5/1/2024
Yesterday, me and a friend from college celebrated the end of the semester by heading to a local game store. From there, I bought two spare styluses for old precious my DS Lite (Because styluses are that easy to lose.) and a bootleg Game Boy Advance cartridge of Pokemon LeafGreen. I didn't necessarily care if it was a bootleg, because usually those things are ROMs that got transferred into another cartridge in a homebrew way. I also figured it'd be LeafGreen that I'd play because I'd figure that the only way I could enjoy playing in Kanto again was to do my first Nuzlocke challenge.
Now you may be asking, what the hell is even a Nuzlocke? Well, a Nuzlocke is a kind of self-imposed gameplay challege within a Pokemon game where two primary rules are usually enforced:
• You can only catch one Pokemon per area. That means you can't catch more than one Pokemon that come from the same area. For example, I successfully catch a Pidgey on Route 1, but I can't catch a Rattata on that same route.
• When a Pokemon from your party faints, it dies. If that happens, you would have to send it to the computer in a graveyard box.
I'd argue that there might be a third vital rule to Nuzlockes, where you would always have to nickname the Pokemon you catch, making their contribution to the team as well as their death feel more significant and valuable. That's just my opinion though because I also know that's a fairly common pattern to find within Nuzlocke runs.
For more information on Nuzlockes, check out this link here! And by the way, I apologize if I don't have any screenshots in here, I kinda forgot to take some, but I won't forget to do that in the next episode.
Moving forward, I started the Nuzlocke later in the evening that day, and I at first struggled to figure out which starter to choose for this challenge, considering that Gen 1 perhaps has to be the one generation of Pokemon where all 3 starters perform great within a full game run to some capacity. I settled on Squirtle and decided to give him an old man's name. Could've been "Gilbert" or "Howard", but I eventually settled on the name "Benedict".
On Route 1, I caught a little friend for Benedict; a Pidgey who I named "Renny". I chose this name because on the same day after coming back from the game store, we took some sushi takeout home and watched the first 3 episodes of the 10th season of Big Brother US, and Renny was a comically loud and negative contestant on the show who had the attitude of a chaotic alcoholic party mom. It gets even more ironic once I discovered that my Pidgey ended up having a serious nature.
And because the first gym we were to face utilized Rock types, I caught me a Mankey off of Route 22 and named her "Fuwa". (I figured naming a tough and fugly thing with something cutesy was quite funny.) I grinded and grinded, and as expected, Fuwa sweeped Brock's entire team with her effective Low Kicks.
The next day, On the way to Cerulean City, we enter Mt. Moon and catch a Clefairy who I named "Vegas". I initially intended for him to act as some sort of shield for the two other more valuable members of our team, Benedict and Renny. Turns out, being equipped with the Cute Charm ability and Sing made Vegas seem a little more valuable than I realized. This would soon become moreso the case after I got out of the mountain and gave him the Mega Punch move from talking to one of the karate dudes nearby.
I grinded Vegas and Benedict a little more than the others so I could execute a certain strat during my fight with Misty in the second gym. I first take out Vegas to fight her Staryu, put it to sleep with Sing, and knocked it out with two Mega Punches. Soon, as Misty brings out Starmie, I switch to Fuwa to keep Vegas safe, and keep him safe she did because sadly, she fainted at the hands of a Water Pulse that put her in a state of confusion. I desperately hoped that at that state, at only 5 HP, Fuwa would land her last Karate Chop that would've taken the Starmie down already, but to no avail... I soon brung out Benedict to finish things off, having him endure some Swifts and piercing through Starmie's defenses for good with two Water Guns. I secured the Cascade Badge, got Renny to beat the shit out of Azul's team, (Forgot to clarify that this was the name I gave to the rival lol) caught a Bellsprout that I named "Kiki", evolved her into a Weepingbell, obtained the Cut HM from the captain of the S.S. Anne, aaaaaand that's where things currently end off at the moment.
Man did I have alot of fun. Doing a Nuzlocke really does make one engage and connect with their Pokemon, huh. Hopefully on the next episode, we'll get to see how we conquer the Vermillion City gym. Stay tuned! And may Fuwa rest in peace.
