Introduction.
As you may know, the Pokémon fandom is very creative. They have made a lot of different challenges to increase the replay value of the games, such as the Nuzlocke and its variants. I've always liked these type of ideas where you restrict yourself to make a game more difficult, so I decided to try to overcome a Pokémon Fire Red run with Hardcore Nuzlocke rules, adding a little extra: No catching wild Pokémon.
Rules.
- If a Pokémon faints, it is considered dead and must be permaboxed.
- No catching wild Pokémon.
- Species Clause.
- I can only get one Pokémon per route.
- Every Pokemon obtained must be nicknamed.
- No items in battle (held items are allowed).
- Do not level past the level of the next Gym leader or final Elite 4 member.
- Play on "Set" battle mode.
- If I whiteout, I lose the challenge.
Explanation.
- If a Pokémon faints, it is considered dead and must be permaboxed.
- No catching wild Pokémon.
- Species Clause.
- I can only get one Pokémon per route.
- Every Pokemon obtained must be nicknamed.
- No items in battle (held items are allowed).
- Do not level past the level of the next Gym leader or final Elite 4 member.
- Play on "Set" battle mode.
- If I whiteout, I lose the challenge.
Explanation.
For the ones asking how it is possible to beat the game without actually catching wild Pokémon, I will use gifted or purchasable creatures during the run. This means I actually have access to these options and their evolutionary line:
Starters:
Route 4:
Celadon City:
Silph S.A. :
Celadon Game Corner:
Cinnabar City:
These are all the Pokémon in the main campaign that can be obtained without catching them. Notably, the 3 starters reduces to only 1, Celadon City and the Celadon Game Corner are considered as the same route, and I can only get one fossil. This means I can have a 5 member team if everything goes well. Once cleared this, let's get to the first attempt.Route 4:
Celadon City:
Silph S.A. :
Celadon Game Corner:
Cinnabar City:
Attempt 1#
I started the run knowing one thing: I had to chose Bulbasaur, and that Bulbasaur needed to get the right nature so we can get pass the first battle with the rival. I know this may seems like a dumb thing, but I'm going to explain it later.
So I named the my character "Trabuco", named my rival "Roberto", and went straight into action.I named the Bulbasaur "Choco", and he had a Bold nature, which lowers his Attack but raises his Defense. This could be useful against Roberto's Charmander, as it allows "Choco" to tank hits more effectively.
This resulted in a attempt to lower Charamander's Attack with Growl, so my Bulbasaur could win. Charmander hits me with a crit, making me lose at my first attempt.
Attempt 4#
I had to lose 3 attempts so Bulbasaur could finally get the Nature and the Stats to win this single battle. Why was this happening? Well, let me explain.
VS
Thankfully, Choco got an Adamant nature, which increseases Attack and decreases Special Attack, allowing him to hit as hard as possible. The Special Attack drop may cause some issues, but we can just train him with effort values.
My mon outsped Charmander, and was able to finish him.
From here, things went pretty good. Nothing interesting happened until we got to Viridian Forest. There, I avoided the trainers so I could train my future Magikarp later. I did fight wild Caterpies so I could get effort values on HP. We got to Pewter City and swept Brock without any problems.
Now, I got really scaried by that girl.
That girl had a Pidgey with Gust. I ran into her by accident, and her Pidgey tried to finish Choco. The grass phrog used Leech Seed until the Pidgey fainted, and the other Pokémon of her team, who I believe was a Rattata, wasn't a problem. I had to battle one or two trainers, and avoided the other ones, allowing Choco to gain enough XP to finally evolve.
And, finally got to my second encounter: Phish.
Then, I went back to fight all the trainers I avoided before so I could train Phish. That included the rival battle next to the Pokémon League. I beat Roberto, and saved my game there. The next level cap is 21, so I'm allowed to evolve Phish into Gyarados, but for now, the team looks like this:
Stay tuned for the next episode!
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