that often have quite big gaps in type coverage.
Cynthia genuinely surprised me with how difficult she was (mainly Garchomp) for a champion. Even as a kid I never remember having huge trouble defeating Blue or Lance, and I didn’t find Steven too bad in RS. Cynthia I was about 10 levels lower than her and had to shamelessly resort to item spamming and using toxic to slowly chip her health down and even then I think I had to reset a few times and rely on RNG luck a bit.
I’m interested to see how my current playthrough in Pearl goes because I know more what to expect now, but my team is also pretty comically weird. (Golduck, Honchkrow, Mismagius, Abomasnow, Vespiquen, Girafarig)
I winged the battle against Red with a team of mostly underleveled Pokémon and won my first try.
I was only trying to see how far I would get battling Red before leveling more in Mt. Silver. My Feraligatr survived the Volt Tackle before we switched our Pokémon out. That’s when I began believing I had a chance even with an underleveled team. Then I beat him.. whoops!
I defeated Cynthia in BDSP but did not make it that far in Pearl. I would not rematch her even with a team of mostly level 100 Pokémon.
IIRC, Garchomp is infamous because it’s a hypertrained ‘mon in a series that never introduced that idea to anyone.
Red, as a kid I never found Cynthia are that hard. If I recall my team was torrtera staraptor steelix dialgia luxray and… shit who was the last guy…
Cynthia because you likely don’t even know what a spiritbomb Pokémon is at the time you face her.
Those two are a cakewalk compared to Whitney. Miltank was on some steroids
The thing with Red is that is 20 levels ahead of your last big fight.
Red because back then I had no idea what I was doing. By the time Cynthia saw me I was well versed into how to make a proper team and how setup works. Also in a blind playthrough scenario you’ve prepped for the champion whereas Red you’re exploring a cave and wander into a menace.
Red. When I battled him, way back when, I only won because the hail took away his Charziard’s last sliver of life. I was on my last pokemon, who would not have been able to take another hit.
Well… Cynthia 100%.
Red was shockingly overleveled, sure, but his team was standard overall and manageable if you had a good team overall. A bit of luck and winning might be in the cards.
Cynthia is another story though. At the time that battle begins, you get to face a Pokemon you haven’t seen in the entire game potentially, Spiritomb. And after dealing with it having Pressure plus no weakness, she has Roserade, Lucario, Milotic and Garchomp in the back. And Milotic will stand the test of time as the one Pokemon I have a hatred for, for both Gen 3 and Gen 4. Geez, taking it down felt like a chore in both games. Lastly, let’s not underestimate what a powerhouse Garchomp actually is.
If we’re being honest with ourselves, neither is hard anymore now that we aren’t children.
However, one of them happens to have a well-put-together team that doesn’t have one deadweight member, actually good movesets, and isn’t artificially made more difficult by suddenly being 20+ levels higher than the previous trainer.
First time?
Red by far, not because its more difficult, but because the journey there was higher, and he had strong pokemon.
Cynthia was never really even on my radar, it was only what, like a decade ago, i knew people struggled with her, never considered her as something beyond the norm.
And it was when i figured out people were letting her ramp up that i saw why people found it difficult.
As for now, I dunno, soulsilver and heartgold was a hot minute ago, and I used her spiritomb against her to ramp up myself, probably still red cause of the journey, and level.
Lets be real, Red was harder since he was over lvl and gen 2 lvl curve was so bad + his 88 pika also had a light ball wich genuinely deletes you while cynthia only challenging pokemon was the spiritomb and thats only cuz he had no weaknesses, if fairy was in gen 4 cynthia wouldn’t have challenging at all