"SUPER late to the party, but by trading I recently started playing without putting much focus onto my Starter, and it's quite liberating"

There are two important things to know about me in this regard. First, I don't trade often because I didn't really have anyone to trade with. My brother and I traded in our GBA SPs for DSs, unknowingly locking ourselves out of Gen 3 trading, and as the years went on hegrew out of regularly playing Pokémon and sold his DS. Add spotty Internet to the mix, and it spelled disaster for me at Sacrifice I was pretty much almost always stuck with the Pokémon I got in-game as they appeared.Second, I'm typically a "your starter is the heart of your team, the unremovable Ace" kinda guy. Charizard, Typhlosion, Blaziken (yeah, I'm a fire guy), all the way through. How could you ever replace your Starter?But a little while ago, I got the bug to restart my Soulsilver, and with my handy Diamond and older DS laying around, I decided "y'know what? I like Houndoom, I've wanted a Houndour at the start of Johto for so long, that I'm just gonna do it. Just gonna trade an egg over to Soulsilver, and that will be my star." And A Whole New World opened up to me. Like "oh my gosh, is this how people have been enjoying themselves even more in these games?" Cannot recommend it enough; just play with who you like. Just... don't go overboard and make your final team your starting lineup, which does take a bit more magic out of playing. via /r/pokemon https://ift.tt/LbOEyAJ