8 Pokémon Games That Reward Players for Building Weird Teams Instead of Strong Ones

For over 30 years, Game Freak and Nintendo have released numerous amazing Pokémon games across multiple regions, allowing players to catch, train, and battle with over 1,000 Pokémon on journeys to become regional champions or dominate in real-world PvP tournaments.

However, several Pokémon games tend to force players into using specific powerful teams on their story-focused journeys, such as Pokémon Diamond and Pearl's limited Pokédex, causing most players to use a team consisting of Infernape, Staraptor, Luxray, Lucario, Garchomp, and Floatzel.

Despite that trend, there are still a few traditional Pokémon titles that are less restrictive with their gameplay and regional Pokédexes and play somewhat easier than other games, actually encouraging players to experiment with weird or unconventional Pokémon teams instead of statistically strong ones.

8 Pokémon Colosseum

Shadow Pokémon of the Orre Region

The Pokémon series is widely known for being a primarily mobile-focused franchise, with most of its releases debuting on Nintendo's handheld consoles, but there were a few underrated entries that launched exclusively on home consoles, with one of the best being Genius Sonority's Pokémon Colosseum for the GameCube.

Set in the Orre region, Pokémon Colosseum sees players embody Wes as they set out to defeat Team Snagem, stop them from stealing and transforming Pokémon into volatile Shadow Pokémon, and take part in the region's Colosseum challenge.

From Colosseum's start, the game immediately forces players into using weird teams, as Wes's starter Pokémon are an Espeon and Umbreon, with Wes only being able to add more members to his team by snagging Shadow Pokémon from other Trainers instead of catching wild Pokémon.

7 Pokémon Sun and Moon

The Easiest Mainline Pokémon Entries

During the Nintendo 3DS era, the mainline Pokémon games began to noticeably become increasingly easier to playthrough, with the easiest mainline entries of that era being the Hawaii-inspired Pokémon Sun and Moon.

Pokémon Sun and Moon are some of the most story-focused entries in the Pokémon series, with the game being rather infamously handholdy throughout its runtime and featuring easy-to-complete island trials and totem Pokémon in contrast to the traditional, more challenging and puzzle-focused Pokémon Gyms.

Due to their handholdy nature and the introduction of type-based Z-Moves, Pokémon Sun and Moon can be easily completed with pretty much any Pokémon team, even with the Alola region's new Pokémon being incredibly slow, such as Vikavolt, Dhelmise, Organguru, Gumshoos, and Crabrawler.

6 Pokémon Yellow

Generation I's Anime Adaptation

In the late 1990s, Pokémon mania was at an all-time high with the first few Game Boy titles selling millions of copies, the Pokémon Trading Card Game taking the world by storm, and the Pokémon anime entertaining millions of kids across the globe and to capitalize on the show's success, Game Freak chose to develop Pokémon Yellow.

The last entry in Pokémon Generation I, Pokémon Yellow was essentially Pokémon Red, Blue, and Green but edited a bit to more closely resemble the anime, with Pikachu being the starter Pokémon and anime exclusive characters appearing in the game like Team Rocket's Jesse and James.

This design caused Pokémon Yellow to be the easiest game to play in Generation I, allowing players to quickly complete it with a strong team using every starter or experiment with unconventional teams, which is exactly what I did when I played Pokémon Yellow on the 3DS using Nidoqueen, Parasect, Hitmonlee, Hypno, Dodrio, and a Kabutops called Epcot.

The Early Settlement of Sinnoh

Among all the mainline Pokémon games, Pokémon Legends: Arceus is the most unique for a wide variety of reasons, with the game being the first entry set in the far past back when Sinnoh was first being settled and was known as the Hisui region.

Here, Sinnoh is mostly wild and Poke Balls have just started to get made out of Apricorns, so most of the game is centered around sneaking up to and catching wild Pokémon alongside being forced to battle some feisty wild Pokémon, large Alpha Pokémon, and other boss-like encounters.

With this more exploratory nature and the sheer lack of traditional Pokémon Gym-like obstacles, players can certainly make odd teams in Pokémon Legends: Arceus, such as having a team made up of a Wyrdeer, an Electrode, an Avalugg, a Samurott, a Crobat, and a Drapion.

4 Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver

The Best Pokémon Remakes

Over the years, The Pokémon Company has released several remakes of their past titles and while most of them are great, I'd argue that the best Pokémon remakes are the Johto set Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver.

The last games released for Generation IV, Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver are practically perfect remakes of Pokémon Gold, Silver, and Crystal, utilizing the new mechanics of Pokémon Diamond, Pearl, and Platinum such as the physical and special type move split.

While HeartGold and SoulSilver can be somewhat challenging, players can freely trade Pokémon with copies of Diamond, Pearl, or Platinum, allowing players to travel through most of Johto and Kanto with Pokémon from Sinnoh and Hoenn, if players have copies of Pokémon Ruby, Sapphire, or Emerald.

3 Pokémon Black 2 and White 2

Expanding Unova's Pokédex

When Game Freak originally released Pokémon Black and White, players were limited to only using the Unova region's 156 new Pokémon until they defeated the Elite Four and Team Plasma, but in Pokémon Black 2 and White 2, GF significantly expanded the games' base Pokédex.

Instead of being limited to Unova's new Pokémon, Pokémon Black 2 and White 2 had 300 Pokémon available from the start, including many Pokémon from the past four regions, allowing players to create fairly unique teams for the first time.

For example, one time I played Pokémon Black 2 and used a team made up of a Shiny Golbat, a Galvantula, a Jellicent, a Claydol, a Ferrothorn, and a Scolipede.

2 Pokémon: Let's Go Pikachu! and Let's Go Eevee!

Pokémon Go's Reinterpretation of Kanto

Following the monumental debut of the augmented reality mobile game Pokémon Go in 2016, Game Freak quickly began work on Pokémon: Let's Go Pikachu! and Let's Go Eevee! that would not only serve as a new way for younger fans to get into the series but serve as a bridge between traditional Pokémon games and Go.

Nintendo Switch remakes of Pokémon Yellow, Let's Go Pikachu! and Let's Go Eevee! essentially follow the same story as Yellow but with the notable inclusion of Pokémon Go connectivity, Alolan Forms, and Mega Evolution, with wild Pokémon Battle encounters being replaced with a Go-like catching system.

Let's Go Pikachu! and Let's Go Eevee! are without a doubt some of the easiest games in the franchise and because of this, it can be rather simple for players to complete the game with unconventional teams, like using Melmetal with a team of Alolan Marowak, Raichu, Ninetales, Muk, and Exeggutor.

1 Pokémon X and Y

Kalos' Vast Variety of Pokémon

Sadly, modern mainline Pokémon games no longer feature all-inclusive National Pokedexes, with many Pokémon simply being unavailable to play with in recent titles like Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, but some of the last games to feature vast Pokédexes were Pokémon X and Y.

The first mainline games of the 3DS and Generation VI, Pokémon X and Y featured 72 brand-new Kalos-based Pokémon, with 81 other Pokémon from prior games being available before the Elite Four are defeated and players gaining access to every other Pokémon afterward.

Due to the sheer wide variety of Pokémon available and the game's relatively easy difficulty, Pokémon X and Y are great games to experiment with unconventional teams, which is what I did once in Y using a team of Exploud, Azumarill, Ninjask, Mega Abomasnow, Houndoom, and Meowstic.