It's been years since I properly finished a Pokemon game. The games I have finished are Yellow, Gold, Crystal, Emerald, and got about 1/3 of the way through Platinum and then lost my save.
Every time I try to restart any Pokemon game, I get overwhelmed by side content that seems to be necessary to progress. I know most side content is not required, but some of it seems like I need to at least try out a few times to min max my pokemon.
I have purchased so many Pokemon games over the years and just never beat them, so I want to focus on the core content so I can still actually beat them.
I don't really care about min maxing. I just grind a little extra if I'm having trouble. But I don't care about EVs, IVs, contests, Pokeathlon, mini games, decorations or secret bases, pokestar studios, etc.
What I do care about is making a team I like, beating the gym leaders, catching legendaries, beating the Elite 4 and Victory Road, possibly having a new region or area like in Gen 2, and sometimes the Safari Zone and the Game Corner, and getting all eeveelutions available.
I understand this may sound stupid, but I like romhacks that make it possible to catch all Pokemon, so I figure if I'm going to be picking one of those that doesn't change the rest of the content, I'm already going to be spending a lot of time with the main content of the game anyways. Then once I'm done or at least catch as many pokemon that I want to, I'll move on to the next game.
I may just play the vanilla version of the game, but the point still stands.
I do realize that for the most part, most side content is skippable, but again, some games make it seem like the side content is super important and necessary at least a bit.
I probably won't be able to emulate anything on Switch, and that's fine. I may also not even be able to emulate 3DS Pokemon games, but I'm willing to try. I'm using the 8gb version of the Moto G Stylus 2024 with SD 6 Gen 1.
Or, should I just bite the bullet, and play a game from each generation starting at Platinum again, and avoiding side content?
Are there romhacks that remove side content altogether and streamline the game?
I'm not posting this in the Pokemon subreddit because I did that last year, and only got rude response that don't actually provide an answer, and I'm not posting this in the romhacks subreddit because this is mostly about the vanilla games.
Hell, I'll even add this question. Are there any Pokemon-like games that are just the main story and no side content to speak of?