As promised, I'mma do my first run here on Travel Journals (and my first nuzlocke in years) with this new little hack made by my good friend Meister Anon Master of None (yeah it's a mouthful lol). Not even sure if you can consider it a rom hack of sorts, as it's literally just Pokemon Fire Red but made so that the only Attack in the entire game is Metronome.

There's still some stat affecting moves here and there, but for the most part, this run is almost completely based off of luck. Full details & patch download for this hack can be found here. It's based off CFRU too, so we're gonna be seeing some newer generation moves that have been encoded in hehe. Especially since it's a Metronome run!

Will I power through the finish line and complete this run? Or will I crash and burn a horrible death and call it a fail? Let's find out!

As per usual though, we're gonna start off with a quick low down on the rules. There's so many different variations to the Nuzlocke challenge to make it easier or more challenging for the user, that this does need to be clarified with every run. I myself am more of a casual, so I'm gonna go easy on myself with everything.

• The challenge officially begins when the player obtains Pokeballs. Any white-outs beforehand will not count in a wipe.
• You're only allowed to catch the first encounter in every Route
• Dupes Clause is up, so if the first encounter is a Pokemon you've already caught, you're free to keep trying for a new one.
• Shiny Clause is also up, so in the event that I ever run into a shiny, regardless if it's my first encounter or not, I can capture it. However if it isn't the first encounter, it stays in the box :(
• All Pokemon obtained must be nicknamed. No exceptions. It's okay if they don't follow a theme though (now that i think about it, it would've been really cool to go with a theme argh)
• If a Pokemon faints, it must be put in the PC Graveyard box forever.
• If I wipe out, I'm still free to use any Pokemon I have left over in the PC Box (NOT from the Graveyard one though).

I think that's everything for the meantime. I'm free to use healing items in battle, and use the Pokemon Center as much as I please, and will not worry about overleveling or anything. To be honest I don't even know if I can overlevel in this hack, since it's CFRU based and might have a dynamic curve going on. Oh well.

Enough dilly-dallying though, let's get this bread!

Ah yes, a metronome only run. Never done one myself but they sure look fun so I'm pretty excited about this!

Start of the game. Everything seems to still be in order. Nothing changed from the original Fire Red. I think I made no mistake in tagging this Gen 3 instead of ROM Hack, but I'll maybe contact the mods soon hehe. Anyhow, I call myself Roni, of course, and my rival is aptly named Meister. Ooh it literally just fits too. How nice. Okidoki, from here on out, I'mma be talking in bullet point lists since I find it too tiring to constantly making essay type paragraphs all the time for my story-telling. Just a personal thing eheh. Also it's MUCH easier to type.

• Forgot to take out Potion before heading out. Realized this as soon as I was approached by Prof. Oak outside. Dang it.
• Follow Oak back to Lab where Meister is waiting. Of course I don't even look at the other options and go choose Bulbasaur. It's name? Bolby.
• First battle happens and indeed, it's nothing but Metronomes. Let's have a go at that Charmander!
• A few rounds in, Charmander pulls off a Metronome Flatter. Thought this was bad, but Bolby pulls off a boosted Moonblast in return! Whittles him down to half health.
• Aaand Charmander pulls off a... Jealous Burn... whatever the hell that is... and one shots me right after. Gah things were looking so good. But hey, as per rules, I'm still not out of this as I don't have Pokeballs yet!
• Meister got to gloat as he walked away, but I'm happy he was kind enough to code in a cool little sign that gives me running shoes when I talk to it. Thank goodness I don't have to wait til I beat Brock!
• Also made sure to grab the PC Potion on the way out

• Nothing much interesting happening over here. Just gotta make sure to grab the free Potion from the Pokemart guy at the start of the Route and I'm golden.

• Enter the Pokemart to grab Oak's Parcel, then carefully make my way back home and not run into too much wild Pokemon.

• Deliver Oak the goods and receive the Pokedex and Pokeballs! Nuzlocke has officially begun!
• Go grab the Town Map from Daisy (bless her soul), and now we're off to be the very best :D

• First encounter time, and it's gonna be a Lvl 5 Pidgey ooo.
• IT LITERALLY TRIED TO SHEER COLD ME. THE NERVE
• Welp, I accidentally unleash a Magma Storm on it and kill it. Oh boy this is gonna be a hell of a run. At least I'm Lvl 6 now though.
• I figured I might as well waste a couple minutes grinding off wild Pokemon here.
• Run into another Pidgey. For some reason, these wild mons don't go below Lvl 5. Oh dear.
• I don't even see what attack it does thanks to speed up, but it insta kills me... Now that I have balls, this is considered a wipe.
• Welp, that was more a Nuzlocke Speedrun than a full Nuzlocke playthrough. Looks like it's time to reset! Rest in pepperoni Bolby!

Going for another go straight away. I am now Roni2, but my rival remains as Meister. One, because he seems to be doing pretty well for himself still, and two, because "Meister" literally just fits into the name box and I can't add anymore numbers lol. Anyway, let's get this bread... again!

• Remember to get the Potion from the PC before you head out this time, you dumb dumb.
• Try my luck with Bulbasaur once more. If this run ends up the same way as the first, I may as well go for another mon :[ Bolby's successor, Bolby2, has arrived.
• Meister fight once more. Charmander is an ass and Growls me the first 2 turns. My Metronome finally turns into an attacking move (Horn Attack) but that does so little damage now ugh...
• I landed a Stone Edge a few turns later though! Around half health left for Charmander.
• Some of these new Gen moves added into CFRU (I'm assuming they are because I've never seen them before) look really wild. What the hell is Grav Apple?? Is that an Appletun/Flapple exclusive move?
• FINALLY some 3000 turns later, Charmander finally dies to a well-timed Zen Headbutt. Thank goodness I won the first battle this match. Auto Lvl 6 is nice.
• Get Running Shoes early again thanks to coding magic. Thank you Meister!

• Again, let's make sure not to forget the free Potion. Other than that, nothing to do here as of yet.

• Parcel delivery service coming through! Gimme that damn package for Oak Mr. Mart guy!

• Pokeballs and Pokedex received, as well as Town Map from Daisy. Let's not die early again please. I'm praying for a Route 1 capture.

• First encounter? Lvl 6 Rattata this time. Would've preferred a Pidgey, but this'll do.
• FIRST METRONOME MOVE IS GUILLOTINE AND IT LANDS. END ME NOW.
• Route 1 is officially cursed, I'm calling it. I'm not gonna bother with grinding anymore let's just book it out of here before something else crazy happens.

• Old man blocking the way teaches me something I've knows for over 10 years now. Thanks for the Teachy TV though, lemme just place that in my bag and never use it ever again.
• Talked to the locals, but nothing too interesting was going on here, and I don't really need to buy anything yet, so let's just explore other areas. I think Westward would be good.

• New Route, and hopefully better luck
• I ain't gon the Rival fight because I think Meister said there was something buggy about it? Wasn't gonna battle regardless bcs i don't wanna wipe early for a second time lol.
• First encounter, Lvl 7 Mankey. Neato!
• After several turns, I finally land an attacking move, Dragon Claw, and get it down below half health. Should be enough to chuck balls at now.
• First try, and hell yes I got a new team member :D
• Ooh, you gain experience when you capture a mon too! Thank you CFRU engine!
• Also, I checked out the stats and just realized... w-why do my Pokemon have Fly on them? Was this intentional? I may need to read through those patch notes again. I skimmed through them oof lol.

wot in tarnation

• New Route again. Are we gonna get a new buddy to join us? Let's find out!
• Lvl 7 Rattata. Ok, 2nd time's the charm.
• It got Doom Desire'd. This game doesn't want me to catch mice. I say screw it and just move on forward.

• Lvl 7 Metapod for the first encounter here. Not too bad to have with a Metronome only run.
• Bolby's first move is Fire Lash and thankfully gets Metapod down to below half health immediately.
• Took 2 balls, but Metapod's in our team! Everyone say hello to Minnie! Can't wait for this guy to become a Butterfr-
• Minnie dies to a Bug Catcher's Eruption Caterpie. F.
• Finally take out enemy Caterpie with Bolby, but not before it using Icicle Crash on me and getting me to Overgrow activation. Get a Doube-Edge off and finish the battle with literally just 4HP. Risky to proceed. We'll need to heal. Main goal right now is to not wipe before Brock. I wanna at least get one badge for this run.

Had to take a break after Viridian City bcs I need to go back to work asdjfkl but I'll spend more time on this either tomorrow or the weekend. Also, I might simplify my BBCoding stuff going forward to make it easier to write entries. I mentioned at the start that bullet points would be easier than paragraphs, but having to constantly use the

• BBCode gets tiring after a while. So uhh I may either just use dashes or just paste them as paragraphs from now on. I may even remove location sections altogether even. We'll throw things at the wall and see what sticks. I originally wanted this run thread to have at least a little bit of aesthetics in it, but if that's too much work then eh. lol.

Good luck. Looks like you'll need it. I don't think I would have a patience to do this run.

Also I think it's okay for this to be tagged as Gen 3.

Roni said:

RONI'S METRONOME ONLY FIRE RED NUZLOCKE RUN

​

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*Looks up, bows head*

Oh my god why did you do a nuzlocke, this is practically the worst place for it. XD
Just doing like an hour or two of tests I'd lose like 4 mons to self killing moves alone!


Good luck.

oh and the rival fight is fixed, but you may still want to skip it, for...other reasons.

Alrighty, so I finally had time and motivation to continue this run! Bolby2 (Bulbasaur) and Womankey (Mankey) seem to both still be doing quite well, and I figured I kinda wanna grind off at least 1 or 2 trainers to get some sort of training for Brock. This is before I realized later on that pretty much the entirety of the game has dynamic level scaling, so it literally won't matter how strong or weak you are level-wise when facing any trainer. Huh.

Any how, I foolishly decide to take on the first trainer of the game, an innocent Bug Catcher whose name I've already forgotten. With how awful my luck is though, it wasn't even him who killed Bolby2, but my awful luck. Metronome decides to land on Lunar Dance, while I'm battling a goddamn Weedle!! I had to search this move because it genuinely shocked me why it KO'd my dear Bulbasaur. Apparently it sacs the user but fully heals the mon to come out next. Oh how useful, Womankey's literally still at over 75% health and didn't ever need that. It was after this that I decided it wasn't worth it to battle random Trainers, and I just wanna go straight to Brock to at least get a taste of battling a boss.

Thankfully there was only one more Bug Catcher who was a forced fight in the Viridian Forest. Beat him easily too yay. Had somewhat high hopes & momentum for the first Gym, til I realized I had to go in there 1v2 since there's literally no other new route yet that's accessible at that point. I'm out of encounters. Womankey needs to pull her weight.

I don't even bother with the "light years away from Brock" simp Camper that blocked the straight path to the leader. I made my way around and fought Brock instantly. I keep thinking about type Match ups and how I'm at an advantage, while constantly forgetting that literally any move can be made so it won't matter at all. My luck was soo bad this time around. Geodude was spamming Defense Curl and I was spamming Metronome after Focus Energy'ing the first turn. Took like 4 turns to get a decent attack out and even then, it did nothing because Geodude was probably like +4 Def already by then. I can't remember what the final blow was, if it was even from Geodude or self-inflicted, but Womankey did not live to see the end of that fight, and as a result, neither did I.

We got another failed attempt, and we're set to reset. I said screw it, let's give this run 5 attempts before I quit and call it a failure. Heck, I might even just turn this into a regular playthrough if I get too stressed out nuzlocking it lol. I already talked to Meister about this and he's pretty chill, which is lovely, so I'll just see how I feel in the coming days before making a final decision.

Dang your metronome luck sucks

Roni said:

Had somewhat high hopes & momentum for the first Gym, til I realized I had to go in there 1v2 since there's literally no other new route yet that's accessible at that point.

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...this is probably going to needlessly sting after the fact, but there are actually more routes open to you at that point than you may think, as a tip from your rival, try venturing off the normal path.

Note before writing this up: i did this attempt before Meister talked about reading through the patch notes and updating stuff and all. the next attempt will have you see me actually being more knowledgeable lol. i was just a tad too impatient at the time.


Okidoki, let's give this another go. Two more attempts before we just call it quits on the challenge and just try to win the game via regular mode I guess. I ain't built for nuzlocking lol. Anyway, I figured let's shake things up a little and choose the girl character this time. Who knows, it may just be our lucky charm? Lmao who tf am I kidding I already know what's gonna happen I'm just tryna rile y'all readers up.

I am Roni3, the third iteration of course, and my Rival is now Moister, because why not. I decided to pick Squirtle this time too (and realized that I can pretty much get the Running Shoes at the absolute beginning of the game, before even encountering Oak for the first time lol) and thought about going for a simple theme for usernames. Since I'm known site-wide as Roni, I thought, it might be fun to give all my mons names that start with the letter R. Like I said, simple. It's the name of the game.

We get some awful af luck to start the challenge, as my Squirtle, Royce, doesn't attack til like 5 turns in. A neat turnaround happens a few turns though, as I luck out on a burn from Scald. Squirtle continues to not attack, but I pull out the Potion at least to stall burn damage on Moister's Bulbasaur and get the win. Cheap strategy for sure, but hey, a strat is a strat. We collect the money and the good graces from Oak and head on our way. Avoid as many encounters as we can in the dangerous Route 1 (weird to say but true for me) and get the parcel to deliver back to Oak. Pokeballs and Pokedex are in, Town Map collected, we finally start the challenge (again).

Route 1 encounter is a Rattata (Ratello) and thankfully it was an easy capture. I gotta remind myself that for lower leveled mons I don't have to get them down to red health to get their catch rate high enough for a regular Pokeball to do the job. Same thing for Route 22, Mankey (Rica) again, with the obvious Rival battle dodge. Grab the Teachy TV from the Old Man back in Viridian, then capture a nice Pidgey (Raven) on Route 2. At this point I think to myself that this is the best run I've had so far. I'm headed into Viridian Forest with a 4 stack team and we already know that grinding isn't needed in this game, as all Trainers' levels just scale depending on yours, plus being given literally any move via Metronome renders stats almost useless. It's only one required Trainer for this dungeon, and it's scott free on the way to Brock. There's no way things could go wrong right?

I get a Caterpie as the Forest encounter and the literal first Metronome move Royce does is Final Gambit, at 90% HP. Wonderful, now my starter is dead, and Caterpie is barely dented. Ratello comes out and... one shots it with Flamethrower. Oh dear what a waste of time this was. To think I believed I was gonna make it this time around. Anyway, I make it through the forest without anyone else dying. Royce gets boxed in Pewter and I head straight for Brock.

I'm confident since I still got three mons versus Brock's two. Things go awry though when Rica gets Doom Desire'd by his Geodude. Ratello comes in to finish up the job. I switch to Raven for his Onix since Ratello is barely hanging in there, and take like 2000 moves before I finally finish it off. Just 10HP left on Raven too. Ooh what a clutch.

Rica gets graved, then I heal up, confident that the rest of the way gets easier from here. Then as soon as I battle the first Trainer in the next Route over, their Caterpie Hyperbeams Ratello to the grave, and Rock Blasts Raven shortly after... I didn't even get to the tall grass before wiping. Jesus this game is rough. Next attempt coming soon when my busy work schedule clears up a bit.

Roni said:

Note before writing this up: i did this attempt before Meister talked about reading through the patch notes and updating stuff and all. the next attempt will have you see me actually being more knowledgeable lol. i was just a tad too impatient at the time.

I am Roni3, the third iteration of course, and my Rival is now Moister, because why not.

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[Moister_anon~Master_o f_Towelettes]

Am I a joke to you, does my name amuse you. huh?!



lol best I could do for the gag, was gonna change the name for the day, but that's not allowed (I get why) and got my vps going, lovin' it :) ok back to reading.

Stardate 5941
Captan's log: It's Day 9, and Roni still hasn't discovered the secret of the sign.


If you want to know, the best way to test it is to activate it as soon as you leave your house.

Meister_anon~Master_o f_None said:

Stardate 5941
Captan's log: It's Day 9, and Roni still hasn't discovered the secret of the sign.

If you want to know, the best way to test it is to activate it as soon as you leave your house.

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i actually already did this on attempt 3. but i still don't notice what it does aside from give me Running Shoes straight off the bat... :S

Roni said:

i actually already did this on attempt 3. but i still don't notice what it does aside from give me Running Shoes straight off the bat... :S

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lol ok I'll just tell you then. first all the scaling is done by the sign, as well as the running shoes and free use HMs. But the real secret is...

Roni said:

I think that's everything for the meantime. I'm free to use healing items in battle...

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the only healing items allowed in battle are pp restoring items, and held items.





Let me know in message if you want some advice to make the most of your last run. This would be the last one next right?

Meister_anon~Master_o f_None said:

lol ok I'll just tell you then. first all the scaling is done by the sign, as well as the running shoes and free use HMs. But the real secret is...

the only healing items allowed in battle are pp restoring items, and held items.

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WHAT. how does it play such a pivotal role to the entire challenge lmao. ok i gotchu fam.

on one hand, being able to use items in battle and level scales i'm familiar with are neat, but on the other hand, having to actually grind before Brock blows. hmmm...

Roni said:

WHAT. how does it play such a pivotal role to the entire challenge lmao.

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lol well it does even more now. ;) Never underestimate the power of a good sign!
(but really I just needed a good way, to activate all the features I wanted at the start.)

Roni said:

on one hand, being able to use items in battle and level scales i'm familiar with are neat, but on the other hand, having to actually grind before Brock blows. hmmm...

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well you can get by it with sheer numbers, it just requires some preparation with the way you're doing it.
I think you can overcome any likely bad luck with a team of min 4.

My tip is to try and invest in some repels, you can cheap wild encounters to get more rare's that way. Just have your lowest lvl mon out front.

Alright good luck on the next run. I'll have another update up by tomorrow, this has kinda inspired me.

Dang good luck on your final 2 attempts Lmao

Hopefully you don't wipe out again