The one thing I'm expecting with the remakes is that Cynthia's most likely won't be as much of a challenge as she was back in the day for the following reasons:
- She'll most likely use exact copies of her original team (whether they go with the DP or Platinum version) if they go all-in with the "faithful adaptation" aspect of the reboots
- The inclusion of Fairy types will severely nerf her Garchomp & Spiritomb (the latter of which didn't have any weaknesses unless you went in with a pokemon who had Mind Reader or Foresight)
- Everyone who played the original DP games are now older and have a better understanding of battling, abilities, EVs, IVs, and the type match ups. Plus competitive battling has become more common with players that they'll come up with perfect strategies to counter Cynthia
- Videos like nuzlocke challenges and "Can you beat X game with Y pokemon" kind of showed how easy the in-game battles are for some people and Cynthia won't be as threatening as she used to be
I'm still hoping Cynthia will put up more of a challenge in the remakes, but I'm going in with low expectations & waiting to see everyone complaining that she's not as strong as she used to be or how they "ruined the best champion in pokemon"
1. Look, if they go faithful with her teams, that means that she might not be a challenge for the people who faced her many times, but she will be for the people who haven't, which will be numerous. I've played Platinum to death and I am excited for these games (even if I'm now playing Renegade Platinum on an emulator, which is the best thing since sliced bread (I mean Ghost/Fairy Mismagius!) - and the Cynthia fight is always that one match you're looking up to - even in playthrough number 364.
2. Fairy-types are nice, but if you're like me and you only want to play with Gen4-pokémon, you'll notice that I'm pretty much tied to Togekiss (if it's available). I honestly never had much trouble with Spiritomb since its stats aren't all that great and Garchomp has a crippling 4x Ice weakness - and Ice Beam is easy to slap onto any bulky Water-type (not named Empoleon, since it's weak to Ground).
3. Okay, this may just be me.. But I was playing since Red came out. So I was probably 16ish when I was playing Diamond for the first time. I didn't need strategy to beat Cynthia, I just needed my
Floatzel to be faster then her Garchomp, which resulted in overlevelling the hell out of it - and using tons of potions during the battle.
4. Have you ever tried a Sinnoh Nuzlocke? The fun with Nuzlocke's is that you can make them as hard as you wish and the game can become increasingly hard and Cynthia is still terrifying. Try additional rules like set-mode, no overlevelling gymleaders, no items (held items are allowed). Suddenly stuff like Bibarel, Zubat and Geodude become your best friends and fishing for that Gyarados is pretty much a necessity and not a choice.
I'd rather megas weren't included in these games (as well as z moves and dynamax/gmax). I'm not really fond of gimmicks like these in a remake.
Honestly, if they put in the Platinum Dex, these will be the available Mega's:
Gen1:
- Likely the Kanto-starters if merchandise is to be believed.
- Alakazam
- Gyarados
- Pinsir
- Gengar
Gen2:
- Houndoom
- Scizor
- Steelix
- Heracross
Gen3:
- Gardevoir
- Altaria
- Medicham
- Glalie
Gen4:
- Lucario
- Garchomp
- Lopunny
- Gallade
- Abomasnow
Honestly, this is such a nice spread in terms of type diversity and generational diversity.
I'm not saying these should be in the game, but darn it, I really want to use Mega Lopunny.
I’m tired of the Pokémon Company and GameFreak constantly shoving the Kanto starters down our throats. Give us something different like the Johto starters, Unova starters or Kalos starters in BDSP instead. They’ve been doing that since Gen 6 (XY) and more consistently in recent years (LGPE, SWSH, etc.)
Pokémon Legends: Arceus. Rowlet,
Cyndaquil, Oshawott.
The way I interpreted “faithful” was that these remakes would follow DP in a similar fashion and have artwork reminiscent of the originals but there would also be new surprises in store for us. I don’t think the Dex will be exactly the same as DP as fans complained about the lack of variety for some typings in the original Sinnoh Dex which is why I think Platinum increased the Dex size and those changes will be will stay with a few more additions. None of the remakes are 100% faithful to the original games. FRLG allowed players to chose a female trainer and had the first three Sevii Islands be an optional part of the main story after winning the Volcano Badge, HGSS rewrote the TR plot by incorporating Ethan/Lyra into the conflict and even how you got some of the Key Items, ORAS incorporated Mega Evolution to have always been a thing and your interactions with Magma and Aqua up until you capture Kyogre or Groudon have different dialogue and even how many Grunts you battle and where.
This is a really well written post that deserves more credit. I really hope you're right on the money here.
