I'm the lil bro.
I'm hooked on the brothers!
- Pronouns
- kit/he
I don't think this one is unpopular. Most casual players only care about playing with their favorites. Lots of Pokémon, such as Bibarel, are incredibly underrated in the general populace because people just don't like its design — but it is incredibly handy in Nuzlockes, as it can be obtained early and it has a really good typing, not to mention having such a wide move pool available to it. Personally, I do think people should try to look into competitive and/or challenge runs, because despite you saying that it's "boring", actually taking other factors into account besides what design you like can actually reveal the complexity of the battle system. It's no Final Fantasy, but there's depth beyond the rock-paper-scissors of type advantages, and stats influence a lot more than you'd think when it comes to difficulty in a battle and proper strategy.
The main game is easy enough you can get through it with a bad moveset with your starter since starters are generally decent Pokémon, but you can really up your game if you decide to actually intimately get to know the Pokémon that you're working with, stat-wise and all. Pokémon play certain roles better than others, and there is always merit to learning what that best role is, as it will make playing the main game more interesting and, in some games, open up the post-game a lot more. Realizing that Typhlosion is a special attacker, for instance, can create interesting strategies with a baton passer in the main game (which would be easy to obtain as Eevee is available in almost every generation and works as a good baton passer so long as it's more of a defensive eeveelution, like Sylveon, Vaporeon, or Umbreon) that can lead to some really cool and satisfying sweeps of teams. Hell, if you strategize well enough you could absolutely mop the floor with Cynthia. Team-building can actually be super fun, theory crafting about teams can teach you a lot about Pokémon and give you more of an appreciation not only for the ones you like already, but the ones you passed over because you didn't like the design the first time you saw it.
And if you play with items? Geez, game over. X-items are broken, dude. You can win literally any battle with the worst Pokémon with the right X-items.
Instead of forcing your Umbreon to be a hard-hitting attacker, there's something ultra satisfying in absolutely walling the opponent. Instead of loading Sceptile up with a bunch of physical attacks that are negligible just because they are grass type moves, try out some more special moves and see how much more of a breeze those fights can be. Why not go even further and use the stats to play with gimmicks? Ability swapping with Shedinja so no one can damage it. Purposely deciding to play an oddly defensive Charizard against stealth rocks... There's strategies that you can take advantage of such as pivoting, where you take advantage of immunities and resistances for safe switch-ins. Ignoring the other mechanics of the game in favor of the designs you like is certainly a way to play it and there's nothing wrong with it, but I do think you're missing out on a lot of potential variance in strategy besides "hit it until it faints".
That one I think is an unpopular opinion, though. Haha.
Personally I think Red and Green (Blue in the localization ugh) are married so I'm not about to complain about this one.
I love Charizard as much as the next dragon-lover, but it's definitely... erm... Well, to put it nicely, it's lacking. Seriously, its typing hurts it so bad it's not even funny, and it has pretty much the exact same stats as Typhlosion. Venusaur is kind of run of the mill for a stalling Pokémon, but at least it doesn't have 4x weakness to stealth rocks. Sheesh.