A friend of mine did a Nuzlocke run and wrote a story about it. I liked it so I thought I'd share.Going to break it into separate posts because it's a bit long so bear with me here."With the new rules regarding chatroom on the weekdays set in place, I decided that now would be the time to go ahead and start a Nuzlocke run. I had previously wondered about trying to pull one off, as it seemed like an interesting concept - and it would successfully get around the normal pitfalls that keep me from finishing a normal game of Pokemon. So, with that in mind, I went ahead and downloaded VirtualBoyAdvance for what was probably the fiftieth time, and went out to find a rom of Pokemon Yellow. Both of the roms I found had the problem of immediately crashing when I tried to open them, which didn't bother me too much - emulators do this kind of thing sometimes. I chose to play Pokemon: Fire Red instead, which fired up without any problems. I was treated to a nice and short opening scene, and a flaming Press Start screen. Without wondering if I should get the fire extinguisher or not, I went ahead and started up a new file.Pallet TownI began my run with the intent of making an LP out of it, taking screenshots along the way and trying to come up with some clever writing to go along with them, involving the dangers of rapidly pressing A, possessed mothers, and the wonders of technology. Given the version I was playing and the fact that I seem to pick the Fire types anyway, I chose Charmander as my starter, under the not-so-carefully-picked-out nickname of Rex. The brief rival battle ended in my favor, needless to say - and with that I went off to start capturing pokemon.Route 1Route 1 was not a very eventful part of my playthrough, though it was responsible for was the scrapping of the LP that was originally intended to go along with my run. I decided this on the basis that I didn't want to have to update a log of my adventures when the primary purpose of it was to see what would happen; that, and I honestly began to believe that I was not coming up with very entertaining material. I wanted to avoid making "just another Let's Play" or anything like that. Despite the fact that I was no longer doing the LP, I decided to stay with my original stance on only saving when I was done playing for that session. With my reasons for scrapping the LP part of this out of the way, we move on to the actual events that happened along the route - which was nothing but a bit of leveling. Rex had no trouble dealing with the Pokemon that popped up, and I managed to get to Viridian City.Viridian CityA quick bit of adventuring around in Viridian City took me to the Pokemart, which I knew wasn't going to be a place visited often, as I included the Nuzlocke rule of no item buying - with the exception of when the Elite Four fight is finally next. In here, I discovered a parcel to be delivered to Professor Oak - that was taken care of quickly, netting me my first few Pokeballs. This was great, because I was honestly starting to fear that I'd have to go through Route 2 and miss being able to catch my first pokemon encountered there as well - the rules of Nuzlocke do state that you're only allowed to catch the first Pokemon you encounter in a route, after all. Some (reverse?)backtracking later, I went on past Viridian City and went into Route 2 - which was where things started to pick up.Route 2My first encounter in the second route was with a female Pidgey, level 3. After catching her with ease, I decided that I would name her Amelia, due to her nature as a female Flying type. My first order of business was to get her up to level 10 to match Rex, which I got started on quickly. I was already enjoying having two Pokemon on my team, and was beginning to wonder if it might be fun to try making a drawn comic to go along with the Nuzlocke run when the game decided it was time to teach me my first lesson in handling pokemon. I was up against a Rattata, and Amelia had 12 health - an attack from Rattata dealt 5 damage, putting her down to 7. I knew that Amelia's next attack would kill the Rattata, and previous experience with Pokemon had lead me to believe that attacks generally deal the same damage each time they're used. Not wanting to switch out for Rex and halve Amelia's experience, I gave her the order to go ahead and land the finishing blow.
The Rattata went first, dealing a non-critical strike that took away all 7 points of Amelia's health. She died at level 4, only a single level above when I caught her. I will not lie - I felt like shit when she went down. I thought I could get away with assuming the attack would deal the same amount of damage, that Amelia would be fine and I'd head off to the Pokecenter and we'd move on, that I'd take good care of my team - that Amelia would be one of the six brave fighters in the final fight against the Elite Four. But she died, perhaps not even ten minutes after she had been introduced. I took a brief break, paced around the house a bit, and finally Released her corpse off into either the wild or into the unknown depths of digital hell. I had been shocked, and was determined to not let it happen again.Viridian ForestI was slightly relieved that Viridian Forest was so nearby, as I was not sure of the consequences of going through the game with only a single Pokemon. My first encounter was with a level 3 Caterpie. This Caterpie was female just like Amelia, which didn't bother me much - I established long ago that the Pokemon games intentionally spite me by not letting me catch any male Pokemon. A single Pokeball and a quick search on Wikipedia later, I named my newly recruited team member Ptera. I made a mental promise to never let her fight an enemy Pokemon on her own until she hit at least level 7 - instead, Rex would switch in and handle things. After a bit of grinding, I found that Ptera evolved at level 7 - it was a nice surprise, and a little fitting regarding it being the level she finally began fighting her own battles. Intent on keeping her alive long enough to see the light of day as a Butterfree, I had her begin taking down wild Pokemon, Ptera armed with nothing but the ability to use herself as a projectile and an infinite supply of homemade silly string. That was when lesson two came up.
Ptera had made it to level 8 when she finally entered a fight against a simple Weedle. She had just hit half health, which was the lowest I was comfortable with - I knew I'd be heading off to the Pokecenter the fight had concluded. I did not know, however, that I would be doing so to dispose of Ptera. A critical Poison Sting pushed Ptera down to a small bit of health, and the poison that came with it took away the rest. Ptera died what I thought was six levels before evolution; learning that she only needed two more a short while later did not help me feel any better. I thought my mistake with Amelia was an accident I could avoid in the future, but I was wrong. I felt that I was definitely the worst trainer in existence, that I would never manage to take care of a Pokemon properly. Regardless of my self-deprecation, I continued on, letting Rex incinerate everything in his path. Eventually I made it out of the Viridian Forest, ending up on Route 2 again - however, I missed the name of the route and ended up getting in a fight with a Caterpie, level 3, female. I spent the next three minutes searching on the internet to make sure I was still on Route 2. I didn't want to have a chance to catch another Ptera.Pewter CityI went into Pewter City with only Rex in my party. Rex was the only Pokemon I had owned up to this point that I never felt any sort of attachment to. He was handed to me, unlike Ptera, who I caught first - and I never felt like I had to protect him and raise him properly, like I did with Ptera. Rex was essentially a weapon - a flamethrower with a metal claw bayonet, with which I tore down Brock's gym. My first badge did not manage to lift my spirits much, but the prospect a new path onward being opened up was enough to keep me going. I wanted to get ahold of a new member for my group, one who I could take great care in keeping alive and well. I wanted to prove that even after two mishaps, there was still hope. So on I went, to the next route, where things officially started going to hell.Route 3Immediately I took notice of the fact that Route 3 was populated with trainers. I didn't think much of it, letting Rex raze absolutely everything to the ground as to let me progress. Several uneventful battles later, I finally came to Route 3's first large chunk of grass, which I happily ran into. I managed to run into a Jigglypuff, which was a surprise - I know next to nothing about what Pokemon appear where in Fire Red, which can be proven by the fact that I was shocked (in more ways than one) to find Pikachus in Viridian Forest. Regardless, I went ahead and attacked the Jigglypuff, getting a Pokeball ready. It wasn't until the health started going into the red that I realized the position I had just managed to get myself into. With Rex as my only Pokemon, he was the only one receiving experience; and with all of the trainers he had fought, on top of his previous training, he had begun to reach levels of strength far beyond that of the wild Pokemon around. With the Jigglypuff dead, I was down my chance of catching a Pokemon on Route 3 - and with Rex's strength only going to increase as I went on, I was afraid that I had just successfully cut off any chance of catching a new pokemon.Route 4There was not much to do on Route 4, other than frantically look around for any spot where I could attempt to catch another Pokemon even after I had already figured out that this was to be an impossible feat due to Rex's unhealthy overleveling. However, the Route 4 entrance to Mt. Moon lacks places to find wild Pokemon regardless, so I was left with no choice but to head into Mt. Moon and hope for the best. The Pokecenter made sure Rex was as ready as possible to take on Mt. Moon alone - and with that, I entered.Mt. MoonA poor Zubat was my first encounter in the depths of Mt. Moon, which Rex unfortunately managed to murder with a single attack. While I pondered the merits of hacking the game and changing Rex's name to Equius, we trekked onward, letting him beat the ever-loving Pokeblocks out of anything that decided to display the ability to live within a ten-yard radius. None of the trainers posed any sort of threat, nor did Team Rocket - their terrifying army of Zubats and Rattatas did not deter Rex in the least. It wasn't until we were more than halfway through Mt. Moon that I suddenly realized PP still existed. Rex had Smokescreen, Growl, Ember and Metal Claw, the latter two of which were running dangerously low on PP. Hoping that he'd manage to last the rest of the way, I kept running for the exit - he finally ran out of PP in a fight against a Team Rocket member. They only had a single Zubat remaining, and Rex was all out of offensive moves. I was about to kick myself to death before realizing I had one last hope - Struggle.
Immediately I had Rex begin pelting the Zubat with Smokescreen until its nonexistent eyes were filled with what is either smoke or ink - following that, I proceeded to use every single one of the forty Growls Rex had stored up. While the Zubat flailed around, attacks missing every which way, Rex got closer and closer to pulling off Struggle. The Zubat started before he did, managing to deal pitiful damage to both combatants once every five turns when the Random Number God decided that it deserved to get in a hit. Finally, Rex was out of PP. I used a potion on him before actually pulling anything off, as I was worried about how much damage Struggle dealt. Finally, he attacked. The Zubat was One-Hit-KO'd, and Rex was left with 9 HP. I am quite sure I actually did a victory dance upon that battle's conclusion. It was not the last battle in Mt. Moon, but the four potions I had managed to stockpile from random item searches allowed us to exit the mountain alive, with a Helix Fossil in tow. We made haste to the Pokecenter to give Rex his well-earned healing session. After this, I no longer felt of Rex as simply a weapon - he had proved his worth.Cerulean CityI skipped Route 4's grass section to head on to Cerulean City, where Rex was promptly healed to full. It was here that I finally sat down and decided that all hope was essentially lost - Cerulean City was had the water type gym. It didn't matter if Rex was a much higher level, because he wouldn't last ten seconds against an onslaught of deadly bubbles. With this in mind, I decided to try exploring before trying the gym, and eventually, after a quick Rival battle, found a bridge heading up with several trainers lined along it. We breezed our way to the end, kicking a surprise member of Team Rocket in the face before exploring the newly opened routes.Route 24Some exploration lead me to figure out that Route 25 was to the east of 24, which gave me two chances at catching a Pokemon. I had no idea what Pokemon were on the routes, but I figured that if any of them were high enough level, they might be able to just barely survive Rex's attacks and allow me to catch them. I ventured into the grass, and encountered a wild Oddish. Rex used Metal Claw, bringing the Oddish down to about half health - I took out my bag and began throwing Pokeballs. None of them worked, unfortunately, and with only one remaining I had Rex finish the Oddish off. Feeling like my chances of making it through this Nuzlocke run were running low, I went off to Route 25.Route 25Being careful to not trigger what I assumed was a Hiker battle, Rex and I entered the grass, only to come up against another Oddish. Experimentally I had the Oddish attacked with Metal Claw again, getting it down to a little past halfway. I knew attacking again would mean its death, and the death of the Oddish meant that I'd go to the Cerulean City gym armed with a fire type, which also meant death for Rex and, by proxy, me. And since the previous attempts to catch an Oddish at this health were a string of complete failures, with one shake at best, trying to catch it with my last Pokeball would not have worked at all. But it was then that an idea struck me - the Oddish used Absorb. Absorb recovers its own HP, meaning that if Rex could simply stall long enough to let the Oddish get its HP up to enough that Metal Claw would manage to not kill it, it would be left with a mere sliver of health. And with that little health, I would have a chance at catching it, and therefore have a Grass type to use in the gym, possibly even using it to fight a pokemon on Route 4 without obliterating it, and catch that as well... It was my last shot. If I pulled it off, I would have a chance at continuing the Nuzlocke run - if I failed, it would all be over. Rex began Growling repeatedly to avoid damaging the Oddish, while it slowly began Absorbing HP from him. I waited, several turns passing as Oddish's HP slowly climbed, getting closer and closer to the point where I could save myself from destruction, have a shot at fixing my past mistakes, finishing the run with flying colors...
And then the emulator froze.fml
This was all from one session. I had decided to not save until I was done with a session. Therefore I had not saved at all since starting the game.GUESS WHO KEEPS LOSING STUFF 'CAUSE HE DOESN'T SAVE REGULARLYMEEEE ;-;god I dunno if I want to start another Nuzlocke it was an absolutely great experience regarding getting worked up over binary constructs but it would feel weird either restarting and doing everything over the same way or restarting and picking a different starter and etc.Which means restarting at all feels weirdmaybe I'll do Leaf Green."
Funny, I was just about to do a run.
Wow, that was an epic tale.I think I want to do a Nuzlocke now...
And that's why I always save at regular intervals!
...That...could've been epic you know.A guy and his Charmander.Racing through Kanto.Beating everything.
>>12260It wouldn't work. You need to Surf.
>>12262I've never done Nuzlocke before, but what happens if you get stuck with no pokemon who can use the required HMs? Just... lose?
>>12264Pretty much