How I Beat My Pokemon Yellow Nuzlocke · 1:02am February 29th
So, being the Pokemon fan I am, I of course have dabbled in Nuzlockes. And given I had downloaded one of the OGs on my 3DS, I wanted to try my luck at it. This was quite a few years back, so I don't remember most of the stuff that happened, but I do remember the key moments around the end.
Now, for those of you that haven't played the original Gen 1 games, they were pretty broken. Like, very broken. A lot of stuff was going on in those games: Psychic-Types had no weaknesses, Special Attack/Defense was one stat, Speed dictated critical hit chances, Type attacks were strictly either physical or Special (which they didn't fix until Gen 4), etc. Now, I had done and beaten two Nuzlockes previously; specifically in Omega Ruby and Ultra Sun (though I did cheat at one point in later), but this was a whole different situation. Thankfully, I was well-aware of Gen 1's unique mechanics and I did quite well. Throughout the game, I was able to go along without too much trouble; I do recall losing a Snorlax to either Horn Drill or Sheer Cold, which I was quite salty about.
Then I faced Giovanni for the final Gym Badge.
To set the scene, I went into the battle with Blastoise, Charizard, Dugtrio, Jolteon, and two others. My plan was simple: sweep with Blastoise. I had beaten Blaine that way, and had swept Giovanni with Blastoise in previous playthroughs. Nothing to it, right? Well, as you may know, Giovanni leads with a Dugtrio. A Dugtrio that knows Fissure. No big deal, right? That move never hits, right? I had already lost a Pokemon to a OHKO move, there was no chance it would happen again, right?!
So, Fissure killed Blastoise and all my plans went out the window. Maybe I should've had a backup plan, but I was I supposed to know that Fissure would hit and ruin everything? Jolteon was weak to Ground and Dugtrio was underleveled; so, Charizard had to do the heavy lifting. and he did... until Giovanni's final Pokemon: Rhydon. My other two Pokemon were dead and Charizard too was killed by Rock Slide. At this point, I was 100% sure my run was over, but I continued to fight. I sent out Dugtrio and hit Rhydon with Dig, and it actually got Rhydon down to about a third of his health. It was crucial, but Dugtrio was taken out that same turn.
It was all down to Jolt. The only move we had that would do anything was Double Kick and all Rhydon had to do was Earthquake and my run was over. We hit it, and Rhydon was in the red, but still kicking. Then Giovanni did the stupidest thing he could have done and gave Rhydon a Guard Specs. Gen 1's awful AI had miraculously come through for me and one more Double Kick was just enough to win the battle.
Been the skin of my teeth, my Nuzlocke was free to continue, but had no team left. The only Pokemon I were a high enough level to get me through the final stretch of the game were Jolt and Articuno. And turns out... they were all I needed. We charged through Victory Road and I went on to defeat beat the Elite Four and become Champion using only Jolt the Jolteon and WInter the Articuno (well, okay, technically I did have two other Pokemon in my party, but they were useless and just there in case I need a safe switchout, which I didn't. So, it was just the two).
And so my Yellow Nuzlocke was won, all thanks to Jolteon. Much love to Best Eeveelution.
I've only ever played Pokémon games in Nuzlocke form twice. It's not the sort of challenge that appeals to me, not to mention I'm more of a Pokédex hound with the games anyway. I do like the kind of Challenges that pop up on YouTube – solo runs, themed teams, self-enforced restrictions, all that – but they don't game over your Pokémon when they faint. But I do understand the appeal.
The two times I did try them were with the Virtual Console releases of Gens 1 and 2. The former as a friend group I was in was giving it a go, and they figured it would be a fun way too freshen up replaying a game we all knew. So I joined out of diligence. I was very cautious playing Red and basically pre-planned a chart of all mons obtainable in all areas, and when to obtain what where so I could invoke species clause to basically get nearly anything I wanted. My final team was Charizard, Pidgeot, Snorlax, Starmie, Exeggutor (traded from a friend during the nuzlocke playthrough – I've totally forgotten what I gave them, alas
) and Zapdos. Nidorino was on the team for a fair while early on. I don't believe I lost a single mon I was intending to keep in the party all game either.
As a bonus, it was also a sign of how much faster I'd gotten at the Pokédex, because even accounting for wanting as much of a Living Dex as possible, I still finished it after the campaign (when nuzlocke rules were gone) in only 80-odd hours.
The Gen 2 nuzlocke of Gold a year-and-a-half later went a bit different. The heavy amount of individual small locales, especially once Kanto was factored in later, meant I not only did a lot of my Pokédex work along the way, I had even more success with getting what I wanted. My planned team was Typhlosion, Ampharos, Heracross, Crobat, Bellossom and Kingdra. I didn't have a friend for trading during the time between getting Seadra and the Elite Four, so it went basically unused, but everyone else turned out A-OK. I lost Crobat in the Elite Four run, but everyone else survived to Red, and I picked up Larvitar->Tyranitar to fill the lost slot (still only really a team of five, but what're you gonna do – I occasionally made use of the last slot for a free switch to sack against tough opponents). Despite being barely Lv. 60 and playing on Set mode, I still managed to beat Red, even if most of the team was lost for it (it was basically a planned "okay, this one first, after Red sends that in, sack for a free switch in, have that as switch fodder later, switch out that one at this moment to use again later"), and it worked more-or-less as planned.
Similarly to the above, completed the Pokédex thereafter bar versions exclusives and other Gen I Pokémon not available in only 120-odd hours. Nice to know these games well enough to optimise that!
Of course, all this was only possible because of limited AI in those Game Boy games and be approaching a nuzlocke the boring way. Little surprise I didn't do it again. But I did enjoy it as a twice-off thing.
Funnily enough, I'm actually playing through Crystal on VC now – I downloaded it a year ago just before the 3DS eShop shut down. Will be doing several quick runs of it to catch the Celebi unlocked after the Elite Four in this release, one for Living Dex of every game I can transfer it to (Moon, Ultra Moon, Shield, Brilliant Diamond and HOME). The last one will be a proper team run, but the rest I'm just doing solo with some of the best mons to blitz through the game. As I already did best starter Feraligatr (to use, not my personal one) for a Minimum Battles video three-and-a-half years ago, I'm using Graveler for this first one. Even without the trade evolution, it's still top tier – no gras or water-type boss trainers and many big ones having Ground weakness really helps it out there. And while Gen II's level curve is notoriously unfair to proper teams, the high number of mandatory trainers (nearly 100 by the Champion) means a solo run can't help but by over-levelled nearly the whole way, Red excepted (in Minimum battles, Feraligatr is Lv. 54 after beating Lance).
Others I'll probably use for the runs after the first will be Kadabra, the gift Sparrow at Goldenrod, and Machoke (a traded Machop in Goldenrod too). Worse ways to spend a few evenings!
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Seems you put more thought into to it than I do. But hey, if I thought it through more, I wouldn’t have my epic Jolteon story.
On a site note, I don’t consider the game truly beaten until Mewtwo. You could just Master Ball it, but I wanted a challenge. Jolt ended up sacrificing himself to paralyze and weaken Mewtwo, allowing me to catch it the hard way.