I'm aware the game is universally lambasted but I'm having so much fun with it.
I was battling some woman and a group of five smolives walked by in the background and I noticed one of them had a black olive instead of a green one. After I won against the woman I ran up to the little one with the black olive and it was indeed a shiny. I named her Madeline.
The woman in the city who rates your pokemon's size says I have the thiccest jigglypuff she's ever seen.
spoiler
Sending out my tandemaus couple for the hundredth time only to find that they've started a family
is probably the most fun surprise I've ever had playing a pokemon game.
It can be accidentally harder due to a lack of hand holding. Without being forced to do gyms in a specific order (despite them being designed in a specific order, some are definitely much easier than others) you can just blindly walk into a mid level town with a gym whose trainers and leader have Pokemon 20 levels higher than yours.
Also one of the north western routes to get to the normal gym (roughly level 30 pokemon, mid tier leader) puts you through an area with level 55 Pokemon. There's fucking wild Dragonite and Scyther on the way between the water (level 25-30ish) gym to the normal gym. I think they expected you to come from the east where you don't run into wild fully evolved Pseudo legendaries but it's not stated nor does the game even stop you from doing that.
Even the wild pokemon of the area might not be a good indication, for example I was surrounded by level 18 Marill and a level 20 goomy then triggered a wild battle with a level 33 Salazzle that 1 shot most of my team (around level 20-23) before I gave up throwing balls at it and ran. In the same vicinity there's a level 50 Leafeon which I also started a battle with and got stomped by.
Honestly I think it's more fun if you don't read any guides or recommended routes or walkthroughs and just rawdog the game.
Did I actually white out from starting a fight with a level ??? Paradox Donphan in the desert with only 3 gym badges and nothing over level 25? Yes. Do I like how that's possible in a Pokemon game? Absolutely.