Climb to the Shrine, Right What Is Wrong

( No deaths this time! Sailing on through. )

Okay... now, as much as I'd like to charge into the Elite Four screeching a crazed battlecry, I acknowledge that I need to grind. Like, BADLY.

So I'll do a failtastic Elite Four run for your entertainment, then reload and embark upon a SERIOUS grinding run. :P If I don't get to the end with Pokemon all at L50 - THEN I have a problem, and I will take it as a legit loss. But for now, it's all a joke.

Current Party: HORSEMAN L47 Horseman, BIO L43 Pidgeot, FITZBLACK L44 Charizard, AVENGER L43 Marowak, STATUS L44 Nidoking, CRITDEMON L45 Alakazam
Deaths: ROMHACK L5-13 Porygon, FODDER L3-L23 Voltorb, SURGEGUARD L20-24 Raichu

See you next post, in Balanced Blue Randomizer Run: OHGADWHYYYYYYYY!

( In which another valued party member falls. It seems I am not that great a Nuzlocker. :\ )

See, someone started a NU Pokemon White Nuzlocke (but never finished it), so I'm thinking that, if I ever get to Nuzlocking RSE and a sane Ruby run bored me, I could always switch to Sapphire and use it as motivation to go do work as something less painful challenge myself by doing the same thing.

( Because all the pain is for pleasure/and nothing can measure... )
...Do note that Zigzagoon's evolution is NOT on this list. As such, I may or may not choose to use Dupes Clause in this hypothetical run.

Those that can be CAUGHT in RS:

( And good shall die first, said thy prophet,/ Our Lady of Pain. )
(list edited down from Moviebuff2287's Pokemon Locations FAQ)

In short, I would only get to use the following 34 Pokemon.
( these Pokemon may be bad, but they're perfectly good at it )

...In short, in a Dupes-Clause-Off run, I would live off of Pelipper, Wailord, Glalie, Seaking, Whiscash, Crawdaunt, a Wurmple evolution, Delcatty, Nosepass, Trapinch (UNEVOLVED), Masquerain, Spinda, Torkoal/Magcargo, Castform, Kecleon, Girafarig, Chimecho, and Relicanth. Any more team members would be sheer good fortune.

19 Pokemon, and all of them officially at the bottom of the barrel, competitive-play-wise. And almost all of them mortal bait for Wattson.

*in monotone voice* Oh, boy. This would be FUN.
[It's better than the FR/LG equivalent, though. Try using only Beedrill, Butterfree, Dewgong, Ditto, Farfetch'd, Lickitung, Parasect, Pidgeot, Raticate, Seaking, Venomoth, Wigglytuff to get you through the entire game... though I remember one crazy bastard solo'ing Emerald with a Rattata, so anything can be done, really.]

I'm not playing it NOW, obviously, since I have a lot to do. I just wanted to work out the practicalities, because I have a fondness for working out a lot of theoretical nonsense because I tend to either botch the application or wind up wanting to desperately do something else. Besides, it took my mind off... said stuff I have to do. :\

( No screenshots, but you can instead have some actual data! )
I do think that Psychojoe's rules are better than the silly random ones I was using. Let's face it, a Ground/Ghost Snorlax with 180 base Special or whatnot can barely be called a Snorlax at all, and Nuzlockes are about Pokemon Hard Mode more than 'Game Vaguely Resembling Pokemon' Hard Mode.
Though if there was a Ground/Ghost Pokemon with 180 base Special, I'd name it Teraconic and use it for all it was worth. *broad grin*
Now, SOME of this is because I haven't caught any fully-evolved Pokemon - if I'd snagged the Alakazam (or, heaven forbid, the MEWTWO) I saw in Mt. Moon, I suspect the difficulty level would abruptly drop. (Or the Dragonite in Viridian Forest. Then again, Psychojoe lost his Dragonite to a Flareon with Blizzard.) Some of it, however, is because it works.
I am slightly annoyed that I missed that he had randomized TMs, but oh well. I'll do that in a later Randomlocke. Random TM moves ARE popping up in Pokemon movesets, however... Bide appeared in the failed attempt, and Bubblebeam and Toxic have showed up here. Thunderbolt, Mega Drain, Psywave, Fire Blast, and Fissure will inevitably make appearances.

Now watch my Rival show up to the Championship with 5 Alakazams (and one Victreebel), or something similarly cheesy. *headdesk* At least I have the option of refilling from my Box and praying for the best if I run into absolutely HORRIBLE bullshit...

On that subject: Psychojoe's completed Red Randomlocke is here, and his failtastic Gold Randomlocke is here. Give them a look, will you?

( Initial report )

Now, Brock's Jr. Trainer... had a L11 Diglett as his first Pokemon. It outsped everyone. Its only move was Dig.

GUESS WHAT HAPPENED.

Now, when I went on anyway and powerleveled L13 Blitz to L16, he swept the Gym with ease. And I KNEW I should have done that initially, but decided to just run on in because LOL WHAT'S TEH WURST THAT COULD HAPPEN?

So... okay, declaring this one lost. It was a fair-and-square screwup, and I can't even call bullshit because it wouldn't have been bullshit if I'd intelligently powerleveled.

Considering that Psychojoe apparently wiped before Bugsy three times in his attempts at a Gold Randomlocke, I take this as a fairly typical Randomlocke result and am actually quite chipper about it. :) Aside from the oh-THAT'S-why-Raticate-was-always-a-nightmare do-over in the Red run, I haven't had any proper Nuzlocke OHCRAP results, so this revitalizes the challenge.

Also, I now can say that I've managed to outdo dinogrrl at Shortest Nuzlocke Ever epic fail. :P

*sourly* The last few times I took on That Damned Raticate, I was carting either very high-Defense creatures or Rock-types.

...I forgot what its effects were on unevolved Pokemon of the same level. Especially since, this time, I wasn't grinding.

Anyway, AFTER reset, I introduced it to Lord Herne the freshly evolved L16 Nidoking, which proceeded to introduce it to how much fun it was to confront an overpowered adversary in close quarters. I DID beat it the first time, so I didn't LOSE the Nuzlocke, per se, but... I did not consider it fun to face the prospect of clearing Mt. Moon with a Beedrill and a Jigglypuff.

(Wigglytuff has base 45 speed, in case you're contemplating putting Abra to Sleep with it. Ah ha. No.)

Besides, I... did consider it a bit of Bullshit Clause, since I think I could have beaten Super Nerd with that team. (I beat Super Nerd without the use of Lord Herne after beating that Rocket - just Vidar and JIGGLYPUFF.) And I used incredibly stupid switch-constantly tactics against it, since I was trying to have no deaths... I could have made it with only a few deaths if I had just stayed in against it, I think. Thunder Wave, then Sand Attack, and then Leech Seed if I could manage it, and then wail away with L15 Lord Herne. ...Eh, I didn't take a savestate, so I'll never know.

So this isn't a true Nuzlocke, I suppose. Look, I AM able to take deaths, as I've shown in other Red runs, but that was just... eesh.

I'll take care to NOT assume Pokemon that were easy in one run will still be that way in another from this point on. And any deaths WILL be kept.

*sigh*

Back to your regularly scheduled programming.

Narration will be in plain text. Notes will be in italics.

( NOW WITH A CUT )

I beat the Brock battle almost entirely with Leech Seed and Growl.

Literally. I had been an idiot and failed to learn any Special attacks before that, so I just dug in my heels and kept Growling my way through Geodude and Onix's attacks while Leech Seed filled the HP back up. I came in with 18/31 HP or something from the Jr. Trainer battle. I had full HP at the end of the battle. No Potions used.

If I didn't know that later-battle!damage outpaces Leech Seed, Growl or not, with ease, I'd say the move is gloriously broken.

However... the Venusaur line does learn SLEEP POWDER at a certain level... |D

(Growth, Leech Seed, and Sleep Powder would do wonders to get Venusaur past certain enemies. If only certain deadly Pokemon didn't carry super-likely crits (Alakazam, Slash!Charizard, etc.), I'd seriously consider tanking certain Pokemon that DO have supereffective STAB against Venusaur. I mean, I REGAINED HP in that battle. ...*sigh* Since I'm planning to use Razor Leaf, though, Growth isn't helpful. And one fizznucking supereffective STAB critical would render all that stat-boosting useless...)

Also, due to the Gen 1 critical quirk, Gen-1!Razor Leaf is 100% superior to Solarbeam - it's a guaranteed critical every use, which means it's a STAB attack with an effective power of 110 versus Solarbeam's every-other-turn 120. Wahahah, I had better keep this Bulbasaur alive. I WANT to introduce the E4 to the wonders of Leech Seed, Sleep Powder, and Razor Leaf.

Anyway, on to Mt. Moon!

A section of the plot is going to be based on Der Erlkonig, so advance warning for disturbing content. ...I'll do the actual warnings when that section comes up, don't worry.

Anyway, since I already did my Let's Play of Pokemon Blue with all the appropriate screenshots and in-game dialogue, this is going to be in the style of the Storylocke runs in which the author sometimes just includes the screenshots necessary to have the readers understand where the actual run is in the game and writes their own ''dialogue'', so that they can give certain characters any take on their personalities that they wish. Just noting that ahead of time so you don't get thrown.

Anything else I should be noting? Well, I can't think of anything peculiar aside from that and the pre-run Dupes Clause. This is more procrastination for my Pokemon Yellow run than anything else, because... eh, I'm not feeling that enthusiastic about the 'totalitarian government' take any more. That, and I accidentally burned myself out on the countless Randomizer runs (which turn hideously unbalanced the moment you get something good - Teraconic the Ground/Ghost Snorlax with massive base Special, I'm looking at you), so I'm looking for something a tad more 'typical' to get me back into the swing of things. I also think I need to do a story run to renew my enthusiasm for Nuzlockes, because I just didn't connect to the Pokemon when I didn't have a plot attached, and ended up with several stupid deaths as a result of futzing around. So there's a lot of reasons I want to do another plot-based run, really, so long as it isn't as compulsively wordy and screenshot-stuffed* as the Syaoran run. (/TL;DR)
*This wasn't an issue in and of itself, but it took a while to upload all the screenshots to LJ, and then the writing to accompany them took forever. That was an accident of thinking I wrote much more early-run than I actually did, admittedly, but I think I hit a good balance with the final part of the run, in which I only wrote it up if I wanted to do so or it was extremely relevant to the plot, and I'll try to stick to that this time.

I've realized to my irritation that I won't get Sandslash OR Persian, since I'm doing Red... but I don't think I'll need Slashspam cheese to get through this. After all, I will be slightly benefiting from all the Pokemon eliminated by the pre-run Dupes Clause, in that several common 'Derps' get taken out by those rules (yay for endgame Fearow and Raticate!)... even if I'll also get severely disadvantaged by the removal of certain of those (Dugtrio, Lapras, GYARADOS).

Ah, well. It wouldn't be called a Nuzlocke CHALLENGE if it wasn't hard, eh?

I may not use any Pokemon I seriously used during the Pokemon Blue Nuzlocke or the No-Marts Pokemon Red Nuzlocke. To make this slightly less painful, said Pokemon also count for Dupes Clause.

What does this mean? I MAY NOT use the following evolution lines:
Squirtle, Charmander, Rattata, Nidoran-Female, Caterpie, Spearow, Magikarp, Geodude, Bellsprout/Oddish, Diglett, Drowsee, or Lapras.


I may accept Lapras without releasing it, but it's staying in a Box (officially: 'being released into peaceful custody of Cerulean Gym, who will provide food, safe waters, and a mate').
Being denied usage of some of my best Pokemon will spice up the run, I think. (I am already shuddering at the implications of a Poison-type starter and no Gyarados or Hypno to protect me from Alakazams. Either I'm going to be recording several deaths, or the LACK of Fearow/Dugtrio/Raticate Glass Cannons is actually going to help my team a lot. I have no idea, but I suspect it will really be one or the other.)

A confession: As you may notice from the lack of Pidgey, I'm not ordinarily counting Pokemon that I 'used' but stopped using partway through the run. (Though Nidoran-Female does count, as I seriously did plan to use Queen Aria before Ambassador proved to be an absolutely incredible Ground-type Glass Cannon.) So why am I dismissing Bellsprout/Oddish?

Because I'm secretly hoping to cheese my way to an Abra via Dupes Clause. It's easily possible that I'll be foiled by an encounter I miscalculated, and I will LIKELY be cheesed by a Teleport, but... I have hopes, okay?  Though I might screw up and get it killed even if I catch it... >_>

By the way, I have some evidence that the old tip to Paralyze Abra before you catch it is bullshit.
( Calculation and explanation. )

...So I have a 68% chance that, even if I can cheese my way into an Abra encounter with Dupes Clause, I won't be able to catch it. *shrugs* That's a Nuzlocke for you! (And besides, a Psychic isn't an instant-win button ANYWAY...)

May I note for Brill's benefit that this is what a Pokemon game looks like on drugs?
(She may also be amused to hear that Pidgey were indeed relatively rare Pokemon. Meanwhile, the most common Pokemon, to judge from what replaced Pidgey, were Zubats and Mewtwos.)

The Wordgenerator.com Random Word Generator was used to generate names. Try it sometime - you'll learn some things.

All right. Now, due to an embarrassing incident where Mewtwo ended up as a starter Pokemon, I ran this through TWO randomizers. This isn't actually as astonishing as it seems, since I only used the latter to re-randomize the starters and have trade evolutions changed to L40 evolutions, but I'll be pointing out the options anyway.

( How to screw up a perfectly good team (REPEATEDLY) and manage to botch even dying a horrible under-leveled death. ...At least you'll learn some new words! )

So... that's all, folks. I think I've really mined out RB, since I've done two Nuzlockes on that generation and one complete randomized run. I now even know about its MOST EFFING RIDICULOUS mechanics glitch. I've done pretty much everything but stroll on over to the MISSINGNO. strip and see how much I can break the game before either the emulator, the ROM, or the savefile commits suicide...

So naturally, the only thing to do is to get around to the Yellow Nuzlocke. :P

I'll post the screenshots soon.

Technically I called BULLSHIT CLAUSE on a Fissure from an unnaturally fast Machoke [as a random encounter - didn't call it on a trainer battle under the same circumstances, though I somewhat wish I had *sigh*] and a completely incompetent misclick (hit Bubblebeam versus a Chansey rather than Strength), so it's not a true Nuzlocke, but it was otherwise Nuzlockey. (As you'll see from the death toll. *grumble*)

If you want to know what 'randomized' means, "Moltres" was a L50 Caterpie.

And one of my best Pokemon was a Ground/Ghost Snorlax (with its Special base stat using the value of the actual Snorlax's HP base stat) with Bubblebeam, Strength, Sing, and Thunder.

Welcome to madness.

Yulong: He journeyed for Syaoran for a time, but when the time came for them to part ways, he ascended into the heavens. Sometimes, Syaoran fancies that he can still see his old friend winding his way through the clouds.

Monarch: The ruler of the Caterpie People returned to his old forest and won them victory against the Weedle People in short order. At present, the two peoples have agreed to peace, and are making plans to prosper together. The monarch tells them that he will be able to obtain a better reputation amongst all Trainers very soon - after all, he is a Hall of Famer.

Wormtail: His home a distant memory, he chose to continue adventuring with Syaoran. He is taking advantage of his travels to spread the Directive for Education of Rat Pokemon Students - D.E.R.P.S., for short.

Ambassador: The ambassador traveled home, though it has been known to pop up and greet Syaoran from time to time. At present, it is resolving conflicts caused by the collaboration of certain colonies with Giovanni and other ruthless human criminals.

LEERSPEAR: He returned to the Mountain Tribe and is encouraging them to greatness. Negotiations with the Jigglypuffs regarding the spread of their territory and acceptable levels of power to display to young human travelers are underway.

Reservoir: Faithful through the end, he is always at Syaoran's side.
( And the others! )

( The final showdown. Are you ready? )

( Elite Four Battles: Begin! )

(I was using a hack of Red that had no effects beyond cosmetic color alterations. Get it here, if you like.)
( Summary! )

( Just for fun. )

So I'm doing an undocumented no-Marts Nuzlocke of Pokemon Red. Thanks to the Turbo button, I'm pretty far - just got through Silph Co. (Would have done Fuchsia first, but I wanted Master Ball so I could catch Snorlax. >_> Being unable to use Marts makes you do strange things.)

Now.

Do you want to know how I utterly humiliated Sabrina, the Gym Leader that terrified me MOST on my Pokemon Blue run? And, incidentally, did the same thing to Gary's 'fearsome' Alakazam?

HYPNO.

I am not kidding you. This silly Pokemon singlehandedly beat the tar out of Sabrina's ENTIRE Gym, and beat her Psychics without a SINGLE Potion.

It was admittedly overleveled at the time, but if it hadn't been, it would have had similar results. As it was, the only irritation was that i had to literally put the Alakazam to sleep in order to break it out of its absurd Recover stunlock. (Which should tell you something. Alakzam, the Pokemon that terrified me so much in the initial run? Reduced to turtling to stay alive.)
The only impediment with Gary's Alakazam was that it WOULD. NOT. STAY. ASLEEP. Seriously, it awoke three times on the turn right after it was put to sleep. Absolutely bizarre.

The thing is, you realize it was designed as a Psychic-against-Psychics once you actually start using it. It has decent physical stats to back a strong physical attack, resists Psychic, and has enough of a Special stat to wall its Psychic foes. It even has an option to put them to sleep so they can't wall with Recover stunlock.

RIDICULOUSLY underrated in-game Pokemon. I wish I had actually taken the time to train Klakarton in the Pokemon Blue Nuzlocke... Would have made things a lot simpler...

Elite Four grinding - begin!

(Also, I'm of two minds about this grinding. One is that it was unnecessary - you'll see. The other is that it was absolutely necessary for one specific Pokemon - you'll see.

There's something wonky about the game balance when you only really have to fear one Pokemon on a team - and that Pokemon had the full potential to sweep. To my mind, this is because that Pokemon was one of the few with a moveset that both packed high-power moves and didn't confuse the A.I. By picking Squirtle, I may actually have gotten the easiest Rival starter-Pokemon - Mega Drain has low power, but Venusaur is equally helpless if it wastes time on a Solar Beam against a Pokemon that outsped it. Rival!Blastoise at least has Hydro Pump and Blizzard (though it could easily waste time on Withdraw, and Bite is subpar as an endgame move - equivalent to STAB Mega Drain, but inferior to, say, Strength or Body Slam), and Rival!Charizard has both Fire Blast and Slash. Fire Spin can also be bad in Gen 1 due to wonky Wrap mechanics, though Rage... -_- Uh, never mind.

Blizzard and Fire Blast display that RB!Gary isn't above using TMs. However, he doesn't seem to have put much time into setting up good movesets. Ember on Arcanine? Really, Gary?)
( No Elite Four in this part, alas - just the grinding beforehand. Next two posts will contain the true end of the run! )

( Our brave warriors, now well-set to rest on their laurels )

Those were the Pokemon who were at the head of my run! :D And boy was I glad to have them!

( !!!SPOILERS!!! )

Well, that will be my last (and first! XD) Nuzlocke for a while - because, when I get some spare time, it's on to Pokemon Y!

( Battle Plan )

( Elite Four Battle Account )
( ...And the amazingly-botched, this-never-happened 'alternate epilogue' that's not going to be canon for the run, because dear gad, that was just /shameful/. I literally have my face cradled in my hands with sheer embarrassment whenever I'm not typing at the moment. Jeez... )

( Status report: grinding from my end-of-Moltres-section stats to L55 for all Pokemon. *gulp* )Anyway, all Pokemon are L55 now.

Wish me luck...

( VICTORY ROAD! (And a little bit of grinding... not as much as I need for the League, alas. Off to grind some more when I have the time...) )

( Giovanni and Rival - and next time, Victory Road! And Moltres! (Not this update, sadly... I do need to sleep sometime, you know. :);; ) )

( Cinnabar Island and Blaine! )

( Safari Zone! (short update) )

( [[insert fancy narration here, I have a headache. Koga and Cycling Road covered within.]] )

Turnlog of Battle Against Moltres:
( ...I swear this is exactly how it happened. )

__________________________________________________

( Explanation (modulo a good deal of luck, I mean, WHOOOOOO) )

Moving on to Giovanni...( Read more... )

 My younger self would be so proud.

Also got a Rhyhorn. Got an Exeggcute, too, but not sure it was a legit catch. (First one ran. I recall some Nuzlocke results going by first Safari CATCH in a given Area because of the B.S. nature of the Safari Zone, so I caught the SECOND one that turned up. Not going to use it, anyway, but ought to record that for the record, guv'nor.)

Now off to Fly to Pallet, Surf to Cinnibar, then Fly to Viridian, then buy up one bajillion Super Repels and bumble my way through Victory Road. Can't status Moltres because Y HALO THAR, SUPEREFFECTIVE CREATURE AGAINST BOTH MY STATUS OPTIONS. Could power level Gasty, I guess. Or Drowsee.

Anyway, once I'm at the League and have ensured that no worst-case-scenario KOs have taken place, I'll teach Reservoir Ice Beam and Yulong Thunderbolt. Cue carnage. :)