Pokemon LeafGreen Nuzlocke (Episode 3)

Welp, I might've almost gone insane from this challenge. Why you may ask? Three words: Fuschia City Gym.

I'd first like to get into what happened before that however. I breezed through Team Rocket's hideout at the Celadon City casino where I met Giovanni and beat the shit out of him, despite how tanky and full of defense his Kangaskhan was. From there, I got the Silph Scope and headed to Lavender Town to ward off some evil spirits at the Pokemon Tower. From there, I got the Poke Flute and captured a Snorlax in Route 16 who I named "Doobie", but I've decided to put this bulbous fella in the PC for now.

And from there on, we went to Fuschia City to challenge the gym. Things were fine at first despite one of the trainers there having quite a strong Hypno, but then we arrive to Koga.

Now the thing I want to clarify before I describe how my battle with Koga went was that I had a strategy of compulsively saving my game data before just about every battle in case things were to go wrong and I would have to restart my DS, and that was how we only had 1 of our Pokemon die throughout the entire run... Before..

Before battling Koga, I would save the game. Then shortly after starting the battle, I'd experiment with different strats to figure out how to handle such tanky, defensive, and status-effecting Poison type Pokemon he had. It also didn't help that Thumb, my Dugtrio, was the only Pokemon in my team who's typing and moves were effective against Poison types, and yet he was a glass canon with dogshit HP and couldn't attack the Koffings that had the Levitate ability. Getting to defeat him was a slog to freaking go through, and this shit even made me doubt if I'll ever even beat a Nuzlocke challenge in the first place. I thought this shit was easy.. What the hell happened??

Throughout doing this challenge, there were times when the memory of finding this one controversial thread on the SMOGON forums surfaces in my head. Sure, this game can be an RNG mess that'll unapologetically fuck over your luck streak. However, this wasn't competitive Pokemon I was playing. I was doing a Nuzlocke run. I could always figure out a way to mitigate these misfortunes so they could occur less, whether that'd be through leveling, deciding what moves to teach my Pokemon, feeding them vitamins, etc. I could always do better, and that's why I've often felt as if it was my fault for the many shortcomings and deaths of allies that happen throughout this run. That enlighteningly reminded me that I shouldn't chicken out of this.

And so, after leveling, experimenting, and almost losing my grip on reality, I came up with my final strat. I evolved Benedict into a Blastoise and equipped him with the Black Sunglasses to strengthen his Bite. I had him take on Koga's two Koffings and I had Thumb take on his Muk. I also had to be aware that the Koffings had Self Destruct, which will 100% kill both the attacker and the defender, so I either had to be very lucky or have Benedict use Protect in case any suspicion came to show. I also had Thumb immediately do a Magnitude before the Muk would further Minimize and use Acid Defense any further. Sometimes I'd get Thumb to Dig in order to dodge the Sludges and keep his HP in check.

We then had one more of Koga's Pokemon to defeat, and that was the darn Level 43 Weezing. I first switched to Mitchie to paralyze it with a Thunder Wave. Koga did use a Full Heal on it shortly after, but I cleverly used that action of his as a distraction so she could land a Thundershock. After successfully executing such, even if the damage was not enough, I switched over to Renny and used her as a sacrifice by landing two wimpy Wing Attacks before dying. You really thought I strategized enough to figure out how to not let a single Pokemon of mine die from this motherfucker despite how precious they were not just by the nicknames I gave them, but how useful they freaking were throughout this run. I desperately wished that were the case, but unfortunately, I had to kill off somebody to win this. After Renny's untimely death at the hands of Koga's Weezing, I switched to the tanky Vegas to not only endure aggressive hits from the Sludge and poisoning, but finish it off with a few mighty Mega Punches.

This perhaps had to be the most unhinged gym battle I've ever fought in a Pokemon game, possibly outranking Whitney's fight in the Johto stuff. I will never forget when one of the trainers in Koga's gym told me how strength wasn't necessarily key to Pokemon battles, and the fact that there can be many circumstances in which strategy can outstrip strength itself just goes to show how nuanced Pokemon battles can be.

At the moment, I am taking the time to train Kiki, Esther, and our newest member, Patagonia the Lapras, in order for them to catch up to everyone else. I got Patagonia from a Silph employee after he watched me and Azul duke it out at the Silph Co. building. I've been thinking about having a Lapras be Benedict's backup in case some bad stuff happens to him, like idk.. dying?..

Man do I have alot to do here before the next gym, which should be full of Psychic types, and I am afraid I don't have much of anything to counter such other than Benedict's Bite. In the meantime, see you guys in the next episode! And may Renny rest in peace. Fuwa still hasn't been forgotten either.