I have beaten Blue, once in the 90's and then Red this year. Also, I played a little bit of Diamond or Pearl when that came out. That's it for my mainline Pokemon experience. My issue is with Gold, which I am currently playing:

1. I want to see "a good number" of the new Pokemon in action.
2. I want to keep each of my Pokemon for a long enough play time for them to feel meaningful.

I am therefore presented with two options: Catch and train most of the Pokemon I find, and keep each one for a small amount of time, never forming a bond with any of them OR only raise a few, forming a bond with them, but missing out on a lot of the game's content.

I'm sure this bothers someone else so I would like to hear how you deal with it. Maybe there's a third option I haven't thought about either. Also, while I'm making a thread about Gold, is there anything I should know about the game that could be important? I know about the battery issue. The person I ordered it from replaced the battery before he sent it to me. The clock is a few minutes off over months and months but I don't think it's so many that the battery is failing. Also I'm playing on a backlit SP if that matters.

I can definitely see why that would be very stressful. I typically just train up the ones I like best as I go and don't worry too much about the others. My party shifts as I go, but I definitely don't try to give everyone a shot. I don't feel at all like I'm missing any content.

@crazybagman I'm with you on this. It would be impossibly difficult to try to incorporate all the Pokemon into my playtime and I don't think the developers necessarily intended on players to do that for that reason. I have a similar playstyle when I play other RPG's that have a wide array of party options. For example, with Persona 4 I would experiment with my personas and party members only as far as I found them useful. Once I found something or someone better I would move on. I think that's part of the fun with games like this because it forces you to kind of figure out what you think is best for you in a sea of possibilities and execute your strategies.

@j_unit2008: As far as something like a Final Fantasy game, where each character is usually important to the story, I try to use each one equally because they all matter. I think that play style has negatively affected my Pokemon play style.

Alright, here's a suggestion. Make a reasonable party of 2-3 pokemon that covers a good number of elements out of what you can find in the early areas and keep them reasonably well leveled. Switch pokemon in and out of the remaining slots as needed. If you find a new favorite, let them stay.

Yeah I usually do the whole level all characters equally thing for RPGs, but for Pokemon I go off the deep end on the other side and try to get an imba team asap so I can hit endgame and start competitive breeding the shit out of Pokemon.

Y'know, I gotta say as someone who as about 20 years worth of experience with these games, the meta thinking about Pokemon as well as comparing it to Final Fantasy and Persona is completely mind-fucking my usual simple way of thinking about these games.

But, ah, yeah. I usually go with a solid team of five that can have an offensive type advantage against a game's gyms, Elite Four and champion while the regular pushover trainers can be overpowered. As for Gold specifically, I like having a team of fire, ice/water, psychic, electric and a dragon for the Elite Four, and the sixth pick can be for whatever; either another type for more attack coverage if you're not feeling confident, an HM slave if you don't feel like spending time training, or just whatever for XP Share training. I still know the game more than anyone my age should, so ask me for more specific details, I guess.

geez guyz why can't you spend 500+hours on every game unlocking everything like normal people?

seriously though mostly unrelated but i feel a bit the same with overwatch lately. the only one im decent with is lucio (that's debatable though) and while i feel obligated to expand my horizons i also worry im not spending enough time honing my already ok skills with him.

i don't really have experience with pokemon but my brief experience with pokemon x made me feel i was going to stick with rolling with a small crew and just be fighting/capturing everything else for experience and completionist's sake

It stresses me out too, I'm always afraid to leave an area and not get all the possible pokemon. It led to me playing like 3 hours of Pokemon X (with extremely little progress) and putting it down, because my OCD hit hard.

Just play the game and look up pokemon you like and train them. No need to catch them all. It's a waist off pokeballs who wants a Sentret or a Dunsparce anyway !

I always make a main team of 6 that develops over the play through. I also have some ones that I train up and have benched but ready to swap in at any point. The benched ones tend to be Pokemon that were moved out of the main part to make room for a newly acquired one or maybe a Pokemon of a type that I don't have represented in the main party. Sometimes you need a fire or a flying type. Focusing on leveling them all would be maddening. I didn't level every Persona I came across in P4. That too would have been an unoptimal to play that game.

That is something I often do in other RPGs, but I never found any urge to do that in Pokemon, even when there were only 151. Partly because there's zero incentive and no story reason to bother. I just find 6 I really like and make them awesome.

There was a time where I would at least try to "collect 'em all", but that's just a fools errand these days.

@redhotchilimist: this is what I do.

Man reading about all these Persona comments makes me wish for a Pokemon game but in the style of Persona... You gotta juggle high school in rural not-Japan hunt and battle Shadow Pokemon/Trainers on the weekends all the while uncovering the sinister plots of Team Rocket.

It bugs me, too. The games encourage you to build a strong, balanced party. They also encourage you to "catch 'em all". The incentives for each are different and not really complementary, which means you usually end up having your favorite mains while the rest go to the PC simply to fill up your Pokedex. Constantly bringing in new Pokemon weakens your overall capabilities unless you are prepared to the spend an unrealistic amount of time working with every new Pokemon. @redhotchilimist suggestion is the only compromise I could see being effective (outside of cheating). It'll weaken you, but you might still get by without too much trouble.

When Red and Blue came out, it was a new experience and I wasn't sitting there dissecting everything. After so many releases in the series, I find it extremely difficult to ignore the more lacking aspects of their design.

In my time with Pokemon X, I found that it was much easier on me to try out different ones as I caught them, and then build a team that worked on progressing the story along. I felt like if I tried to catch every one it would drive me crazy and I would not want to play anymore. I don't want that to happen for Sun/Moon so I'm not going to approach it as a completionist and or as a trainer for every Pokemon, but rather just pick out my favorites and enjoy the adventure.

I did it guys. I figured it out. I captured a Tentacruel and I'm like "Man this pokemon is cool. I know, I'm going to just keep the pokemon that I think are the coolest!" I can still catch most of them and read their pokedex entries but the pokemon I actually like are much fewer in number so I'll have a blend of seeing the ones I want, while still seeing a lot of them.

I do have a special spot for some Gen 1 guys that I beat the Elite 4 with. I never beat them without cheating as a child so now I have a special place for that team.

As a person who has caught them all many times. A person who systematically catches everything in every new area. I'll give you my rules to team building in game.

Rule 1. Always only use the pokemon new to that region with the small exception of old pokemon with a new evolution or mega evolution in those games.

Rule 2. Diversify your types as much as possible.

Rule 3. If you know what type of gym is coming up next feel free to swap in a pokemon to train for that gym and swap them out when you beat it.

Rule 4. Always have a pokemon that can still evolve in your party.

I find usually following those rules that I usually get a nice taste of what each region holds. Usually at least one example of each type for a given region ends up a decent run in my party.

I can't really enjoy Pokemon because of this. I just want to level everyone, which eventually gets me turned off of the game.

I recently discovered the nuzlocke runs for pokemon games. Might be a good route for someone who finds it hard to figure out how they want to play.

The idea is that you can only catch the first pokemon you encounter in each area. And if a pokemon faints, you release them permanently.