Home in Time for Christmas - a Pokemon Red "nuzlocke" challenge report

[Seperallis]

This isn't entirely tied to that other thing I will be doing. I started this game while figuring out the kind of rules I would like to see in the other game I plan on recording for said other thing. Having started the game, though, I am bound and determined to see it through. Being my first ever Nuzlocke challenge and apparently holding myself to a far higher difficulty standard than most other such challenges, I figured I would write a relatively short summary report of the goings-on in the game. This is mostly for my own benefit, looking back on my first attempt and reliving the memories at some point another 10 years in the future when the full force of mid-life regret is bearing down on my psyche and the clock of passing ages begins to grow louder.

Because I never actually planned for this to be a "thing" on its own, I have no recording or screenshots of my progress. At least, not initially. I still won't record, but maybe I'll intersperse my impending walls of text with a couple screenshot updates in the future, but at least the first two chapters will just be my ramblings. Sorry about that.

Anyway, pulling from that other thing, this is the list of rules I eventually settled upon:

Show ContentThe Challenge Rules:

Base Rules:
- Only catch the first Pokemon encountered in any area.
- Any KO'd pokemon must be released or permanently stored in PC.

Clarifications:
- No resets.
- No trading. Period.
- Nickname all caught pokemon.
- The First Encounter rule:
- - also applies to surfing/fishing in an area; the first encounter is either on land OR on/in water.
- - also applies if the first encounter escapes or is KO'd; there is no second attempt.
- - For the sake of variety, the Duplicates rule applies: if the first encounter has been caught before, I may choose to either catch it OR try again...up to three times, at which point I'm S.O.L.
- - also applies to any static area encounters (such as Snorlax in Red/Blue, or Sudowoodo in Silver/Gold); they may only be caught if they are the first wild encounter if the area.
- - the Shiny rule does NOT apply; any shiny that's not the first encounter is forfeit, and I will cry about it.

Difficulty Rules:
- No Legendary Pokemon. Duh.
- Any Daycare use is verbotten.
- Pokemon that enter my party may only leave by being KO'd; I cannot store party pokemon, or swap them with reserves.
- I may not use more pokemon than the gym leader/elite four I am battling, regardless of the size of my party.
- - Losing these pokemon counts as a total party wipe, even if I have other pokemon in my party that remain healthy and able to fight
- No pokemon in the party may be a higher level than the next Gym Leader/Elite Four pokemon; any pokemon that goes over this limit must sit out all battles until they are no longer over-leveled.
- Only Set battles are allowed; I cannot automatically swap pokemon when an opponent is KO'd.
- "Destiny Bond" and "Second Chance" rules are for cowardly bitch-babies; any KO from any source is a legal KO.
- Any total party wipe is "game over" and ends the run.

That's about it.

[Seperallis]

1


To start, RNGesus determined before the game that our aspiring trainer and protagonist BOI would be starting with Patrick the bulbasaur (so named because I could not resist the double pun/Gundam reference). This is fortunate, because Bulbasaur is the strongest early-game starter in the Gen 1 games, being able to tank the first three gyms and with favorable attack matchups against the rock/ground and water typing of the first two.

Of course, that does mean our tryharding rival WHAT decided to pick Charmander the charmander...truly, his names are as original as his counterpicks. Regardless, despite Charmander's scratch being superior to Patrick's tackle, I won our minute-long baby slap-fight and trundled upon my way to do the opening task of playing deliveryBOI for Oak, getting the pokedex, etc etc. Finally free from the tutorial constraints, I grabbed my first handful of pokeballs, and my nuzlocke quest officially began.

The start wasn't anything to write home about, as the starting areas lack variety for being Babby's First Pokemon, and the 151 pokemon dex in this generation arbitrarily split between two games to make Nintendo more money ensures more of the same in the later game...but I digress! BOI started his adventure catching Lil' Ratto the Ratata and Birb the pidgey south and north of Veridian City, respectively, before heading west to pickup Backpack the nidoran (so named because that boy gonna carry). After gutpunching WHAT and pissing on his pokemon, BOI made his way through Veridian Forest and added Skillet the weedle to his team.

After putting Raid out of business by exterminating all bugs in western Kanto, the party was finally on parity. The battle with Brock was nothing to write home about, with Patrick of course sweeping the floor with a liberal application of vine whip. After filling our pockets with antidote and potions and potions, we had a productive chat with our homeboy Joey about the virtues of shorts. After nearly losing Birb to an error of judgment and adding Jamboree the spearow to our growing flock, we finally arrived at the base of Mount Moon.

The first time you play through the Kanto games, you tend to get lost in the maze-like caves of Mt. Moon; I do still remember my first time through, skirting by with slivers of health and thanking all the gods that no one was there to stop you on the other side. On my 50th rodeo now, the place was more familiar than the back of my hand, and so BOI swooped up Trap the magikarp for the bargain price of $500 and added I the zubat to his team before finally settling on the rule that pokemon could only leave his party by being knocked out; no more swapping and storing at the PC.

With his party of six now set in stone until death do us part, BOI began firmly grinding the denizens of the cave beneath his heel on his way to Celadon.

And then he encountered the run's first game-ending boss battle.

For those who don't know the Kanto games, there are Team Rocket lackeys within the caves looking for fossils. One of these grunts has a single pokemon; by this point in the game, most players likely have a team of pokemon between levels 12-14, and are unequipped to cope when a genetically engineered level 16 Raticate (Ratata naturally evolve at level 20) pops out with the highest base attack and speed of any pokemon you've faced until you get to Misty, and an 80 base power, STAB-boosted (same-type attack bonus) Hyper Fang knocking at their face.

I have a confession: this run is actually the second attempt at this nuzlocke, and my first attempt ended with a total party kill. Right here. This one grunt with this one pokemon will wipe your team.

You are not prepared.

BOI, on the contrary, was as prepared as he could be without cheesing and being vastly overleveled, and both Patrick the Ivysaur and Lil' Ratto matched its level; only Patrick had the defense and HP to take a hit from Hyper Fang, but he lacked the attacking power to threaten back, while Lil' Ratto could serve out the pain, but a single Fang would surely kill him. After debating the options, BOI made his peace, took the best strategic approach and, with a prayer, sent out Lil' Ratto.

[Seperallis]

2


The prayer must have worked, because the opponent suffered from a case of good AI: when an opponent does not have a super-effective move, has quick attack, and you outspeed them, they are inclined to use quick attack. Lil' Ratto withstood the first quick attack and was hurting bad from the second, but two hard-hitting hyper fangs of his own turned the battle into a brutal brawl. Badly bloodied, he resisted the switch-in temptation as a point of pride, and launched a final quick attack into my heart and the Raticate’s face to win the battle.

The rest of the trek into Celadon City passed quietly, adding Big Boss the ekans to our group of intrepid heroes before stomping WHAT’s face. The boy thought an Abra could battle. How is this idiot my rival.

After passing a string of some pretty nice but not unwinnable battles on the Nugget Bridge north of town, BOI gleefully attempted to find an Abra but was cockblocked by Onion the oddish instead; we will love it all the same, just not nearly as much as an Abra.

Passing on our way to Bill’s house, a second attempt at an Abra was made and ended in a failure to locate one, before passing through a battle with a Slowpoke that got far too close to beating Patrick and on to snag a cruise ship ticket from Bill, the region’s most famous furry. After a short stint to get some levels for Trap by depopulating the local wildlife and being taunted by nests of Abra who had come to say hello now that he was bound by law to not catch them, BOI made his way to the Cerulean City gym to get his second badge and move along.

Patrick, of course, handled this gym as well, troubled only by a persistent Goldeen whose critical Peck sent him for an emergency trip to the PokeCenter on very low HP. With a quick trip and recovery, however, he was back in fighting shape to earn the Cascade Badge in an easy no-contest win over Misty. Finally free to head south for Vermillion City, BOI snagged Peanut the mankey from outside the daycare before being reminded that one of Gen. 1’s glaring design flaws exist.

I had forgotten, and relearned at this point, that your item bag could only carry up to 20 different kinds of items...an oddly arbitrary number to be sure, and one that felt impossibly small as that limit includes all items: pokeballs, potions, TMs, even your town map and bicycle et al are counted against this limit. After an annoyed trip back to Cerulean City to sort out his items, BOI blasted through the trainers and duplicate wild pokemon battles to arrive in Vermillion City.

Before facing the electric gym in Vermillion, we have to get HM01 from the cruise ship in port, to learn “Cut.” Before that, however, I felt a trip to the nearby Diglett cave was in order to pick up everyone’s favorite meme. Manfred the diglett said hello to the party, and we proceeded to wander about for a bit before encountering a level 29 Dugtrio. While running would certainly have been the more prudent option, it is a rare trainer who can resist that sweet EXP, and so with judicious switching between Birb and Patrick to play around those dangerous “dig” attacks, a critical scratch nearly finished Patrick (again!) before the beast was finally brought down.

And then BOI ran into a level 31 Dugtrio and decided that was enough excitement for one day.

Back in town and all healed up, our intrepid heroes boarded the S.S. Anne, battling through the pokemon and pocketbooks of the trainers on board. Along the way, Trap revealed his Final Form™ and evolved into Gyarados and proceeded to murder the entire boat like only a vengeful sea dragon can.

[Seperallis]

3


BOI breezed through the next battle with WHAT aboard the S.S. Anne, finally obtaining the “Cut” HM from the ship’s captain; with that in hand we were able to apply the move to Patrick, replacing his tackle and giving us access to the Vermillion City gym and its electricity-wielding trainers.

At this point, BOI had to choose between using Patrick’s favorable matchup to electricity in the gym but risk his low damage output not being enough to topple the leader’s Raichu with its level advantage and a powerful base 95 power Thunderbolt attack, or force Backpack to evolve early into Nidoking, giving him ground typing upon evolution (and thus an immunity to all electric attacks) while losing out on all of the attacks he can learn as a nidorino. Due to the locked party rule, a swap to Manfred the Diglett was not allowed.



I'm clearly not a fucking retard, so while losing a free Horn Drill does suck, Backpack the Nidoking lived up to his namesake and carried the party through to their third gym victory.

Some sleeping Snorlax were blocking roads and the Saffron City guards hadn’t eaten their Wheaties, so after grabbing ASMRdeus the drowzee east of town and swinging by to pick up the HM #5 “Flash”, the team doubled back to Cerulean to take the roundabout way through the rock tunnel on our way to the fourth gym in Celadon City. Blasting our way from Cerulean City to Lavender Town was pretty easy, and netted Revelation the Voltorb and Clint the Machop to our burgeoning reserves roster. We were pretty close to over-leveling the next gym at this point, so we did our best to avoid nearly all the trainer battles on the road from Lavender to Celadon. After picking up Good Boy the Growlithe on the way and grabbing Louis the Eevie for free from the top of the apartments, BOI almost went immediately into the gym.



Almost.

Despite Birb being birb, it had no flying moves, something I could have remedied by getting the “Fly” HM if I wasn’t a complete idiot. Instead, I finally addressed the elephant in the party and went back to grind “I” the zubat up to a usable level.

Did I mention that I simply hate zubat? There’s no real reason for it, more an age old bias since my young’un days; I just always found them nothing more than an annoyance over the 21 years they existed, what with their rather weak attacks and confusion status. I had intended to use “I” as a sacrifice, throwing him in to earn a free swap in the middle of battle when things got rough, but I began to consider a change of heart after leveling up “I” into a Golbat; with his poison immunity and bug-type Leech Life attack, BOI swept the plant gym for his fourth badge.

[Seperallis]

4




Having made it through roughly half the game with no losses and with a pretty decent team, I was starting to feel pretty confident. We went back and beat all the trainers we’d skipped and entered the Team Rocket hideout beneath the Celadon City Game Corner, where “I” feasted upon their silly poison type pokemon. I was beginning to like the fella.

After failing to catch a bigger, blacker better Growlithe thanks to the stupidest case of forced fleeing, my dumb ass finally remembered the “Fly” HM existed and grabbed it, before heading back to Lavender Town. In order to progress, we needed to clear the Snorlax from the roads with the PokeFlute, which necessitated clearing the Pokemon Tower and its “ghastly” denizens. After pushing WHAT aside (who curiously swapped Raticate for Exeggcute), we cleared the tower of ghosts and Team Rocket ne’er-do-wells, grabbed the flute, and claimed YEET the Cubone.



From Lavender, it’s a straight shot south and around the coast west to the fifth gym in Fuchsia City, beating trainers with ease and finally getting access to the Super Rod for getting them nice water pokemon. The attempt at catching the Snorlax south of town ended in disappointment as his hard-hitting headbutts, repeated resting, and continuous breakouts from my pokeballs eventually made continued attempts too dangerous...and we had to put him down. To take his lost place in the reserves was Swede (another Oddish) and Nope the Venonat, as we arrived in Fuchsia.

Both Fuchsia City’s and Saffron City’s gym leaders have pokemon up to about level 43, leaving me severely underleveled. I decided before going in to get to about level 40 before challenging them, defeating any available trainers and minimizing wild exp grinding by flying back to Celadon and challenging people along Cycling Road, the alternate route from there to Fuchsia; this luckily meant a second attempt at catching a Snorlax, and Beach Bod eventually decided to stay put inside one of my fancy new ultra balls. Cycling Road is frickin annoying with its downward slope, but that didn’t stop me from adding Why the Doduo to the growing family.

Clearing that route, the only thing left to do before facing Koga in the Fuchsia gym was to liberate Saffron City and Sylph Company from the clutches of Team Rocket. Before engaging in that long campaign, I decided to use the opportunity to earn (what were supposed to be) easy levels for Birb, who had fallen behind, by facing the fighting “gym” in town. Everything went well, and the dojo was all but swept when a rolling kick from the dojo master’s Hitmonlee connected with a critical hit, knocking out Birb from full health.



Nuffle giveth, and Nuffle taketh away.

[Seperallis]

5

I had to take a minute to consider what had even happened with the loss of Birb, before “I” came out to mop up, winning both the battle and Deontay the Hitmonchan for our team. Life goes on, an ASMRdeus the Drowzee was called up from the reserves to fill the open sport Birb left on the team.

The only thing doing was to take on Team Rocket. Going floor to floor clearing Silph Co. of the buggers took most of my evening but wasn’t too much of a challenge, even after WHAT’s ambush that I definitely saw coming yet definitely completely forgot about 5 minutes later. Trap and Patrick made short work of Giovanni minutes later, finally freeing the building and the city from the clutches of Team Rocket and ending my preparations to face the next gym. Picking up Lusitania the Lapras from the grateful Silph employees, we left town.

Flying back to Fuchsia City, I immediately barrelled through the gym with “I” leading the charge and Backpack carrying the rest. Reaching Koga, “I” did what he could to thin the herd, and Backpack came in to finish the job. After receiving a thrashing, Koga’s final pokemon Weezing hung on with a sliver of health and struck back in revenge with a kamikaze self-destruct attack; Backpack took the X-Attack boosted damage, but couldn’t handle the critical hit on top of it that brought him to his knees from nearly full health. We won, but it was a pyrrhic victory to lose Backpack, whose Horn Drill shenanigans I’d planned to carry the team through the Elite Four.

Maybe, in retrospect, I should have used them here.



It took about half an hour to discover the answer to how I would fill this now-empty spot on the team, and get over the blow to morale. I eventually decided on Yeet the Cubone before going to bed.

* * *

Do you know how long it takes to pull up pokemon from reserves to your main team? A long-ass time. Starting at level 9, ASMRdeus had a jump-start by being the lead pokemon through Silph Co, but it still took 6 trips to the Fuchsia PokeCenter to refill a 25-use Confusion and 15-use Headbutt, all to bring him up to level with the rest of the team.

I’ll leave you to the math, and how many Oddish and Venonats were murdered.

Yeet took less time, getting better experience at the power plant and needing only four trips to the PokeCenter. At least my morning wasn’t a complete loss when Morty the Magneton decided to tag along.

I realized at this point that I had yet to get the Surf and Strength HMs, so I made a trip into the Fuchsia City Safari Zone, scooping up a plethora of items and Slab the Rhyhorn.

Fully kitted out and ready to roll, I returned to Saffron City. The psychic gym can be a bit of a nightmare, but Trap and ASMRdeus breezed through to the leader, Sabrina. Trap did well to tank through most of Sabrina’s team, but tagged out with Yeet, whose strong physical attack worked well against the weaker physical defenses of psychic pokemon. Unfortunately, I also forgot about his own weak special defenses, and Sabrina’s Alakazam nearly one-shot my morning of work with a Psybeam that sent Yeet into the red; Yeet pulled through with a vengeance, busting through the Alakazam’s reflect screens with a critical-hitting Strength attack and winning our sixth badge.

It was finally time to get out of this place, and on to the final leg of our journey.

[Seperallis]

FINAL


So another 1st Generation fuck-up is that you must manually select a PC box to fill with pokemon; if the box you select is full, you cannot catch pokemon. Luckily I only lost one attempt at a pokemon due to this garbo, but you can imagine the amount of small-child rage-filled resets this caused back in '98 when you lost an attempt at a legendary due to a full PC box.

Anyway, after adding Lashawnda the Goldeen to the growing reserves list, Patrick easily destroyed everything as we surfed our way from Fuchsia to Cinnabar Island. After stumbling over La Concha the shellder and accidentally speedrunning through Seafoam Islands, BOI landed on the island ready to get this quest over with, but the gym is locked; you have to find the key to the gym in an old burnt-out mansion on the island, which is a perfectly safe, sane, and sensible ask for a small 10-year-old child. Regardless, we dropped our fossil from Mount Moon off at the local Jurassic Park lab and made our way into a slightly fire-infested house to dig for items and pokemon.

While clearing out the nerds and looters within (and grabbing Forge the Ponyta), I decided to spend a few hours preparing my team for the coming trials and getting them on-level, as it were. this only took several hours and all my antidotes to earn parity with Blaine's level, but it was worth the effort; Trap and Yeet doused the flames in the Gym to earn our seventh badge. We eagerly left north for Veridian City, where Patrick and Trap dodged around fissures and horn drills to make quick work of Giovanni (again) and earn our eighth and final gym badge and deliver a TRUE DOSE of Japanese JUSTICE by allowing the world's most dangerous crime boss to roam freely across the countryside and study pokemon because he said "Sorry."

What a true shining example for our children.



Leaving behind Baby's First Moral Lesson, we busted through WHAT one last time to make our way through Victory Road, snagging Anal Beads the Onix, and reaching the Indigo Plateau - home of the Pokemon League and the Elite Four challenge. I wasn't entirely happy with facing them just yet, however, as running in straight away would leave me about 12 levels below the final challenge. I tried to grind levels in both Victory Road and the Pokemon Mansion on Cinnabar, and I must say that I still don't know which of these places is better and faster. Regardless, I either suffered a sudden and severe rush of shit to the brain, or the repeated level grinding in Victory Road numbed my mind so much that I could feel its moisture on my shoulders, and I overleveled nearly all my pokemon past Lorelei and apparently forgetting the E4 challenge begins at level 56, not 60.

Thankfully, Lil' Ratto was still of a level for use against Lorelei.
This was it, the final challenge. It was do or die, all or nothing, win or lose.
Go time.

[Seperallis]

So that's it, the end of the run.


Oh shit, I forgot about my fossil in Cinnabar...