[Spinoff] Explorers of Sky "No Moves" Challenge (Completed! Darkrai Defeated!)

The Intro

At first I was attempting to just regular attack even the bosses in Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky, but it soon became apparent, if it already wasn't, that just the regular A button attack is not going to cut it against enemies that love to spam their moves. This challenge was inspired by a comment someone made on Youtube after Youtuber PokeTips posted a video on only using status moves to beat HeartGold. I hadn't played Explorers of Sky in some time, and it is probably my favorite Pokemon game to play, so I was up to the idea of trying to beat the game using only regular attacks (and items).

In the 3DS games, regular attacks do a constant 5 damage, but in the Rescue and Explorers series, the damage your regular attack does is based on your Attack versus the enemy's Defense. Your regular attack gets stronger as your Attack goes up, even if just boosted for a short time, and it can crit like regular moves (though you wouldn't notice this happen a lot unless you had the Sharpshooter IQ ability). So, for this challenge, a Pokemon with naturally high Attack is ideal. For the regular starters, Munchlax and Turtwig have the highest starting Attack values, though many of your other favorites have the second highest starting Attack.

In an attempt to see if this would actually be possible, though, I opted instead to use a tool called SkyEditor in order to make a slight change to the starters so that I could play as a Pokemon that could do very well in this kind of challenge. It has made some of the cutscenes in the game look a bit weird as the game defaults to a Pokemon walking in place for animation that does not exist, but gameplay-wise I haven't come across any issues so far. By issues I mean the game plays fine, but I happened to have picked a Pokemon that, while levels up quickly, has poor stat increases per level up. This log is my on-going attempt at this challenge.


The Chosen Duo

The only thing I changed was who I would play as, and in keeping with the game's theme of picking relatively young unevolved Pokemon to save the world, I chose Marill. Marill gets both Thick Fat and Huge Power (Hidden abilities are not implemented, so no Sap Sipper). I chose Marill because of Huge Power, although it only occasionally increases attack damage as opposed to all the time, but this slight nerf does still make it valuable as this applies to regular attacks as well. It levels up quickly, but most level ups just increase HP, Attack, and Special Attack by 1 (Sp. Atk. is useless for me). The partner I chose was Munchlax, since it gets very good level up stats and has excellent starting stats even if it is one of the slowest at leveling up. With the duo chosen, it was time to begin the challenge.


The Challenge

At this point I will spoiler the rest of the thread as to allow people to quickly find the parts of the game they want to see how I fared. I'll edit this post as I complete more parts of the game. (Seeing as the challenge is completed, this post will no longer be edited.) I leave out the stuff that happens at Treasure Town and Missions unless I find something notable with them.

Part 1 (Beach Cave to Mt. Bristle's First Attempt)




Part 2 (Mt. Bristle's Second Attempt to Apple Woods)




Part 3 (Guild Expedition to Amp Plains)




Part 4 (Northern Desert to Crystal Cave)




Part 5 (Chasm Cave to Deep Dusk Forest)




Part 6 (Treeshroud Forest to Temporal Tower)




Part 7 (Mystifying Forest to Miracle Sea)




Final Part (Aegis Cave to Dark Crater)



The post below details my thoughts about this challenge and serves as my conclusion to the run.

The Conclusion

So, is it possible to beat Explorers of Sky without using moves? I disregarded guest members since you cannot disable their moves, so my challenge was both Marill and Munchlax not using their moves. Well, I think these screenshots can speak for themselves (The reason the two screens are side by side is because I found this helps with seeing the game since you only need to occasionally glance at the top screen, which I set to show the map and team stats):



So the answer is, YES. While you can't control what guest characters do (and they will ALWAYS use a move, btw), you can do the game from Beach Cave to Darkrai without ever using a move. As for the question of whether you can beat the game without using items...start first by seeing if you can beat Drowzee without items. I think you will find yourself quickly frustrated with how hard Drowzee can hit. And what about battles like the one at Sky Peak where your guest character (who MUST survive, btw), can be OHKOED by the enemies? At the very least I see Reviver Seeds being mandatory.

I stopped at Darkrai since that was the last major battle, and while there are a few story events after beating Darkrai, you just do your usual rescue and outlaw missions until Manaphy introduces you to Marine Resort, and then you are able to evolve your two main characters at that point. So I ended the run after seeing the cutscenes to follow after beating Darkrai.

Also, this technically is not part of the challenge, but I also did not recruit anyone for my team. I saw that as a way for some attacks that would have been aimed at me to instead go to someone basically acting as a shield. This does not have to be followed for this challenge, but be aware that you cannot bring extra team members for some dungeons.

I also did not conduct rescues or request to be rescued in my run. I wanted this to be all of my own effort. I also did not generate Wondermail. All items I got were from the ones the game generated normally.


My Tips

I won't make this an official challenge, but if you're curious enough to give this a try, here are some things I would suggest, at least for the Explorers series:

+Pick a starter that has good starting Attack and levels up Attack a lot. Munchlax and Turtwig are the ones with the best starting Attack, but many others have the second most. I hacked in Marill in my run, who has the same starting attack as Munchlax and Turtwig, but has bad level up stats.

+Know your items. Status-inflicting seeds will be your best friend for many of the major fights. Bring Sleep, X-Eye, and/or Totter Seeds for single target battles. Stun Seeds are great for multiple targets in order to reduce how many attacks the enemy team can do in one turn, since they will not move again until provoked. Reviver Seeds are also a must, especially if you have a guest character in battle. Hunger Seeds have varying results. As far as equips, I gave both my characters Power Bands, and always make sure to bring at least one Apple and four Oran Berries whenever I dive into a dungeon.

+Know your Orbs. Some of them can be of great benefit, like Trawl or Trapbust (and See-Trap). They are especially useful when fighting outlaws in regular dungeon floors, or if you happen to run into that Monster House you knew was coming. It's worth noting that starting at around Blizzard Island, enemies can use a handful of Orbs, namely Rollcall.

+Use Treasure Town's NPCs as much as possible. Marowak Dojo is a great early to mid-game place to train your characters. Losing in those small dungeons doesn't make you lose items, at least according to what I observed. The Dojo loses value once you are well on your way to exploring the harder dungeons. Spinda's Juice Bar, however, will never lose value in this run (unless you somehow maxed out stats for both characters...and you do not need to farm THAT much). Farm Gummies whenever you feel you need a boost, and focus on your main character first, while offering some to the secondary character. Once your main character has learned all of their IQ Skills, feed the rest of the Gummies you get to the secondary character so they can grow in stats as well. Kecleon Shops will be a primary source of Gummis, so make sure to build up your money as well (I hit 60k Poke at the end of the run). Xatu and Croagunk will be your primary source of swap items, although these are not as important as Gummis and Vitamins. You primarily will get Reviver Seeds from Wynaut by exchanging in all those Escape Orbs you have been hoarding. Reviver and Status-Inflicting Seeds can increase a character's HP on a great drink.

+Pay attention in dungeons. Probably the number one tip I can give. Always be aware of what can happen in dungeons, especially if you do outlaw missions. Outside of outlaw missions, Monster Houses start appearing in Amp Plains, and so do the nasty traps. Hidden Stairs start appearing at Craggy Coast. Enemies have high IQ starting at Mystifying Forest. Monster Houses in late game maps practically become Death Traps, and you should just restart your game if you step in one.

+Most of all, know when a task is too tough to do at first. You will hit your first major obstacle at Mt. Bristle. Other major challenges will come from outlaws, as they will be too strong at first. Late game, be wary of outlaws that are in hideouts or call others when found. Escort missions can be tricky, but usually are not too bad. Be prepared to spend many in-game days increasing your characters' stats, as they will be important. By the time I finished the run, both my characters had 100+ in all four stats (Marill I think had just under 100 in Special Attack, but nearly 120+ in the other three), and 150+ in HP. By doing so, some of the above stuff will become easier. There will be moments in the games where the game flat out hates you, so try not to get discouraged and take every punch as they come.

If you can keep the above in mind, then I think you will have a good chance of clearing the same challenge I did. I certainly had fun with this and needed to think about how to approach some of the game. Whew, that does it for this challenge...