[Meta thread] Iron's PokeRole Adventure: The Skull Ruins

[Dragonstrike]

I didn't particularly like GtI's incredibly simplified gameplay either (really easy to bulldoze most of the game, and the small roster of recruitable pokemon doesn't help either). However, I LOVED its character development and story. Easily the strongest character development in the series so far. Building Paradise was okay. Not spectacular, but not terrible either. Post-game was a disappointment in a few ways, but the character development is still the strong point even then.

I like Rescue Team for the challenge it has from being the first in the series. Story's okay, friend areas are unique, but if I want something truly difficult throughout the entire game, I look no further than the game with the most difficult boss fights and story related dungeons in the series (seriously, the game has like, five 99 floor dungeons, and most of them are related to post-game events). The biggest complaint I have about it all is how the post game is a little TOO open-ended...it's way too easy to get stuck trying to figure out how to trigger the next post-game event since the game gives you almost no hints, or how to obtain that one friend area so you can finally recruit that specific pokemon...

Explorers has a really nice story. Pretty challenging gameplay too. Biggest downside? There's a lot of supporting characters that don't receive any kind of development at all. It's a pretty niggling complaint, though, as Sky fixes the few things that Time and Darkness didn't do quite well enough, and builds on other things in addition to that (including some background for a few of those supporting characters). Has the best post-game experience in the series too, being rather long and still pretty challenging.

Super is as hard as, if not harder, than Rescue Team. It has a lot of the QoL improvements to gameplay from Gates, but amps up the difficulty a ton (when the enemies can both hit back and hit as hard as you can, if not more...). Story is okay as well, though it's certainly not its strong point. The post-game is only a little longer story wise than Gates's, but it at least gives you some clear goals for what to do afterwards before letting you loose on everything. The one complaint I have about Super besides its story is that it can feel a little TOO challenging at times...but that can be remedied with a little bit of dedication, a lot of items, and some gold bars (which might make things a little too easy instead, but...)