#move that like very few pokémon can learn but if you evolve it into breloom you totally lose that chance

[front-facing-pokemon]

[ghostmartyr]

Pokémon White Randomized Nuzlocke Run [Part 6]

Five badges down, three to go!

Hail the victorious living:

Frogger (Seismitoad)

Ptera (Archeops)

Palm (Breloom)

Batman (Escavalier)

Gelding (Tornadus)

Fido (Entei)

Clay invited our ten-year-old self off to see a cave in the middle of the wilderness, so that’s first on the agenda today.

Or is it?

Yeah, fight time.

Bianca has learned the way of the Hyper Potion. I would mind this less if she used it on something that didn’t know Hypnosis. And Defense Curl. And Lucky Chant.

Bianca’s Musharna is much like Bianca’s Patrat. It has murder in its heart.

STOP FEEDING IT HYPER POTIONS BIANCA. JUST LET IT DIE.

Sigh. Well. It’s BRNed now. So Fido doesn’t have to be awake for the rest of this fight. Aw, but it wakes up anyway, because Fido loves me.

All of my fucking yes.

I’m going to let Gelding tackle the Pansear, because I don’t think he can get too hurt from it. I’d very much like to not be wrong about that, and ta-da, all is well.

The final Watchdog is before us.

How fitting that Gelding knows the move Revenge.

Confuse Ray is nothing before it.

.

Confuse Ray, Super Fang, and Hypnosis.

Hey so Batman’s in now and I don’t like this at all.

Lemonade for Batman. And now a Hyper Potion.

Super Fang can’t be its only attack.

HA, BATMAN WOKE UP!

She fought through the Confuse Ray and killed the bloodthirsty Watchdog!

Hell. I hate those things.

Bianca gives us Fly, so yay. When’s Surf coming around?

This route is great for Palm, so I’m going to give in, let him lead the party, and throw the Exp. Share on anything that can’t do jack against the current set of wilds. I guess it’s nice that everyone’s getting a turn up front.

Time to open up our new area. Hopefully it’ll be full of things Batman can grind against. ...Gosh, that’s a sentence.

LOOK AT THE COOL CAVE.

Also N is there.

Fight time?

Oh hey, I forgot you things existed!

I guess they’re people. I probably should not call them things. Hey N, why do you get a ninja squad with your knight motif? What kind of Mary Sue nonsense is leaking out of your green hair and if you give me your hat will I stop commenting on it?

Also, fight time is apparently not until the end of this cave. If then.

Which means now is the time for finding pokemon.

...Not you. No repeats.

Chargestone Cave’s true power is bringing all of the characters with names together. Hi Professor Juniper. Are you going to give me free stuff again? You are!

It’s a Lucky Egg!

That is an incredibly useful item to have. Thank you, Professor. I am so glad you do something besides telling people where they can ride their bikes.

Actually I don’t know if she does that. I haven’t tried to ride my bike anywhere I can’t. I’m too used to being yelled at over that.

‘Ello, score. I don’t know how I feel about how many of these things I recognize from elsewhere, and let me tell you about how much I wish this Yanmega did not have SonicBoom, but Yanmega’s cool.

The trick is not going on autopilot. This thing can murder any number of my team.

(Yes, I forgot the Quick Ball again.)

Net Ball?

...Nope.

This has the feel of not going well. Frogger, you have the most HP, go soak up some hits.

If I have to knock it out just to avoid a wipe I’m going to be sad.

I need to buy some stuff at the next town. I have eight Great Balls left. They aren’t even earning a shake. Hey, wait, that one did. Yay?

Yay!

Dang, name. Name.

I don’t think enough people are reading these to judge me if I name it Fluttershy. That’s his name now. See you another time, Fluttershy. Hopefully never. I like the current squad.

The game’s now decided it’s Summer.

This matters because now the random Deerling we come across will be adorable and green and I can never have one.

I’m gonna give Gelding the Lucky Egg and toss him out in front.

There’s Chansey in here. This one knows Minimize. Another move I don’t care for, but yay for Revenge killing it in one hit. Plus, you know, actually hitting it. This cave is going to be gold for exp.

A wild trainer appeared!

I can’t remember if Archen has a Rock typing. This thing is conceivably very dangerous. Not while it uses Agility, but... Yeah, okay, Acrobatics brought Gelding down to 25, Fido, operating under the theory that it doesn’t have a Rock move, go murder it.

Murder achieved. Good dog.

Frogger’s going to be in front for a bit while I see about healing.

Frogger does not do enough damage to harm the Chansey with Softboiled.

Batman, get in there and try to fix something.

Future plans include never letting Gelding take damage. This is all a massive inconvenience of switching and walking around and switching and yay exp.

I think the next time I can buy stuff I just need to make a concentrated effort to pick up some Potions. Walking back to whatever Center equivalent is nearest to save items is very time-consuming. I should give up and buy all the health I will never need.

Look at my super special awesome ninja escort. Because I might fall off the bridge if I’m left to my own devices or something, idk.

Gelding wants to learn Agility. I do not want him to learn Agility. Guess which one of us has an opinion that matters.

Now a Maractus has appeared. Is this cave just the land of repeats?

One level below, Shiftry, Chatot, and Xatu wander the halls. So only the first level is the land of repeats.

These guys both just gave me a Nugget for no reason. Score.

Oh great, a few steps away is someone who heals stuff. That is so much better than free Nuggets. Naturally the healing’s only there because Team Plasma and plot stuff needs to happen elsewhere in the cave, but we can’t have everything.

Another pokemon I love is Scraggy. Team Plasma likes using it. How dare they. Same with the Sandile set.

This gen has so many good pokemon what even.

Like, yes, Watchdog.

But everything else.

Heyo, Batman’s learned Iron Head. Ptera’s going to get the Exp. Share now. I think the leveling is going to be a little absurd for a while, but I want it to be absurd with everything on the same page. We do not play favorites on this team.

Because the favorite is dead.

Gelding’s turning out to be surprisingly useful just because his moveset has so much variety. He has a Fighting, Psychic, Flying, and Dark move, and a focus on both Attack stats. It just walks on things. Floats.

Hahaha except for Watchdogs with Hypnosis. Why does that not ever miss. Hypnosis, Super Fang, and terror. These are the tools of the devil.

!!!!!!!!

!

I can’t catch it, but ! ! !

I’ve never seen any of these in any of the games! This is truly the cave of wonders!

Also our new way of dealing with Watchdog is sending out Palm and having Palm Mach Punch it into oblivion. Because we shall not suffer a Watchdog to live.

Another level down, and there’s Grimer, Electrike...

I need a legendary bingo card and I need it yesterday. The heck. The actual heck.

...

Am. I playing with a shiny clause?

...

Okay, here’s how shinies will be dealt with: I am allowed to catch them outside the realms of the standard challenge. They will not receive nicknames, so will not be used. But I can try to catch them.

“Them” meaning this Grimer, because I don’t think shiny odds are affected by the Randomizer. This is just some cool natural luck.

...Luck that I think I am going to use my one Quick Ball on. I haven’t yet figured out which move is least likely to kill this critter, but all of my pokemon have ten levels on it, and are fully evolved. If I can dodge hurting it, I should.

Hella!

I don’t usually dig the green shinies, but it is super appropriate for Grimer, and I am very happy to have it.

This floor has Zubat. My heart has a feeling. You have not been missed, you fucking bat, but no Pokemon run would be complete without you. It just wouldn’t be the same.

You know, I think I might have gone down the wrong stairs for plot progression. There were just normal trainers and items down there, and there are stairs that go up to the right of those stairs.

...I’m gonna heal before I address that.

Up the stairs, and we’re back to Entei.

As well as plot.

I was about to ask if there’s any other gen that cares as much about its color names, but then I remembered that yes, pretty much all of them are linked well to some kind of something.

I keep disagreeing with N. I can’t remember/do not know if that changes anything in the slightest, it’s just what’s going on.

Hey so I forget. How does N rationalize his use of pokemon for battles? Was that in one of the dialogue bubbles I didn’t read? Or just much earlier in the game? I don’t particularly care, I’m just curious.

Then there’s Professor Juniper and all the other adults who listen to this kid and go all, “Oh sweetie, we all go through the phase of thinking we’re the only ones with good thoughts. Lots of love, keep having fun!”

I’m paraphrasing.

Look, Flying Gym place.

If there is some other way of thinking of it, I do not have it on my memory record. Oh, Move Deleter’s in the house next to the Center. That would be maybe useful if I still had a legendary that knew Cut.

I don’t, if you recall.

Hey, we meet Professor Juniper’s dad. He updates our pokedex, so maybe we won’t end up with question marks where most of our team’s numbers should be.

Flying Gym Leader’s name is Skyla. Pretty sure she is one of the Gym Leaders I am continually searching out femslash fic for. Results make me sad, but then again, it’s been a while. Maybe that’s what I’ll do after beating her.

“Hey kid, wanna see a graveyard?”

Aha.

That is much more depressing in a Nuzlocke run.

This is a really tiny city. There’s the airport, a few buildings, and then BAM, back to nature. After being immediately outside a cave. This town just popped into place because the airport showed up, didn’t it?

But more importantly...

It’s a new route!

What will we get?

I’m walking around the grass because I can’t remember if there are other kinds of grass in this route and I want the illusion of choice in my completely random options. This has led to fighting a triple battle with a trainer who has a Watchdog.

At least it can only make one thing fall asleep per turn. It doesn’t bother trying, because this monster knows Hyper Fang, which is maybe even more stressful when its only chance at attacking is a critical hit, but the important thing is that it’s over now and another Watchdog is dead.

We faint the pokemon we attack. My team can be killed, but not their opponents.

Watchdogs still die.

#Canon

Hello, I accidentally took a step into the grass, and here we have our new friend!

...How not to kill it. I think the usual route is just Biting it with something, but everything except Fido and Batman has ten levels on it, and Fido and Batman are Fido and Batman.

Grass/Water, right? Hm.

Frogger, let’s see if Mud Shot can keep the little guy alive.

Heyo! Not even to the orange. Good boy, Frogger.

And oh geez, I have been very negligent in buying stuff. Poke Balls are still in good shape, but none of the other Balls are.

Oh, nice. That was pretty much painless. He needs a name, though.

You remind me of a ninja turtle.

Leotello. Bam. I hope I don’t need you, because I know I didn’t choose the Water Stone to have, and I can’t recall if I’ve picked one up.

I really need to switch Gelding out of the first slot. Fido needs some leveling, and Gelding really does not anymore. He’s 40 in a field of high 30s. ...Okay, the actual field is high 20s, but the field known as my team is high 30s, and that’s what I care about.

Anyway, Fido. Witness the power of the Lucky Egg.

...After I go and buy some stuff before I forget.

(That didn’t happen, I fought the next trainer instead.)

I FORGOT ABOUT AXEW.

Aw, you adorable dinosaur creature you. I am so sorry I’m gonna murder you, yes I am. Such a perfect, flawless critter. Best Dragon line is best, no question. Haxorus even has an amazing shiny form. -pats Axew on its perfect head-

Okay, purchases. Potions. Balls. Need them.

Have them.

Okay, yeah. Journey free to continue.

Male Nidoran is a thing in this route. So is Girafarig. So are trainers.

?

Mother?

Why are you caring about your ten-year-old at this point in the story?

...Huh. And that’s literally all she calls to do. Neat.

There’s darker grass over the ways. Let’s see what I could have had if I had been slightly more smart about where I put my feet.

Hullo, it is a Staraptor.

That is such a damn badass bird.

Like, look at it.

Look at its soulless eyes.

Terrifying.

V cool.

Purrloin is also in the darker grass. And more Buizel. Back in the normal grass there is Ariados. I always had some degree of affection for that thing. No idea why. Never once used it, and I don’t like spiders. I guess it doesn’t have the right number of legs, so that makes it okay? Huh, there’s also a Durant.

...Did I enter a different area? I didn’t see anything to indicate that. There’s a Girafarig back again. Maybe it was just a percentage thing.

Ha. Yeah.

I don’t wanna go in.

A place I obviously should have come to long before.

I’m just going to run upstairs and dance around the graves until I find my next pokemon and trigger whatever’s necessary to let me battle the Gym Leader. Armed with the comforting knowledge that if any of my team dies, they will have a good, immediate resting spot.

I know I’m like the millionth person to point this out, but really. There are really trainer fights in a graveyard? Wherefore art thou respectless maggots.

Oh my gosh! You! You are a favorite thing! Hello!

...How the heck do I not kill you?

I think. I’m going to give Gelding a shot. Air Cutter isn’t too

.

..

...

No?

Gelding no. No no no no no no no.

Damn it. No.

To finish the thought above, Trapinch is Ground, so I was willing to chance Gelding’s high Attack against Air Cutter being kind of wimpy, and the type resistance killing STAB, and there was a risk regardless because of the levels and stats, but I thought Flying vs Ground wasn’t such a terrible thing to bet on, given the options, and.

Hell, now I’m sad.

Less meaningful things hanging out in the graveyard are Anorith Anorith and Anorith. Is it one species per level or am I just unlucky and growing sadder?

I picked up a Revive off the ground in a pokemon grave site.

That’s a yes on sadder.

Hey, so I’ve been seeing a lot of Swoobat lately that I haven’t screencapped, and that reminded me of something: I never went back to that cave, and I think there was more to it. It has one of the legendaries from this gen in its depths, I think, and I guess there isn’t much for me to do in it, but it’s weird to think there’s a place I didn’t really explore.

...Meanwhile.

Where is my bingo chart.

I don’t even know this thing’s typing. I think it’s from this gen, but it’s one of those that I maybe got from a GameStop event and never really looked at or used, and even that is foggy. My assumption would be Psychic just based on me shrugging and assigning Psychic to any legendary I’m not sure on.

Green could mean Grass, though. Wait, no it couldn’t. I used Flamethrower and it lived.

Fido’s setting a record for number of times it can hurt itself in confusion. Being put to SLP is practically a blessing, and I seriously need to switch before we see some legendary on legendary death action in the wrong direction.

Yeah, definitely Psychic. Batman is super effective against it.

So that was needlessly scary, and then on our way down the stairs to see the friendly nurse (this gen is so kind about healing stations and I love it), we run into a Dragonair.

I don’t think I could play a randomized version without Nuzlocke rules or something similar. I would go nuts training every single thing I loved to be a viable option. I’d be a hundred hours in and have four badges.

Plot?

To soothe the souls of our fallen friends.

Huh. This is kind of an empty detour. Skyla’s only up here to heal a pokemon off-screen, and then we ring a very pretty bell that gives me feelings that wouldn’t happen without the death clauses. It’s nice enough, but I could have sworn something a little more monumental went on. No?

Am I thinking of another memorial site? I think I might be... I think Golett is somewhere later in the map?

Maybe that’s what I’m thinking of.

I won’t complain about the free exp, this just felt like a bit of a non sequitor delay. Usually places like this turn out to be optional.

What are you doing on top of this tower. You are lunch for Palm and I appreciate that, but this is the opposite of your natural environment.

Palpitoad’s up here too. Palm is a lucky mushroom kangaroo this eve. His Attack stat will always make me sad, but his existence makes me happy.

The floor below the top has Muk in addition to the legendary song thing. So that’s neat. Actually wait, Frogger’s the only one not 40. Maybe I’ll let him beat up on the Muk.

Oh. He was closer than I thought. Anorith works too, I guess.

Every time I see a Trapinch I am going to feel just so sad.

So sad.

I don’t even know what I would have named her. But we would have been amazing together.

For now, though, it is Gym time.

It might not have aesthetic, but Skyla’s Gym is all about firing yourself through cannons repeatedly to find new opponents. Yes.

Ptera is going to be in the first spot. With Crunch in the place of Rock Throw (why did I do that again?), he only has Ancient Power for STAB + Super Effective, but he’s still overpowered as heck, and has a partial Rock typing, so he should be okay against other birds. I think most of my team can probably handle anything she throws out, though there will, of course, be the odd “wait it learns that?” moment. Hopefully nothing too catastrophic, but I do expect it.

It’s a bird. It’s a plane.

It’s a me.

Without the necessary syllables to make that reference fly home.

So, the cannon fodder seems to have early 30s for their squads. Ptera’s not having a problem with that, despite me using Acrobatics even though he has a Lucky Egg on him. Items and Acrobatics do not play well together. I’ll try to remember that before Skyla. It hasn’t mattered so far, but if it does matter, it’ll be against her.

Oki doki. Lucky Egg off, Ptera prepped. I was lazy and used a Potion for 12hp to top Ptera off instead of going back to the Center. It isn’t like I’ll have much use for standard Potions. It’s practically free healing.

Now then.

Let’s gooooo.

I can’t remember if I’ve commented on it yet, but the sprite for our protagonist just looks so serious this gen. It isn’t quite so noticeable when he’s on his own, but put him next to someone like Skyla and he brings Red to mind.

He is a little happier in the video chat things.

Maybe he just takes Gym fights seriously.

What a weirdo.

First up is a level 33 Swoobat, looking adorable. Yay for Crunch, and it is gone. Following that is a level 35 Swanna. I’m going to use Ancient Power and cross my fingers for that one. I was about to be happy with Crunch over Rock throw, but I really miss having a physical Rock attack.

One and done, last one up is a level 33 Unfezant. Ancient Power again?

Yes!

Another painless victory, another badge! Sweetness!

Skyla lets us go with a warning about seeing Team Plasma in the next city, but that is a thing for another day. Now is the time for basking in the glory of success and Pokemon Centers.

[ianmrid]

...It's The Master Plan!

OK, strap yourself in; this one is a bit of a roller coaster.

For a good long while, I was pretty convinced that there was no way I could glitch either Mew or Deoxys into the Gen3 games, as I had done in Gen1 for Mew and Gen2 for Celebi, until I stumbled across a glitch known as Glitzer Popping. I have no idea why it is called this - it seems that it was intentionally picked to mean nothing specific, but also to not sound too generic.

A French hacker known as Metarkai fond a way to exploit some pre-existing glitches even further, allowing you hatch any pokémon you could wish for, and then these exploits were then documented in video guide form by a YouTuber called ChickasaurusGL. And man, are they ever complex. I am not going to even pretend I understand this stuff - it is way more complex than any of the glitching I have tried out previously - but I’m going to summarise the process in really basic terms. However, if you are interested in the original video, it’s linked below, but beware: it is is over an hour long!

In very basic terms, the glitch uses a bug known as the Pomeg Berry glitch in order to allow you to access the pokémon in your PC boxes during a battle - something you shouldn’t be able to do. This works by taking a Ghost-type pokémon that knows the move Curse. Curse reduces the HP of the pokémon by half - rounded down - in order to inflict damage each turn on your opponent. The ‘rounded down’ part is how to exploit the glitch. You essentially use Curse twice with a Ghost-type that has an odd number of HP, guaranteeing you are left with just 1HP. You can then use a Pomeg Berry on the pokémon, which reduces it’s Hit Point EVs, dropping it to 0HP without it having to be in battle, so it doesn’t truly faint. Now, when you enter a battle, you have no non-fainted pokémon in your party and the game glitches, sending out a placeholder icon known as Decamark (??????????).  Once this happens you can open your pokémon party screen and scroll off the bottom, accessing pokémon that are stored in your PC boxes.

Accessing the pokémon in this way can cause them to become corrupted, turning them into eggs. You can then repeat the process an double ‘corrupt’ into something referred to as indicator pokémon. This part is where it gets tricky. To achieve it you need to use pokémon with specific stats, specific EVs, specific moves, and specific hidden IDs. These hidden IDs can’t be known in-game with the exception of the pokémon available as trades from  NPCs. Since these are predictable values you can corrupt them by giving them the stats/EVs/moves needed. 

I figured the easiest way to try it out would be to attempt it alongside the video. The glitch only works on either non-English EU cartridges or US cartridges, so I was going to have to buy another copy of Pokémon Emerald since mine was an English EU copy. This was fine - it’s not like I would risk corrupting my existing save file, containing all the hard work I’d put in so far, so I turned to the internet and eventually managed to obtain a US copy of Emerald. It took a while as there are a huge number of fake GBA cartridges on eBay and, despite my best attempts to be careful, I ended up with a few duds before I got a genuine one. 

I threw together a very random team, since I needed to play through Emerald again to get to a certain point where I could try out the glitch. They needed to b high enough level to make things easy but not so high they wouldn’t listen to me. I’m not going to do a full entry on this team but here is a brief round up below:

Moone the Lunatone: I flip-flop on whether I prefer Solrock or Lunatone - and I was obviously in a Lunatone mood when selecting this team. The Rock- and Psychic-typing came in very useful in the early game where you normally wouldn’t see it.

Zippy the Banette: The key pokémon for this glitch as it is a Ghost-type that was able to learn curse. Curse behaves differently with non-Ghost-types so Banette was one of the few options available to me to execute the glitch.

Banquet the Swalot: A rather under-rated pokémon, it was nice to give Swalot an outing as it had a suitable level to make the game easy, but not risk getting too over-levelled.

Guy the Breloom: As with Lunatone and Swalot, Breloom was fully evolved but not too high a level to be useful. The part-Fighting type made short work of the early game Normal-types.

Humph the Camerupt: Since the glitch involves hatching eggs, I sent over Camerupt who has the Magma Armour ability. This reduces the amount of steps it takes for eggs to hatch, which could be handy.

Demi the Sharpedo: Originally a member of XD team until Walrein and Sableye ended up providing the same type-coverage. I needed a Water-type to get about, so I decided to give Demi a second chance to shine.

And here they all are (they still get a pic as I still played a full game with them pretty much!):

After smashing my way through the game as quickly as possible, and obtaining the in-game trade pokémon required, I configured them correctly and I was able to make the stages above work correctly. I used Bannette to correctly carry out the Pomeg Berry part of the exploit with no issue, and I even succeeded in the single/double corruption required to get he Indicator Pokémon. So far, so good.

The next bit is where it got really complex. I had to capture some Smeargle to transform them into Mew and Deoxys. It had to be Smeargle, due to it’s ability to learn any move through the use of its signature move, Sketch. Again they had to be set up a certain way - including being fed certain combination of pokéblocks to ensure the created Mew/Deoxys would be obedient, since this flag was usually set by the event item - a step we were skipping completely. I finally obtained and set up my Smeargle and now all I had to do was to double corrupt them, however...

I. Just. Couldn’t. Make. It. Work.

I just don’t know why. Things started out OK; I managed the single corruption stage after a couple of attempts, but try as I might I just couldn’t manage the double corruption step. Every single damn time, the Eggs remained the same. Now, it could be pure dumb bad luck since there is only a percentage chance of each corruption/double corruption working, but the chance is high enough that I would have thought I’d have seen a success at least once, given the number of times I tried. Additionally, there is no way to know for sure whether or not you are just endlessly trying out the same procedure over and over, with no hope of getting the desired result because you have screwed up a step earlier in the process. At one point, to try and mitigate that possibility, I started all over again, right from Step 1 of the glitch, but I ran into the same brick wall.

This was so disappointing. It was worse knowing there was a way to do this that I just seemed unable to achieve than when I thought Mew and Deoxys were simply impossible to obtain. In my frustration, and after spending many hours failing, I turned back to the internet and searched even deeper, looking for any other articles about the glitch, some clearer or easier instructions, anything! And then a ray of hope: Distribution ROMs.

Back in the day, before all games were online and internet compatible, whenever there was a event during which you could be transferred a rare pokémon, you actually had to go to a specific location - usually a store or festival of some sort - between certain dates and take your GBA with you. You would then be linked up to an on-site GBA which was running a specific cartridge that just distributed a rare pokémon or item direct to your save file. A good example of this would be the Old Sea Map which was an event-only item that was required in order to encounter Mew in-game. The distributions ran only in Japan during part of 2005, for attendees of either the Pokémon Festa convention or the PokéPark theme park. Incredibly, over on the site digiex, someone has manage to obtain ROMs of these original distributions, meaning it is theoretically possible to receive the event pokémon as if you were actually present at the time it occurred!

Now. Does this count as legitimate? The obvious answer is no - and that is true in as much as it only really ‘counts’ if you obtained it via the event legitimately at the time. But since this also means my Gen1 Mew and my Gen2 Celebi also don’t count ‘officially’ as they were obtained by glitching, I think this is an acceptable solution to my problem. I would argue that this is actually more authentic than if I had been able to glitch the game as described above, and certainly doesn’t violate my ‘no Action Replay’ rule. It is as close to the genuine experience as it is possible to get nearly 15 years after the fact. Now fulloy self-justified it was back to eBay to buy a GBA flash drive and a memory card.

First up; Deoxys. Deoxys was able to be encountered in-game once you got a hold of the item the Aurora Ticket. This could be used on the ferry to reach the otherwise inaccessible Birth Island. I loaded the Aurora Ticket distribution ROM onto my flash drive and managed to send my Emerald save file an Aurora ticket at my first attempt - it worked perfectly! As soon as I had the ticket, I headed to Birth Island and captured Deoxys - something I never though I would be able to do in Gen3! It was immensely satisfying and I enjoyed being able to battle and catch Deoxys rather than just being gifted one directly.

Next up is Mew. The Old Sea Map - the Mew-equivalent in-game item to the Aurora Ticket was something that was only ever released in Japan and unfortunately there is no ROM that has been discovered for this yet. However, I’m not too sad as there was also a direct distribution of Mew where you were gifted it directly - and the ROM for this has also been made available on digiex.

Getting directly the pokémon is slightly less cool, but at this point it is not a concern for me! I loaded up the ROM for the Mew distribution and attempted to send myself one. This actually took a couple of goes ot get right as it seems the GBA link cable I was using needed to be in a specific way round to distribute Mew - but once I fixed that, it worked like a charm. I’d finally done it!

Hoenn National Pokédex: Completed!

I quickly sent both Deoxys and Mew over to my final Emerald save file and my National Pokédex stats read 386 seen / 386 caught. With all the extra time I had spent in Emerald leveling up all the different evolutions, my total play time was up to a whopping 103 hours, 40 minutes! That isn’t even counting the additional 17 hours, 42 minutes that I spent on the US version, trying to get the glitch to work...

I am absolutely dreading what Generation 3 will have done to my graphs. But honestly? Worth it!

[ghostmartyr]

Pokémon White Randomized Nuzlocke Run [Part 2]

Here we are in Part 2, where I have maybe learned a thing about how to keep these from being dreadfully boring. Part 1 saw us defeat the first Gym, as well as my dawning sadness about the HM state of my available pokemon.

Now we move into the Badge 2 phase of the game.

Breathing Pokemon:

Boeing (Latios)

Frogger (Seismitoad)

Timon (Tepig)

I think I will be ignoring the Cut problem until I absolutely can’t, which will be in about five minutes.

I don’t know why I didn’t walk left earlier, but I didn’t. Is there grass here? Can I catch something? My team is basically just Timon and Frogger. I love Boeing, but he is not made for this rough life. He likes relaxing and eating. Not fighting.

And the answer is that the Professor’s scientist friend has supplied a plot barrier. Sigh.

Welp.

....

I can’t even pretend to be surprised. Dang it, Boeing.

I don’t want to use anything outside the confines of the challenge if I can help it. The idea is not, “win all the fights” under these conditions, it’s beating the game.

Congratulations, Boeing.

You’re temporarily useful.

Grass! Beautiful grass!

Also Team Plasma.

Cut is so much more useful than Psywave and I am very sad.

Team Plasma dealt with, obligatory plot detail I wasn’t paying attention to dealt with, we are now free to pursue the grass.

Or will the grass pursue us.

I can’t remember how Tangela evolves normally, or how it evolves given the settings of the run, but I do think that Tangela probably could have learned Cut just fine, and I can’t remember if the Move Deleter costs anything, or even where it is in this version.

But that’s only a concern if I catch a thing that can learn Cut. Let’s do this, Boeing.

Sleep Powder is hypothetically useful. I don’t think it has ever hit when I try to use it.

Two Poke Balls and nothing. I think I am going to sacrifice the Great Ball some random NPC gave me.

Victory!

Good job, Boeing. See, isn’t life more fun when you’re useful?

You know, I don’t normally nickname my pokemon. They just keep the same name every edition of them in the wild has, and that’s perfectly fine with me.

Your name shall be... Grape.

Because look at all those vines writhing... writhe... wrath? Grapes!

Such thought. Much wow.

I think it’s time for healing and grinding.

Oh, but first, Grape! Let us find something out about you.

He is Brave and quick to flee. His Speed suggests that he isn’t that great at fleeing.

Other pokemon we could have gotten from the HM grass spot of doom include Sudowoodo and Beedrill. Tangela looks to be rarest of the set, so I suppose we can add lucky to Grape’s list of traits. There’s a Potion and a Parlyz Heal lying about that I go grab, and until the plot brings us back later (probably sometime after we get Strength), this area is just going to be a grind station.

Until I get bored after about three minutes and want to go back to exploring. I’m not sure I’m made for a Nuzlocke.

...Why is Constrict a move? It’s about as useful as Splash, only with the false hope of being capable of dealing damage.

Yeah, I don’t have the patience for this. I’m going to go left again and see what there is now that the plot isn’t keeping me trapped. ...Only after I talk to Fennel again. Apparently just letting her collect the whatever thing is not enough, I have to listen to her discoveries.

I do not. Button mashing away, we now have our C-Gear and Pal Pad. I think the first of those will end up having uses. I mostly remember all these different event skins being available for the gear.

Now I should be able to go.

Ha. I have conquered the plot barrier.

Since this is a separate section from the garden area, I think once I have some kind of rod or Surf I can come back and nab something from the water. ...I wonder if grass vs water even matters in a randomized run. Are they all completely random, or random within water? I should know these things.

My guess would be completely random. I cite the level 4 Salamence on Route 2. But either way, something to come back to.

Aw, how cute. I’m gonna demolish you (I hope).

It looks like battling is going to happen before finding out what pokemon belong to this route. In the interest of learning how to do this better bit by bit, I think I’ll limit capping battles unless something truly ridiculous happens. This early in the game there shouldn’t be much tension.

I will probably keep track of how many times Psywave misses if I use it, though. That obviously falls into the realm of Importance.

I will also say that Lillipups continue to be terrifying. And that I am so temporarily glad that Boeing knows Cut. Consistent damage. That hits.

I can’t believe this game encourages taking preschoolers’ pocket money. I know I’m only ten, but wow.

Ah, but the nice thing about beating up preschoolers (’ pokemon) is that they have a teacher around very used to healing pokemon up. Walking back to centers to heal is one of the not so fun aspects of

Whoops.

So it’s a good thing I only did grinding, because I clicked the load file option instead of the save file when I was trying to save. Good grief. I am become error. Will return momentarily. With one fresh water short, because I was stupid and a Beedrill almost murdered Timon. Also Timon now knows Flame Charge.

Okay.

Back to making forward progress, hopefully.

Let me go in the grass, Cheren. You’re supposed to be one of my two best friends. The fact that I had to be reminded by a professor whose name I also couldn’t be counted on to remember myself does not take away from our friendly bonds.

There really are a lot of non-NPC duels at the start of this version.

Okay, let’s go squad.

Boeing and Timon do a good job taking down his Meganium. I think I’ll let Frogger take the Purrloin. As the one on the team who did not need grinding, he hasn’t been used in a bit.

And that’s that. Cheren is sad/frustrated because we have the same number of badges, his starter is fully evolved and useful, and yet he still can’t win. Of course he can’t; the run would be over if he did.

But before we can celebrate and get into the grass, the plot arrives.

Team Plasma please. At least I have the option of going into the grass before getting the little girl’s pokemon back. Which I will take.

Let’s see what we get!

...Another thing that doesn’t need my help to evolve. Sigh.

As ever, that only gets a chance to annoy me if I catch it, so time to see how that train goes. I’m going to try throwing my only Great Ball. Psywave got it into the red, so...

!

Awesome! Based on videos I have seen recently most people aren’t that lucky when it comes to catching these things. Now I can sulk about having a fully evolved team (except for the treasured Timon) in peace.

What the heck do I name you, though? You’re a dinobird... Oh, I know. I’ll call you Ptera. Welcome to the team, Ptera. Let’s check you out.

He has a Mild nature, and he’s proud of his power. I feel like that Defense is going to end up making me cry, and I don’t think you’re a Special Attacker, so the Nature is pretty much all flavor. It’s nice to have something that can Fly; hopefully he’ll be around to use it.

...Oh geez, that Ability. Ptera Ptera Ptera... You are going to make me so sad.

The good news is he can kill his wild kin in one hit. So that’s convenient.

I’m sorry, what.

This is the exp grass now. Other finds include Octillery. Grape eats them for breakfast.

...

Oh.

It knows Aurora Beam.

It got a critical hit.

Grape was only a few points off of full health.

There was no way to know.

This is really sad.

I am so sorry Grape. You were a valued member of the team. You were only with us a short while, but you knew Grass moves. You balanced everything out wonderfully.

The exp grass is a dangerous place.

Maybe if I had just gone after the little girl’s pokemon...

It’s too late.

Grape is a raisin.

In the process of going after Team Plasma, it looks like Chimecho might be replacing Audino in the rustling grass. Maybe once, maybe always. Who can say. That would take paying more attention when messing with the settings.

A place to find Grape’s replacement. It would have been where we’d finally have a team of six, but...

Oh hey we found something already.

Okay, I can roll with that.

......Surprise, Ptera is stronger than expected. I knew enough to use Wing Attack, not Rock Throw, but I guess Ptera is just that good. Filed away for future reference. No new pokemon. A fitting tribute to Grape’s absence. The slot may remain empty for a little longer.

We get some Heal Balls from the little girl, and those could actually really come in handy. Assuming I ever properly catch a new teammate again.

One battle against an NPC later, and I think it’s safe to say Ptera is the new Frogger. He is overpowered for this section of the game.

You know what wouldn’t be overpowered? A Slugma.

I forgot about the darker grass. Route 3′s has Minccino, Teddiursa, Quilava, and Emolga.

Boeing could you please just learn something good. Please.

Whenever I see an Octillery now I’m just going to be filled with so much hate. I will kill every one that comes across my path. Unless I screw up and it kills me again, which is an absolute possibility.

We’ve made it to the next Gym city. Normal type. That shouldn’t cause any particular problem, but I do remember this fight packing more of a punch than I was expecting the first time I played, so cue the grinding montage I’m not going to screencap.

As well as the exploring the town montage I’m not going to screencap.

One of the NPCs asked me what I started with, so like a fool, I said Snivy, since that’s what Boeing replaced.

Now I have a Miracle Seed. And nothing that knows Grass moves.

Grape casts a long shadow already.

New area means new pokemon. Ones I have no plans to murder, but might very well anyway.

!!!!!

It’s. Grape’s replacement.

I love Shroomish and Breloom. One of the best pokemon in any gen, and I would dearly love one to follow me on this journey.

Yesssssss.

Let’s see. How about Palm, because your design reminds me of a pomegranate.

Palm has a Calm nature, and is somewhat of a clown. I’m pretty sure that is not the combination I want, since Breloom is more of a physical attacker, but hopefully it won’t matter too much. Poison Heal is a useful Ability to have.

Other things we could have caught in Pinwheel Forest: Vileplume, Froslass, Klink, Clamperl, Bellossom, Glaceon, Ducklett, and Metagross.

Wow. That’s a nice collection.

Oh hey and this happened.

Timon is now a robust Pignite, and has a move that will be of great use in the Gym!

We’re just going through the forest and annihilating everyone, but I spared a moment to commemorate Palm’s moment.

Tympole confused him, and he still used Absorb twice in a row instead of hurting himself. Then he snapped out of confusion and won. Contrary Nature aside, I am liking our new addition very much.

Especially since the fight against the next Tympole followed the exact same script. Good job, Palm.

The rest of this is basically all grinding, which is fun for me since I don’t have to come up with something clever to say when nothing much is going on. That is one benefit of doing this in this format.

My usual rule of thumb for these games is ten levels per gym until that much grinding becomes unbearable. Everyone’s currently level 18 (Ptera’s 16 and trying to fix that almost resulted in a Glaceon murdering him), and I’m thinking I might have hit that point.

...Yeah, I definitely have. I’ll just hit the Gym and let Ptera nom some things. Boeing will probably have to sit this fight out, because as we all know, what Normal type really means is Lillipups that know Bite. Those are not things for Boeing to face.

It is amazing how many different patches of grass suddenly have pokemon when I’m trying to leave a place, good grief.

Hello, am I fighting you again already? Or are you just doing your mysterious thing?

No, yeah, we’re doing a battle. And he opens with a level 13 Pidove to my level 17 Ptera. I don’t think he’s going to win this one. N, of course. Ptera has it in the bag, because I think it’s fair to say I have overleveled myself.

Palm was continuing his great streak of not letting Tympoles make him hurt himself, but sadly he did hurt himself once in this fight. Still, not bad, and much better than I usually get saddled with.

Ptera fighting the Timburr might be an incredibly stupid idea. He can one-shot them, but if they get a Rock Throw crit, it will be bad. This has been learned from the Fighting trainers in the wild that I didn’t screencap.

Those guys were at level 16, though. N’s level 13 is nowhere near the same brand of problem, and Ptera cleans up.

Alright, that settled, can I enter the gym now?

I forgot about the museum in front. Lenora’s got good taste.

Another Fresh Water for me. This one I don’t plan on using up. I don’t think I’ll need to, based on N’s levels. I really overtrained for this whole badge, probably. But that’s okay. I don’t like worrying about my pokemon dying every fight. Steamrolling is fine too. The main fun with all of this is finding out what I’ll end up with and raising them.

Then the very first trainer has a level 17 Patrat.

I feel less silly in my decisions.

Followed by a level 17 Herdier.

This is where I would consider doing more grinding, except by the time I’ve decided to stop grinding, I am generally not going to start again for a while.

The trainer with more than one pokemon starts with a level 15 Lillipup, so the Gym Leader’s are probably around 17-20. That should be okay. I’m healing before I go forward anyway, and Ptera’s going to grow another level beforehand just by beating this last trainer.

I really like Lenora’s Gym. It’s educational and has a secret staircase. I don’t think you can ask for more (though if memory serves, some of these get pretty wild this version).

Heals, then fight. This should be fine.

I want this office.

Ready... FIGHT!

She’s opening with a level 18 Herdier with Intimidate. Sigh. I forgot that was an ability. That might make this a little more awkward than I want, but Ptera is still part Rock. If things are going to go wrong, they should go wrong slowly enough for me to switch.

Take Down with a Leer boost only does 12, so yeah, this should be okay.

She uses a Super Potion, it takes three of any of Ptera’s attacks to down it, but Ptera gets a crit, and it’s Watchdog time!

I remembered she had this one.

For the sake of safety, I’m going to let Timon and his super effective attack handle this one. I think the Watchdog likes to sleep things.

A level 20 Watchdog. Do not want. But I believe in you, Timon. Go for it.

Uh.

Huh.

Fuck?

That’s. Wow, okay.

Watchdog with Retaliate. Awesome.

I don’t trust Ptera’s Defense to withstand whatever comes next, so Frogger... please do not die. Please. I need you to be alive and useful, because I just lost one of the greatest helps to this run.

Of course it has Hypnosis.

It’s so red. So close.

Retaliate does 30 damage without the fainting teammate ahead of time, and now Frogger is asleep and in the red. He needs to get out of there now, but I think Pursuit could be one of Watchdog’s moves.

I have one Soda Pop. He’s asleep anyway, so I’m willing to try it.

Geez this is scary.

tfw Watchdog also has Crunch and now Frogger’s Defense is lowered.

He isn’t faster, I don’t think. Even if he wakes up...

Switched to Palm and now Palm’s asleep.

Switching back to Frogger.

Frogger takes two Crunches, needs a Fresh Water, the next Crunch is a critical hit, and Frogger is still asleep. I have two Super Potions, now one, and Frogger is still alive and still asleep.

What in the fuck.

I know the sleep counter gets reset if you pull it out, but come on.

He finally wakes up, and because Watchdog only needed one more hit, victory is achieved.

Not worth it.

Lenora I don’t like you anymore.

And before we can end this segment, Team Plasma attacks the museum. Yay, plot. Plot to distract from the pain. The horrible, sad, awful, pain.

I can’t even remember their excuse for stealing the skull. Was there one?

I don’t know and care even less.

So we are assigned to search for the thieves with Burgh, Castelia’s Gym Leader, while Cheren and Bianca stay at the museum. Bianca is playing Fennel’s gopher, so we now have Dowsing Machine (MCHN) we will never remember to use, but if you’ll excuse me, I have more important matters to attend to.

...Bye.

I know the screenshots don’t show it, but you did a great job. Nothing else would have survived the gym if you hadn’t made training in Pinwheel Forest so straightforward. You did good, Timon.

Next Gym gets grinding. No complaints.