"In August 2018, I challenged myself to play every main series Pokemon game in order, without ever using the same Pokemon more than once. As of January 2021, I'm finally finished, and I wanted to share it with Reddit."

Sorry for any bad formatting as I am on mobile. TLDR and a link to the imgur album at the bottom.So, as a bored college freshman, this sounded like a great long-term project to undertake in my spare time, but I vastly underestimated the time it would actually end up taking in the end due to time constraints and burn-out. Despite that, I finally pulled through and completed my longest gaming-related project ever. Here's the story, wall of text incoming:First, I want to establish my "rules":I must use a fully unique team of 6 in each game. No singular Pokemon may be used more than once, with a few exceptions (see rules 3 and 4). The term "used" means that the Pokemon was on my final team as of the end of the game and cannot be present on another final team at the end of a game for the rest of the challenge. To prevent cheesing this, I must use all chosen Pokemon from time of capture to the end of the game unless I need an HM Slave.I must play EVERY main series game (Example: Red, Blue AND Yellow), but I am excluding Let's Go Pikachu and Let's Go Eevee due to some questions regarding whether they are main series or spinoffs and their deviations from series norms.HM slaves can be caught and used as needed (but only if a particular HM cannot be used my any of my Pokemon) but may not see battle unless they are the last Pokemon standing. Also, I may use my starter until I can catch my first Pokemon of choice, and then box it. This rule does not disqualify any Pokemon used as an HM Slave or Starter unless they are present in my team at the end of the game.Pokemon with multiple final evolutions (Eevee, Ralts) can be used mutliple times as long as the final evolution chosen is a unique, unused Pokemon and the non-evolved Pokemon is not in the final team at the end of a game. Also, using an unevolved Pokemon disqualifies the use of ALL of its evolutions in future teams (Kadabra disqualifies Alakazam) and vice versa (Gardevoir disqualifies Kirlia, but not Gallade).Most games end when the Champion is defeated. The exceptions are the Johto games, in which Red must be defeated, and Black and White, in which Ghetsis is the final boss (I did go on to fight Alder in Black but its just unfun grind to get to that point and I did not wanna do it again).I will not be trading in Pokemon that are not naturally found within the game being played, nor will I trade in a Pokemon earlier than it is normally available.Now that that is out of the way, I decided to catalogue my journey through the series in an Imgur album. Here is a link, for those interested:The Album of my Journey Through the SeriesThe toughest part of this was definitely getting past the burnout, especially in the Alola games considering you gotta play Sun, Moon, Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon back to back, and you gotta play through Kanto a whopping 10 times, 12 if you decide to include Let's Go. At least in the Unova games, Black 2 and White 2 didnt have the exact same path through the region that Black and White did.Also, some fun stats: I contracted Pokerus 3 separate times within the confines of this challenge, in Firered, Pearl and Sword. In total, I used roughly (give or take because I'm writing this at 4AM) 388 unique Pokemon counting evolutions. I also found 1 non-scripted shiny Pokemon, which was a Solosis in White 2.Will I do it again? Probably not, but I'd like to continue it for as long as it is actually possible as new games come out. It was a really refreshing way to play Pokemon and see how the series evolved over time and I got to use a lot of Pokemon I would probably never touch otherwise. Some of the standouts were Passimian, Minior, Cacturne, Skuntank, Beedrill and Dustox. (Those last two had to solo Brock and Roxanne respectively). Overall I had a ton of fun with it.I know its just a silly challenge but I'm proud of myself, a chronic never-finisher, of finally completing it. I hope you guys enjoy this idea as much as I did while playing through it and I would love to try and answer any questions you guys may have.TL:DR Basically what the title says. I finished a nearly 2.5 year old challenge to complete every main series game with a completely unique team of Pokemon. Link to the imgur album here:The Album via /r/pokemon https://ift.tt/3ooaFE5