Non turn based games usually will always have some degree of reliance of "just git gud", due to having the fact you have to execute commands "in real time".
Sure if they are RPGs there's still likely the chance you can overlevel and bruteforce a boss, but that's not a rule.
You're not going to be able to overlevel a mission in GTA, you can't overlevel a boss in Bayonetta or DMC, you're not going to be able to win at a sports game by getting higher level players (...ok we do not speak of latest FIFA games), you're not going to overlevel a Roguelike or even a Roguelite, you're also not going to bruteforce a fighting game either, and usually even in modern single player RTS the games put some sort of "soft timer" either by you running out of resources or a literal timer on finishing a mission.
I didn't get what I was alluding to across good.
Sure, those games don't have levels, but they do have ways of making them just as artificially hard where it takes a kind of "grind" to get through them.
For GTA, sure there's no levels, but if they want to make a mission harder they can up the amount of mooks you gotta gun down as well as making resources scarce. Heck, GTA has missions where you can only use a specific weapon, usually a melee one like a bat, which could make those missions much more harder compared to having let you just use a gun.
Bayonetta, DMC and Roguelike/Roguelite may not have a level system the way Pokemon does, but they can still up the difficulty by making the opponents stronger. Hit harder, have a lot of HP, give them a gimmick you need to work with or around to defeat them, could have minions/allies with them you'd need to also fight at the same time, etc..
Sport games are an interesting case because, similar to Pokemon, unless they want to be obvious with their artificial difficulty all players have stats. However, while Pokemon is a turn based thus increased difficulty comes from levels, with sport games most of the time difficulty comes from reaction time. While developers try to replicate real life reaction times, the computer will still has better reaction time to do actions & maneuvers. They're ones which the player could technically do too but a player will sometimes fumble; the computer will always be able to execute the action/maneuver perfectly everytime.
And there's plenty of other examples. My point was that all of these all involve grind of some kind even if they're not gaining levels. GTA would require you to memorize the mission knowing where are enemies and resources (or in case of using a specific weapon, how best to use the weapon). Bayo, DMC, & Rogues you'll just have to keep on fighting until the opponent is defeated while trying to keep yourself healthy. Sports you'll have to know what the best strategies are to prevent your opponent from starting theirs or countering them.
In general (bar some very specific exceptions with roguelikes that force permadeath or straight up punish experimenting) once you remove the "real time" element from a game, you make the game basically become "do you know the strategy? Yes you win, No you lose" and the "difficulty" only becomes either bruteforcing the element via grinding, or reading the strat on the internet.
Once again, I feel if you switch around some things the same is true for all genres that are "real time". If you know the strategies and are able to keep up with the action then you win. If you don't then you gotta figure it out, and with a real time game I can only imagine that's more frustrating as, unlike with Pokemon where you have time to think of what to do next, in the real time game you still gotta keep dodging/healing yourself.
The lack of having to execute "on the fly" really hurts any type of challenge you can propose in turn based games. Pokemon just suffers from it even more due to how "simple" the combat system is on basic level
(We all know it's actually pretty complex, but that complexity only happens when enemies have "infinite" options)
I disagree. I think the main problem here is that Pokemon doesn't really show us how battles can provide thoughtful challenges during the main game; ESPECIALLY when there's always on Exp. Share keeping your team either up to pace or even further ahead of the level curve. If you look at the strategies that ILCA gave to the Gym Leaders, Pokemon League, and villain team there's actually some creative ones that may have made them more interesting battles in the original DPPt.
You know, I know you made that dialogue more of a meme, but a part of me wonders if one of the reasons for picking DP over Plat as base was simply cause that way there was a "sureproof" way to recreate both versions, while if they used Plat at base it'd actually have required some more thought on how to split stuff, expecially the expanded pokedex available.
That's the only reason I can think of, in addition to not wanting to include the Battle Frontier which would be the major feature to make it based on Platinum. And if exlcuding Platinum also means losing some story bits that didn't really add anything, so be it.
Hm, thinking about it, being they then placed all the Platinum extended Pokemon in the Grand Underground, I wonder if the other choice to do so was so they could do that and thus "justify" the Grand Underground.
Sinnoh surfing was also very reduced, generally just being used for short cuts and a couple short side areas, and any time it does come up it's generally very short routes.
They probably reduced it because of Hoenn backlash, honestly, it does not feel like a coincidence.
Maybe, though it could also be because they wanted to focus on Mt. Coronet sort of being the "hud" of Sinnoh so some progression involved a new way of navigating it usually via an HM.
Why can't we buy NPC clothes? Or get them in some other way? The art is already done. I know they can't just copy-paste, NPC assets are different from PC assets, but a good chunk of NPC models are clearly built on the same skeleton as the PC just for convenience, why not let us dress the same as Lass/Ace Trainer/Evil Grunt/etc?
Don't forget hairstyles. They could even make it a sort of "collectable", like in order to obtain the Lass's clothing style you need to defeat 10 Lasses or maybe all the Lasses on the first three Routes or something along that idea.
And on the flipside, maybe also apply the different skin, hair, & eye color options the player has to all the trainers so that, even if they're wearing the same clothes, they'll look different (though wouldn't also argue having a few alt clothing styles for the Trainer Classes to make them further look different, and then make them all available for the player to obtain and wear).
I could also mention a ton of other ways they could make customization more robust but I'll spare you the reading (for now...).
There is actually a bunch of NPC-based clothing in SwSh, as well as obviously the gym trainers sporting the same outfit that you get after defeating the gym.
I assume it's the first time they actually bothered with it, and I've seen far too many people with the Marnie cosplay clothing at this point.
But remember some of that is DLC. And while I'm not against DLC adding more clothing options, at the same time I do think that any of the clothing the Trainer Classes & major NPCs are wearing in-game should be made available in the base game. Paid DLC clothes should be something like sets of clothes based previous gens or maybe even other game series (and of course they either should be cheap if sold individually (mictotransaction pretty much) or if its a set there should be a significant amount of clothes depending on the price point).