Pokémon games are no stranger to the concept of low difficulty, with Sword and Shield lowering the barrier for entry even further. On my playthrough of Sword clocking in at only just over 13 hours I beat the whole game with no healing items in battles excluding the final champion battle and played on set mode which restricted free switching, while skipping most trainers for less EXP. During this time I only whited out in battle about 5 times, thrice to Bea and twice to Champion Leon. Sword rarely tests you on your capabilities as a trainer. Smart team composition, move set choices, held item usage, status change moves barely matter in Sword, with opposing teams lacking full teams excluding the champion battle, teams lacking held items, not using full move sets or extremely poor ones. Other mechanics such as EXP groups and egg moves are not utilised at all by the game in the main story. This leads to players to play mindlessly without regard for the complex underlying mechanics of Pokemon. Play styles like these often revolve overuse of a starter Pokémon, while only clicking super effective moves. Pokémon Photonic Sun and its counterpart, Pokémon Prismatic Moon seek to bypass these issues.

Photonic Sun as a romhack of Pokémon Ultra Sun reflects on these issues and attempts to make things much more complex. By the end of the first island, one fourth into the game all plot relevant trainers and trial captains have full teams of 6 and these teams are filled with Pokémon across all generations 1 – 7. Regular trainers are no slouch either with them ranging from 2-6 Pokémon. Of course with this, all Pokémon including Mythicals and Legendaries are available to the player, allowing full range with team building. Nearly all Pokémon have received helpful modifications to their base stats and movepools including TM compatibility to allow greater usability. With the game being balanced around the XP share it is rare to be overleveled except in some interesting circumstances, such as Pokémon in the erratic EXP group needing very few EXP in the mid-late game such as Lumineon. Each individual trainer is decked out with items, and custom movesets making each battle interesting — don’t be surprised if you get wiped out against some regular trainer battles.

One of the most memorable moments in my current play through performed set mode with no healing items in battle was against Kahuna Olivia, who featured a full team of six by the end of the second island. She was a challenging fight which bulldozed my team over and over. Instead of bashing my team over and over at her I decided it would be in my best interest if I could utilise the moves and items I could get at the point. I grinded BP for Lumieon (buffed by 40 base Special Attack, and Quiver Dance in PS) to learn Water Pulse and to equip a trusty Choice Specs to boost Special Attack. Even that couldn’t get me through the battle.

‘Rock Pokémon are heavy, right?’

With that in mind I used the BP tutor to teach Incineroar Low Kick to have a Base Power of 120 against heavy Rock type Pokémon. Despite this that wasn’t even enough. Cradily, Olivia’s second Pokémon a Rock/Grass Type was hellbent on taking down Lumineon my Water type. With the few Z-Crystals I had by that point I decided to use a Fightinium Z on Toucannon to power up Brick Brake to defeat that frilly creature. Yet I faced another problem — Luxray was outsped and being one shot by Dusk-Lycanroc and I seemingly couldn’t win. Trying the battle over and over I proved victorious as my Alolan Muk got lucky firing off 2 Gunk Shots winning the battle.

Yet in hindsight something seemed off, and it hit me — Muk could learn Brick Break the entire time a 4x hitting move against that Lycanroc. This was a lesson of great importance and would show up in my next fight against Totem Togedemaru which seemed even more hopeless, until I realised the importance of status buff moves. Incineroar could easily take it out with a Z-Move powered Flare Blitz. The re-introduction of the Gold and Sliver TM of Curse which can be taught to any Pokemon was my saviour. Using it three times I was able to double my damage output and defence, making Incineroar able to survive +2 powered hits from the Togedemaru, and finish the fight with a one shot attack. As of this post I have just beat Guzma which was a tricky fight requiring me to swap out a Choice Band on Luxray for a Choice Scarf. My journey is still marching on and I know the Elite Four and Champion will be very difficult due to their Level 100 status preventing brute-forcing.

This is the thrill and strategy I want out of a Pokémon game — to be encouraged to use all the diverse abilities and moves in order to beat opponents who have well-developed unique team, and with that you may ask why not play Pokémon on Smogon or enjoy the Battle Tree or its equivalent to have that experience, yet that does not provide the niche experience I seek. I still want to enjoy a journey going through a region, catching Pokémon and battling trainers while assembling items, my team and creating an interesting story based off my experiences No main-series Pokémon game covers this experience excluding Black 2 and White 2’s challenge mode which has an awfully tedious unlock method involving beating the game once. Playing Photonic Sun is especially more exhausting than a regular Pokémon game simply how much it makes you engage with battles and define your team, but due to this nature it’s a lot more memorable and I feel like I improved my skill and overcame challenges. If you have a 3DS (or a decent PC with Citra) and enjoy Pokémon this is a must-play.

Thank you, Buffel Saft for creating such an enjoying romhack available at: https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=411743