Climb to the Shrine, Right What Is Wrong

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. :)

It's so PRETTY! :D

(Also, this is painful evidence that Silph Co. and Cycling Road are interchangable, level-wise. I'm massively overleveled for this area, though Monarch, Yulong, and Wormtail don't mind the experience one bit.

...I EARNED a moment of sheer WHAT HAVE I DONE terror by forgetting that Bug types are weak to Poison. D: Monarch, I am SO sorry - but 1 HP and Poisoned is still alive! :D

...This is really the area of STOP PLAYING AROUND AND PAY ATTENTION. *winces* Why, Ambassador! My apologies for letting that Sandslash take you down to half HP with a single Slash... though, given your defenses, I'm amazed it was ONLY around half HP that you lost...)

*CRYING WITH LAUGHTER*
( I-I- That - BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA! )

( Six inches away from death - and fallin' fast... )

...I'm not going to screw around with not grinding in the future. I went 'WHEE, I'm a big macho Trainer who doesn't need any of that petty grinding any more', and it nearly cost me the match. Mainly because I ran in blind and so didn't realize she had a level FORTY-THREE Alakazam waiting in the wings. Highest Pokemon on my team? L38.

And when you're L38, a L38 Kadabra hits like a *****. Particularly on CRITICALS. And remember, this is Gen 1, so it critical-hits 20% of the time courtesy of its obscene base speed. D:

...Y-yeah, how about I grind a little for Koga, eh? D: 

(In all fairness, my team was majorly slowed down by the lack of supereffective hits. This isn't a problem for Koga, who will have Monarch, Ambassador, Reservoir, and LEERSPEAR all hammering on him at once. But holy sheeeeesh, Sabrina...)

( Saffron is liberated! (But Fighting-types are still underpowered in this Gen. 8P;; ) )

Parts 7, 10, 11, and 11.5 of the Pokemon Blue Nuzlocke did not properly crosspost to LJ, likely due to size constraints..

For LJ f-list members, here are the links:
Part 7 (S.S. Anne & Lt. Surge)
Part 10 (Erika)
Part 11 (Pokemon Tower)
Part 11.5 (Silph Co.)

Have fun!

( Read more... )

( Lavender Town, a.k.a. ''Syaoran talks a LOT, and Butterfree can mow through ghosts like nobody's business.'' )

( In this update: LEERSPEAR versus the entirety of Celadon Gym, and Our Hero against the entire Rocket Game Corner! (Spoiler: these matchups are grossly unfair. To their enemies.) )

( In which we enter the Game Corner! (And Syaoran notes the corruption of the city.) )

Considering that the next-highest Special on my team, on Reservoir, is 77. And he's three levels higher than Yulong.

Gyarados, you big ball of murderous fluff! C'mere, darling~

Will do Fighting Dojo first to level Monarch and Yulong if Monarch gets overly weakened, then move on to beat Sabrina's Gym.

I've also found out that, for a sufficiently strong Dugtrio and/or a sufficiently bulky Blastoise, using Dig is a viable method to pass/survive Selfdestructers. This makes Koga's Gym possible, and I plan to snipe any Venonat/Venomoth-line Pokemon with LEERSPEAR.

Huh. The game may be survivable after all.

(My HUGE difficulty hump will come at Elite Four, as I have nothing specifically dedicated to killing Water-types/Ice-types. At best guess, I'm going to making Yulong a Thunderbolter (since Gen 1 allows him to use his massive stat for BOTH attack and defense~), then bulldozing Lorelei's Pokemon with OHKOs/Bolt+Bite for THKOs. I need to OHKO two more Pokemon [the double Gyarados on Lance and Champion], so... 15 PP should be enough. The only trick will be keeping Yulong alive, which... shouldn't be TOO hard, since he's got decent defenses. Given the lack of Electric-type attacks, his only weakness will be Rock, and I have Reservoir to cover Rock-types.)

Image post coming pretty darn soon!