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Game Breaker/Video Games/Role-Playing Game/Pokémon: Difference between revisions
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** Even easier is if you have a friend further in the game who has a bit of patience. Trade them your [[Mons]] and have them level them up on the higher-leveled Pokémon late in the game (along with the boosted exp for trading), and then trade back when they're sufficiently leveled. Then you won't even have to worry about the Pokémon ignoring you occasionally, as your own will listen to you no matter which badges you have.
* The series' original game breaker, and to this day one of the most dreaded, is Double Team. This move (and the very similar Minimize) increases the user's evasion - on the first use, all moves have 3/4 of their normal chance of connecting, the second use drops this to 3/5, and can continue until accuracy is 1/3 of the usual value. And when it was introduced, only one move could counter its usage - the underwhelming Swift. If an opponent had the chance to buff their evasion enough, or could heal on top of that (such as early top tier favorites Alakazam, Starmie, or Mewtwo), you basically had to hope to get extremely lucky if you wanted a chance to win. Even with a proliferation of ways around it (10 different moves guaranteed to hit, plus a few other ways to neutralize it), the effects of evasion are feared so much that banning the two moves guaranteed to raise it is perhaps the most common [[House Rules|house rule]] called, items giving one level of increase are considered overpowered, and things that have a ''chance'' of increasing it (the move Acupressure and the ability Moody) are also sometimes called game breakers themselves. And it is ridiculously easy to get, to the point where the full list of fully evolved Pokémon that can't learn Double Team at all is as follows: Ditto, Unown, Wobbuffet.
** There's also Minimize, which at first it was "Double Team, but with more uses and only a few can learn it". Then ''[[
== ''First Generation'' ==
* In the first generation of games, the entirety of Psychic-type Pokémon were overpowered, as they only had a weakness to types of attack that did below-average damage even after being doubled, and there were very few Pokémon with the stats to use moves of these types anyway (and due to a bug, one of those types actually didn't affect Psychic-type at all, rather than do double damage). And also by the fact that in Generation I, the most common type was the Poison-type (which is weak to Psychic-type), with 33 members, just narrowly beating out the ever-common Water type (32 of the Generation I Pokémon.) In later games, the Poison-type Pokémon count fell to the back so far that it was tough to remember why Psychic was ever such a powerful type to begin with. The Psychic-type advantage was made worse by the fact that the stat Special governed both Special Attack and Special Defense. This meant that Pokémon with high Special, such as Psychics, were much more useful than Pokémon with low Special, such as Fighting. This was fixed in later generations by separating them. Psychics were so overpowered in Generation I that Jolteon was frequently used for the sole purpose of countering Psychics, simply for the fact that it learns the move Pin Missile.
** Even among Psychic types, Alakazam deserves special mention; its base Speed was beaten only by four other Pokémon (Electrode, Jolteon, Aerodactyl, and Mewtwo), in games where the Speed stat was also used to determine critical hits, and its base Special was just ''insane''. If you knew what you were doing, you could get one as soon as you got to the second gym, and basically have it nuke the entire game single-handedly. And to make matters much worse, after beating the game, you could go to the [[Bonus Dungeon]] and catch Mewtwo, an [[Olympus Mons|Olympus Mon]] that was everything that was great about Alakazam taken [[Up to Eleven]] - especially with its Amnesia move which ''doubled its Special'' every use. To quote [[
** Honorable mention must go out to the Legendary Pokemon Mew. If you knew what you were doing, you could get a Mew (or two even) as soon as you got to the second gym. And if you remember the days when one had to either attend a limited-time-only Nintendo Event or input long, tedious strings of code on a gameshark or an action replay (which had to be bought separately), there's a certain satisfaction in being able to obtain the above-mentioned Alakazam's inferior pre-evolution and then swap it for the fantastically overpowered, legendary analog with very, very little effort, and then ''basically have it nuke the entire game single-handedly''. Hurray for the Mew Glitch!
** Although, Psychics in general are ridiculous, another special mention is to Exeggutor who has good stats, nice sets of resistance (and some weaknesses that, back in Gen 1 aren't too well developed, making it some sort of [[Fake Balance]]) and nice move pools, including Explosion, Sleep Powder, and Stun Spore. To put it simply, in a metagame with such powerful threats, a status problem move will be very brutal to deal with. Exeggutor didn't have the speed of Alakazam, but its insane movepool made it a really frustating mon to deal with.
** Speaking of gen 1, one Pokemon stand amongst the rest, being considered the King of OU, not a psychic, but a [[Badass Normal]], literally: [[A Load of Bull|Tauros]]. It has solid stats (for the time) and nice move pools that allowed it to deal with most threats in the metagame. However, by the time, normal is, without a doubt one of the best offensive and defensive types. Fighting moves are rare, and it is only resisted by Rock, which Tauros can cover with [[Kill It
** Also, another [[Badass Normal]] was Persian mainly because it was easy to obtain (at least in Blue Version), had great attack and speed, was very versatile, and had a great move set, which included Pay Day (so you would never run out of money again) and Slash (which always landed a Critical Hit in this game) and both moves were normal, so they got STAB as well. The only thing that could slow it down or stop it were Rock and Ghost Pokemon which were a small amount of the overall Pokemon population back then, and could be countered with Blizzard. Everyone else was susceptible to Slash considering it was 70 base power and 100 base accuracy plus STAB (1.5x) plus critical hits (2x). In other words, a Persian's slash was equal to 210 base power and 100 base accuracy, and unlike a lot of moves at that power, it had a lot of pp (power points), so it could keep spamming Slash until it eventually won the battle.
* One mustn't forget [[The Missingno|Missingno.]] in ''Red and Blue''. It's complicated to explain how to do it, but basically you can use a glitch to duplicate all your items, including the ''Master Ball''. So you can catch ANY Pokémon with ease. Or duplicate Rare Candies, and just spam your way to high levels (though your stats suffer somewhat). Or you can get infinite amounts of certain TMs and items, and can sell for boatloads of money or teach them to everything on your team. One must be careful when using it, though - it can become a [[Game Breaking Bug]] if you're not careful.
* ''[[
* While not quite as much so in the maingame, the competitive multiplayer of the first generation was largely broken by the presence of the Blizzard attack. On top of being the most powerful Ice-type attack in the game and having 90% accuracy, it had a 30% chance of inflicting the Freeze condition, which the only cure for was to use an item. To those not familiar with competitive multiplayer, ''neither player can use any items'', meaning a frozen Pokémon was basically dead. This made battling at a high level become less "who has the better team and strategy" and more "who gets luckiest with Blizzard's freeze". The second generation nerfed this ''hard'', as frozen Pokémon can now randomly defrost, and Blizzard has only a 70% accuracy rate and a 10% freeze rate, causing the weaker Ice Beam to become the Ice-type attack of choice.
== ''Second Generation'' ==
* Snorlax. The Special split in Generation 2 heavily buffed Snorlax's Special Defense, which coupled with its already insane HP made special attacks virtually useless against it. Combine this with the new Curse move, which buffs both Attack and Defense at the cost of speed (which doesn't matter for Snorlax who is among the slowest Pokémon in the game anyway), and the Rest move, which fully restores its HP at the cost of missing two turns (during which the buffed Defense means that even Fighting-type attacks do virtually nothing), and watch in awe as Snorlax proceeds to wipe out the entire enemy team between Return and Earthquake. Oh, did they try to poison or burn you? Rest again and laugh it off. Snorlax is arguably the sole reason that Gengar got Levitate in Generation III (making it immune to both Return and Earthquake).
** Actually, it could be argued that Snorlax would have been Uber had the online Pokémon competitive communities been developed as we know them today (see Garchomp and Salamence in Fourth Generation below), this game-breaking moveset now known as ''[[Fan Nickname|Curselax]]'' was even more scary taking to account the '''HUGE''' ammount of moves capable of being learned by Snorlax, making it more unpredictable (as it is a Normal-type Pokémon, and Normal-types usually can be taught a ridiculous pool of moves many of which doesn't make sense in '[[Mon|Mons]] like Raticate, ranging from Shadow Ball to Blizzard). And that isn't taking into consideration that a smart player '''WOULD FIND''' his/her ways to use Curse whenever possible (which being Snorlax is pretty easy, as it walls every Special Attacker under the horizon). To put it in words, whenever an opponent's Special Attacker reared its head into the battle, the player could simply bring Snorlax, start to use Curse not caring if the opponent switched his/her 'Mon out or fruitlessly stayed in and attacked Snorlax with Special attacks, and would outright destroy the opponent's team. Late-game, when the few 'Mons capable of defeating Snorlax (or at least, making it switch out) were cleaned, this spelled doom. Hell, the thing was more like a Blissey with '''ACTUALLY USABLE''' Attack's stats (''and how!''). To quote [[
** And then came the [[Fan Nickname|Atmacune]] (Suicune with Curse/Rest/Return/Roar) moveset. Not only does it crush everything except Ghosts, but Roar forces Snorlax to flee AND (due to its programming) causes enemy attempts to Roar or Whirlwind Suicune away ALSO fail. There's a reason why Curse went from "used by everyone" in Generation II to "used by almost nobody" in Generations III and IV...
** As of the 4th Generation games, the Curselax strategy has become significantly weaker and more difficult to use effectively thanks to the physical/special move split (although it can now use physical Crunch (to hit Ghosts) and Fire Punch (to hit Steel-types)). It's still somewhat viable though, but a lot of powerful physical moves can 2- or 3HKO it if the attacker switches in on its first Curse, and Pokémon such as Skarmory have access to Whirlwind and Roar to make it switch out. The 5th Generation games aren't seeing a lot of Snorlax use, as its formerly insane defenses are much easier to break thanks to generally more powerful mons lurking around.
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== ''Third Generation'' ==
* The introduction of Abilities in Generation III did a lot to change the viability of certain Pokémon, but none more so than Wobbuffet. In the previous generation when Wobbuffet was introduced, it had terrible stats with the exception of HP (which was near the best in the game), and four moves: Counter, Mirror Coat, Safeguard, Destiny Bond. Counter and Mirror Coat took any damage dealt to Wobbuffet that turn and dealt double back to the opponent; Counter only works on physical moves, Mirror Coat only on special moves. Safeguard blocks all status moves, while Destiny Bond is straightforward [[Taking You
** Wobbuffet and Wynaut were banned for good reason at least. Imagine this: two trainers both send out Wobbuffet. Both of them are equipped with Leftovers (a common equip for the high-HP, low defense Wobbuffet before Wobbuffet was banned). Neither one can attack on its own except for Struggle (and remember, Wobbuffet also has rock-bottom attack power), and last but not least, neither one can switch out thanks to Shadow Tag. Literally, a battle no one can win. The only way for either Wobbuffet to triumph is to get something like 30 critical hits in a row. Thankfully, in ''Diamond and Pearl'', it was changed so that any Pokémon with Shadow Tag could switch out from another Pokémon with Shadow Tag. This gets rid of the dreaded Wobbuffet vs. Wobbuffet scenario (for the most part), and also allows the very few Pokémon with Trace (an ability which copies the opponent's ability) to get away as well. They also added a couple of moves to either force a switch or neutralize an ability in some way, giving a handful of ways (if you prepare them) to escape. Struggle was also changed drastically; the recoil is now 25% of the user's maximum HP, rather than a percentage of the damage done. It's still entirely possible to get stalled out in the Generation III games though.
** Wobbuffet and its ability actually caused Nintendo to change the rules of official tournaments. Originally, tournaments simply had rules against use of cheat devices and poor sportsmanship. Upon ''Ruby and Sapphire'' being released, they simply banned use of Leftovers on Wobbuffet (for the reasons mentioned above). Finally, they changed the format of all subsequent tournaments to doubles, where Wobbuffet is mostly dead weight (it'll prevent opponents from switching out, but since it can't force opponents to target it, an opponent will focus their attacks on Wob's partner, rendering its countering abilities moot while forcing its partner to fight two-on-one).
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== Trading Card Game ==
* The Game Boy Color version of the ''[[Pokémon Trading Card Game (
** On the subject of the Game Boy Color version, Imakuni? was a [[Game Breaker]]. He was weaker than all the AI characters, but if you defeated him (which was quite often), he gives you an unheard-of four booster packs. This makes racking up cards rather easy.
** There's also Pokémon like Hitmonlee who could attack your lead Pokémon with a powerful move, or your benched Pokémon for 30 points of direct damage, easily defeating first form Pokémon with really low health in one or two turns, while it had enough health to last for a while if you didn't have a powerful psychic Pokémon to counter it.
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** Arceus also deserves a mention. A 120 base stat spread in everything, a movepool only rivaled by Mew and [[Mega Manning|Smeargle]] and the ability to change its type by holding elemental plates makes it a very versatile and dangerous Pokémon that is able to duplicate almost every Pokémon in the game and do the same roles with the same level of efficiency all in one package. It effectively rivals Kyogre in term of Brokeness.
** To show how insane Arceus is statistically, see Kyogre and Groudon (the two most common Pokémon in ubers that are overall the best Pokémon) and their stats. Kyogre and Groudon only win in attack and their respective defensive side(physical and special respectively). But on the attacking side, Arceus has 120 speed on his side, significantly faster than both since that means even with very little EVs, Arceus is faster than either with the maximum speed they can reach. It also means the resident [[Stone Wall]] Lugia is slower than Arceus. On the defensive side, despite the differences, Arceus is only slightly less bulky on the weaker defensive stat. So little that it's no matter at all. Oh, and did we mention that by forgoing some hold item it can change its type AND getting boosted STAB at the same time? Let's not start talking about its notable moves and [[It Got Worse]].
** Mewtwo, the original legendary [[Game Breaker
*** At first, Psystrike is still not very effective against other Psychics and Steels and useless against Dark-types, which means half of the Uber tier is still resistant to Mewtwo's STAB. Until you realize how Psystrike makes a really big difference. First off, it doesn't need to sacrifice itself to beat Blissey. Second, it might be bad, but considering the commonly used Pokémon in ubers is not psychic or can't take Psystrike is a big factor too. Mewtwo also has Aura Sphere, Shadow Ball, and Fire Blast to cover the coverage to hit everything you need to hit.
*** Finally factoring Stealth Rock, it can hit everything he previously needs specific move to hit with enough damage especially with Calm Mind up. Psystrike gives him an excuse to run STAB, and ability to beat Kyogre and Blissey more reliably with his Calm Mind Set.
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