While I've been playing Sun and Moon, I've been trying to get every Pokémon available on every route. It's been a great way to expand my collection, even if it's over-leveling my Pokémon. Are any of you doing the same, or are you focusing on the plot?
Focusing on both, finishing the story and catching a ton of Pokémon for fun. It is interesting to do both since your team keeps evolving and changing as it goes.
I try to do this too, I always do, only I'm not always sure what Pokémon are available where and when since location guides are still somewhat spotty and there's no DexNav, and they did the only at night thing again. Sometimes it gets frustrating because completing the dex is something I love and I have to tell myself "just go and enjoy the game". I also have to tell myself "don't worry about non-gen 7 Pokémon" sometimes because I'm 3 event legends away from a full living Gen 6 era Pokédex over on Omega Ruby and I know that when the bank update comes out I'm only going to need whatever Gen 7s I missed and those three event ones. For all the regular and most of the legendaries from past gens I am already set. My first play through of any Pokémon game is always extremely slow, but that's how I like it. I play it like I would other RPGs where I explore everywhere and take my time backtracking and things. For example, as soon as I got the Lapras Paddle the first thing I did after the water trial was go back to the other island to explore the little sea parts I remembered finding. I just need to tell myself that there will be plenty of time to complete the dex and figure out the trading with friends things later.
I took my time and caught every Pokémon I encountered I didn't have. I'm glad I did beause it's less trouble filling up the Dex now >_>
I don't catch every single Pokémon available in every route. Instead, I just catch every Pokémon I encounter that I haven't caught yet. I prefer to focus more on the story and work on my Pokédex after the game.
I usually save catching everything for post-game, but I've caught and bred so much stuff already, haha. I only just made it to the third island, and I have 60-80 Pokémon in the 'dex and I have 140+ hours sunk into the game. Most of that is breeding, granted, but damn am I having a lot of fun just running around and catching everything.