Sheep

She/Her
Australia
Seen 6 Hours Ago
Posted 7 Hours Ago
39,253 posts
16.6 Years
Do you take your time to explore and catch every Pokémon you can in a route before pressing on? Continue through the story until you've beaten it and then go back to do what you missed and catch missing Pokémon? Or do you stop playing altogether once you've gotten through the story?

Cid

Age 27
He/Him
Philippines
Seen 6 Days Ago
Posted February 14th, 2022
3,664 posts
15.2 Years
I do the second way you listed, almost all the time. :)

I like to take my time as well occasionally, but the feeling of making my current player character as accomplished as my previous ones is just too strong, so I press on. Would love to play it the first way for one of my first playthroughs, though! Maybe I could do that in Sword and Shield.


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Fairy

she / they
in the flowers
Seen January 27th, 2023
Posted January 6th, 2023
I make sure I catch every single Pokémon that’s available to me at the time and raise it along with all of my other Pokémon. If I don’t have the gear to be able to get it (life a fishing rod or something), then the moment I do I start at the beginning and work my way forward again until I know I’ve exhausted all available Pokémon in an area. I also do an obsessive amount of grinding. Pretty much have to, seeing as by later points in the game I’ve accumulated many Pokémon and still insist on training them all. Usually end up with about 6 to 8 teams I rotate.
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she/her
gracidea fields
Seen December 30th, 2022
Posted December 29th, 2022
8,974 posts
18.1 Years
What I used to do is just blaze past the story because I never really cared about it a whole lot, but then I realized that put a significant damp on how I enjoy the games. These days, I try to take my time and try not to rush too much into things. I really want to explore and see what kind of Pokemon are in a given route/area, and what kind of NPCs are around and how important they are, things like that!

I become less motivated to do these things if I just blitz past them and beat the game, because then I feel like I should be doing more of the post-game stuff since I've already missed out on a lot of the early/mid-game stuff that I should've done.
Age 29
Male
USA
Seen August 14th, 2019
Posted July 17th, 2019
20 posts
4.9 Years
I usually start out catching everything but at some point I just want to finish the game and only catch things that I might want on my team. Since I don't have as much free time I pretty much always stop at the end of the story. Sometimes I'll start up an old game just to walk around and listen to the music.

Eldegoss

The Beauty of Galar

Male
Australia
Seen November 11th, 2019
Posted June 9th, 2019
11 posts
4 Years
I only catch Pokemon I want on my team from each area, then once I have beat the game I go back and catch everything else.

Percy

Male
Asia
Seen December 24th, 2021
Posted June 19th, 2021
3,045 posts
8.7 Years
i like organized playing. i usually go through the story naturally, building a good team but not necessarily catching every pokemon. i also try to explore areas as much as i can. but caves are my weakness hahahha. and about that organized playing, i follow the numbering of the routes e.g. route 1 --> town/city --> route 3 etc. etc.
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Imperator161

Seen February 5th, 2023
Posted July 31st, 2020
1,415 posts
14.7 Years
My play style varies a bit by game, but I usually catch every Pokémon available and train them all as I go along. I don’t tend to have a set team anymore; rather, I have a larger group of Pokémon that I rotate through. This allows me to keep Exp Share on (so that I don’t feel like I’m wasting time that I would eventually need to train everything in the postgame) while preventing my team from becoming too overleveled. It does mean that I’m less attached to my starter than I used to be, though. I used to keep my starter in my party at all times, but if I use Exp Share, I keep having to box it, which I dislike.

Looking back at the various play styles I’ve used:

1. Blast through the main game with my starter. Catch a couple of Pokémon, but stick mostly to a solo run. Games: Red, Gold pre-E4

2. Build a team and use that. Catch a few other Pokémon, but don’t focus on them until post-game. Blast through the story. Games: Gold post-E4, Silver, and to a degree, Yellow.

3. Catch everything available and train them all perfectly evenly. Prevent myself from progressing with the game until I hit arbitrary level cutoffs. The disadvantage to this is that I tend to take too long and never get through the story, or don’t get through it for years. Games: Crystal, LeafGreen.

4. Train a team, or a group of more than six Pokémon, catch everything else, but don’t necessarily have them all be at the same level. Gate progress somewhat to slow down gym progression and prolong the game (and because this is the style I use for the newer games, and I play them to help me fall asleep, so progress is often slow). Games: Pretty much everything from gen 3 (non-LG) to the present. This is my standard play style today.

My progress gating does vary a bit. I feel let down when I beat the game, so I tend to prevent myself from challenging gyms too often, and instead focus on breeding, training, etc. If I beat the E4 within a year of release, that’s unusual, unless breeding options really are locked down until post game. I find that I often get 7 badges or so, then stall in finishing the game for months. (I stuck all of my games on Backloggery a couple of years ago, and apparently I have a habit of putting games down or stalling right before the final dungeon/boss across the board, not just for Pokémon.) That said, I seem to enjoy the games that I finish somewhat more quickly more than the others, so I wonder if I should change my approach a bit for gen 8.
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Brendino

The Ruins of Alph
Seen 15 Hours Ago
Posted April 6th, 2023
8,567 posts
13.4 Years
I never really used to it when I was younger, but more and more now I find myself taking my time going through the game, doing as much as I can before continuing on. I might not catch every Pokemon available to me, but I remember in older games I might only have a couple of Pokemon in my box by the time I beat the Elite Four, and now I seem to have boxes worth.

I also try and pace myself through the game. I actually like Pokemon games for their stories, and I hate rushing through, because I just don't get the same value out of playing Pokemon games a second time as I do with some other series. It usually takes me a few months to finish a game if I'm really enjoying it, but there have been other times (Y comes to mind right away) where it takes me more than a year to complete it.

Qibli

Motorcycle Dragon

Non-binary
Seen 15 Hours Ago
Posted 1 Week Ago
1,794 posts
9.7 Years
I dont like rushing things when playing so, I decide to catch a single pokemon and attempt to catch up with my starter (until some point to get EXP share) I go with the flow of things and try to enjoy the story as well often times I decide to end my journey and find a way to get a better replay value
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Sydian

fake your death.

Age 30
they/them
Georgia
Seen May 22nd, 2022
Posted November 29th, 2021
33,354 posts
15.2 Years
if it's a new game, i play really slowly. i catch literally everything if i don't already have it in my pokedex, i tend to switch around team members often, and i talk to every npc. like. i play painfully slow. lol if i'm replaying a game though, i tend to only catch pokemon i've planned for my team and i just zip through and have fun raising my pokemon. i'm a simple man.
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Male
Bristol, England
Seen November 17th, 2021
Posted September 15th, 2021
398 posts
3.9 Years
I catch all the poke on I can and try to train to certain levels in certain areas before I move on, and now that you get experience from catching pokemon I try to catch as many as I can for wonder trading

As for after game play I play for a little while I can't really get into it tho

Megan

She/Her, It/Its
Online now
Posted 1 Hour Ago
17,752 posts
10.3 Years
In a new game I usually to whatever. I may not even bother with artifically increasing the difficulty. Blasting through is fair game on my first run. Subsequent runs I tend to restrict myself to a balanced party of six. Balanced includes an even distribution of HM moves, as well. I also try to come up with a meta narrative as main game stories tend to be boring (doesn't help that newer games focus a little too much on telling a story). I also try to avoid grinding and the overuse of TMs with overpowered moves. I try and see how far I come. I either beat the game that way or if the playthrough gets annoying I'll allow myself to do some grinding. However, I still try to be underleveled at the end of the game to keep a little bit of a challenge intact.

After the E4 my playthrough is usually over. I'm kinda over postgame content at this point.
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Syntthetix

Porygon Programmer

Age 21
Male
Littleroot Town
Seen 4 Weeks Ago
Posted January 20th, 2023
338 posts
8.1 Years
I tend to take a kind of balances approach. I don't exactly try to blast through the story, but I don't go super slow either. I've found from past games that it kinda sucks to get through the whole story after just a couple days, so I try to find some other things to do, like some shorter shiny hunts, as I progress through the story. That typically gets my run to last a week or more so I don't feel like it was over way too fast. Once I'm done with the main story, I usually resort to a crap ton of shiny hunting, assuming I like the methods available in that game.

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Firox

eepz, come help pwease!

Age 37
Male
Seattle, WA
Seen September 15th, 2021
Posted July 17th, 2020
2,585 posts
11 Years
in most of my games (previous gens) - I breed my team in a completed game

when buying a new copy - I play with which ever starter I like, even if I'm not going to use, and play until I can trade
during that time, I try to avoid everything - especially the trainers if I can
*trade the eggs, spend long time hatching them (going in circles around the same town - usually the starter town)*
so all my team is at level 1

now I can start the team - battle every trainer, battle the wild Pokemon, and explore all around, taking my time for sure
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starseed galaxy auticorn

PC's Resident Auticorn

Age 34
she/he/they
the land of magical unicorns
Seen 1 Week Ago
Posted 1 Week Ago
6,648 posts
18.9 Years
I usually start over after I've done the main things (beat the gyms & elite 4). Other times, I'll try to build my dream team of dragon/fairy types. It really depends on the game and what's available for mons. I usually end up using my starter as well. I have a set team that I like most for each game.

Spoiler:
I also use cheats... but I never trade the Pokemon I used cheats on. I try to use my cheats a as a way to "make it easier" since I struggle in some games to really grind and level up. It's especially hard for me to do this in Pokemon USUM. :x