I’ve never completed a Nuzlocke before, so I figured it was about time!

I’ll be using standard Nuzlocke rules, but since it’s my first one, I’ll be adding in Dupes Clause, Shiny Clause, and won’t be banning in-battle items for myself (though I’ll try not to overuse them...)

Not really sure what else to say, so... let’s get started!

On a summer morning in Nuvema Town, I picked Snivy as my starter and named him Hawthorne. Why? I have no idea, but that’s just the name that popped in my head.

I was hoping to get a Lillipup on Route 1 (for obvious reasons), but instead I just got a dumb looking rat... oh well, I guess Patricia can stay around for a bit.

In Accumula Town, some weird guy from PETA tried to steal my Pokemon, but it really just ended up being good experience to level up Hawthorne.

On Route 2, I did get my Lillipup! Unfortunately, he’s male, so I can’t name him after my real life dog, but I decided to name him Walter after a friend’s dog. Now I get to feel extra guilty if Lillipup dies during the run...

...and that’s where we leave off, because the electricity company decided 9am on a Saturday would be a great time to take out our power to replace a pole. Fun!

Good luck on your first Nuzlocke.

I hope Walter can make it to the very end.

Good luck on your run! :D

Nuzlockes are fun but they can be a bit stressful hehe

I’ve heard horror stories about the Black early game because of wild Lillipups’ Tackles, but one way to counter that is by simply having an even stronger Lillipup... Walter has been carrying me so far, as he’s able to kill almost everything with 2 hits.

Over in the Dreamyard, I was given Friday the Panpour. I doubt she’ll be a permanent member of the team, but she’ll definitely be useful against the first gym. I really wanted to name her Funky Monkey Friday, but that was just *slightly* over the 10 character limit...

The first gym was mostly easy, but we did have a bit of a scare when Chili’s Lillipup got a critical hit on Bite after using Work Up. Luckily, Walter survived on 8 HP, and Friday was able to take out his Pansear for our first badge!

Over on Route 3, PETA stole a child’s Pokemon, but before detailing with that I decided to go for a leisurely stroll in the grass, where I met Gladys the Pidove. On one hand, I’m glad to have a Pidove, but the last time I played Black, my final team had both a Stoutland and an Unfezant on it, and I don’t really want my team to look too similar to that one...

One good alternative could be Flappy Bat the Woobat, who I caught in Wellspring Cave. I’m not very excited about friendship evolutions... but having a Psychic type could be nice.

Unfortunately, on the way down Route 3, we had a bit of a... situation. School Kid Gina’s Patrat used Bide, and Flappy Bat got a critical hit with Confusion, sending the Patrat well below half HP. I assumed that it was in range to faint even without a critical hit, but it ended up surviving on what I assume was 1 HP. Not wanting to lose a potential Swoobat in the future, I switched to Patricia, and she took the Bide. RIP Patricia... thank you for your sacrifice.

Arceus must have been looking down on us though, as immediately after the battle Walter evolved into Herdier!

So... Lenora. She’s mildly terrifying. Part of me wanted to save my Pinwheel Forest encounter and test my luck with Venipede, but ultimately I decided that getting a fighting type would be worth it.

But... there’s a slight problem. Tympole. I mean, I’d be happy to have a Seismitoad later, but for this gym, I *needed* a Fighting type. Pidove isn’t a problem due to dupes clause, but then I still only have a 40ish% chance of getting what I want, so I stepped into the grass and...

Nokia the Tympole. I went from mildly terrified to wildly terrified. And to make matters worse, Nokia died almost immediately to a wild Sawk getting a critical hit on a Double Kick that Nokia would have survived otherwise. I was just trying to get Nokia up to a decent level, but I guess it is what it is...

After putting Nokia in the cemetery, I went back to grinding, and Hawthorne evolved into Servine, and I ended up getting the rest of the team up to Level 17 before taking on N.

N was no problem, but the instant I walked into the gym, I met and his Patrat. It used Bide, but Walter’s Bite put him below 50% HP, so I figured we could knock it out without taking Bide damage. On the second turn, though, it survived on 1 HP, just like the Patrat that killed Patricia, so unfortunately I had to switch to Friday and sacrifice her.

I was fully expecting some deaths, but having 3 before getting my second badge was definitely concerning. Two of them were Pokemon I was planning on putting in the box anyway, but I hate having to think about when I don’t have anyone to sacrifice.

So... I did more grinding to get Walter to Level 21, then taught him Rock Smash. Unfortunately, Lenora’s Herdier has Intimidate and mine does not, but I decided to just give it my best shot. Rock Smash didn’t get the defense drop, but I realized that I could try to make it flinch with Bite, and that’s exactly what happened on our second turn, allowing Walter to take it out with another Rock Smash. I totally meant to give Walter a Chesto Berry before the battle, but I forgot because that’s not important at all, right?

I switched into Hawthorne, who got a critical hit on Leaf Tornado, and then Lenora’s Watchog missed Hypnosis. Surprisingly, a second Lear Tornado wasn’t enough to take it out, but after getting through Lenora’s Super Potion and dropping Watchog’s accuracy twice, I was able to finish it off and claim my second badge!

Is this normal version or blaze black?

Just normal Black! Although I definitely want to play Blaze Black in the future.

gotcha , and good luck blaze black is a tough one, I really loved it.

I was ready to head to Castelia City, but PETA stole a dragon skull for... liberation? Okay then... off to Pinwheel Forest!

Initially I thought I’d used my encounter for Pinwheel Forest, but I found out about the clause named specifically after Pinwheel Forest, so... Oakley the Sewaddle! With Hawthorne as a Grass type and Oakley being 4x weak to both Fire and Flying, she probably won’t be extremely useful, but she’s nice to have around in case of emergency.

Deeper in the forest, one of the Grunts had Patrat. I figured it would be easy to two-shot with Flappy Bat, which I was correct about, but it used Crunch and of course got a critical hit. Luckily, Flappy survived on 2 HP, and wanting to avoid losing to a speed tie or priority move, I let Gladys finish it off. The rest of the forest was pretty uneventful, though, so off to Castelia City!

Instead of taking precautions and doing some grinding, I decided to head straight to the gym, because what could possibly go wrong? Well, Sewaddles do absolutely nothing to either Gladys or Flappy Bat, and I figured (the still overleveled) Walter could handle the rest. One of the trainers’ Dwebble almost killed Walter by getting critical hits on 2 of 3 Rock Blasts, but seeing how well Hawthorne’s Leaf Tornado worked made sure I wouldn’t make that mistake against Burgh.

Right before the final battle, Gladys evolved into Tranquill, so that was yet another advantage in the fight against Burgh. His Whirlipede had Pursuit, which I did not realize, but Flappy Bat was able to outspeed it and kill it with Confusion, also getting Burgh to waste both of his Hyper Potions. Next up was Dwebble, which Hawthorne was easily able to knock out with 2 Leaf Tornadoes. Finally, Gladys easily took care of the Leavanny, which led to our easiest Gym victory yet!

...oh god, I’m so scared of Elesa.

Between Route 4, Desert Resort, and Relic Castle, I was very likely to get a Sandile, but that’s still not guaranteed, and it doesn’t really help much for her two Emolga.

Before heading in that direction, I decided to go to the Battle Company and get the Exp. Share, and Flappy Bat and Hawthorne got to level up a couple times in the process.

In the desert, our first encounter was... a Scraggy. Didn’t expect to get the 20% encounter over two 40% encounters but okay, hello Iggy.

I knew Walter had Sand Rush as his ability, but during the sandstorm, I learned that Sand Rush also prevents damage from sand; I thought it only boosted speed, so it’s even better than I thought!

...still would prefer Intimidate

I was really hoping to get a Sandile in the Desert Resort so I could be guaranteed a Yamask in Relic Castle... so of course I got a Darumaka instead, and I named her Scarlet.

I decided not to use the Pinwheel Forest Clause for Desert Resort as the encounters are nearly the same, so Relic Castle was my only other chance at a Sandile, and luckily I found one there!

...which Iggy proceeded to get a critical hit Headbutt on and kill.

I think that’s enough of this game for today.

Still in Relic Castle, upset about all of my bad luck yesterday, I realized something: I can get fossils here, and the encounter is where the fossils are revived... aka Nacrene City! Unfortunately both of the fossils are weak to Electric, but the Rock type moves could be big against Elesa, so I decided to take the Cover Fossil. I kind of wanted to take the Plume Fossil since I’ve never used an Archeops before and always wanted to, but I already had 2 Flying types, so... welcome to the team, Crush the Tirtouga!

Side note... walking all the way from the Desert Resort to Nacrene City when you can’t bike or fly is not fun.

Anyways, Nimbasa City! One of the best songs in the game, I should add... I went to the sports dome in hopes of getting everyone leveled up, and... I thought Flappy Bat could live a Hustle boosted Fire Punch from a Darumaka.

I was wrong.

I’m not gonna say that I didn’t care about other team members’ deaths, but... this was the first one to really hurt.

I already needed to do some grinding, but losing Flappy Bat made it even more important, so I went over to Route 5 and battled some trainers, also catching a Trubbish named Roland in the process.

I got everyone up to level 27, which was extremely tedious, but hopefully worth it considering how hard Elesa is. I also decided to put Gladys in the box for this specific gym, as she really can’t do anything, and brought Roland instead to hopefully set up some status conditions. I also taught Walter both Rock Tomb and Dig specifically to deal with Elesa.

So, after being terrified for several hours, how bad could it possibly be? The gym trainers were pretty easy, but those Emolga ate through Walter’s Rock Tomb PP quickly.

For Elesa, I led with Roland to get Toxic Spikes up in case things went badly with Walter. They obviously wouldn’t help with her Emolgas, but Zebstrika was my main concern, and we were able to badly poison it. Walter was able to take both of them out with Rock Tomb pretty easily, although he took more damage than I would’ve liked.

Zebstrika was no longer slower than Walter as switching out made it lose its speed drop, but Walter was still in great shape to take it out. All I needed was for Zebstrika to not get a critical hit on its second Spark, and Walter would be able to use Dig, and if not take it out, at least get it close to fainting.

That was all I needed.

Walter had a 93.75% chance of surviving.

My team’s ace.

I watched as his health bar went down.

I knew it before he even fainted.

Critical hit.

Walter... is gone.

It only happened because of my own stubbornness. I could have switched to Iggy and used Dig. But I kept Walter in.

I shouldn’t have.

I may have won the Bolt Badge, but nothing about it felt like a victory.