Game Designer Explains: The Psychology behind Cynthia's Reputation and Difficulty

I originally wanted to complete this by Halloween. It is WAY behind schedule. Goes to show - one should never underestimate Cynthia, even when making a video about her. I should write shorter scripts....

Here's an explanation for Gastrodon. It's a West Sea Gastrodon which has to be caught as a weak Shellos. East Sea Gastrodon can be caught at higher levels and fully evolved but instead of catching the stronger Gastrodon to save her some time (which is what Paul did in the anime) Cynthia chose the weaker Shellos and raised it to Level 60 without taking a shortcut. Her friendship evolutions make her kindness obvious but West Sea Gastrodon is a more subtle hint that she cares and is willing to train the hard way instead of expecting her Pokemon to be powerful from the start.

Imagine if, when the BW2 remakes come out, the devs intentionally move the house she is in to the one next door, so that when players intentionally avoid going to the house in which she appeared in the original games, they'll find a neat little surprise waiting for them in the one next door, which no-one remembers, but now they will. That'd be evil, but also extremely funny and memorable

One thing modern players don't realise when they research Cynthia's team is that they inevitably end up building a team to exclusively counter her. Yeah, it may trivialise her battle, but she's still so powerful she bends you to her will.

I love that cynthia's reputation serves to immediately skyrocket everyone's anxiety when the volo fight starts. I read a comment once that said the turo/sada fight in scarlet/violet was so scary because we had no idea what was coming. volo's fight became scary because we immediately DID realize what was coming

There is something to be said about Cynthia's demeanor, especially on Spear Pillar and in the Distortion World. Her job is to serve as the final benchmark for Sinnoh's young trainers, and she would be negligent in her duties if she hi-jacked the efforts of a promising challenger handling a crisis. However, you know without a doubt she could fold Cyrus in half, even without fighting her. She's angry at his treatment of the legendaries and nonplussed at his motivations, but not concerned he'll get away with it. Because if you can't handle this, she will.

What's scary for me is the rare early Garchomp switch-in. I wasn't ready for it, and having to accommodate a sudden Garchomp mid battle crippled my team. Basically gave the Lucario a free sweep.

I’m so glad we as fans can come together and remind ourselves that we share the trauma of getting folded by Cynthia

The other thing is that Cynthia’s AI often decides to go into Garchomp immediately after Spiritomb. This fills several great roles: 1. Betrayal of expectations. Those who expected to be able to chill for the next few mons are suddenly shoved a giant dragon in their face when they expected a weaker one. Especially if you’re playing on Set. 2. If this Garchomp catches you off guard and beats you, it makes ITSELF into the recency bias “final thing” despite being only her second pokemon. You get one-two punched with a memorable opener and an insane enemy to sweep you, putting both primacy and recency into full force with nothing weak inbetween. And even if you beat it, usually her last Pokémon is Togekiss, which is still a terror to deal with with her high speed, coverage, and flinch spam with Air Slash. An already memorable fight getting even more brutal based on how she feels like messing with you.

8:12 "try to recall Cynthia's team blindly from memory" i recalled eight of her Pokémon, this is sad but it also proves the point that her team is just so memorable

Spiritomb really shows how much Geeta's Glimmora failed in comparison. It's an extremely rare Pokemon you almost certainly never knew beforehand, and it's related to Cynthia's interests (being an ancient Pokemon charged with myths and history. Honestly, baring all the Legendaries, it's the second best thing. Well, that and Lucario, but she has it too). Also, it's extremely durable, especially before Gen 6 when it has literally no weaknesses, while Glimora dies immediately (and you don't even have to guess its type due to Tera). It's truly amazing how a similar idea can get it all right the first time around, and completely messed up here (thankfully, the final battle of SV gets it right, once more.)

A small thing about Cynthia's team is that it has a lot of shock factor that comes along with it. Her entire team consists of Pokemon that are either really strong, or have never been seen before which makes it easy for the player to be put in positions where they don't even know what to do.

My favorite part about her being in the Unova games like that is the time there was a pokemon door randomizer that linked the entrance to a very early game building into cynthia’s house. So he basically got his level 5 starter and then was immediately teleported to the hardest fight in the game

24:55 Lucahjin had this in reverse. She played Black and White before Platinum. So she gained PTSD from Cynthia's "dish Pokemon" (Spiritomb) that made her afraid every time Cynthia walked on screen in Platinum. Which is funny because Cynthia is the nicest lady in that game.

I think an important part of cynthia's difficulty that wasn't mentioned is that at the time, she was pretty much the very first story trainer with an actually really solid team. Gen 1 to 3 bosses generally have teams with underwhelming movesets. I believe that in the grand scheme of the franchise, she isn't that special, she was just the blueprint of how to make a good story team.

something I feel like very few people talk about is how cynthia usually relies on mostly special attacks. Even lucario, a usually physical Pokémon, is rocking a mixed set. So if you have a mostly specially bulky team to counter this, you then get curbstomped by her only physically based option: garchomp. I just think it’s a neat thing not brought up much

I think at this point, the only way to make Cynthia even scarier is to have a few team sets that are randomly selected each time you battle her… so it’s impossible to plan your team against her

8:20 Spiritomb leads, typically followed by Togekiss or Milotic in my experience. Then Roserade or Lucario. If she’s feeling spicy, fairly sure her AI is programmed to sic Garchomp on you early if it’ll give her an advantage. Reason I remember every member of her team is because each and every one of them are strong and scary in their own rights as Pokémon.

Team roles and synergy really help too. Garchomp and Milotic cover eachothers weaknesses really well in particular.

Gastrodon was a Pokémon I feared a lot in Cynthias team. Every time I encountered one in the wild prior to the league, I noticed it was a nightmare to kill for its massive defense and hp pool. Cynthia pulling out a Gastrodon after most of my team had been defeated by her previous pokémons felt like seeing a steep street ahead of you when going on a marathon...