Gotta Catch 'Em All?

[Explorer of Time]

We all know the famous tagline from the thread title, and every Professor sends you on a quest to catch lots of Pokemon. But how many people actually did or tried to catch 'em all? It doesn't have to be the whole National Dex, either; regional dexes count just as well, and so do spinoff, romhack, and fangame dexes, whatever they're called.

Myself, I've never been that into catching Pokemon aside from Legendaries or team members, so I've never completed a Pokedex in any mainline game. I have, however, completed both the Fiore and Almia Ranger Browsers, which is pretty much it as far as catching 'em all goes. Ranger's capture mechanics are interesting to me in a way that the standard catching mechanics aren't, and I wanted to go out and find every Pokemon to experience their battle mechanics even if it didn't do anything besides fill in my Ranger Browser.

 

[Devalue]

Completed the regional Pokedexes for Generations 6-9, as well as Generation 1. Planned to trade with someone or another. Made sense to do so. Cannot say for sure beyond that. Definitely not for Generation 4 because of all of the corrupted save errors. Filled in all of one of the Pokedexes for Pokemon Pinball.

Almost finished the National Dex for Home. Remains stuck on Volcanion and Marshadow. (Declines to do any direct trades here, even if just for the Pokedex entries.) Did not bother with any of the regional Dexes in Home.

 

[Setsuna]

Immediately once I complete a mainline Pokemon game, my very next goal is to complete the Pokedex, Regional or National, whatever it may be. I'm the type that really enjoys a long-term goal with a checklist of things I can just tick off once I get them, so I always enjoy going through a big list of Pokemon and catching all of them, evolving or breeding for ones I'm missing, and getting any kind of reward whether it was just the certificate or now things like the Shiny Charm. I've kept a couple living dexes but since I don't pay for Pokemon Bank they're essentially just locked away if I ever decide to check in on them again.
With Pokemon Home, I'd love to properly fill out my Pokedex and get multiple copies of everything, but since the process of getting Meltan/Melmetal is game-specific to games I don't have/play, it's not something I've been able to accomplish yet. When they announced a shiny Meloetta as a gift for the Scarlet/Violet Pokedexes, I did that immediately since Meloetta is my bf's favourite Pokemon, so I got it for him.

It's interesting you brought up Pokemon Ranger because of the different catch mechanics. I usually feel like the process of finding the Pokemon in the first place (finding what route it's in, what time of day, farming for it if it's a rare encounter, etc.) to be the enjoyable part of the hunt rather than the catch itself (I can throw a Quick Ball at something on turn 1 and be satisfied) but that's an angle I've never looked at it from. I think spinoffs with a bigger emphasis on catching Pokemon are a lot of fun, and I think of Colosseum/XD as the perfect marriage between mainline Pokemon's battles and that emphasis on catching Pokemon, having to do it in the middle of a double battle when the game might not just give you an easy way to lower their HP or put a status condition on them. In mainline games I'll just breathe a sigh of relief and move on if I spent 50 turns trying to catch a legendary, but there are moments in Colosseum/XD such as trying to catch Dakim's Entei that really make you work for it, and it's not often that the act of catching the Pokemon itself is the highlight for me.

 

[Sheep]

I always make sure to complete the national dex in all games nowadays! Think I truly started this with gen 6, when I got a proper WiFi connection and didn't have to rely on the Nintendo WiFi Connector lol. It's so much easier now. A big part of the game is collecting for me, so just regional dexes aren't enough.. I gotta go all the way for the shiny charm!

 

[Corveone]

I only completed the Pokédex in the one game that wanted me to do so: Legends Arceus.

Otherwise no. That slogan from the Anime where the protagonist hardly catches anything never made sense anyway, it's not even technically possible to catch every Pokémon, since traded and gift Pokémon are not something you caught.

 

[RadEmpoleon]

I'm mostly in it for the shiny charm, but yes I like completing the Pokédex! I like making a list of all the mons I need and crossing them off. Did it in White 2, Y, and Sun, and I'll get around to it in Ultra Moon once I'm done with the post game. The biggest "flex" was doing it in White 2 years after they shut down the DS wifi servers with the DNS trick. It was hard because the GTS pre-gen 6 is annoying to navigate, but I managed to get almost everything myself. I remember messaging with someone on PC to get the last few mons I needed.