Category: Nuzlocke

Posted in Gaming, Nuzlocke, Pokemon

AS Nuzlocke Pt 2: Victory and Loss

Posted on by Aywren Sojourner

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In my first Nuzlocke post, I was gathering my starting team together and heading out into Route 104 to do some training. Everything went well here. I just worked on getting most of my team at around level 6, and took on some of the trainers in the area to see how my strength matched theirs.

Petalburg Woods Catch: Shroomish

After I felt my team was in a good enough spot, I headed to the next zone, the Petalburg Woods. I’ve been attempting to capture the Pokemon that you sneak up on in the grass, since sometimes they give you a hint as to what they are, and they seem a little stronger than the surrounding Pokemon.

This time, I succeeded, and came out of my first battle with a Shroomish, whom I named Wezen.

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Team Sketch

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At first I was a little meh about the Shroomish, but he’s kinda growing on me now. No pun intended.

While training in the woods, something else also happened!

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My first evolution! Granted, it was only at level 7. But hey, Rischa survived long enough to evolve. That’s a good thing, right?

I continued on through the woods, fighting trainers and eventually moving forward in the story a bit. There, I finally received the Experience Share item, which is going to be loads of help.

Along the way, we faced a trainer who had nothing but three Magikarp.

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See why I say he’s growing on me?

Rustboro City Gym

So, I tackled my first gym in Rustboro City. Here, I had to battle with Roxanne who uses rock type Pokemon. I decided that Pi, who remains the highest level of my group still, and his water type attacks will be my main go-to. Gienah, who also has water type attack would be my back-up.

Only, that didn’t turn out so well. Pi took down Roxanne’s Geodude for the first round. But I was getting nervous that the Rock Tomb move had knocked him down to half health. So, silly me, I brought out Gienah to face the second battle, not knowing that her Nosepass was level 14.

Needless to say, Gineah took a chunk out of the Nosepass’ health, but fainted in one hit to Rock Tomb. I felt pretty crummy about it because this was an avoidable death… although, as I said before, I went into this battle blind, so I knew nothing about the Pokemon that Roxanne was going to use aside from they were rock types.

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Defeated in Rustboro Gym by Roxanne’s Nosepass.

Bummer.

It was actually Wezen who filled the spot and finished out the battle for the win as I was still way too skittsh to bring in Pi, even if I probably could have healed him up just fine.

However, on a happier note, this happened after that battle.

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Kinda funky looking there, Rischa. But I’ll take it, especially after I just lost my other flying type.

So I won the battle and my first badge…

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But now my team has its first loss.

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I guess it’s time to find another team member.

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Posted in Gaming, Nuzlocke, Pokemon

Pokemon Nuzlocke Team Sketches

Posted on by Aywren Sojourner

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In my first Nuzlocke post, I mentioned that I wanted to try my hand at sketching my little rag-tag team. Since that seems to be what  lot of players who do Nuzlockes do…

I’m not a very practiced Pokemon artist. I’ve only drawn Pikachu a handful of times and Mudkip once. So if these are wonky, blame it on inexperience, and the fact that I’m drawing with ink gel pens I’ve never drawn with before.

At first, I just thought to do black and white art, but then I remembered I have a whole box of glitter gel pens, and went for a multi-colored approach. I’m not going to say any of these are perfectly true to design, but I gave it a shot!

pi
Piscium (Pi) – Mudkip Starter
canis
Canis – Poochyena
gienah
Gienah – Wingull
enif
Enif – Zigzagoon
rischa
Rischa – Wurmple

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Posted in Gaming, Nuzlocke, Pokemon

Pokemon Noob: Alpha Sapphire Nuzlocke Pt 1

Posted on by Aywren Sojourner

I’m still quite a noob when it comes to playing Pokemon. I’m always learning something brand new about the series.

Not too long ago, I stumbled across the concept of the Nuzlocke Challenge, where players place specific rules on how they can progress through a Pokemon game, and see how far they can get. The most appealing part of this to me is that the idea is to forge strong bonds with your Pokemon, even though these are not Pokemon you would generally choose for your party.

I thought hard and long about how I wanted to approach this. Pokemon X was my first ever completed game in the series, and I still haven’t fully explored post-game content yet. So I didn’t want to delete my progress there. I’m still working through Pokemon Sun. I had a copy of Soul Silver that I’d never beat, but I’m spoiled by playing the more modern Pokemon games…

So I decided to pick up Pokemon Alpha Sapphire, which I have never played and know nothing about, and start a Nuzlocke of my very first attempt. I don’t know if this is a smart move, but I’ve begun, and I’m going to see it through (though it might go slowly since I’m still putting time into Sun).

My Rules

  • I may only catch the first Pokémon encountered in each area, and none else.
  • Any Pokémon that faints is considered dead, and must be put in the Pokémon Storage System permanently.
  • I must  must also nickname all of my Pokémon, for the sake of forming stronger emotional bonds.
  • I do not consider a black out/white out to be “game over.” I can keep playing as long as there are living Pokémon left in the PC.
  • Dupes Clause – I can keep fighting Pokémon in the area until one is encountered that has not been caught yet, which then immediately counts as the first encounter.
  • Name Theme: Stars and Constellations

Building My Team

I chose Mudkip as my starter, since I adore Mudkips, and named him Piscium. Probably just call him Pi for short.

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Route 101 Catch: Poochyena

After going through the introduction and receiving my first Pokeballs, I head out to Route 101. There, my rival Brendan points out the tall moving grass, so I sneak up on it and catch myself a Poochyena. I name him Canis.

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Route 103 Catch: Wingull

I then traveled back north, past Oldale Town, where my first catch was a Wingull named Gienah. I was happy to catch her because she provides a flying type to my team, which I hope will help round it out some.

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Route 102 Catch: Zigzagoon

Since the rest of Route 103 is blocked by water for now, I headed west of Oldale Town to Route 102. There, I caught the inevitable Zigzagoon, whom I named Enif.

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I spent some time on Route 102 leveling my team and battling the trainers there. Since it was so close to the Pokecenter, and some of my members, like Enif, were having trouble finishing fights, I thought it was a good time to strengthen up.

I didn’t want to level too much, however, because I only get one shot at capturing a Pokemon each time I find a new route. So, I wanted to keep some of my Pokemon within a lower range in order to not just obliterate everything by accident when I come across it.

I arrived in Petalburg City, where I was concerned I’d have to face my character’s Dad in a gym challenge. Surprisingly, though, he tells me to move along to another city first. So, after exploring the town a bit, that’s what I did.

Route 104 Catch: Wurmple

So my careful training paid off because I was able to catch the level 2 Wurmple I found on this route, rather than just slaughtering it.

Bug types have always been kinda meh to me, but the more variety I can get on my team, the better, I suppose. I named her Rischa.

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So, here we have my team so far. I’m going into this game 100% blind and a complete noob at Nuzlocke. I think my next goal is to level Rischa a little and make my way through the battles on Route 104.

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Thoughts So Far

Believe it or not, this might actually be a faster way for me to play a Pokemon game. I say that because I tend to always get distracted by hunting for and catching the new Pokemon on a Route because I itch to catch them all. If I’m limited to only catching one per route and not fretting about which ones are going to be the best on my team, then I can concentrate on just catching and leveling what I have instead of getting constantly sidetracked by tall grass.

I foresee this playthrough to be slow, and I’m not 100% sure how to document this in an interesting way. I’d like to do some art for it, but I’d have to scrounge up the time. We’ll see what comes of it.

Wish me luck!

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