Few days ago, I found out pretty sad fact. It has been years since I've done regular vanilla Nuzlocke run in most of the regions. I don't think I've even done a regular Nuzlocke run in Alola yet. But it all changes now! Here's my latest run of the good old Nuzlocke.

The rules are pretty simple. There is the holy trinity:

• I can only catch 1st Pokémon in each new area
• Every Pokémon must be nicknamed
• When Pokémon faints, it must be permanently put in a box

And I'll also be using few more rules:

• I'll be using SET Battle Style
• Dupes and shiny clause
• Black out is game over
• The Nuzlocke starts when I get Poké Balls
• My Pokémon can't have higher level than the strongest Pokémon of the next Gym Leader (14 for Brock, 21 for Misty, ...). Should this happen, they have to be boxed until that Gym is beaten. I'm not sure how I'll do E4, but I'll probably get to the average level of final Rival battle, which is 60.
• My Starter depends on the last number of Trainer ID. 1-3 for Bulbasaur, 4-6 for Charmander and 7-9 for Squirtle. If the last number is 0, I'll just look ath the second last number.
• Healing items in battle are banned. Held items are still okay though.

And let's start right away. My ID ends with 5, so I'll be picking up Puff the Charmander as my starter. There was 66% chance to get good, interesting, not overhyped Pokémon and I failed even at this. This run starts really nicely.

Anyway, I finished all the tutorial stuff and got my first encounters of this run - Winger the Pidgey on Route 1 and Mama the Mankey on Route 22. With them, I easily beat my Rival on Route 22. Puff beat his Pidgey, while Mama took on Squirtle.

Continuing on, I caught Free the Caterpie on Route 2 and Bree the Weedle in Viridian Forest. While going through this forest, Puff hit level 14, so I let Winger take care of rest of the bugs here. When I got to Pewter City, I boxed Free and Bree, since I'm currently using Butterfree in my Ultra Moon Wonderlocke and shiny hunted Beedrill recently. I leveled up my Mama to level 14 by beating the kid in Pewter Gym and challenged Brock. And he was total pushover. Mama Karate Chop'd both Geodude and Onix down easily and earned me first badge of this run.

I decided to play a little bit more and caught Pecekr the Spearow. Another Pokémon I'll box, since one bird if enough. But I'm glad I caught it, since Winger got almost killed twice on this route. Once he ended up poisoned with 2 HP left against Weedle and Caterpie and then he survived battle with Ekans with 1 HP.

Fanny the Zubat joins the team in Mt. Moon. I led with Puff for most fights and he evolved right before taking on Team Rocket and that crazy scientist. I picked Helix Fossil, but that won't be really useful.

And that's it for now. I got to Cerulean City with no deaths, which is great. I have a bad feeling about fighting Misty with my current team, so next time, I'll try to get Oddish, Meowth or Abra as they might help a lot.

Let's continue! Right from the start, I caught J the Rattata on Route 4 and Winger evolved after a short training session, where I got him to level 18.

I got challenged by my Rival. Winger took down his Pidgeotto and Rattata and Mama took down Squirtle and Abra.

Going back to my favourite part of Nuzlocke - catching new encounters. Route 24 gave me Wanda the Oddish. Abra on route 25 fled, which is sad, since I really wanted to have it against Misty. And Wanda didn't spend much time on my team neither. I was training her to be able to take on Misty. Everything went great. But then I challenged the girl right before Misty. Her Goldeen confused Wanda and them hit her pretty hard with Horn Attack. One failed confise check later, Wanda fatally hit herself.

Back to square one, I had to grind my trio to level 21 to have at least small chance against Misty. I started with Mama and thankfully Staryu used Harden twice, which was enough to beat it without taking any damage. Misty sent out Starmie and it easily chip away half of Mama's HP. Mama hardly used one Leer and died. I sent out Winger next and Starmie hit him with critical Water Pulse. This left Winger with 2 HP and confused. And of course he hit himself. I then sent out Puff, but there was no chance to survive this.

So, this attempt was longer that I expected. No healing in the battle and level cap is something that makes this run really hard. And I love it!

There is no reason to delay this! I started new game and ended up with number 6 at the of my ID, which is not ideal, especially since Charmander is my least favourite out of this trio. Anyway, Paff the Charmander joined my team.

I easily beat Rival and got Dat the Rattata on Route 1, Overpunch the Mankey on Route 22, Mrs. Peck the Pidgey on Route 2 and Saviour the Pikachu in Viridian Forest. The Pikachu encounter is incredible. I really hope Saviour will survive all the way to Misty.

So with this pretty much perfect team, I challenged Rival again and Saviour shocked both of his Pokémon to submission. When I got to Pewter City, I once again trained my team and almost lost Overpunch, Paff and Dat while going against the camper in Brock's Gym underleveled. Thankfully all of them survived and Overpunch beat Brock after being leveled up to level 14.

Route 3 gave me Deniska the Jigglypuff[ and I'm beginning to really love this run. I stored Dat, put Deniska on team and trained her. Oh and Deniska was holding an Oran Berry. That's nice.

Spora the Paras joined my team in Mt. Moon and I had pretty okay journey through the mountain. Paff evolved here and I once again almost lost Overpunch, after he got poisoned in the final battle and I had no Antidotes. The one that was lying on the ground was way too far and I, as is my tradition, forgot to buy healing items. But I had to pick a Potion somewhere and it was enough to het the Antidote.

When I got out of Mt. Moon, I quickly healed in Cerulean City and went to Route 4 to get another Pokémon. Masculi the Ekans poisoned Saviour, refused to stay paralyzed and in Poké Ball. I only caught him in my very last Poké Ball. I put Spora in box and decided to use Masculi as my 6th Pokémon for now.

I trained my team to level 18 a challenged Rival. My newly evolved Mrs. Peck took on Rival's own Pidgeotto and won. She then took down his Rattata, before I had to switch to Saviour to battle his Squirtle and Abra. Route 24 encounter was Emanuel the Caterpie and Route 25 encounter was Dra the Kakuna. Not that exciting as the other ones so far. I leveled up Saviour a little bit and decided to tackle on Misty again.

I start out with Mrs. Peck and got confused with Staryu's Water Pulse. After hitting herself twice, I had to switch Mrs. Peck for Overpunch, who also got confused right from the start. Yep, this was really a great start. Overpunch eventually beat Staryu and I switched to Deniska just when Starmie attacked with Swift. Deniska tanked the attack and following Water Pulse and put Starmie to sleep with Sing. I quickly switched to Saviour and used Double Team, before Starmie woke up and hit pretty hard with Water Pulse. Thankfully my next Thudnershock paralyzed the Star Pokémon and this made it unable to move next turn, which was just enough for me to use another two Thundrshocks and beat it.

This was insane. I always had problems with this Starmie, but I though I can easily beat it with Pikachu. But it took a great amount of luck to do so. Anyway, after helping Bill and the Dig guy, I'm once again free to encounter new Pokémon. Route 5 gave me Bluma the Oddish and Route 6 was kind enough to let me catch Zlatak the Meowth.

I arrived in Vermilion City and got myself a nice Old Rod. But I don't think I'll be using it this run since I think Gyarados is pretty mediocre Pokémon for Gen III Nuzlocke. Well even in more recent gens. I think it takes way too much resources to make it good and there are tons of other Water-type Pokémon with better movesets. So I quickly jump on Route 11 to catch Sen the Drowzee and then went to Diglett's Cave and caught Surgekill the Diglett. I had no intention on wiping on Surge, so I put Surgekill on team. I really love this part in Kanto Nuzlockes. No matter how your bad team is, you have one Ground-type guaranteed to fight Surge.

But before I can challenge him, I had to beat Rival again and this fight was pretty easy. The hardest thing about it was to try not to overlevel my Pokémon over the level cap, since there is a bunch of trainers between Cerulean and Vermilion and my Pokémon were getting dangerously close to level cap. I started with Saviour and beat his Pidgeotto, then switched to Overpunch to beat Raticate. I was really afraid of his Kadabra so I sent in Paff, who was able to hurt it a little bit, before Rival switched it for his Wartortle. I sent in Saviour again and set up 6 Double Teams. Wartortle was switching between Withdraw and Water Gun, which left Saviour with 6 HP. But he was able to beat Wartortle and then overpower Kadabra, winning me the match.

With that I got Cut and was able to finally challenge Surge. But right before that Masculi evolved. I didn't use it as much as I though I would, but he still has pretty bad moves on him, so that's mostly why. Anyway, the battle with Surge was long. Surgekill's Dig took 2 turns, so Surge had enough time to set Double Teams and everything he needed. Surgekill beat Voltorb and Pikachu without any problems, but Raichu kept setting up Double Teams and even paralyzed Surgekill. Both got in the red HP, so I had to switch to Saviour and end the fight with critical Quick Attack.

I decided to keep Surgekill on my team and box Deniska, got Flash, returned to Cerulean City and got bike there and saved the game.

see i've been watching these types of nuzlockes on youtube lately, and seeing this is making me want to do one of my own. i like the challenge of it and it really makes you think about how to go about things.

sounds like rng got you good in the first attempt.

tokyodrift said:

see i've been watching these types of nuzlockes on youtube lately, and seeing this is making me want to do one of my own. i like the challenge of it and it really makes you think about how to go about things.

sounds like rng got you good in the first attempt.

Click to expand...

Yeah, no healing in battle sometimes foiled my plan on sweeping whole team with just one Pokémon. And the level cap made it so my team is more grounded and can't one-shot everything.

Well, you don't know it, but this is the second time I'm writing this update. Last time I forgot to send it and lost it forever. So this might not go into as many details as the last one.

Right from the start, I got some new encounters. I got Pero the Spearow on Route 9 and Bumbac the Voltorb on Route 10. Rock Tunnel gave me Many the Zubat and a heart attack. There are so many status inflicting Pokémon here that it's almost impossible to get through here without healing. Overpunch evolved here and got really close to level cap for Erika.

Because of that I quickly went through Lavender Town and Route 8, where I caught Rafan the Growlithe. Which means I can't get anything on Route 7.

When I got to Celadon City, I spent way too much time in Game Corner to get Ice Beam, Flamethrower and Charcoal.

And the last two items proved to be an overkill against Erika. Paff just stood in the middle of the Gym and burned everything down.

At this point I found out that I never use Masculi, so I boxed it and put Sen on my team. And she solo'd pretty much the whole Game Corner dungeon, aside from Giovanni, who fell to Overpunch.

Going back to Lavender, battle with Rival wasn't hard this time, since I was pretty overleveled. I should have went here sooner, but then I might have get some Pokémon over Erika's level cap. At one point Paff got asleep and leech seed'd by Exeggcute, but in the end the flame was too strong to die. I also used Saviour so much at the beginning of the battle that he had few HP left before I could use him against Wartortle. But as a reward, I got Duchacek the Gastly. I'm thinking about using it against Sabrina.

Anyway, with Poké Flute I can get Snorlax. Who is SSS tier Pokémon for Nuzlockes. Which is exactly the reason I won't be using it. Instead, I trained my team, because there will be probably the hardest battle of the whole game. Silph Co Rival battle. Why? Because Rival has so much stronger Pokémon than anyone else at this point and I always run into him with team of level 32 Pokémon. So I grinded all the way to level 40 and Paff and Mrs. Peck evolvFhim ited into their final forms.

And that battle was awful. I started with Saviour and Rival's Pidgeot's Quick Attacks were so powerful that my poor Pikachu ended up the fight with 6 HP. That means that I can't even switch him in safely to take care of Blastoise. I then sent in Surgekill against Growlithe and even this battle was pretty close, since Surgekill is pretty squishy Pokémon. Rival's Blastoise decided it isn't in the mood for battle and kept using Protect against Overpunch, so at least that was good. The rest of his team was easy. Alakazam kept using Future Sight and Exeggcute didn't even attack.

And the first death of the run is here! Right after taking on Rival and before battling Giovanni again, I was challenged by some random grunt. His Cubone and Marowak almost killed Saviour and Overpunch and I really had no Pokémon able to take them on. I sent out Surgekill and only after one Boomerang it was obvious that Surgekill will not kill any more Surges. So after some considering, I put Duchacek on team, trained it and taught it Shadow Ball from Game Corner. I also let it know Destiny Bond just in case everything will go south. And Duchacek evolved in the process. And I decided to evolve Saviour, since I don't think I'll change his moveset anymore.

Anyway, Giovanni battle doesn't really need a commentary, since it wasn't that hard. I went straight against Sabrina and Duchacek was fast enough to beat both Kadabra and Mr. Mime, but her Alakazam used Future Sight before dying too and her Venomoth was strong enough to tank one Shadow Ball and confused Duchacek. Alakazam's attack then hit and it was enough for my Ghost-type to die. No hard feelings, since I was prepared for this. I think if I didn't use it, more Pokémon would die. I then sent out Paff and finished Sabrina.

With a spot free again on my team, Deniska is back on board. I returned back to Route 16 and finally caught Yall the Snorlax. But since the level cap for Koga is the same as for Sabrina, I just quickly run through Routes 17 and 18 and will probably return here once I get Good and Super Rods or not at all, since I think this team should be okay. But Dewgong would be really cool to have.

Battle with Koga was also pretty okay, thanks to Sen. Minimize and Toxic were annoying, but nothing that would end the run right there.

And that's all for now.

Let's start with new encounter. I caught Ivory the Nidoran in Safari Zone before getting Surf and some other stuff there. And with Surf came realization that I need Water-type to actually get to rest of the game. I made a little detour to Route 12 and got Super Rod. This also meant that I encountered Venca the Venonat on Route 15. I kinda skipped Route 14 for now, since I had no Pokémon with Cut. But on Route 12 I caught Bad the Gyarados and on Route 13 I finally caught usable Water-type in Merry the Horsea. Deniska had to go out of team again, but I was able to continue and got Season the Psyduck in Fuchsia City, Ben the Tentacool on Route 19, Emperor the Krabby on Route 20 and finally Rozda the Seel in Seafom Island. I also caught Pasta the Tangela on Route 21, got to Cinnabar Island and got Vibuch the Koffing in the Mansion. This calls for some team shuffling. I decided to put Rozda on my team instead of Merry.

And I challenged Blaine with her. As you can imagine, there weren't many problems. His Arcanine was annoying and for a moment I thought he will kill Rozda. But everything worked well and I got 7th Gym.

Then I went straight to Giovanni and this battle was once again pretty easy. I made really great call with putting Rozda on team. Even underleveled, she froze Giovanni's whole team.

I felt like finishing the game, so I continued and beat Rival again. This battle was always one of the harder ones and this was no exception. His Alakazam almost killed Mrs. Peck and Sen, but I was able to pull them back before the finishing blow. This battle was full of close calls and critical hits that really matter.

Then I went into my least favourite location - Victory Road. There, an accident happened. I led with Saviour and was challenged by a Black Belt. His Machoke somehow survived Thunderbolt with 1 HP and then hit back with critical Revenge. That was awful kill. I wanted an Electric-type, so when I got back from Victory Road, I decided to visit Power Plant. I got Fyza the Magnemite and while it's pretty good alternative for Saviour, it will never replace Saviour in my heart.

I trained it a little bit and finally decided to challenge E4. Lorelei was first and her Lapras was really close to end this run. It didn't kill anyone, but it was close to kill Overpunch, Fyza, Rozda and Sen, who was actually the one who beat it. That cursed Confuse Ray!

Bruno was pushover, like always. I used Rozda and Overpunch to take care of his Onix and Mrs. Peck and Paff to beat his Fighting-types. It left Mrs. Peck in desolate state with only 1 HP, but she beat Bruno's ace Pokémon.

My plan of using Sen to sweep Agatha was foiled when her Arbok poisoned Sen. I had no intention on loosing him, so I switched to Paff, who should be fast enough to beat the rest of her team without risking another death. And it worked.

I was a little bit afraid of battle with Lance. It started pretty good, with Fyza taking down Gyarados. When Lance sent out Dragonair, I sent out Rozda. Ice Beam was really effective and Lance has no choice other than sending another Pokémon Aerodactyl came out and it hit Rozda with AncientPower and almost killed her. I had to switch to someone else and decided to go with Fyza again, while Lance healed Aerodactyl. Another Thunderbolt beat him, but he was able to weaken Fyza even more. I had to use Paff against another Dragonair. The battle was long and fierce, but in the end paralyzed and hurt Paff beat Dragonair. And I'm slowly out of options for Dragonite. I was sure someone will die before end of this battle. I decided to attack with Paff, while Dragonite used Outrage. The most powerful Dragon-type Pokémon hit Paff with the most powerful Dragon-type attack and Paff survived with 6 HP. I sent out Sen and he tanked another Outrage pretty well. Dragonite got confused, which is always good. And it kept hitting itself. And so Sen beat Dragonite with Psychic.

And now for the final battle! Fyza easily beat Pidgeot. When he sent out Arcanine, I had to quickly switch to Rozda and after few hits, washed away Arcanine with Surf. For some reason, Rival then went with Rhydon and it was immediately killed with Surf. When Exeggutor came out, I had to switch to Paff and quickly beat it. Rival then sent out Blastoise and when I sent out Fyza, one critical Hydro Pump took my another Electric-type down. I wasn't sure what to do and sent out Mrs. Peck. Blastoise set up Rain Dance while Mrs. Peck hit it with weak Fly. Following Hydro Pump ended up my very first catch of this run. The very same thing happened with Overpunch, who weaken Blastoise even more. I then finally sent out Sen and desperately used Hypnosis. And it worked. But it's not over yet! There is still Alakazam. I started with Swagger and Hypnosis and put Alakazam to sleep. While sleeping, I sent out Paff and started attacking. When I got Alakazam to red HP, Rival healed it back to full health. After a pretty scary Psychic, that almost killed Paff, my dear dragon scorched Alakazam to ash.

And with that I finished up another Nuzlocke. That last battle was really a bloodbath. Something I'll remember for a while. Anyway, here's the Hall of Fame: