Arthesia

Sounds like striking a good balance to me. I do enjoy the challenge but didn't enjoy getting completely walled on certain fights. Souta was especially demotivating and pulled me out of the story completely. Tyranitar w/ Smack Down was borderline useless and my perspective on the game changed from "tough but fair" to "arbitrarily difficult". I resigned myself to cheesing the fight instead. Looking through those changes, I think you're hitting the right areas. The main problem for me was that some fights required too narrow of a strategy to win legitimately. Smack Down taking 2 turns in a Sky Field made it basically useless so I gave up trying. I didn't even bother using my Fire pokemon against Crawley (Bug) and Angie (Ice) because they made Fire types more of a hindrance. IMO, if your Fire pokemon are a hindrance against both the Bug and Ice leaders then it's not really "challenging", it's just anti-fun. Happy to see it change.

Trainers absolutely know what your items are and what you're going to do next. In practice this lets them use moves like Sucker Punch and Pursuit, but the side effect is that they are always a step ahead.

The issue isn't that it's too hard with the right strategies, but that it requires overly specific strategies and/or revive spam to beat.

Meowstic-M with Fake Out and screens from the playground west of Goldenleaf. Crobat with Brave Bird from the area between Goldenleaf and Sheridan.

I'm 99% sure this is because of a specific file in your saves folder. Go to your saves folder and delete "LastSave.dat". This isn't anything important, it's just what the game uses to display some basic info about the last save you loaded. When this file is corrupt the game crashes on startup regardless of version (which is why you see this in v12 and v13).

I figured the same and went with Squirtle for a new playthough. Results were... mixed. In the mid-game I had to stop using it entirely, but late-game it works. In theory it's great. 252 HP/SpAtk EVs, then sweep with Hydro Pump and Aura Sphere. Problem is that it's too fragile with a Shell Smash but not powerful enough without a Shell Smash. So it basically requires White Herb or Blastoisinite, and it needs the move tutor for Aura Sphere. All of which come much later. The middle of the game is absolutely brutal for Blastoise. Consider this. Blastoise is useless against Valarie's water types. In the next two gym battles it can't reliably setup against Crawley or Angie. Then its STAB moves are halved on the field against Geara/Zetta and again against Amber. Then against Erick it is completely useless against electric types. Then it is almost useless again versus Florin/Flora's grass types (you can try to use Signal Beam). Then when you get to the desert sections your STAB moves are halved again. I heard Blastoisinite was also removed from the game? So until GDC where you can buy more White Herbs it's pretty rough. Buuuut.... Mega Blastoise? Absolutely the best starter now.

No Guard with Sing / Psychic / Stone Edge / Zap Cannon works. If you use a -Atk nature then replace Stone Edge with Power Gem. You could also go with a tanky set. Solid Rock with Zen Headbutt / Stone Edge or Rock Slide / Curse or Dragon Dance / Confuse Ray. Curse as a physical wall, Dragon Dance as a tanky setup sweeper.

Move it to the spot furthest up and to the right on the map, then walk up behind it. It's very glitchy but that should work.

Base stats appear the same as normal Lapras. No Guard and Solid Rock for abilities (maybe a third, can't remember). Level up and egg moves include: Harden Psywave Rock Polish Gravity Power Gem Rock Slide Zen Headbutt Body Slam Sandstorm Miracle Eye Perish Song Ancient Power Curse Dragon Dance Heavy Slam Rock Tomb Teleport Stone Edge Psychic Confuse Ray Sing Worth noting that it can learn Zap Cannon via TM, so that's pretty useful with No Guard. I also saw that it can learn Hypnosis somehow because you fight against one that uses it in the story. I have no idea how.

Copy/paste that file into your saves folder and it will overwrite the existing file of the same name (Game.rxdata). BE VERY CAREFUL THOUGH I'm mostly commenting because I noticed the file you sent was "Game_2" but the file you were given is just "Game". Meaning, that file will replace the latest save in "slot 1", but what you sent was the latest save in "slot 2". So to be safe, you need to rename the file "Game_2.rxdata".

I totally agree, which is why I don't want to play on casual. It feels like normal is very close to ideal but tends to take things a step too far. Perfect example (for me) was Souta's Mega Pidgeot. Expectation: His ace is a special attacking flying/normal pokemon? My Tyranitar was born for this. There is no better pokemon I could possibly have for this fight. Reality: Strong Winds negates Sandstorm. Flying loses weakness to Rock. Smack Down requires two uses to change the field. Heavenly Wing negates Dragon Dance and restores Sky Field. Pidgeot enters with +50% Defense. Solution: Use a Ditto.

Disclaimer: This based on my experience playing "Set" and usually beating story/gym battles within 5 tries and a roster of 8-15 pokemon. Might be controversial but... normal difficulty feels a bit too hard? Nearing the end of ch14 now but I assume ch15 is similar. Don't get me wrong, I love the puzzle approach to the battles. It's something I fell in love with playing Reborn, That said, as the story progresses it starts to detract from my enjoyment of the game narratively. Mostly because there's rarely a story battle you can go into blind with a strong team (but still knowing how the field works) and hope to win. I don't mind that for the first half of the game you need to exploit everything you can. You're the underdog and this is a core part of the story. However, after training strong pokemon and crafting a balanced team I hoped that I could rely on them to win with more consistency. But I still find myself heavily pushed toward cheese tactics and hard-counters. It's mostly because specific pokemon are so optimized for their field that they shut down any strategy of your own that isn't a direct counter. I've fallen pretty hard for this game so I'm seriously considering making a difficulty tweaks mod (if there isn't already). e.g. tweaking Valarie's Dewgong (replace Stockpile so that it can be wall-broken), or Geara's Typhlosion (change from Timid to Modest so it can be outsped), etc. Would probably add an option that adjusts all trainer IVs from 31 -> 20.

Just beat her. Some tips. First pokemon out needs to set screens. Something like Amoongus can use Spore + Poison STAB to get through two shields. After any Sleep tactics get someone to use Thunder Wave so the rest of your pokemon can outspeed her. You can bait her into wasting a turn on top of that by having a berry to wake up from sleep, letting your best pokemon hit her twice. Last pokemon out needs to be your hardest hitter. You can also try Sandstorm/Hail + Revive spam if you're really desperate.

Get a Meowstic-M with Light Clay. Turn 1: Fake Out one of her pokemon. OHKO the other with a counter. You now start the battle 6v5. Turn 2: Reflect / Light Screen Turn 3: Reflect / Light Screen That essentially negates her damage advantage.

These pokemon can be found early/mid and will be useful in 95% of difficult fights. Amoongus. Is very tanky, learns Spore, has Regenerator / Giga Drain and can use Black Sludge, In other words, you can repeatedly swap him in and put pokemon to sleep with 100% accuracy while staying healthy. Meowstic-M. Prankster Fake Out / Reflect / Light Screen can make an enormous difference in difficult battles. Fake Out is incredible in 2v2s. Reflect / Light Screen feels essential to counter field buffs and Rift pokemon. Clerfable. Defensive EVs and Cosmic Power basically lets you cheese through fights that you're stuck on. Cosmic Power -> Hyper Potion -> Cosmic Power -> Hyper Potion etc. Then spam 260bp Stored Power.