#she is VERY anti Diglett

[sage-nebula]

If I play video of my dog howling, it always makes her start howling again IRL. She's basically like, "I said it before, and I'll SAY IT AGAIN." Honestly gotta respect her commitment to her word.

[nuzblog]

October 26th, 2017

I have come before you tonight with dreadful news. One member of my party will not make it out of this entry alive. This very sad fact makes me very sad, and it will make you very sad when it happens.

But before I can tell you that story, I must first tell you this story.

Mt. Moon, as you may be aware... is a difficult dungeon for Nuzlockers. I go ahead and do the obvious thing, walking inside back and forth for a little bit. My first encounter is not nearly as lucky as the Jigglypuff or Weedle. No matter how much I could be hoping for Paras (the pre-evolved form of my favorite Gen 1 Pokemon), Zubat is what I get. Still, it's not as though I dislike Zubat. I go ahead and catch it. I name it Kenny. By the by, my nicknaming scheme has been guessed correctly. I won't say it here, in case anyone else wants a chance to guess - you might also get one of the Pokemon from this journey when it's over! At this point though it's pretty obvious, I think.

Randy only knows Leech Life, which is not yet a useful move, but IS one of the 3 damaging Bug moves that exist. This comes in pretty handy, actually, despite its low power.

Anyway, now that I've got a full team of 6, I go ahead and... grind! For like ever. I walk all the way back through Pewter, then Viridian Forest, then south to Palett, to heal at home... and then walk back to Route 3 where strong enough Pokemon to grind off of are. I do this like 3 times over, to where my two new guys are Level 10, before I start to venture a little further into Mt. Moon, fighting trainers, still going back home whenever healing is needed.

I collect the TM for Water Gun. Shelley could learn it, but she's gonna learn it from level up soon anyway. Lemmy could learn it... but so could Randy. And Randy's movepool is pretty limited right now. And he's lower leveled, so could use the anti-Geodude weapon, to keep more XP for himself. So I teach it to Randy.

I later collect the TM for Mega Punch. This also goes to Randy, filling his moveset out to a full 4. Around this time, Lemmy learns Hyper Fang - both moves have 80 base damage, when previously, my highest base damage was 40 on moves such as Quick Attack and Pound, so this is a pretty huge boost for my two Normal types.

Speaking of moves, can we briefly talk about the move Wrap? It might not be too bad in this game, since Ekans isn't wild (unlike in Red), but in Generation 1, moves such as Wrap, Bind and Constrict are... very silly. Whereas in later games, being squeezed in that manner is essentially identical to things like Fire Spin or Sand Tomb - inability to escape, and recurring damage at the end of each turn - Gen 1 makes them also prevent either you or the opponent from moving. Even though it makes sense to be able to bite someone who's grappling you, in the Pokemon World of Red, Blue, Green and Yellow, when you are constricted by a snake, your only hope is that its incremental damage will be low and it uses Leer on its next turn of action, or it will simply rewrap you. The one Rocket with an Ekans in Mt. Moon was pretty annoying as a result.

I also found a Moon Stone, and had a bit of a debate with myself on whether or not to use it on Randy now. I looked at its level up movepools between both Jigglypuff and Wigglytuff in Generation 1, and learned that Defense Curl (useless), Body Slam, and Double Edge (which is a TM) would be unavailable to me. Body Slam isn't a huge loss, and TMs can pick up the slack, so I go ahead and evolve Randy, giving it all 3 of these nice items I've found in Mt. Moon.

I walk past the Rocket I recall has a Raticate, since Raticate Rocket is a real rapscallion who ravaged my previous party.

At the end of Mt. Moon, there is a Super Nerd who has a Koffing, Voltorb, and Grimer. (My name in Pokemon Go, which is my Trainer Class and then as much of my name as would fit, is SuperNerdSter. Irrelevant, but also... relevant.) I would like to take this opportunity to discuss sprite oddities in Gen 1, since Koffing's sprite here has the skull and crossbones above its eyes, which is different from the classic Koffing design. In general, these earlier games took a lot more liberties with the designs. For my favorite example, you can look no further than my own party - Kenny's evolution into Golbat will also give it a huge, actively slobbering tongue to go with that enormous mouth, as well as squinty eyes that make it look both creepy and like it is bothered by light, both of which are slightly better than the regular eyes it has now, but still far far worse than the no eyes that its pre-evolution has. I feel that if Golbat had no eyes like Zubat, and still had its tongue, it would be one of my favorite ever Pokemon, instead of just one that I think is fine. Maybe not surpassing Parasect, but coming close.

Another notable sprite change is in a Pokemon I've encountered a few times before as well, Kakuna. In Gen 1, it has ARMS! The arms are still there in later generations, but are constantly flush to its body and no longer seem to have any range of movement. Which is a bummer! I loved Kakuna's arms.

Anyway. I chose the Dome Fossil, which I like, but I'm not gonna use it. I have... other plans, for Cinnabar Island. ;)

By the time I get onto the other side of Mt. Moon, my team is level 15. I could progress from here to Cerulean...

But first. I have some unfinished business.

I go ahead and walk all the way home again - for the last time. until after the Diglett Tunnel. And then I go back... to finish off the completion for Mt. Moon. I pick a fight with Raticate Rocket and his illegal Raticate, who murdalized my guys last time I fought him. This time, he is not so lucky.

Anyway. Back to progress. Unlike the two sides of Viridian Forest, the entrance and exit to Mt. Moon are on different Routes! Route 4 is new, so I hop down, now unable to return home, and run around, finding a... drumroll please... Sandshrew! I've never actually used one of these before, except I might have in one of my millions of Emerald playthroughs, where they are pretty plentiful in the desert. I also can't find one to save my life in Pokemon Go, since I started playing after they were removed from eggs. So I'm pretty jazzed to see this little fella. He's also Level 12, which is the maximum for the route, and pretty close to the rest of my team! His name is, after much debate, Leopold.

I add him to the party and heal at the Pokemon Center, setting Lemmy in the PC for now. I might as well take this opportunity to lock in a rule addendum I've been adhering to, but not specifically mentioned, so I no longer have the potential to weasel out of it. I did say these rules might be changing a little as we do this first game.

Rule 4c: At any given Pokemon Center, that Center's heal comes before any outstanding Notable Battle Heals that haven't been spent yet.

So for example, healing here at the Cerulean City Pokemon Center is the Cerulean City Heal, and not the Brock Heal. Got it? Good.

Now, I go ahead and have a pretty unsuccessful grinding session, on a similar "until I need healing" basis to one of them previous grinding sessions. Leopold gets to Level 14, and Randy gets to 16, but it's otherwise not great. Ah well. I heal again, since I have no way of progress without making another Notable Battle happen and I don't want to waste a heal. (In retrospect I could have knocked down some gym trainers, maybe gotten better XP than the grass gave.)

And then, I head North to Nugget Bridge, ready for yet another face off against Ash. I do like how frequently you encounter him in this game. Later Pokemon Games have a steadily shrinking rival presence, and a steadily more nonantagonistic role for the "rival." Like, the last 3 generations, your rival is actually just your friend who likes to fight Pokemon sometimes.

Unfortunately... I am underleveled. Pretty badly, looks like - Pidgeotto is Level EIGHTEEN. Whoops. I head into combat anyway, switching out when things look hairy, starting off with my two powerhouses, Randy and Lemmy...

Sadly, and tragically, an unexpected critical hit knocked just over the edge of Randy's health. Randy... is dead.

October 25th, 2017 - October 26th, 2017.

Poor Randy. We barely knew ye. And we funneled a bunch of resourced into ye that have now been wasted and are unrecoverable. :,(

Pidgeotto goes down fine after that, though - next is Abra, who only knows teleport, so I take the opportunity to use my last two Potions on Lemmy and on Shelley, whose high defense was the difference against the Pidgeotto. I then use Kenny's super effective WAIT SHIT AS I'M WRITING THIS I LITERALLY ONLY JUST NOW REALIZED I BROKE RULE 3.

Um. Whoops.

In all fairness, looking at HP and PP totals, I never actually used Windy or Bebe during that fight, so technically I did only use 4 Pokemon, but I did forget to box two of them. Boy, rules are hard to remember!

Leech Life. It's the super effective one. Remember how I said it would be useful? It was.

Then came Rattata, who I fought with my own Rattata. My Hyper Fang caused a flinch, and dropped it low enough for Quick Attack to finish it off.

After that, I switched back to Kenny, because thanks to Bug being weirdly good on Poison, Leech Life is Double Super Effective on Ash's Bulbasaur. Victory, despite being underleveled, with only one casualty.

And that's where I am - I'm at the Pokemon Center, in front of the PC, where I've swapped the deceased Randy for the extant Leopold.

Ah... poor Randy. You shall be missed.