[Gen 3] Gui's Water Type Hardcore Nuzlocke in Pokémon Emerald

Welcome to my very first Monotype Hardcore Nuzlocke!

Since Hoenn is the generation with the most water types out of all generations (at least as far as I know), and water is a starter type, I decided that for my next nuzlocke after the Pokémon Crystal Nuzlocke I'd play Pokémon Emerald with only water types!

The rules are the average HC Nuzlocke rules, together with the Monotype rules.


I also used rare candies to level up Pokémon, because no one wants to spend hours prepping for every gym leader and important fight lmao.
So without further ado, let us begin.

I start by obviously choosing Mudkip as my starter and naming it Mudfish. This little fella will be really important for Watson, so keeping it alive until then is an absolute must. I then do the whole tutorial portion of the game, easily beating May and her weird lizard thing. After all of that is done I get my first Pokéballs from professor Birch and immediatly head to route 103, where I catch my second Pokémon, a Wingull that I name Flyingfish, since clearly that's what it is.
After moving through route 102 without catching anything for now, I reach Petalburg and watch my rival Wally catch his first Pokémon, certantly this character will be very relevant and be reocurring throught the entire game. After that, I head to route 104 and catch a Marill and name it Bunnyfish, it has Huge Power, so it's certantly going to very useful throught the adventure.
I head back to route 102 and... Accidentally kill the Lotad I was trying to catch, so no fourth Pokémon for now.
After quickly moving through Petalburg woods I get to Rustboro, there to fight the first Gym leader Roxxane. Yeah, you can guess how this one went, Mudfish destroyed every one of her Pokémon without needing to switch out once.

And it's at this point that I notice that the cheat I was using for infinite rare candies kind of screwed up my bag, making so that I couldn't really get any items. Only option to fix that was to reset, so technically this is where the first run ends, but for the sake of not humiliating myself I'll just say that was uh... The preview to the actual run.
Everything up to Roxxane happens the same as the totally fake, preview run, except for the fact that Bunnyfish has Thick Fat instead of Huge Power, and I actually do manage to catch Lotad on route 102, naming it Mexicofish.
After defeating an aqua grunt who decided to kidnap the most common Pokémon in all of Hoenn, I get my Pokénav and go to Dewfoard city to get the game's first fishing rod, the Old Rod. With this thing I catch a Magikarp at route 107 who I name Angryfish, and a Tentacool named Jellyfish who I catch at Dewford Town. Fun fact, Tentacool is actually classified as the Jellyfish Pokémon on the Pokédex, so yes, Jellyfish is correct.
Brawly, as the fighting type gym leader, is easily dealt with by Flyingfish, as he has no way to hit flying types without it being not very effective, right? No. Although Flyingfish did in fact easily get rid of his Machop and Meditite, Makuhita was able to set up enough bulk ups to become bulky enough and strong enough to take out Flyingfish with a few Vital Throws. I try to send in Jellyfish in next but it was also taken out quickly, but not without poisoning the Makuhita first, and confusing it as well. With little HP left Makuhita is finally defeated by Bunnyfish, who is now an Azumarill, with a single bubblebeam. You did well Jellyfish, although I would've loved to use you later as an amazing special wall just like in my Crystal HC Nuzlocke, I guess sometimes your plans get cut short like that.

After that whole fight, I get to go in a simple, easy path across the next few routes, defeating the most difficult rival fight in Pokémon along the way... The hardest fight for speedrunners that is, because with Angryfish, now a Gyarados, by my side, this fight was easy, even her deformed lizard couldn't stand a chance. I guess I also fight Wally later, but really, what was he thinking going into the gym with only a level 16 Ralts? Good thing I'm there to crush that kid's dreams.
Talking about crushed dreams though, I completely breeze through Watson's gym, defeating every one of his Pokémon with Mudfish, who has since evolved into a Marshtomp.

Now that I can use Rock Smash out of battle, I get the HM for Strength and head northwards until I eventually reach Meteor Falls, only to then have to go all the way back to Mt. Chimney to fight the Team Magma people at the top. There, I fight Maxie and his weirdly not fire-type team, having Camerupt be his singular fire type Pokémon.
Having defeated Archie I head for Flannery and... Yeah. The one to deal the final blow is Bunnyfish, with no difficulties throught the fight.

As you may have noticed, I so far have not caught a single Pokémon since my fight with Brawly, which, as you may also have noticed, poses a problem, because I have 4 team members of the same type, to fight Norman's 4 team members, who also share a type. So unlike other battles where I could use cheap tactics like using super-effective moves against my opponents, this time I have to do a man-to-man, straight up, brutal and total combat. So here's how it went.
The fight began with me sending out Mudfish, and Norman sending out his Spinda. He goes for Teeter Dance as I go for Mud shot, and even though Teeter Dance connects, Mudfish's confusion goes away due to it holding the Persim Berry I gave to it before the fight, curing it of confusion. The next turn I go for Mud shot again, and since the previous one made Spinda slower, Mudfish is able to outspeed and kill Spinda.
Next out is Vigoroth, who similarly to Spinda is made slower with Mud shot, but unlike Spinda it actually goes for an attack against Mudfish, critting it and putting it at low HP, forcing me to switch. Bunnyfish is able to tank Vigoroth's Slash pretty well, and sure enough, with enough Bubblebeams, Vigoroth is defeated.
Linoone is next and immediately goes for an attacking move, now this is actually good, since it means it didn't go for Belly Drum, who most likely would've been the end of me right then and there, instead, I'm actually able to keep trading blows with Linoone until it goes down, by the end, Bunnyfish survives this fight with a whopping 3 hp, with me fulling expecting to have to sacrifice it to win this battle.
His final Pokémon is Slaking, this beast has stats higher than even those of Legendary Pokémon, but it's ability, Truant, makes so that it can't attack every other turn, something that can easily be taken advantage of if you have a Pokémon with, let's say, Protect. You know, Protect, a move that Pelipper learns, Pelipper being the evolution of Wingull, which is what Flyingfish was. Yeah, instead I had to go for the risky strategy of switcing between Mexicofish and Angryfish, taking advantage of Angryfish's ability, Intimidate, to lower Slaking's attack every time it's switched in. For some reason Norman's AI decided to keep going for counter pretty much every turn, so since I wasn't attacking it there really was just nothing it could do to me, and sure enough, with enough intimidates, it becomes weak to the point where it straight up can't do anything to me as long as I don't hit it in the turns where it can move, thus not making counter actually useful for him. After a few Strengths and Leers, Angryfish is able to take down Slaking, winning me the fight, and unlocking a bunch of Pokémon for me now that I have Surf.

But that will be for later, since as of me writing this right now, I have only went up to Winona. Next time I update this journal, I'll either have beaten the champion, or have died trying. Hopefully not the second option.

Current Pokémon:

Now that Norman is defeated I finally got to have access to Surf, allowing me to, well, surf. That by itself isn't that useful, but on the route to the right of Mauvile I can get a Good Rod from a fisherman, which allows me to get a lot, and I mean a LOT of Pokémon, so let's speed through this.
A Modest Carvanha named Pedofish caught at Route 118;
A Lax Corphish named Evolfish caught at Route 117;
A Naive Goldeen named Badfish caught at Route 111;
A Barboach named Tremorfish at Route 114;
And a Wailmer named Fatfish at Route 110.
After that whole catching session, I fight off some criminals at the Weather Institute, apparently they were trying to control the weather, but they probably forgot that literally any Pokémon can do that by learning a move like Sunny Day or Rain Dance, being a meteorologist must suck in the Pokémon world. Oh yeah, I also fight May afterwards, moving on.
After getting the ability to reveal the Kecleon blocking the Gym, I go and have my fight with Winona, the flying type gym leader, and this, is where I commit a grave mistake. I didn't know it at the time but at the abandoned ship you can get the TM Ice Beam before you get Dive, with the Water Stone being a post-dive item. Because of this, I went into Winona without having Ice Beam, nor Thunderbolt but that wasn't actually relevant, because for the most partt, everything was killed easily, until...
When Altaria came out I didn't really have to fight it with, so even though I correctly switched into Angryfish, I couldn't do enough damage to it and eventually had to switch out, and thinking that Bunnyfish would be able to do something, I got to a point where it was too low leveled to do anything, and since it was the least valuable member at that point of the game, I had to sacrifice it. Afterwards I sent out Duckfish, a Golduck I caught at the Safari Zone after getting the Devon Scope from Steven, and sadly, it died as well. Thinking that the only way to defeat it is to send out Angryfish and hope Altaria goes for Dragon Dance due to attack drop from intimidate, I plan to send out Gyarados but... I accidentally send out Pedofish instead, and since I couldn't just send out Gyarados out of fear of something bad happening to it, I had to let Pedofish die. At last, I was able to send out Gyarados and kill Altaria with enough Strengths, as it indeed went for Dragon Dance. Pedofish dying here will have haunting consequences in the future.

Some allegedly important things happen afterwards, something about these grown adults getting Orbs to awaken legendary Pokémon, but somehow choosing the wrong orb, even though they literally have the color of the Pokémon they want? Whatever the hell that was, I defeat all of them easily. Oh yeah, I also fight May again, surely this is not the last time I'll fight her, considering her team was so weak, so, moving on.
Now that the path to Mossdeep is open, I get the super Rod, unlocking the last few encounters in the run. For now tho, I only catch a Staryu at Lilycove and name it Starfish, since that's factually accurate.
With nothing else to do, I fight Tate & Lisa, the worst and most difficult fight of the run. I start the fight by instantly killing Claydoll with both Angryfish and Evolfish targetting it, as Xatu uses Calm Mind. I then switch Angryfish out and use Crabhammer on Solrock, who came out after Claydoll, who responds by using Sunny Day. After this, I basically just kept trying to kill the opposing Pokémon, watching in horror as my Pokémon get killed one by one due to Solrock's Solar Beam, including Mexicofish, my best chance against Wallace. The aftermath of everything is that only Evolfish the Crawdaunt, and Angryfish the Gyarados survive, along with Badfish the Seaking, since it was boxed.

To fill the gap in the team I go to Shoal Cave and catch a Spheal, naming it Ballfish.
Having defeated Team Magma yet again, now at the Space Station, I can get a few more Pokémon by using Dive, or rather, one more Pokémon. So yeah, while opening your save menu, it shows the route you're at at the moment, but while Underwater, it all counts as "Underwater", signifying that it's all the same route according to the game, and since I can only get one Pokémon per route, I had a 30% chance of getting the one Pokémon that I needed for the run not to be dead, Chinchou, and sure enough, I get the Chinchou, since this was such a lucky moment that practically saved the run, as Wallace is made possible again, I named it Luckyfish.
After this there was some more stuff about Armaggedon causing creatures? Honestly from my point of view all I did was beat some dude cosplaying as a pirate and then go talk with some giant flying snake at the top of a tower, not all that exciting to be honest. Weirdly enough, there was no wacky rival fight after this, concerning, considering they always show up after I defeat some criminals, maybe they are a part of the organizations, and since I beat the two teams once and for all, they stopped trying to fight me. Surely that's the case, it would make no sense for there not to be a final fight against my rival otherwise.
With my Luckyfish I have a really easy time against Juan, because along with Starfish, who is now a Starmie, I can kill every Pokémon with either an electric type attack, or in the case of Whiscash and Kingdra, I can just outpower them with enough Pokémon, thus making me the best water type trainer in Hoenn, right?

And this is where I'm gonna cap it off for now. Yeah yeah I know, I said I was gonna finish it right now, but considering that i'm still using a Pokémon I literally nicknamed Badfish because of how bad it is, I'm going to need a better Pokémon... That being Milotic. It's going to take quite a long time to get feebas I imagine, so this time, I really mean it when I say: By the next time I post on this threat, I'll either be the Champion, or Hoenn's strongest loser. Till then, cya.

Current Pokémon:

My grueling hunt for Feebas led me to finding it on... The fourth tile of route 119. Yeah, I'm not gonna lie I was really lucky to get Feebas that fast. I decided to name it Hopefish and caught it with the Master Ball from the Aqua Hideout to signify it being the hope of the run possibly not being lost.
There was also a kid who fought me at the Victory Road, but I don't really remember meeting him before, I'm sure that if I had met him throught my adventure in incresingly harder fights I would remember him, but that wasn't the case. I beat him easily because Starfish is fair and balanced.
After doing some moveset changes and TM gathering, I finally have only one thing left, the Elite Four.
My Team for the Elite Four is:
Starfish, the
Angryfish, the
Luckyfish, the
Hopefish, the
Ballfish, the
Evolfish, the

Without further ado, let us begin.

The fight against Sydney goes exactly as you'd expect, he is just too low below the level cap, which is 55, for Drake's Salamence. I start off with Angryfish to intimidate his Pokémon, then switch to Evolfish, hoping to set up a few Swords Dance and sweept, and while I do kill Mightyena, the rest of the team is dealt with my other Pokémon as well, like Ballfish.

Phoebe was a bit tougher, with her ghost types being relatively bulky, and me having no dark type... to speak of. Yeah, Evolfish doesn't learn Crunch in Pokémon Emerald, so the only move I had for it was either Hidden Power, which happened to be Dark Type... and 33 power, or Knock Off, that has 20 base power in this generation, so yeah, nothing to speak of. The fight itself was fine though, with my Pokémon just outdamaging hers.

Glacia was really easy at first, with me killing the Sealeos with Thunderbolt by either Starfish or Luckyfish, and the first Glalie getting defeated by Evolfish. But then, the second Glalie came. For me to defeat the Glalie, I decided to first switch into Angryfish for the Intimidate, and then switch to Ballfish once Angryfish was low enough. After a few hits and Glacia using a Full Restore, Glalie went for Explosion... Which crit. Ballfish dies, now I have 5 Pokémon for the rest of the Elite Four, as her Walrein gets Toxic Stalled by my Hopefish.

Next up is Drake, whom I sweep every with Starfish's Ice Beam, every mon except Kingdra. During a long Toxic Stall with Hopefish, including 2 Full Restores along the way, Drake's Kingdra gets to what I think was around 4 Dragon Dances, but as long as I switched to every one of the Pokémon in my party as it uses Body Slam, it would die to Toxic damage. I swith into Angryfish first for the Intimidate... And it gets crit, and dies. I then switch to Luckyfish, Evolfish and finally, Starfish... Who gets crit, and dies. The Kingdra does die afterwards, but now I only have three Pokémon: A Milotic, a Lanturn and a Crawdaunt, these three will have to defeat Wallace by themselves and prove to be the strongest water types in Hoenn.


The battle begins with Wailord using Double Edge onto Luckyfish as I use Thunderbolt, leaving it in the low yellows. Next turn Wallace switches into Whiscash as I use another Thunderbolt. I decide to switch into Hopefish and Toxic Stall it, successfully doing so. Next up was the big man himself, Ludicolo. After a long Toxic stalling session, using pretty much all my Recovers and Protects, I get to a point where Wallace has used both his Full Restores, and Ludicolo isn't Toxic'd anymore. But, of course, during all those turns, Ludicolo has used up all 6 of it's Double Teams, making it impossible to hit it with another Toxic. My only option was to switch into Evolfish and kill it with Aerial Ace, since Ludicolo had wasted all of it's Giga Drain PP. I switch into Evolfish and figure that the only way for me to win this was if I was able to get all 3 Swords Dance and kill at least two Pokémon from here, but due to the damage Evolfish takes due to Leech Seed from Ludicolo, I'm only able to kill it before going down. Luckyfish is the next to go down, as it isn't able to outspeed Wallace's Tentacruel, going down in one hit from having taken damage earlier from the Double Edge. And finally... Hopefish, not able to outspeed the opponent, dies easily to a Sludge Bomb from the same Tentacruel. And with that, the run is over.


Conclusion:

I'll just give it to you straight: I lost 4 runs in a row without even getting to Norman.
Yeah yeah I know, pathetic, but I think I just suck at nuzlockes, I don't know what to tell ya.

Second run went fine up until Brawly, where my Tentacool died again, which was fine considering the same happened in the first run. But then, at Norman's gym, I lost to a Zangoose who used two Swords Dance. I'll be more careful next time I choose paths at that gym.

Third Run everyone died at Brawly because of Bulk Ups, Sitrus Berry, Potions. That fight is just so hard man.

Fourth Run I actually managed to get through Brawly deathless, because I decided to edge Wingull (put it at the very limit between the level cap and the next level, so it levels up mid-fight), or maybe it just had a good nature. Either way it died Against the May fight before Wattson due to getting Pursuited when I was trying to switch out from Grovyle. And at Wattson my Marshtomp got confused and hit itself enough to die against Manectric, next time I'll give it a Persim Berry.

Fifth Run I accidentally went onto Brawly too early and forgot to level up my Pokémon, along with having Marshtomp in front, so I died.

Overall I just... Kinda suck I'm ngl. Maybe I'll take a break for a while, or maybe not. But for today, there was no progress.