Xisode 6: So I may be responsible for showdown becoming blocked at my work....

Our intrepid hero sets off from 6th gym town (I have no idea what any of the cities actual names are, I don't think I've retained a city name since gold/silver) and is immediately distracted from his quest by the dastardly  devices of PLOT DEVELOPMENT. The insidious Team Flare has captured the local pokeball factory, and are in the process of a massive ball heist!
Of course, Habberdash intervenes. Otherwise he won't be allowed to the next route where his next potential teammate is waiting. The team plowed through grunts steadily in your standard pokemon meets SWAT team hostage saving maneuver. The whole affair was longer than the rocket takeover of lavender tower, but shorter than silph co. So about as long as the game corner hideout. This was the first time Gullbee the Wingull had seen much action. He'd been hanging out on the team as a flyer for a while, but hadn't battled at all. with the core three of Colby the Chestnaught, Smithers the Blastoise and Grumble the Granbull being way ahead in levels, it was becoming more and more apparent that we needed some decently leveled support 'mons.
As we finally reach the executives in charge of the operation, I'm forced to team up with my rival. I still resent her deeply for when she ended the life of Trungle the Tyrunt when he was still so young. We found ourselves battling along side the very same meowstic that had slain Trungle, except this time her battling was completely ineffectual and I had to pull the team's weight myself in typical rival team-up fashion.

Meowstic

<--- Murderer












Nevertheless we send Team Flare packing and receive some hazy explanation of a plan involving recreating the world by hogging all the pokeballs to themselves.

We set out on the next route eager for a new teammate. We are somewhat perplexed to meet Garfunkle the Klefki. A steel-fairy type (fairies are everywhere in this version) with prankster and some interesting moves. I add it to the team with hopes of using it as a status inducer/special sweeper, filling the gap left by Bunkle the Carbink.

Garfunkle

At the next town I'm slightly relieved to find there is no gym. I need some time to get my teams levels evened out. I can't keep relying on on three dudes to get me through the game. In addition to the route leading onward from this town, there is also a route leading back to an old city that is now accessible, an abandoned pokemon infested hotel on said route, and an ice cave ,which means 4 new encounters before the next gym!
The next route yielded scooter the Skorupi. He had a ways to go until he evolved, but a Drapion kicked my butt in the black version elite 4, so I was excited to have him. The abandoned hotel first encounter was an electrode who promptly used self-destruct. I cleverly found a loophole that would allow me a new catch anyway by pretending it didnt happen (nuzlocke cheat: 1). The second encounter was another electrode who was also a part of the same creepy suicide pact. I elected to ignore that one as well. The third encounter however, was Betty the pawniard. I'd always kind of wanted to train a Bisharp, so I welcomed him despite having both of his types being covered by Scooter, who would evolve into a dark type and Garfunkle the steel type. About this time I turned off the exp share. I was never going to even out the levels with it on, so I sucked it up and went back to grinding the old fashioned way. With 3 new teammembers and two more on the way, I decided to box Grover. He'd overcome his muderous Sawk heritage to be a real contributor to the team. He could dish out a lot of hurt, but only really had fighting moves, and I needed some versatility. If I ever have another series of horrendous deaths, he'll be a great backup.

Scooter

Betty

We enter the mysterious ice cave for our next catch. HOT DAMN, A HAUNTER. Welcome to the team, Felix! This is especially perfect as my team had recently started to look like a bunch of  murderous little beanie babies. At least now it would have a medium sized one as well. I also happened to have some gengarite he could mega evolve with burning a hole in my bag. We're going to do this right. I pull out all the stops. I super train and affection grind to max right away. I even find a stranger on Reddit to trade him with so I end up with a Gengar who is already better trained than anyone else on my team. Felix is going to be a hoss. At least he was supposed to be. Until a hariyama who knew payback dodged his hypnosis and laid him out in one attack.....
Ok, I'm calling a mulligan. I'm just starting to grind without exp share and I cannot lose someone I just spend an hour training just because he's underleveled. Plus, I really want to use mega gengar (nuzlocke cheat: 2) (this might have happened one more time...or two more). Yes, I'm awful. Sorry.
We break up another Team Flare party where they were harassing an Abomasnow to try and get it to give them its energy or something, idk, and head on to the next town. On the way we catch Westley the Sneasel. I think the game is disappointed in me about the cheating and is giving me pokemon to fit my criminal background. A dark/poison, a dark/steel, a ghost/poision, and a dark/ice. I could have the evilest looking team ever if I wanted right now.

The 7th gym is psychic type.  MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Team evil will have a blast with this. Scooter has evolved to Drapion, so we set off with him, Betty and Felix at the front. Westley Sneasel remains benched for now. Felix cruises through the gym trainers. He is able to one-shot every single thing in the gym (except a gardevoir, which took two). The trend of the gym seems to be that every trainer has a single fully evolved, high level psychic type, but they cant stand up to Felix. He's still a little behind in levels, but catching up quick with the help of a lucky egg. We breeze through everything until we come face to face with the leader. I don't even bother healing up, Felix spent a total of 7 pp moving through the gym and didnt lose any health.

Felix flattens the first of the leader's three pokemon, a sigilyph and moves on to the next, a Slowking. Welp, shadow ball has worked well so far, no reason to stop now. Felix's first attack leaves slowking clinging on with just a few pixels worth of health. It was still too much. His super effective psychic wastes Felix as fast as Felix had wasted every other pokemon in the gym. I'm sorry buddy, I can't save you this time. It must be karma for my past offenses to the Nuzlocke gods. I didn't even get to mega-evolve him, I was too fixated on leveling first. Scooter the drapion quickly wraps up the rest of the gym (her last pokemon was another damn meowstic, ugh) and we move on.

Immediately upon exiting the gym, we're called by the mysterious individual Lysandre who had shown up periodically on the quest and offered mysterious platitudes about beauty and a better world. What?? you mean the shady recurring NPC whose ideals strangely match up with those of the area's organized crime syndicate was their leader the whole time?? And now he's going to destroy the world?? Who would have guessed?

I suppose the way they dress could have been a hint

 

Team Flare Grunts                                                                  Lysandre

 What crazy adventure awaits Habberdash? Will the fashionable and power-hungry team Flare emerge victorious? Or will they prove to be simply style over substance? Find out next time, on Joe's Xlocke challenge!


Badges: 7
Deaths: 10
Cheats: 2


Current team

Smithers, Blastoise
Toxic
Surf
Bite
Water Pulse

Colby, Chesnaught
Body Slam
Leech seed
seed bomb
Spiky shield

Grumble, Granbull
Charm
Play rough
fire fang
Strength


Scooter, Drapion
Crunch
fell stinger
toxic spikes
cross poison

Gullbee, Pelipper
Fly
Water pulse
roost
stockpile

Betty, Pawniard
I dont even remember. Hasn't battled much yet. I'll have to check.
SPOILER: it doesnt matter any more :(

As a bonus, here's a map of the last episode. It had a lot of backtracking so the visual aid helps a lot.

 Double bonus, here is a site devoted to Espurr, the unevolved Meowstic, that is perfect for halloween.
http://espurr.net/

Will of Fire; Heart of Stone

In my last post my team was suffering from their first loss to a evil zubat--due to my cockiness, yes--but, we mourned Muhamedali and Naruto stepped in.  Naruto the Vulpix was placed at the front of my party in order to get those levels up.  I found an area of grass that had a lot of raticates in order to get his speed leveled up, too.  We were at the grind again, and it was going along nicely.  I was getting a little bored just fighting wild pokemon, so I decided to head on down to Cianwood City.  I had Naruto the Vulpix in the front, so I did a lot of switching out to Shocker the (now) Ampharos to take out the swimmer's pokemon quickly and safely.  We made it down to the lone city of Cianwood.  Here I wandered around and helped out a fellow trainer by taking his Shuckle for safe keeping.  (Because my darn rival, Dakota, stole his sneasal!)

Let's slow down a bit and say where we are.  I have 4 badges, and am supposed to get the Cianwood Gym badge now, but for some reason I decide I want to take on Olivine City's gym leader Jasmine, the steel type master.  I was thinking about it, and this is why I need Naruto the vulpix.  His fire attacks will be able to handle those steel pokemon well.  I didn't want to put DEVASTATOR the Feraligator in there because I assumed that many of her pokemon would be magnemites or magnetons with a good chance for a Steelix (I am liking that I have forgotten a lot of the game from when I played through it, so I don't remember all the gym leaders' crew).  So, here I am, making my way around.  Naruto the vulpix is getting to be in the upper 20s of level, DEVASTATOR the feraligator is in his 30s with a solid crew surrounding him.  But, for some reason, I decide to wait on going for the gyms yet.  I want to level up Naruto a little more because I realize that Mahogany Town's gym leader has Ice pokemon (perfect for Naruto to take them out, too).  BUT, I think that it is ripe time to venture back to the area where we lost Muhamedali the Beedrill.  SO, we venture up North of Mahogany Town towards the Lake of Rage.  I remember the Red Gyarados and this is enough to spark my interest.  We surf out to the water and to our luck we do not run into any wild pokemon until we face the red gyarados!  We are able to whittle him down as well as paralyze him, and a couple net balls later and voilà! we caught ourselves a red gyarados!  I sent Carnage to bill's pc and then this guy Lance (***Spoiler Alert*** he's the dragon master and pretty much my pokemon idol) shows up and thanks me for helping with the red gyarados but he needs my help again in the "Convenient Store" in Mahogany Town because he is suspicious of it.  Umm, yesss I will help you with whatever you want Lance.  JUST ACKNOWLEDGE ME!

TEAM ROCKET!?!  Yes.  Team Rocket is back, and they are here for, you guessed it, trouble (Make it double).  They are making the pokemon evolve!  So, I help Lance in the basement taking out hordes of Rocket grunts like they are the tops of dandelions and my pokemon are my shoe.  But, let me warn you:  Rocket Executives are not to be taken lightly.  The final boss had a zubat (patooy!), koffing, and a raticate.  I was leaving Naruto the vulpix in because by now he was level 31 and his flamethrower was not to be meddled with.  He took out zubat and koffing easily, but then raticate came in.  He hyper fangs me and takes me down to 2/3rds health.  No biggie.  Flamethrower takes him down into the red.  I decide to use quick attack just in case he crits me and finishes me off.  Naruto does quick attack and...it. does. not. kill. him.  wut.  Well, no biggie, hyper fang will only take out another 1/3rd of my...NOOOoooooo.  Hyper fang finishes off Naruto!  Gah.  DEVASTATOR!  Avenge him!

So now I am down my one good fighting chance for taking on BOTH the ice gym and the steel gym.  Crap.  Mourning takes place, we have a moment of silence, but, like the good Naruto he is, we know that he would want us to keep fighting.  One does not take on the road to being Hokage without knowing that there will be sacrifices, and no one knows that better than Naruto himself.

I then looked at my crew and realized that Krunk the geodude, would be best for taking on the steel type.  So, I leveled him up fast, and headed to Olivine City to take on Jasmine with her steel type.  Krunk was ready.  His rock/ground was perfect for the magnemite that came out.  Magnitude destroyed them.  Then, she sent out Steelix.  I knew it.  Welp, Magnitude it is.  Magnitude 7!  Sweet.  It's super effective.  Not sweet, it only took out 15% of his health.  Uh oh.  Iron tail, one shot, buh-bye Krunk.  Crap.  Go DEVASTATOR!  Avenge him!  And he did.  I was able to use surf which was super effective and take him out.  Then her second magnemite was no match, either.

Now we were 3 down.

Muhamedali the Beedrill, Naruto the vulpix (Will of Fire), and Krunk the geodude (Heart of Stone)

Their sacrifices were not in vain because now we had 5 badges, and we were able to quickly take out Pryce and receive the glacier badge in Mahogany Town with Shocker the Ampharos being a boss.

Now, we are 6 badges in, and off to Cianwood City to get that seventh badge.

We are strong, united, and determined.  We mourn the loss of our comrades but will not let that slow us down because we know they'd want us to keep marching on.  That's what it takes if you want to be the very best.

Paul's Yellow Nuzlocke: Glory Days and a Bitter Twist

We did a lot, my team and I. After clearing out Silph Co. and the Fighting Dojo, we took on Sabrina's psychic gym. Little did I know that, apparently, you're supposed to beat Koga first and come back -- a fact that I realized when my Pokemon, all in the mid 30s levelwise, faced Sabrina's Abra, Kadabra, and Alakazam, all of whom were level 50. There was no backing out at this point, so I stuck to the plan. My Kadabra, Julio, essentially a weaker version of her two Pokemon that actually had attacking moves, had a secret weapon: Seismic Toss. The move does a constant damage regardless of stats and typing. Combined with Thunder Wave and Julio's resistance to their psychic attacks, we were able to take Sabrina down and claim our badge without losses, although Julio's health got below 10 after a nasty critical hit.

The other time I  took the Nuzlocke in Gen 1 (via Leaf Green) my party suffered some serious losses on their way to this badge, and Sabrina finished them off. Now I was venturing forth into new territory.

Koga was easy, but one of his stupid lackeys with a super overleveld Hypno killed my Elsie the Fearow. I don't want to talk about it.

 I trained up Damon the Lapras on the bike route and the land route to Fuschia city, taking tons of trainers down in the process. Acquiring Surf, we traveled through the Seafoam Islands to Cinnabar Island, taking a little detour to the power plant to train up Judson the Aerodacyl. Damon was key in taking out Zapdos and Articuno without losses -- each a close fight that I would have been wiser to avoid, but proving that this Lapras does indeed have what it takes to be a champion. So, after training up a little more in the abandoned whatever, my level-40 team was ready to fight Blaine.


A note on Yellow version: earlier, I mentioned that it seemed like an easier game to nuzlocke. You get free starters, man. What could be better than a guarantee of extremely solid fire, water, and grass types? Well, it comes at a cost. The gym leaders, especially from Lt. Surge onward, have only a few pokemon, but their levels are massive -- way, way ahead of the trainers leading up to them, always a nasty surprise.


Blaine's Ninetales was tricksy, but we took him down. Damon can take the fire attacks and has Surf (as well as Ice Beam and Body Slam). Honestly, I thought we had this match in the bag with a guy like that. The Rapidash went down just as predictably, but his last Pokemon, his Arcanine, was not so easy. Here's what happened. Damon, having his max HP of 168, surfs him, doing significant damage, but not yellow-territory. The Arcanine uses take down, bringing Damon's health to about 115. We repeat the process and Blaine scores a critical hit. I figured it would do about double damage, about 100, and we'd sneak by with a few HP, but, defying all of my previous understanding of critical hits, Damon went down. I panicked. None of my Pokemon would be able to deliver a solid knockout blow at this point, probably not even Julio with his speedy Psychic attack. I figured Buzz the Nidorino, at least, could take a take down... but he couldn't take a Fire Blast. He got the Arcanine into the red, but it was Buzz's last attack. Ever.


Julio swooped in with a speedy Seismic Toss for the guaranteed K.O. and we won, but it was a battle hard fought. Two team members lost, including my oldest buddy and my most versatile butt kicker. I did happen two have two boxed pokemon with good prospects to fill the gap. Everyone, meet Hella Jeff the Snorlax (currently lvl 34 with Body Slam, Amnesia, Counter and Surf) and Jiminy the Ivysaur (lvl 29, with Vine Whip, Poisonpowder, Leech Seed, and Cut). With a little training, I think we'll be just fine. It's hard losing the Ice Beamer I planned to rock Blaine with, and for the rest of my life I'll be asking myself what would have happened if I'd evolved Buzz before the fight, but dwelling on those things won't help me to be

the best

and i want

to be

the

very

best.

Badges: 7
Deaths: 7 (Barnaby, Petekachu, Wayne, Elsie, Pancho, Damon, Buzz)

BWAHAHAHAHAHA I CAN EDIT PAUL'S POSTS! I pick my butt, whoever I am!

Xisode 5: The gyms are happening faster now

Gym battles are picking up in frequency, so here's a special 2 for 1 episode of Joe's Xlocke!

Setting out from Grass-gym town, we quickly encounter a large desert. Excited for a new catch to fill my open one, I set out. Bunkle has been lagging in levels, so he's out in front. He does hardly any damage but he takes hits like a champ. So while he doesn't see a lot of action he's always good for a quick teammate saving switch in and helping keep them safe with reflect. Using my pokedex and the fact that tauros's entry comes immediately after Carbink's I deduced that Bunkle will not evolve. This would have bugged at one point but Bunkle's utility had already solidified his place on the team.
So with Bunkle in the lead, we set off into the desert looking for our first encounter. We quickly find a dugtrio, pretty solid choice. I'm making my plan of attack as I switch Bunkle out when I freeze up. This particular dugtrio has arena trap. Meaning my weak to ground, damageless, only 5 pp attack move Bunkle is stuck in there until one of the two of them faints. I'm about to resign Bunkle to his fate as mole food when desperation kicks in. Lets start with what we can do. Reflect goes up, I havent been earthquaked yet so thats good. I test out my one damaging attack, ancient power. It does maaaybe a fifth of the dugtrio's hp. I just have to get him low enough to catch. 3 rounds later, after a few very lucky low roll magnitudes, Bunkle sits at about 1/3 health and Heartattack the dugtrio is caught and sent to the box. Maybe I can get through this next gym with out a fatality after all.

I became a little less enamored with my catch when my next two encounters were with a gabite and a trapinch. Ugggg, a Garchomp or a flygon would have been sick to have in a nuzlocke... I quickly realize that half of the pokemon in this desert have arena trap, so Bunkle can't stay in the lead. He'll have to train somewhere else.  One other craaaaaaazy thing that happened in the desert is I contracted pokerus! I've only ever gotten it once before in an emulator in all my years playing pokemon. This is my first time in a real game. I just happened to be looking at my stats in the desert and me team had been infected. I made sure to infect some dudes in my box so I would always have someone contagious. Apparently there is a 3 in 65,536 chance of finding it. Craaaaaaazy.

Also in the desert occurs my second run in with gen 6's organized crime syndicate, Team Flare. The first one was to brief and inconsequential to even mention. Their Modus operandi seems to be look as stylish as possible, and plot to make the world perfect. In a nondescript, fiendish sort of way. I had to kick them out of a power plant they had taken over for mysterious reasons which I have yet to discover. At this point, Smithers and Colby are quite overleveled, so the team isnt in any real danger as we roll through them.

The next city, containing the 5th gym, is actually the huge city where I got Smithers, now slightly more accessible. Here's a map of my travels thus far if anyone is interested.

Wooooo paint!

The 5th gym is electric. I swap out Gullby for Heartattack and head in. Most gym trainers have pokemon in the 34-38 range. Carbunkle, Grumble and Grover were around 38, Smithers and Colby 43, and Heartattack was only 30. Even so, he was usually good for one or two knockouts per match. I kept him very safe and leveled as quickly as possible. The leader battle started With trusty Bunkle vs. Emolga. I was immediately reminded of the electric gym leader in black version who had near kicked my butt with a pair of emolga. Unperturbed, Bunkle started his routine by sending out stealth rock. Emolga predictably volt switched out for a magneton, doing measly damage to my rock/fairy/tank. Then... guys... I screwed up. 

I don't even know what the attack was. I was to engrossed in my own tactics to even read the text before Bunkle's health started plummeting. For whatever reason I had never even considered this possibility, but I knew Magneton was steel and I knew Bunkle had a 4x weakness to steel , so I have no excuse. Bunkle was taken to 0 from near full hp. The saddest part was that I didn't even need that set up to win the match. I just wanted him to feel like an important part of the team and I was so used to doing it. RIP Bunkle, the most pleasent surprise of the game thus far. (Upon review, the move that killed Bunkle was most likely mirror shot).

The rest of the battle was swift. Heartattack and Grumble fell on their opponents with righteous vengeance, and the 5th badge was mine. Hopefully I'll be able to get one of these eventually without paying such a price.

Here's the leader's other pokemon. The core of his team. Idk what it does really, Heartattack killed it too fast.

Heliolisk

Part 2

Too impatient to check out the rest of the ridiculously sized town, we set off to the next route, more in need of a new teammate than ever. This route had a creepy, haunted forest vibe to it. I was excited hopefully I could snag a cool gen 6 ghost type. Instead I found Leverne the Carnivine. A pretty cool guy, but I didnt really need another grass type. 

The next town arrived quickly with minimal shenanigans. I was blocked from the next route by team flare goons for no apparent reason, so no new catches for me. 

The gym's rooms are set up identically to sabrina's gym in red/blue. 3x3 block with teleporters connecting them. Except now, the rooms are vertical, like the luigi's mansion level in smash bros. brawl. Heartattack leads the way, still trailing the team by a significant number of levels, but gaining quickly. Oh yeah, its a fairy type gym. I have experience with fairy types, with the exception of Grumble and Bunkle, so I'm a little on edge. I don't know what to expect and I have no super effective moves. I cruise through the trainers easily enough, Heartattack just hitting his stride when disaster strikes again. With a plummet very reminiscent of the last gym, Heartattack succumbed to the enemy Aromatisse's super effective energy ball. I was NOT prepared for that. So my near perfect streak of a death every gym continues. 

Seriously, I have no idea what to expect when they're throwing around pokemon like this.

I clean up the rest of the gym trainers, head back to the pokemon center two heal up and switch out Heartattack for Leverne. (another life extinguished too soon. sigh.....). I havent fought the gym leader battle so I'll let you know how that goes in just a sec.....

ok, so.
First opponent: Mawile. Paralyzed by Grumble and battered to death by Grover.

Second oponent: mr. mime. Obnoxiiously hard to kill due to walls, eventually succumbed to being toxic poisoned and bitten to death by Smithers.

Final Oponent: Sylveon (new eeveelution). Poisoned and kicked around by Mega Smithers.

Not a very exciting gym all in all. Just a lot of suspicion for pokemon I havent seen before. To be honest though, I'm ok with a little mundane if it means I can keep my team alive.

Badges: 6
Deaths: 9

Current team

Smithers, Blastoise lvl 49
Toxic
Surf
Bite
Water Pulse

Colby, Chesnaught lvl 50
Body Slam
Leech seed
seed bomb
Spiky shield

Grumble, Granbull lvl 49
Charm
Play rough (physical fairy attack)
Thunder wave
Strength

Grover, Sawk lvl 46
Retaliate
Brick break
Rock smash
bulk up

Gullbee, Pelipper lvl 33
Fly
Water pulse
roost
protect

Leverne
Leaf tornado
sweet scent
ingrain
faint attack

Xisode 4: Just kidding, now its like digimon

More than happy to put this chapter of the run behind us, Habberdash and Co. set off. Before we can leave the city though, we are challenged by the gym leader again as part of some plot junk I didnt bother to mention earlier. This time though, she's going to tell us about the secret of "MEGA EVOLUTION" dun dun DUNN!!
The battle ends up being a 1v1 between her lucario (that she didnt use in the gym battle, thankfully) and another one that she GIVES me. Straight up gives me a Lucario! Welcome to the team, Woofy! (At this point, I cannot stress enough that Lizzy is helping me name my team). Any way, Mega evolution. Mega evolution is about the most digimon thing that the pokemon series has ever done. Its essentially a temporary evolution that lasts to the end of the battle. You activate it the same turn you attack and your pokemon changes. The pokemon's stats increase, sometimes their ability changes, and it looks really BA. In order to do it, you need a key item inventory (which was given to me by the gym leader) and the pokemon needs to be holding a species specific item. Fortunetely for me, Woofy was holding Lucarioite, which allowed him to do it.

Here's a before and after of Woofy mega evolving.


Another Bonus, Smithers came with Blastoisenite when the Professor gave him to me.

Ohohohohoho. We're bringing the hurt now.

So we're feeling pretty good now and we set off down the next route. A quick check of the town map tells me that the next gym is in the very next town, only one route away with no caves or any nonsense in the way. This is a welcome change as all the gyms so far have been 2-3 towns apart. The downside is that I already facechecked this route before the last gym to catch Qwop :...( So no new catch for me.

The route went quickly enough without incident and before I knew it, I was at the next gym. I found out the 4th gym was Grass type. How pleasently gen 1. Once again, no type advantage, but Woofy and Grumble both resist grass attacks (the fairy typing is really growing on me). So, lots of slugfests abound.

The beginning actually went smoother than anticipated, Woofy had crazy high attack and a new move called power up punch that increased it further every time he used it. I was at the second to last gym trainer when disaster struck. Woofy was paralyzed but had 4 boosts in his attack and was happily mowing away at the competition. When the enemy exeggutor used confusion I wasn't phased at all. When Lucario became confused before he had a chance to attack I was mildly concerned. It wasn't until I realized his suped up attack would make his fist punch through his own torso like the chest-burster from Alien that I began literally yelling at my DS. Woofy wiped out more than half of his own health to KO himself and I sobbed uncontrollably. Woofy, we hardly new ye...

The rest of the gym was uneventful. The leader couldnt hurt Grumble or Colby, so there weren't any particularly exciting moments. We set off again, our temporary elation thuroughly squashed. This has been one of the heart wrenching nuzlockes I've done.

To wrap up, we added Gullby the underleveled wingull to the team. it will be nice to have a flyer on the team again.

Badges: 4

deaths: 7

Xisode 3: Screw this I'm using the exp share.

OK, remember what my party looked like last post? Just forget all of that. Things are finally starting to get interesting. So last time we left our intrepid hero he was setting out on route 10 after obtaining the 2nd badge. Things were pretty uneventful until we reached route 11, which I am officially dubbing "The Crematorium." We set of confidently despite the team's levels being noticeably low relative to our competition's since we turned off the exp share. This is also the part of the game where other trainers start using evolved pokemon and you're all "what the hell, when did machoke get so strong." Regardless, we set off, and things start smoothly, but my goodness can things fall apart quickly.

Admittedly, I hadn't been as meticulous at keeping my whole party as evenly trained in the past. Some of the team was falling behind, whether because their potential was stunted by their nature, or I was expecting to swap them out in the future, half the team was dragging a bit in levels. Another reason is I had three distinct showstealers. Colby the Quilladin, as my new starter got favored, Smithers the wartortle had the nostalgia of being my first starter ever, and Fetch the Fletchinder is a badass fire bird.

The hint that disaster was imminent was when we started a double battle against a Mr. mime and a machoke. Cornhole took the machoke down to about half with one take down (ha) and I thought a second would finish the job, but the machoke hung on with a single pixelwidth of hp. One super effective low sweep and Cornhole became my first casualty. Shaken but determined, the team pressed on. I'm sorry I said you looked like a digimon! I take it back!
death count: 0 1

After the rude awakening, I looked at the state of my team and took stock of the array of levels present. We'd need to do some serious grinding if we were going to make it. It was also time for my first route encounter. After adding Grover the Sawk to the team, we stuck Chalmers out in front and set to grinding. The very first encounter was another Sawk. A quick assessment of the situation lead me to conclude this was not a good fight for Chalmers. Sawk don't evolve so they are decently overpowered early game, and Chalmers was still weakened from catching Grover. Attempt to flee.
Can't escape.

Oh no.

low sweep.

0 hp.

death count: 1 2

And just like that, in the span of 3 battles, we were down two teammates. Continuing on was harder this time, but I took bitter solace in the fact that Chalmers hadnt been able to keep up with the rest of the team for a while now, and it was only  a matter of time. I know I'm terrible.
To fill the gaping holes in my roster I went to the box and brought out Grover the Sawk (who I still hold partially responsible for Chalmer's death) and Trundle the Tyrunt. Lets do this.

After a little more grinding on the crematorium, I stumbled across another new gen 6 feature, a sky battle trainer. They're essentially what they sound like; pokemon battles in the sky. Only flying types or pokemon with levitate can participate. I'd done a couple before this and theyd gone smoothly despite excluding most of my team. Magpie and Fetch were both solid and I figured they could handle themselves. Unfortunately, my oponent had 3 flyers and the first was the electric/flying emolga. One thundershock and I knew I was in trouble. I had to make the terrible choice of who to sacrifice of my two birds in order to make it through the battle. Magpie made the ultimate sacrifice in weakening the emolga enough for Fetch to finish off before succumbing to the BS game mechanic. At least I had managed to save my core three teammates...

death count: 1 2 3

Soon afterwards, I discovered a new pokemon called hawlucha.

At first I was all "what", then I figured it was a psychic type like xatu. its actually fighting/flying. because its a HAWK LUCADOR. anyway, still no big deal, Fetch the Fire/flying has type advantage. oh wait, except it knows rock tomb. 4x super effective.

death count: 1 2 3 4

Well, I made it more than 5 minutes without a death and even added a few new dudes. including Grumble the Snubble, Qwop the slowpoke, and... this thing?
Bunkle the Carbink. So mysterious I couldnt even find a decent picture of him on google. I had literally never seen this pokemon when I ran in to him in a cave. I dont even know if it evolves yet. He does know a couple neat moves like stealth rock and reflect, so thats cool. And I'm really starting to enjoy the fairy type's resistances. Welcome to the team, Bunkle.

So everything encompassed so far on this post has happened on a single route with a cave. Ughhh. I finally reach the next city and discover it has a fighting gym. This is disconcerting because I had recently lost both of my flyers (tear...) and didnt have any super effective moves. At this point, I threw away my pride and started using the exp share again. Grumble quickly evolved into Granbull (who is pure fairy type now, resistant to fighting, woo!) and I started leveling Qwop for his confusion. Before the gym however, I had a rival fight. Pretty unexciting, except Trungle the Tyrunt overcame his debilitating type advantage to kill himself in his confusion when he only needed a single bite more to win.

death count: 1 2 3 4 5

Now I have a team full of noobs and two significantly overleveled starters upon entering the gym both of whom evolved at the end of the rival fight. Hellooooo blastoise and Chesnaught. I've never been a fan of granbull, but Grumble impressed me by kicking serious butt despite not have any super effective moves. Qwop did really well against the first two pokemon of his first battle, before being promptly anihilated by a Hariyama that knew knock off (dark type move).

death count: 1 2 3 4 5 (its not even funny any more) 6

The 3rd gym battle was the most stressful I've had by far. Bunkle set up well with reflect and stealth rock, but lost too much health to switch back in, so he was effectively out. Essentially, he had to "get clear" because he "couldnt do any more good back there." The three match-ups of the battle consisted of meinfoo vs. chesnaught, hawlucha vs. Granbull, and machoke vs. blastoise. No super effective moves on either side meant every fight was a brutal slugfest between beefy 'mons (the only type I seem to be able to keep alive) that left everyone I used in the red or low yellow. Fortunately, every member of team Habberdash triumphed, and we were able to exit the gym with no more casualties. Pressing on, I have a formidable 5 man team, but no bench to speak of. We'll see who has what it takes to join this elite fighting force. Next update will be shorter I promise.

Habberdash's team:

Bunkle, Grumble, Grover (who is half a murderer and will never see a single battle if I have any say in it)


Smithers, Colby's full evolution. Guys, Chesnaught is so badass you have no idea.

Badges: 3
Deaths: ....6

Fly Like a Butterfree; Sting Like a Beedrill

This is my first post of any of my Nuzlocke challenges.  The main reason is because, well, I spend so much time grinding out my pokemon before I ever go into any situation that could be dangerous (gym leader, Dakota (Rival name) encounter, high level pokemon in the wild) so that my pokemon are so high of levels they can take attacks that are super effective against them and still survive.  That is...until today.  Don't get me wrong, I've had plenty of close calls before.  Even a fair share of my team being left at 1HP before (such fighters.  Didn't even need endure).  BUT, the real reason I am posting this is because of the culprit, nay enemy, NAY DEMON who killed my first comrade.  Here is my story:

The other day I picked up my long Nuzlocke challenge that I started with SoulSilver about a year ago.  I opened it up to find old friends that I knew so well.  Oh, I'm sorry, let me introduce myself:  Hi.  My name is DRAGON (Yes, caps lock is necessary.  I always do that for my name.  Strikes fear into my enemies).  My starter is my trusty DEVASTATOR (Also the only other one with a caps lock name.  Also necessary) and he was a totodile, then turned croconaw, and now a ferocious Feraligator who wears his name proudly.  I opened up my game three badges in and chilling in Goldenrod City.
My party was:

• Devastator (Croconaw)
• Krunk (Geodude)
• Kenya (Spearow)

  

  DEVASTATOR

• Shocker (Flaaffy)
• Falcon (Pidgeotto)
• Hemlocke (Bellsprout)

I was feeling pretty good about myself.  I had defeated all of the trainers in the surrounding areas and felt that it was time to head into the National Park and participate in the Bug Catching Contest.  I knew that I would only be able to catch the first guy I saw so I crossed my fingers and went in.  Dododo-Dododo-DOdodo (Battle noise)...

BEEDRILL!  YES!  It is my lucky day.  I had set Shocker as my first pokemon in my party so that he would be the one that I brought into the park with me due to her thunder wave being able to paralyze fools.  I succeeded!  I caught myself a beedrill!  YEsss.  What shall I name him?  Muhamedali.  Yep.  Now that Muhamedali was added to my party I moved on.  I made my way around, fighting pokemon, grinding, leveling up, picking on Picnickers and Schoolboy's and Lasses.  I made my way around to getting the squirtlebottle and getting past the odd tree ***SPOILER ALERT*** which is really a Sudowoodo.  And was finally on route 37 up to Ecruteak City (Which I just now realized is spelled that way.  I have always thought it was Eucreteak pronounced You-cree-tee-ack...whoa).   Put out Muhamedali first to get his level 14 booty up to a more respectable level.

Dododo-DOdodo (Battle noise again)  who will be my first spotted pokemon on route 37...VULPIX!  WOW!  Caught myself a vulpix, and sent Naruto to box 1.  I made my way to the pokemon center in Ecruteak City, healed my guys up, saved the Dancers in the dance building and headed to the Burnt Tower. Ran into Dakota for the first time in a long time.  He was no match for my Devastator.  Ran into a rattata first...ughhhhh.  Killed him out of frustration.  Saw the three Legendary Dogs as the ran off.  It was a beautiful sight.  Finally could battle the Gym leader.  His name is Morty.  He is a psychic trainer.  I easily rolled through the trainers in his gym making my way through the pitch black room.  Morty was up and he sent out his Ghastly.  Welp, I had DEVASTATOR out first, ready to take em all down with his bite.  First Ghastly went down, then comes Haunter.  One shotted, too.  What's this?  DEVASTATOR wants to learn a new move?  He wants to learn Crunch!  As if bite wasn't deadly enough!  Wait.  What's this?! DEVASTATOR IS EVOLVING??!?!!!  YESsssssss.  So, now I definitely rolled through his second Haunter and his final Gengar even.  

Decided to make my way west after receiving my Fog badge and clearly a ton of respect from my pokemon because now all pokemon up to level 50 will obey me.  Made it west towards Olivine City.  Caught myself a Miltank, defeated a few trainers, and had a good day.  Instead of making my way down to Olivine, I decide to be adventurous and surf east.  I had just recently received the HM for surf and taught it to DEVASTATOR so I was eager to see what I could find.  Made it to Mahogany Town without running into any wild pokemon (Safe for when I go back to try and catch my first one.  I scouted out all that was interesting, couldn't battle the gym yet and just thought I'd check the route up to the Lake of Rage, just for kicks and giggles.  Oh, looky looky, a little Camper trainer.  Hahahaha.  I'll just show him how amazing my pokemon are, level up my Muhamedali again, and then get out of there off to Olivine City.

Worst.  Mistake.  Ever.  

Dododo-DOdodo...Camper Spencer wants to battle.  Camper Spencer sent out Sandshrew.  Go Muhamedali!  Kick his BUTT!  Sandshrew put up a good fight, but Muhamedali was able to wittle him down.  And is now SO close to leveling up.  Camper Spencer sent out...THE DEVIL!  aka, zubat (Not worthy of ANY capital letters).  

Muhamedali does Fury Attack.  Takes down 1/3 of the enemies health.  

And this is where it happened.  

To a zubat

owned by a dumb camper named Spencer.  

zubat does wing attack (WING ATTACK?!?!?!!!  He already knows that?!)  It's super effective.  

Muhamedali...NOOOooooooooo.  One hit K-O.  **tear**

GO DEVASTATOR!  SHOW HIM NO MERCY!  DEVASTATOR rolls all the pokemon.  DEVASTATOR dances on top of zubat's grave.  

Ughhhh.  I cannot believe that this is how my first warrior went down.  I am sorry, Muhamedali.  It wasn't even to a glorious Suicune, or Charizard.  AT LEAST a Seaking or something.  

We all paid our respects.  Had a funeral and burial session for our comrade, ally, and friend Muhamedali.  Now, it's back to the grind again.  Naruto has filled in, but he is badly underleveled.  Luckily, he has inherited the spirit of the man he is named after and I know he will put in a lot of hard work to not be a weak link.  

Naruto

RIP: Muhamedali

My party now consists of:

• Krunk (Geodude)
• Headbutt
• Magnitude
• Rock Polish
• Rock Smash
• Rocky (Onix)
• Harden
• Strength
• Screech
• Rock Throw
• Kenya (Fearow)
• Aerial Ace
• Mirror Move
• Pursuit
• Leer
• DEVASTATOR (Feraligator)  
• Ice Fang
• Agility
• Surf
• Crunch
• Shocker
• Thundershock
• Cotton Spore
• Tackle
• Thunder Wave
• Naruto (Vulpix)
• Tail Whip
• Roar
• Quick Attack
• Will-O-Wisp

With Bloomburg (togepi), Calvin (Dunsparce), Shroombuh (Paras), Draco (Ditto), Falcon, Utters (Miltank), and Paul (Ditto) in reserve in my PC.  

Bring it on, Johto.  DRAGON is back.  Off to Olivine City!  

Xisode 2: Wow theres a lot of stuff

So the intrepid Habberdash and company continues on to Lumiose city, the 4th and biggest city in the game. seriously massive. Half of it isnt accessible until later and it still took me the better part of an hour to search the whole thing. The only real thing of note here is I finally met this gen's professor and he offered me a kanto starter (sick). So with the team newly bolstered by Smithers the Squirtle, we continued on. (I should also note that Lizzy has been helping me name my team).
 The game has been progressing smoothly with a host of new catches. The is such a big variety in what can be caught in this game that I havent even needed to use my re-encounter rule yet. Notable new catches include Chalmers the Pancham (fighting) and the fossilized Trungle the Tyrunt (dragon/rock).
  Chalmers, despite being totally awesome, has fallen behind a bit due to an unfavorable nature and having not evolved yet. He has agreed to become the teams designated "move technician," bravely biting the bullet and learning rock smash, cut, false swipe and strength so the rest of the team doesnt have to. HM slave isn't a very politically correct term and I would never degrade a member of my team by using them as such.
Speaking of evolutions, we had a slew of them. The very first of which was my starter Colby evolving into the lovable dweeb Quilladin. Followed by Magpie into Pidgeotto, Fetch into Fletchinder (fire/flying woooo!), Smithers into Wartortle, and Cornroll into a digimon.

Along the road after Lumiose we ran into a castle. This didn't affect the story much but the people there knighted me! So now I demand to be referred to as Sir Baron Habberdash. BWAHAHAHA.

Three cities later we finally reach the 2nd gym. This game is freaking huge. We approached it with some trepidation after the close encounter with the first. After loading up on potions and entering cautiously, I found my fears were unfounded. Not only was I able to leave at will (not sure why they made only the very first gym inescapable), but it was rock type. At this point I had an evolved gent 6 grass starter, an evolved gen 1 water starter, a fighting type panda, and a ground type digibunny, I was pretty confident. The battle itself was not as lopsided as I hoped. The leader only had two pokemon, another tyrunt and the other fossil pokemon whose name I cant remember. The dragon typing negating Chalmer's type advantage dragged the battle out a lot longer, but leech seed won the day.
And that brings us up to present! I'm already 16 hours in and I only have 2 badges. Still no deaths yet though, BUT FOR HOW LONG.
Habbderdash's team:

 ^see? total dweeb

^definitely a digimon

 I dont know why the blog screwed the formatting up so much. I cant wait for them to just come out with gen 6 trainer cards....

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING IS NON-STORY RELATED MUSINGS ABOUT NEW GAME FEATURES AND HOW  THEY AFFECT THE NUZLOCKE CHALLENGE. MORE BORING THAN THE REST OF THIS POST.
More so than any previous generations, this game presents a lot of nuzlocke moral dilemmas. Shortly after the first gym, I was given the EXP share. Rather than giving to one pokemon, they reverted back to the gen 1 method of evenly distributing experience throughout your entire party. however, rather than splitting it 6 ways, everyone gets 1/2 the experience the pokemon fighting got. Essentially, every battle yields 3x the experience it would otherwise, spread amongst your team. The obvious result of this is that my team was quickly 8-10 levels higher than everything I fought. I turned it off before the second gym, and I'm going to try to keep it off the rest of the challenge, but dang, all the enemies caught up in levels as soon I stopped using it. I'm hoping the game stays balanced even if i don't use it.
Another addition is super training. Super training is a mini game available at the beginning of the game that lets you maximize your team's EV's without battling. For the slightly less nerdy, Effort Values are invisible points your 'mons gain for defeating enemies that increase their stats slightly over time. They're the reason a pokemon leveled only with rare candies isnt as strong. Defeating fast pokemon makes your speed better, bulky pokemon increases your health, etc. Competitive players train their team in such a way that they only fight pokemon that give them desirable EV's (for example if you have a scyther you want it only to fight pokemon that give it attack and speed points). With the new minigame, anyone can max these desirable EV's pretty quickly, making your team stronger. I did it for smithers the squirtle, but the rest of my team I think I'll let gain Ev's naturally/randomly as I play through.
Another new thing is "o-powers," essentially abilities the trainer can use that give you little perks and recharge over time. These range from giving your pokemon a stat boost in the next battle, to a slightly easier time catching wild ones, to boosting winnings from trainer battles. The one I use the most heals the lead pokemon in your party slightly. You unlock more as you progress through the game they arent totally spamable. I dont feel too bad about these so I'll continue using them. 
Last thing I promise. They have a similar minigame for raising affection. This is a bigger deal because pokemon with max affection gain ridiculous benefits like 10% evasion, more crits, boosted exp, healing of status problems, and the ability to survive an attack with 1 hp. Obviously a HUGE benefit for nuzlockers. I did it for Colby, but I'm thinking I'll stop there. It's going to be hard to balance the challenge with these features. If you care I'll keep you updated on my thoughts as I continue.