Starting over your pokemon games...

[Unoriginal Name]

I never restart my latest games, although I do trade all my mons over to my last completed game, which I think of as my "main game" (in this case, B2).

I do restart older games, and use an emulator if it's the one with my current team on it.

 

[blitzlefan]

I almost always restart my games, but I move all my EV bred Pokes and legendaries to the newest game, letting me restart the old ones. For example, when the newest game came out (lBlack 2), I moved all my legendaries from Black to Black 2 after I beat it, letting me restart Black.

 

[Physicism]

I used to do this all the time- then I started getting event pokemon. Now saving them is such a hassle that I usually don't restart.

Also I restarted my explorers of darkness game, but the dungeons are so tedious and repetitive that I barely ever played it again.

 

[dcae]

I restart my GBA games and one of my Gen IV games while storing my EV trained pokemon in one game at most. I haven't restarted the Gen V games yet, only past ones.

 

[Mymom234]

I never restart my games, I get too attached to the pokemon that I spent leveling up and EV training on, plus with dream world pokes, shinies, and legendaries spread out between my games I don't want to lose them. Unfortunately I only have 1 DS and none of my friends will let me borrow theirs for long enough to transfer everything. It seems like a waste of time to play through the game and then just erase it all.

 

[The Knights of Wario Land]

For Gen 3 on, I usually transfer the old teams onto my White or Black 2 so they can live on. That, or I'm forced to restart my games if my cartridge decides to randomly wipe itself someday (which happened to my Red).

 

[Jimera0]

I didn't used to when I was younger because I'd get really attached to my Pokemon, but when I discovered the Scramble Challenge that pretty much went out the window. I started out deleting my files on game I hadn't played in many years but eventually went all the way to my more recent games.

That being said I have a couple games I won't reset. My Pearl version is never going anywhere since it's the only game I've completed the Pokedex on (no cheats at all, though the event legendaries I traded for are almost certainly cloned). The other is my Black version because I still use it for Battle Subway and the like.

Typically if I need to reset a game I'll transfer any EV trained and IV bred Pokemon to one of those two games. The teams I play through the game with usually get deleted though. I can only have so many old teammates clogging up my PC boxes, especially since most of them are never going to be used again anyway.

 

[Ayepae]

Yep I restart, always keep one saved though with transfered pokemon

 

[lucariomaster2]

I restart my old Gen 3 games often, after I feel I have done everything in-game. I always transfer all of my good Pokemon to XD so I don't have to lose them though. I have never restarted my Diamond, Platinum, Black, or Black 2 since it was around that time that I discovered EVs and competitive battling. ^.^

 

[Vashimus]

I restart all games after I've the transferred the important Pokes to my Diamond via Pal Park or trading. I sometimes grow WAY too attached to my Pokes, a lesson I learned after deleting the Shiny Jynx I had in Heart Gold by restarting. EV trained and everything, she was my favorite. I could always hack one with a better nature and perfect IVs, but it just isn't the same.

I haven't restarted Black because I have nothing to transfer my competitive Pokes to.

 

[Proc Trainer]

I only restart my Pokemon game once the experienced members of my respective teams are transferred over to the most modern game that I own :)

 

[Double Electric]

I used to restart my games--I'd usually transfer my team over to another game first and keep the old team in a box just for posterity's sake. However, my Advance freezes after a couple minutes of play these days and I've already had to replace my GSC cartridge batteries twice, so nowadays I just stick with emulators which negate the need to erase your previous save and don't automatically lose the save file after enough time passes. (trading can be a pain, but whatever)

I'm actually surprised there are still people these days who have fully functional Gameboy era handhelds and cartridges with working batteries. I was always so careful with my handhelds, but eventually they just stopped working out of their own accord (maybe dust built up inside the hardware?). Makes me kind of sad.

 

[Ausgirl]

I restart my games all the time. Like whenever I find out more about how the game mechanics work. For instance when I first got back into Pokémon with Pearl I didn't know anything about natures, then I restarted my game to get Pokémon with good natures, then I learned about things like IVs, discovered RNG and so on. Most of the time I don't even bother to transfer all the good ones cos I'm not sentimental like that. I just catch them again in my new game.
Lol I haven't even finished X and I'm already thinking about what team I'll use in my next playthrough.

 

[Akiratron]

I restarted all the time up until BW.
I must have did Platinum at least 5 times.

i really enjoyed the journey and re-getting a lot of things. I just find it challenging.

 

[Mario60866iPod13]

Although I replayed most of my games at least once, I have one particular Platinum copy where I have kept the save file since August 10, 2014. I have played for tons of time on it.

(Technically I have had to recreate this save file through advanced technical measures but for all that is to be discussed on this site, just pretend it's the original save file and not a replica)

 

[bdt2002]

I like to think that I've made a lot of stupid choices growing up... kind of. When I say this, I'm referring to the abundance of regret I've had over the years of losing several of my favorite save files, individual Pokémon, and teams because I wanted to restart a game but wasn't thinking about things at the time. I get that we're able to learn from our mistakes, but sometimes those mistakes sting more than they should, at least in the moment. In total, I've lost over a dozen Shinies (most of them random encounters, I might add) and hundreds, maybe even thousands of hours over several Pokémon games because of this.

Honestly, the more I think about it, the more I realize this has consistently hurt my interest in Pokémon more than it helps. I love hearing other people's special stories about their past experiences. The reason why I'm like this, though, is largely out of jealousy...

 

[Scorpio]

I only start over my games if I’m dissatisfied with the Pokémon I used in it, or in at least one case if I end up using a non-starter twice in the same game. Other than that I keep my teams around as a testament to their successes.

Of course I’ve made sure to transfer any shinys or event Pokemon to another game before restarting.

 

[bdt2002]

Hello everyone, for a second time. I apologize for once again posting on an inactive thread, but I've recently considered restarting my copy of Pokémon Sword with DLC (that is, assuming I keep my Switch; talk to me elsewhere for more details). I barely play this game anymore as is, and the only reason I'm even considering it is because I have a friend who wants me to give this poorly made video game "a fair chance". I find this absolutely hilarious because this same friend really dislikes the Alola games of all things for similar reasons, but I don't see them trying to give one of my more enjoyed regions a fair chance... but I digress.

Anyways, if I restart, I have two options. Again, this is assuming I actually try and enjoy this joke of a product for once. I likely would have already restarted Galar (in spite of my friend's being a massive hypocrite) if I could make a decision. What do you guys think?

Option #1: Restart my current save file, which has actual game progress on it, and is the one with online play
Option #2: Start the new save on a different Switch profile, but miss out on the online play (this friend wants to play with me if possible)

And because I believe there's always a third option:

Option #3: Abandon this game because I never enjoyed it and my friend hates Sun & Moon for the exact same reasons and isn't doing their part

 

[Alli M]

I tend to buy both games and keep one for everything and replay the other with lots of different teams.

Makes the most sense for me because I hate loosing Pokemon, but having a storage game is great. I wish there was another storage game like Ranch that had less restrictions on trading to different cartridges and the like.

I do the same. I’ve always had two systems as well to be able to trade with myself since no one else played Pokémon where I grew up.

 

[EeveeWillEatYou]

only ever played on switch so i just have alt accounts

 

[Suspicious Derivative]

I used to restart my games a lot during the Gen 1-2 days (and early Gen 3), but now I never do it anymore. The last time I restarted a game was LeafGreen in 2007, which I somewhat regretted afterwards. I usually like to complete my games to 100% (or as close as possible) so if I were to restart, I would lose all progress. Which I don't want to. I also tend to enjoy the post-game more than the main game, so restarting does not feel as appealing since I prefer to continue playing around in the post-game rather than replay the main game. But I still got to play through the main game twice for the most part because before the Switch era, I always bought both games from every pair (and every third version). This allowed me to play through the main game of each installment twice.

 

[RocketSurgery]

Hello everyone, for a second time. I apologize for once again posting on an inactive thread, but I've recently considered restarting my copy of Pokémon Sword with DLC (that is, assuming I keep my Switch; talk to me elsewhere for more details). I barely play this game anymore as is, and the only reason I'm even considering it is because I have a friend who wants me to give this poorly made video game "a fair chance". I find this absolutely hilarious because this same friend really dislikes the Alola games of all things for similar reasons, but I don't see them trying to give one of my more enjoyed regions a fair chance... but I digress.

Anyways, if I restart, I have two options. Again, this is assuming I actually try and enjoy this joke of a product for once. I likely would have already restarted Galar (in spite of my friend's being a massive hypocrite) if I could make a decision. What do you guys think?

Option #1: Restart my current save file, which has actual game progress on it, and is the one with online play
Option #2: Start the new save on a different Switch profile, but miss out on the online play (this friend wants to play with me if possible)

And because I believe there's always a third option:

Option #3: Abandon this game because I never enjoyed it and my friend hates Sun & Moon for the exact same reasons and isn't doing their part

Sounds like your friend needs some non-NPC, non-rando help beating Zygarde in Dynamax adventures :P

That would require online play and hence option 1 if you wished to be so kind as to help them out, despite their refusal to replay the best gen. If you don't like SwSh that much and don't care about any mons you have on it, sounds like you wouldn't lose much.

You could do the early Crown Tundra exploit to try and speedrun the game to get through it as fast as possible. (WR is just under 4 hours).

 

[bdt2002]

Sounds like your friend needs some non-NPC, non-rando help beating Zygarde in Dynamax adventures :P

That would require online play and hence option 1 if you wished to be so kind as to help them out, despite their refusal to replay the best gen. If you don't like SwSh that much and don't care about any mons you have on it, sounds like you wouldn't lose much.

You could do the early Crown Tundra exploit to try and speedrun the game to get through it as fast as possible. (WR is just under 4 hours).

I did something similar my first time through with an event Magikarp, and admittedly one of the arguments in favor of restarting at all is being able to play the game “legit” this time. Again, it’s not like I actually care about SwSh (especially compared to the underrated Alola games), so whatever happens happens, I guess.

 

[Coronis]

Hello everyone, for a second time. I apologize for once again posting on an inactive thread, but I've recently considered restarting my copy of Pokémon Sword with DLC (that is, assuming I keep my Switch; talk to me elsewhere for more details). I barely play this game anymore as is, and the only reason I'm even considering it is because I have a friend who wants me to give this poorly made video game "a fair chance". I find this absolutely hilarious because this same friend really dislikes the Alola games of all things for similar reasons, but I don't see them trying to give one of my more enjoyed regions a fair chance... but I digress.

Anyways, if I restart, I have two options. Again, this is assuming I actually try and enjoy this joke of a product for once. I likely would have already restarted Galar (in spite of my friend's being a massive hypocrite) if I could make a decision. What do you guys think?

Option #1: Restart my current save file, which has actual game progress on it, and is the one with online play
Option #2: Start the new save on a different Switch profile, but miss out on the online play (this friend wants to play with me if possible)

And because I believe there's always a third option:

Option #3: Abandon this game because I never enjoyed it and my friend hates Sun & Moon for the exact same reasons and isn't doing their part

Depends how much you enjoy/use the online play and whether you have Home or not to transfer Pokemon to that. Also have you actually asked them or not if they will do the same for you with one of the Alola games?

 

[bdt2002]

Depends how much you enjoy/use the online play and whether you have Home or not to transfer Pokemon to that. Also have you actually asked them or not if they will do the same for you with one of the Alola games?

I tend to enjoy keeping my Pokémon in their source games more often than not, with the reasons dependent on each game (for example, some Pokémon transitioned to 3D models very poorly). As for me and my friend, they definitely have their reasons for not wanting to go back to the Alola games (let’s just say 2016 was a… very rough time for this person and leave it at that), and although I have brought this up, it’s best off as just our little inside joke as opposed to something that could potentially bring back some bad memories for this person.