Difficulty in Gaming

After putting in tons of hours into Pokemon Let's GO Eevee, I had an interesting discussion with a friend of mine where he proclaimed he thought the game was supposed to be easier than it was, and though he didn't have a ton of trouble, he expected it to be a real breeze. I told him that with the partner pokemon and their extra moves and abilities, the game was a complete piece of cake for me only to find out he hadn't used his partner pokemon for most of the game in favor of leveling and catching others. The game had been severely "balanced" around the absurd power of the starter. That got me thinking about the difficulty in games, mostly single player, and how they affect our playthoughs and shape our experiences. For a single player game, I often don't find myself playing for a difficult or challenging experience but for an enriching story driven one. That leads me to play games on the lowest difficulty settings expediting my trek from boss battle to boss battle and cutscene to cutscene. I wouldn't say I rush, but it allows me to cut out the untimely set up of certain encounters or battles and allows me to enjoy what I enjoy most about the games I play. In pokemon specifically, I used Eevee to speed through the story and conquer every gym and am only now considering whether to complete the pokedex or hunt shiny pokemon. In class, we've discussed how people experience games at a different level and place, but I would love to know what you guys think the difficulty toggle in some games or artificial handicap/difficulty in others affects the play experience.