"How I accidentally played the game on hard mode. [Some Spoilers]"

So, for preface, I haven't played a Pokemon game since Gen IV, though I played every generation up until that point. My wife had recently gotten back into Pokemon with X and the Sapphire remake and was really enjoying it (even going as far to make a living dex). Her excitement bled over to me and I played through Heart Gold again while waiting for SuMo to release.She took Sun and I took Moon but we played on our own at different paces. During the previews I wasn't particularly impressed by the starters. When a friend mentioned the Muchlax mystery gift, I decided to make him my starter, and gave the Litten to my wife. They warned me it would make the game tougher, but I didn't notice anything significantly different at first. That wasn't my big problem though...Because I hadn't played in so long, I didn't know how the EXP Share worked now. I thought it was similar to the old EXP Alls, which distributed XP across your party evenly. Because I was often hatching eggs or carrying Pokemon with me that weren't part of my core team, I turned it off, worried I'd be bleeding XP off onto Pokemon that I wasn't using.Yeah...that was a problem. I was chronically under-leveled the entire game without knowing why. Whenever I encountered a Totem Pokemon or a Kahuna it was some of the most difficult fights I've ever had in a Pokemon game. I sought out every Trainer I could, making sure I hit the "Clear every Trainer on this route" people and checked the beaches and off paths for enemies. It was bad. I didn't have a good pokemon to deal with Totem Mimikyu so I only beat it by baiting out all of the Play Rough PP, getting it to Mimic Rest, and sending out Snorlax to drain Shadow Claw PP until it got into struggle. (At that point I should have probably realized something was wrong). Kahunas and Trainers always took tons of items so I was always poor. I was nearly wiped by the Story Legendary who was 11 levels higher than anyone I had. I got through it, caught it (on the second Ultra Ball, woooo), and got to the Elite 4 and just could not find a way to beat them. I was 8-10 levels below even their weakest Pokemon, just getting slapped around in one shot by everything they had.I asked my wife, who was just still on the third Island what level her team was and she said 55! She only had four Pokemon in her party but it seemed like a huge discrepancy. I had friends who had cleared the game so I asked them if they found any good grinding spots/what level they were on the E4. After a long conversation one of them finally asked "You are using your EXP Share, right?" and it all came unraveled.So uh...don't do what I did. I'm currently grinding out grass patches to try and catch back up. While it definitely made the game fun and challenging, there's a point where it just doesn't work anymore and you're too far behind. Hopefully no one else is sitting there with the same problem and I'm the only one dumb enough to have done it. I'm sure the game told me what the EXP Share does now and I was just distracted and didn't read the explanation through.tl;dr Didn't realize how EXP Share worked. Turned it off. Had a very difficult game.edit: It sounds like a lot of people play this way intentionally, which is awesome, using EXP Share to catch back up if needed. I definitely appreciated the challenge and will probably play this way again in the future, though it'll help to know I can use it if I fall behind next time. via /r/pokemon http://ift.tt/2fyG7z7