#and btw i know the gym itself isn't the problem

[anti-ao3]

society: why are so many young ppl developing eating disorders and other mental illnesses???

also society: you will only be truly happy if you lose weight/if you're skinny! that's self-care! 😘

[spinnerlockeplay]

Pokemon FireRed Nuzlocke Part 4 - Diglett Problems (Celadon Gym Part 1)

Okay, it's official. I'm a busy writer and I neglected too much on the current playthrough and post that I had to get this back and try to finish this as best as I can. I'll explain soon, but for now, I should get this over with.

Don't worry, I'm still not abandoning it and I just finished Pokemon Violet. So if possible, I might finish this depending on the progress. So with that out of the way, time to continue this playthrough.

Basic Nuzlocke Rules

Species Clause

Gym Level Limit: 30

Lives: 8

Detailed Rules

Before we start, remember one of the rules I made for this Nuzlocke, which is "The battle style must be on Switch."?

Well, I'm ripping it away temporarily for this next Gym Rule!

Current Gym Rule:

Set Challenge Rule - If defeated before and during the fourth gym, I can restart my save file and I’m allowed to revive one dead Pokemon for each wipeout. Until I defeat the fourth gym, I must change my battle style to "Set" in all battles. Additionally, I can only use 5 Potions and 5 Super Potions for the gym leader battle. Once the gym is defeated, one life is deducted if no whiteouts or additional life if there are whiteouts.

I had to make this rule for this gym because one: with two of my party strong against Grass-types, I have to set a handicap.

Two: I need an extra challenge and despair.

Sure, I already lost Aggro the Spearow and Nerde the Magikarp (which BTW, still stung even to this day), but most of them came from wild Pokemon battles, and reading back on my previous posts, only the Vermilion Gym has some description regarding my struggles against my Gym Leader battle. And it's been a while since I do a Set (after my failed Platinum Nuzlocke... T_T), so this is just a test bed to see if I can do it again, namely at the Elite Four battle.

Also, I need to clarify something about my version of the Dupes Clause, namely how I deal with dead Pokemon. Bulbapedia and other sites such as the Nuzlocke Reddit have broad terms regarding the clause itself, so I ultimately decided that if I encounter a duplicate, but that said Pokemon is dead, I'm free to capture them. I'll amend this rule after this post will go up. With that said...

(So I found another Magikarp...)

I had to catch it on Route 6! Although in my defense, I should have caught it at Vermilion City to save the route in case of emergencies. But I was desperate to replace Nerde and I WANT MY GYARADOS! Of course, since he's somehow the successor of Nerde, I had to call him "Salty" based on NerdeCrafter's alternate persona, "SalteCrafter".

So back to my journey, I switch out from Radish to Salty to grind him up to my current party level and headed off to Route 11 to battle the rest of the trainers there. Wrecker evolved into Graveler during the whole grinding session and Queen got in trouble with a Gamer's Bellsprout...

So far, it's a normal grinding session with no issues. But then, I battled an Electrician...

(Crap.)

In case you've been living under a rock, Voltorb is an Electric-type Pokemon that has an appearance of a Poke Ball, which is perfect to end a Nuzlocke run to any unsuspecting trainers. But its appearance isn't the problem, it's their movesets. It has Screech, which lowers Defense by two stages and the two dreaded moves:

Selfdestruct and EXPLOSION.

Both of them not only deal a large amount of damage to one of my Pokemon, which might be enough to kill them, but the user faints when they use it. I repeat: THE USER FAINTS. WHEN THEY USE ONE OF THESE MOVES.

So if Voltorb used one of them, Flora would be dead by now. Luckily, Voltorb used Screech first and Flora knocked them out before they had the chance to attack. And trust me, this was not the last I saw them.

After I beat all of the trainers, I headed into the gate where I failed to get an Item Finder from one of Professor Oak's aides, which you need 50 captured Pokemon to do so. And knowing the rules of the Nuzlocke, I moved on.

At least, I tried to... I got blocked by Snorlax's big butt. So back to the drawing board...

After I healed my party back at Vermilion's Pokemon Center, I decided to traverse through Diglett's Cave to discover what was on the other side. But because of Nerde's death, I can't trust Salty on getting more EXP from switch grinding. So I had to give Salty a break and lead the whole trek with Flora.

But it seemed that the Diglett inside were not only annoying to run into but dangerous even for Flora. At one point, I encountered a Dugtrio who not only Mud-Slapped Flora to blind her, but they also used Dig so many times, that she kept missing her Razor Leaves and I had to use my Super Potions to save her from near death.

On one hand, we made it out unscathed, and found myself back at Route 2. On the other...

(I'm an idiot.)

Yeah, I left Bait in the PC. That was stupid.

In my defense, it's been a since I resume this Nuzlocke two times and with all of my writing, RPing, and more, I'm a very busy person. But yeah, enough with the excuses...

As if karma struck me, I was forced to endure the cave with more Digletts and Dugtrio messing Flora up, get back to Viridian's Pokemon Center, heal up, switch Queen with Bait, and endure the cave all over again! If I have any hatred for one of the Pokemon, it has to be those small moles ruining me at every turn!

After that nightmarish back-and-forth through Diglett's Cave, I headed into a hidden gate blocked by a tree and got HM05 from another aide since I got 19 caught Pokemon (thankfully). I headed back to Viridian City and grabbed a Potion there. Also, I met a sleepy guy who offered me the Dream Eater move, which I taught to my Drowzee. I also went to Pewter City through the shortcut and grabbed an Old Amber from a scientist in the museum, finishing any remaining tasks in both towns.

After that (another) nightmarish back-and-forth through Diglett's Cave for the last time, I traced my steps back from Vermilion to Cerulean and exchanged the Bike Voucher I got from the Fan Club president for a Bicycle. But once I headed into Route 9 to battle some trainers, I realized something...

(I got a bike! ...Did I forget something else?)

Yeah, I wasn't thinking straight lately and I forgot I was supposed to switch it to "Set" for this special Gym rule. Thankfully, this is my Nuzlocke and I can make my rules!

Set Challenge Rule - If defeated before and during the fourth gym, I can restart my save file and I’m allowed to revive one dead Pokemon for each wipeout. Until I defeat the fourth gym, I must change my battle style to "Set" in all battles starting in Route 10. Additionally, I can only use 5 Potions and 5 Super Potions for the gym leader battle. Once the gym is defeated, one life is deducted if no whiteouts or additional life if there are whiteouts.

Much better! Now then...

On Route 9, I caught another Spearow to replace Aggro (which I named him "Anger") and battled some trainers there. But thanks to me I changed my battle style to "Set", Drowsy got a close call from battling one of the trainers. And once I'm on Route 10...

(Double crap.)

Yeah, my first encounter there was a Voltorb. Help me.

Before it could get any ideas exploding on Flora's face, I Sleep Powder and caught them, naming them "Volleyball". I would name them "Dodgeball", but again, I wasn't thinking straight and I panicked over Voltorb's potential Selfdestruct. Also, I overreacted when I saw Voltorb because I checked their moveset and saw that there were no signs of Selfdestruct anywhere. Yeah, I'm a bit stupid, but at least most of the Voltorbs on Route 10 can't explode.

This was actually perfect because I decided to spend some time on Route 10 grinding some EXP for Salty. If I want to avoid the same fate as Nerde, I have to buff Salty up into a Gyarados. I also trained Volleyball up to see what I could do with his moveset, which while they didn't have any Selfdestruct, I couldn't see any Electric-type attack except Charge...which could do what was on the name!

Before Gen. 4, the physical and special attacks were determined by types such as physical moves were Normal, Fighting, Flying, Ground, Rock, Bug, Ghost, Poison, and Steel. As you might have guessed, Electric is a special move. Luckily, Voltorb is good with Special Attack, only half compared to their high Speed. So even learning Spark is enough for them to survive without relying on a TM. The only problem is the rest of their moves after Level 21, which gives me concerns about how useful Volleyball will be for future battles to come. And lastly, I need to level up Bait and Queen up to match with the others. Sure, Bait is still death fodder that I loved and I'm not sure Queen can handle the Celadon Gym. But I need to prepare for the worse and I'm not leaving until everyone on my team are strong enough to take on any challenges and emergencies along the way.

(On the bright side, I got a Gyarados! But at what cost? 😶)

So I was planning to end this blog post with the Celadon gym battle like the previous posts. But it seems I wrote a bit too much on this post, especially with my explanations, and I may need to go through another city to end it instead. Then again, the last post was 1 year ago, so whoops. So consider this part 1 of the Celadon Gym challenge. I'll see if I can resume the Nuzlocke after finishing Pokemon Violet, so see ya in the next post, next year!

I hope.