Catching Them All

The slogan of Pokémon (at least on the English side of things) from its inception is "Gotta catch 'em all!", and this has persisted to this very day. It implies that one goal of a Trainer is to indeed possess all the monsters or creatures, as demonstrated in a very old advertisement for Pokémon showing many Pokémon gathered under a net. However, with today's Pokémon situations, this slogan may be called into question. Specifically, the question pertains possibilities and opportunities in relation to the games and otherwise.

In the main series games, prior to the seventh-generation games, "catching them all" is a manageable matter, though admittedly as the games expanded, many Pokémon became segregated to one game or another, necessitating knowledge of which ones are in which games to be able to catch them all optimally without having to have all the games of a single generation (but still relying on trades from others). All of these games are complemented by the presence of the National Dex, which has the collective set of data from Pokémon from all generations, as well as the necessary transfer mechanisms to grab Pokémon from earlier generation games, which can serve to favor the slogan. In the seventh-generation games, the National Dex does not exist, but the games themselves and Pokémon Bank can still carry older Pokémon for use in battle. Still, this situation might make a real disincentive for realizing the slogan.

Meanwhile, in other games, Pokémon are limited to a certain set, so not all of them are found in a game, thus not supporting the realization of the slogan, except for those existing. On the other hand, games like Shuffle and Go can be and are being updated to (gradually) support all Pokémon, so the realization is very much possible, though only if all the features are utilized, like Special Stages in the former and raid battles in the latter (and therefore joining a standard team). Thus in these games, "catching them all" is not a priority, but still a possibility given the opportunity.

As for Pokémon in other forms, like the anime, "catching them all" is not the norm. Ash only has a subset of the hundreds of Pokémon from all generations, but they're definitely not all. Additionally, I'm quite certain that while memorabilia for many Pokémon exist, it doesn't exist for all of them, making the slogan moot when considering the entire breadth of Pokémon, but likewise supported for those existing.

So, the idea of "catching them all" doesn't seem to be a universal thing given the limits of situations and the opportunities they present. Yet the idea is quite possible within those limits, no matter what the (dis)incentives are. In that sense the idea is never fully moot and still applicable in certain ways depending on the situation. The persistence of the slogan can only be a testament to this view - it's an appreciable accomplishment regardless.