I never understood why. It’s not like they’re forced upon you.
They're not forced upon you just because they're the best choices available. You very well can ignore them and still have an easy time.They... kind of are actually, and that's the biggest reason why I hate them. They're the only thing SE against the Striaton Trio's ace that the game allows you to have at that point in the game. It's especially frustrating because Rt. 3 and Wellspring Cave have some other perfectly viable Pokemon for that gym if they would just let you have access to them before beating them (you could use Pidove or Woobat against Cilan, Roggenrola against Chili, and Blitzle against Cress) but nope, they wanted to almost force you to form a bond with these damn monkeys so we can't have nice things. Beyond that, they're fairly generic and uninteresting but otherwise inoffensive. But the game basically shoving them down my throat really soured me on them.
They're not forced upon you just because they're the best choices available. You very well can ignore them and still have an easy time.
That's not close to being forced. The battle is easily winnable without it.Technically no, but they're the only SE choices available. Unless you're doing a challenge run like a monotype or Nuzlocke, you're probably going to go for the SE hit. So it's not quite forced but it's pretty close. It doesn't get much closer than that in Pokemon.
That's not close to being forced. The battle is easily winnable without it.
Depends. If I'm going up against a boss that has a weakness that I don't have, I won't bother finding one just for that fight. But if I do have one, of course I'll use it. I'd say more people would run through their game with their starter over worrying about type advantages. I see more "brute force with my favorites" than "adapt to the Gym by looking for advantageous Pokémon" so i don't think this is being forced.Well Pokemon is never the kind of game to force you to do something, again that situation is about as close as it gets. But no, again how often are you going to win a battle without going for the type advantage? The game actively encourages it and AFAIK most players to that, so I would say that's pretty close to being forced.
And I'm not sure I'd call it "easily winnable". I recall even with the monkeys it was pretty grindy and painful due to BW's EXP system.