It's Time To Party

[JrDude]

Your party. And you can cry if you want to.

With that lame joke out of the way, I'd like you to name your parties from Pokémon games that you owned. How did you decide to make that party the way it was?

I used to be kinda weird in the past, kinda like a Nuzlocke challenge but way different. The first 5 Pokémon that I didn't own and saw, I caught, I kept in my party for as long as I could, I probably had a party of Charmander, Caterpie, Weedle, Pidgey, Rattatta, and Mankey for a long time in Blue (not 100% on that, I don't remember at all), then I also catch every Pokémon I don't own and keep it in the PC, I know how the PC works, but I don't care, I keep them until I need a move none of them can learn, then I put one in the box, and take out my favorite that can learn the move I need (like surf). Another thing I did (I don't think I did it in Blue) was, whenever I caught a legendary, I put it in my party.

The only party I can remember is my HG party, I may or may not look on my old games to show more.
  Typhlosion
  Politoed
  Scizor
  Ampharos
  Crobat
  Girafarig
Did the thing where you put a Pokémon up for trading, traded something else, then took it back to evolve Poliwhirl & Scyther. Is that a glitch or is it supposed to do that?
Thought I'd mention that this is the order I take all the pictures in (that one old dude who takes your picture everywhere). Another random thing, I caught them all with a different kind of ball.

[bluaki]

In my first Pokemon games, I believe I never trained any Pokemon other than my starter. Went through Red with only Charizard, Blue with only Blastoise. Yellow forcibly made me kill that habit because of how bad Pikachu sucks compared to other fully evolved starters and inability to attack grounds. I don't think I raised my typical story party size to three until just a year or two ago.

In a moderately recent play of Emerald, I used: Sceptile, Pelipper, Camerupt
I think I also replayed Leafgreen about a year ago with: Venusaur, Alakazam, and something else I forget
In HeartGold: Typhlosion, Ampharos, Golduck

In Colosseum and XD, I believe I raised a party of 4~6, but I forget which Pokemon it included besides the eevees.

[JrDude]

Why such small parties? Do you have no friends?

[bluaki]

Why such small parties? Do you have no friends?

1. Exp distribution works better like this; a party of three is a decent balance between type variety and having decent levels from only trainer experience. My earlier parties of two were pretty far above the levels of foes, making most of the game much easier except when the foe uses a type combination that I can't easily deal with between them or if one of them faints.
2. Extra slots for HM slaves
3. In some games or regions (especially Sinnoh), there really aren't enough decent Pokemon available early enough in the main run to have as part of the main team. This applies further if you don't want to have to deal with certain evolution methods like friendship or trade+item before the postgame or when you're not given the necessary items for evolution (especially in HG/SS).

Note that these apply much less in the Gamecube games, allowing one to easily raise a larger party. A larger amount of trainer battles and relatively fast/easy grinding in the colosseums gives more exp, HMs do not exist, and both of the games have a pretty good snag selection.

I tend to quickly transfer Pokemon from other games and raise a larger team just after the Elite Four for any postgame stuff, as well as adding the powerful legends shortly before.

[JrDude]

When you face off with the Poké league, do you bring in only the ones that you use? or do you bring in all of your slaves/space fillers too?

[bluaki]

When you face off with the Poké league, do you bring in only the ones that you use? or do you bring in all of your slaves/space fillers too?

I tend to bring a Fly slave if I have one as well as filling the remaining slots with the highest levels from my PC.

[Rius]

Furthest back I can remember is FireRed:
FireRed: Charizard, Dugtrio, Raichu, Gyarados, Kadabra, Articuno
Emerald: Sceptile, Milotic, Beautifly, Gardevoir, Manectric
Diamond: Empoleon, Magnezone, Lucario, Garchomp, Roserade, Honchkrow
Diamond (Nuzlocke): Empoleon, Rampardos, Drifblim, Blissey, Bronzong, Staraptor
Platinum: Torterra, Staraptor, Gardevoir, Luxray, Vaporeon, Giratina
HeartGold: Typhlosion, Scizor, Ampharos, Lapras, Espeon, Ho-Oh

[Kayo]

Um, I'll do my best to remember this. Farthest i remember is firered with my 2-pokemon party.

Firered: Charizard, Dugtrio
Emerald: Blaziken, Altaria, Lanturn, Sableye, Solrock
Run #2: Blaziken, Aggron, Manectric, Cacturne, Dusclops
Diamond: Empoleon, and oh my god why do i forget the rest :|
Platinum: Houndoom, Garchomp, Porygon-Z, Houndoom, Gastrodon, Azelf
SoulSilver: Typhlosion, and darnit why don't i remember this despite it being my most recent run

eh, i'll try harder to remember more tomorrow. But yes I keep parties of 5 or less generally, to keep room for an HM slave (that I don't always use in the e4). Also in Firered i had a level 73 charizard and a level 51 Dugtrio when I beat the e4, with some level 30-ish pokemon that I used for fillers so I wouldn't be stuck with only 2 pokemon.

[RX-78-2]

Wow, it's actually very interesting to see all of your parties. I had no idea that so many people made non-full parties.

Anyway hear are mine to the best of my memory:

• Red: Charizard, Alakazam, Gyardos^(?), Mewtwo, Zapdos, and something else (sadly erased by Pokémon Stadium)
• Yellow: Pikachu (hardly trained), Clefairy (strongest at almost 100, knows Psychic, Ice Beam, and I think Strength and something else), others that I might look into
• Sapphire: Swampert, Machamp, Electrode^(?), Walrein, Sableye^(?), Aggron^(?) (sadly erased--not by me)
• Emerald: (basically a re-creation of my Sapphire party) Swampert, Aggron, Electrode, Sableye, Machamp, and another (and a host of level 50's for the Battle Frontier)
• FireRed: (semi-re-creation of my Red party) Charizard, Haunter, Gengar, Electabuzz, Machamp, Cloyster (sometimes has Scizor)
• Pearl: Torterra, Staraptor, Crobat, Machamp, Luxray, Floatzel (sometimes has Rampardos)

I still didn't finish Platinum or SoulSilver yet. :(

[JrDude]

Oh yeah, I thought I'd mention, I will often replay a game, and I never create the same team twice.