i've got a unique playthrough idea, but it's a bit of a doozy. what if you played a pokemon game normally, building a team of six guys you like, swapping in new guys you find that appeal to you on a whim without compulsively grinding those new party members to match the rest of your team. and as far as level caps go, what if you didn't by default grind your whole team of 6 to match the highest level pokemon in a boss that uses fewer than 6 guys? what if you just used your pokemon to fight the trainers and then faced the bosses with whatever levels your team would end up at organically?

i imagine doing this is probably too hard for your average casual challenge runner but it might appeal to the real freaks out there

>>59634904
nightmare mode: try boxing your starter as soon as you get alternatives established, usually after the first or second badge, and try to use pokemon you've never used in that game before, especially if they aren't new pokemon to that particular generation, (especially in generations 2 and 3), rather than insisting that you absolutely must only use pokemon new to that gen

>>59634891
a cute charm glitch catch 'em all play through may interest you since you brought up shinies only. you end up ev training your team when you go hunting for 1% encounters like Snubull. i strongly recommend trading over a cute charm mon with an amulet coin/luck incense asap. poke balls aren't cheap.

Mono COLOR run. Spin a color wheel and only use Pokemon that are primarily that color. Shiny palettes count.

>>59634891
Shiny only runs aren't that bad in the newer games.
For vanilla games I like color runs. You pick a color at random and only run pokemon of that color.
For everything else, I'm obsessed with randomizers. Makes each run feel different enough to be fun.
You should go through all the non mainline pokemon games if you haven't already. The puzzle, pinball, and spinoff games rock. Shoutout to pokemon conquest

>>59634891
All your Pokémon must have the same number of legs