All right. So like many of you, I've played a ton of Pokemon games at this point, and wasn't quite sure at first how to feel about a straight remake with not much to really shake things up. Then it hit me. This was the absolute perfect chance to try something that I'd always wanted to, but could never quite find the moment for.
I did my first Nuzlocke.
With every other release there's always new pokemon, or new forms, or new something that stops me from wanting to commit my save file to it because I would feel like missing out. But here? It's the exact same game, exact same Pokemon.....I realized this was my chance. It was perfect. There was nothing to miss out on, and nothing to stop me.
So I grabbed my Piplup, put on my running shoes, drafted up the rules, and started off on an adventure that would be far more entertaining than I knew.
My personal Spicy-Style Nuzlocke rules:
1) You can only capture the 1st wild pokemon you encounter per route or cave. If you fail to capture, you skip. No do-overs if the Pokemon seen is a duplicate to one you already have. One chance per route or cave firm. I went ahead and did no fishing as well since I had a water starter anyways and could never exactly figure out where new bodies of water stopped and ended.
2) You can talk to all NPCs and keep any Pokemon gifted/gained (this ended up becoming more relevant than I expected)
3) No online whatsoever.
4) No grinding whatsoever. No going out of your way to explore the map, No taking the long route through tall grass. You can go grab what you see (berries, ground items, etc), but it has to be straight there and back. I was really curious how well the forced trainer battles actually set you up for the difficulty curve here, so I made it firm.
5) Any KO is permanent and gets boxed (I didn't have the heart to "release" them so I just made a "dead" box in the PC)
6) No buying any restorative items. Anything found was useable (except revives), but no shop items, or shop Pokeballs.
7) TMs from Veilstone mall are fair game.
8) You have to nickname your Pokemon (this actually does kind of help the process, imo, I love you Chris Starly).
9) I didn't have this rule to begin with - but after seeing it, I decided immediately that the Grand Underground could not be used (beyond the mandatory first visit which I bailed on right away) as it seemed like it was pretty much just grinding and free pokemon, which broke the other rules. I also only did one Competition, but that's mostly because I found it boring as dirt.
The entire reason that I always wanted to try a Nuzlocke was because I would obsessively read through stories of people trying it, so I figure I owe it to contribute my experience back in return - here goes.
The beginning of the game was fairly standard. Unsurprisingly, I had terrible RNG working against me. In the first few areas, I picked up a Bidoof, a Geodude, and a Starly. All with terrible Natures and stats. I leaned into my starter and plowed ahead until I hit my first fork in the road. In Floaroma town, I ran into two NPCs that gave me a Jirachi and a Mew. Honestly, this felt a bit like cheating, but I needed the pick-me-up and remembered I'd implemented the NPC rule (thinking I'd get like an egg pokemon or some randomly lucky trade) and decided to give it the thumbs up for one, not both. I picked the Jirachi, boxed the Mew and kept going. Call it cheating if you want, but honestly I probably wouldn't have made it without him.
By the time I had finished Eterna city with 2 badges. I was starting to worry about the lameness of my team. I thought about modifying the rules slightly, I thought about letting myself have some other chances when sudeently - luck started turning around. I picked up a Ponyta in 206 and a Machop in 207. Of course, my Machop was Calm nature of all things, but it still rounded me out a little and made me feel a lot more confident. I didn't know it at the time, but the core of my team was almost cemented.
In Pastoria City Gym, tragedy struck for the first time. Going down to a Gyarados Ice Fang, my freshly evolved Roselia became my first loss. While it was the first time that my Nuzlocke felt real, it really wasn't that hard to accept. Just a few moments earlier, I had picked up a wild Roselia in route 212. It was an Impish instead of Bold (which felt like a bad trade) and was down quite a few levels from my current one, but I binned and swapped up without too much heartburn and kept trucking.
Prinplup, Staraptor, Machoke, Ponyta, Roselia, and Jirachi. This team got me all the way up to Route 216 without much difficulty. Pretty much everything I was picking up was garbage (just how many Geodudes does one person need?) or water-based (Piplup really is a bad choice for this in retrospect), and their levels were starting to be considerably behind my current team.
Still, it wasn't concerning me too much as I was beginning to feel pretty confident. There were a couple close calls, but nothing too hard to deal with so far. I threw my Ponyta into the first slot and started tearing through snow monsters. The encounter rate was starting to get noticeable, so I threw on a podcast, zoned out a little, and started to autopilot. My Ponyta hit 40 and turned into a Rapidash. I was so thrilled by this little interruption that I didn't even notice her health had waned. The very next random battle, a Vital Throw dropped her to zero. How had I not noticed? How had I let this happen? This wasn't even a real death! It was just a foolish mistake. I needed a do-over! I sat there stunned, staring at the screen, not sure what to do.
I was crestfallen.
I hit sleep on my Switch, went and made dinner, and sat there eating while totally distracted by exactly how committed I was to seeing this through. It would be so easy to ignore the Nuzlocke and just revive the thing. No one had to know. It was a complete crisis of conscious and I was surprised just how hard it was to force myself to go back, grab her out of my party, and drop her in the dead zone. I really needed that Rapidash for my balance.
Looking across the completely crap Pokemon I had to replace the slot was difficult. There was really only two options. A Sneasel that I had just picked up, or a Clefairy I got on earlier. I swapped in the Clefairy, but she was 10 levels low. I threw her into the front of the party and started leaning hard on giving her every chance to catch up. Too much so, in fact, In Route 217 a critical hit took her down. I began to panic. Throwing the Sneasel into my party and trying the same strategy, I overextended and he was dropped 3 fights into his historically short run just trying to squeeze that little bit of extra EXP for a no-swap KO.
I looked at the box. It had nothing of value whatsoever. I was down to five Pokemon. This was getting real.
Snowpoint Gym was a real obstacle. My strict adherence to no grinding had left an almost complete parity to my opponents in levels. My pokemon's typing, poor EV's, and complete scattershot IV's weren't helping, and my typing spread was not great for this. My Staraptor and Roselia were basically completely useless with Ice on the field, and I was a Pokemon down. My stock of healing items was much lower than I would have liked. Everything was working against me.
By the time I stepped up to Candice, my lead three were all partially weakened. I was genuinely concerned. In fact, the only thing that saved me was a risky bet that her Medicham would throw Rock Slide while I swapped in my Roselia. If he'd thrown Ice Punch instead, I surely would have been OHKO'd. It paid off and squeeked just enough health to save my Machamp for a a take down of the Abomasnow at the end. I finished the dungeon with every single one of my Pokemon in red health. This was suddenly looking risky.
Worse yet, I had a bit of a gauntlet before I'd see a fresh route.
One of the best parts about committing to something like this is the thrill that it gives you. The real sense of danger and concern. The real possibility of losing. There enters this true realization that a single super-effective attack can end it all. That you can't afford to have a single one of your Pokemon get KO'd, and that your reliance on smart swaps and move choices is all that can save you. The sinking feeling in your stomach every time they surprise you with an off-type super-effective move, and the absolute dopamine high that blasts through when your Pokemon scrapes by with 4 HP.
All of that came together for the rest of the game. Cyrus and Saturn both gave me severe heartburn, and neither one would have been passed were it not for some real luck. After my ridiculously close call in the Icicle gym, I had stopped and rebalanced with some TMs I grabbed in Veilstone, and I was definitely glad that I did. Even with those fresh abilities, I once again barely made it out alive. Especially since I was still at 5 Pokemon who were mostly lower level than the bosses'.
Route 222 was my last shot to grab a decent 6th 'mon, and it totally let me down. Floatzel. Another water type. This didn't help. I'd end up sacrificing him during the next event fight. Maybe 5 Pokemon wasn't that bad.
Given where my team was, Sunnyshore Gym actually had me pretty worried, but went down without too much trouble. Perhaps I was just getting used to squeeking out wins, but seeing Pokemon in the red at the end of the fight didn't cause me to freak out nearly as bad as it had in the previous bouts.
Route 223 gives me a Tentacruel. Cruel is right. This RNG hates me.
Victory road was the last chance for a new Pokemon before the finals. They tried to give me another Machoke. I'd had enough. I grabbed the Palkia and threw it in my party. Call it cheating if you want, but I wasn't breaking any rules. It was balanced out by the fact that it really didn't have a chance to level up much, it was giving me another water-type weakness, and it's default moveset kind of sucks. Honestly, it was not a strong member of the party by that point but at least gave me a fighting chance.
Overall, VR was a bit of a challenge on resources, but I was able to waltz through without too much overall difficulty.
I had thrown Revenge on my Machoke, which turned out to be a pretty great turnaround on more than a few occasions. My Jirachi had Psychic and Thunderbolt, which could blast damage into a large swath of options. I'd thrown a Dazzling Gleam and Sludge Bomb on my Roselia, which gave her some more utility, and I had the secret weapon of Ice Beam on my Empoleon.
I was beginning to feel pretty confident in my team and the balance that we had. That confidence was about to be shaken.
Heading up to the Pokemon League never felt quite this intimidating. I had assumed they'd be rocking around level 50. Most of my pokemon were level 55ish. Imagine my surprise.
Now, technically, this is where I lost. In the first fight with Aaron, my Roselia and Machoke were both KO'd.
Realizing that I couldn't back out, and I couldn't really change anything about where I was, It was pretty much over. I looked at my inventory. I had 4 revives and 2 max revives that I'd picked up along the way. I had a very sparse inventory of healing items and status restorers. Realizing that the E4 were leveled above me, had way better Pokemon, and that there wasn't anything to do but go ahead or admit defeat, I decided to take the handcuffs off and power through. I revived them.
In some ways, that's game over I guess. Honestly, I doubt anyone would be able to do much better with this ruleset. The E4 having a level jump above where I was at, and the player being hindered to pretty much always have terrible pokemon by this point pretty much seals it. You'd have needed to take the no grinding rule off to have any real chance here, I think. This would be an uphill battle with matched levels. Being below them practically ensures some KO's.
But even with the revives and healing items finally activated, this was the most challening experience of my Pokemon-playing life.
In the final battle with Cynthia, I was completely out of healing items, every single one of my Pokemon was KO'd except for Empoleon, who had 5 HP when he finally inched out that damned Milotic. And she still had Garchomp. I resigned myself to a party wipe. There was just no way. The end of my Nuzlocke.
I took a deep breath and clicked on my secret weapon, Ice Beam, knowing it was 4x damage while simultaneously knowing there was no way that was enough. He would outspeed me and take those remaining health points. I knew it with every fiber of my being. I had surely lost. I pressed the button.
Quick Claw activates. Empoleon moves first. Ice Beam.
Garchomp is frozen and can't move.
I literally started howling with laughter as a wave of adrenaline overcame me. I was pumping my arms, jumping up and down. I had never been so excited by a Pokemon game in my life. With 5 HP on my last remaining Pokemon, I hit Ice Beam one more time to finish the game. My mostly-dead team was thrust into the winners circle and my very first Pokemon Nuzlocke was over.
There is no possible way that it could have ended better.
So that's my story. Sure, it may feel like I cheated in a few places, but then again, most other Nuzlockes that I see allow for grinding which changes everything imo.
And honestly, I'm really glad that I did this. It is a tremendous amount of fun and really injects a different flavor and excitement into going through a Pokemon game. I don't think I can ever look at fainting the same way again.
For anyone who read through and is thinking, as I used to, "maybe I should try that some day," I'd definitely say go for it. You will never be able to get the same kind of excitement, fear, disappointment, and victory out of these games as you can with this type of ruleset, and as fun as it is to read through someone else trying it - trust me, it's better to do it yourself.
Cheers, fellow trainers.
and 1 last revive spent to revive Infernape. So yeaaah :/
