Giveth and Taketh Away

Akala Island is aight. There's a little port town and a wild west town and at several routes - lots of opportunities to add to my party. And I DID JUST THAT.

The first new arrival was caught in a little muddy area by a ranch, Freddy the Mudbray. He's a good kid. He's a ground-type donkey with good physical attack, but what really makes him cool is his ability. It's called Stamina, and what it does is it raises his defense one stage every time he gets hit with an attack. For real. That means in a straightforward brawl, he's getting a free defense boost every turn. Imagine, the most cartoonish of circumstances - I switch him in when an opponent uses fury attack or doubleslap. It hits and triggers Stamina five times. Mudbray's defense is now at 350%. That is awesome.

Oh! Before that I caught a Lilipup. Yeah, I was a bit disappointed with the catch - they're cool, and they evolve well, but they're still just common normal-types. Lucky for me, the next Pokemon Center after I caught Freddy had a trainer offering to trade for a Lilipup! HOLLER. And so I traded Pupper the Lilipup for Bouncee the Bounsweet, a fast, physical-attacking grass-type with decent stats. Hooray! I'll miss little Winnifred and her sweet Leech Seed and Sleep Powder, but now I've got a new-gen grass Poke to fill her role.

The final addition to the team came right on the next route, with Tobiatha the Grubbin. I wasn't sure if she would evolve into anything cool, but she was pretty dope to begin with - a special-attacking grub with two big tusky things and a really balanced move pool - electric, dark, and bug attacks.

I was training her up at the front of my party for a while. We went through some cool story stuff that I won't spoil here, and everything was going really smoothly. My party was now 5 gen-7 pokemon and my little Machop, with Delbert and Bronda thrown in the box and Freddy, with his Stamina, assuming Cleopatra's role as physical tank.

I also had a chance to catch a Psyduck, but it called for help and I got annoyed and switched to Bouncee to Razor Leaf them both at once. Now they are dead.

A captain (the minor gym leaders) gave me the ability to call a Lapras to go over water. This was now my third summonable, rideable pokemon, and it finally dawned on me: This generation has done away with HM moves. NO MORE HM MULES IN THE PARTY! NO MORE UNDELETABLE MOVES! Let's all have a moment of bliss. Hooray.

Anyway, so, we were surfing around as part of this captain's trial, looking for the totem pokemon to kill. She had me wreck a few Wishiwashis. They're a little fishy fish, nothing to worry about. Tobiatha's Charge Beam and Spark took them all out handily, and she was finally catching up in levels - my whole party otherwise was at lvl 20 at this point.

Then came the totem pokemon. It was another Wishiwashi, a huge one. I'm talking like Wailord huge. Wow! It was huge. At level 18, Tobiatha was ready. No elemental weaknesses, full health. She Mud-Slapped the totem for the accuracy debuff, and then... took a Water Gun to the face. Full health... zero health. Brave, sweet Tobiatha was no more.

The Wishiwashi summoned a buddy for health, but Bouncee was ready for it, hitting them both simultaneously with super-effective Razor Leafs. But they were dropping her attack fast - I think with Growl - and I wasn't sure we'd get the KO before her attack got pitiful. And if Bouncee fell, I'd just have four pokemon left, three of which are weak to water. It wouild be a team KO in the making. So I did something I'm not sure I've ever done before. I used... a Dire Hit.

Razor Leaf already has a high crit chance, so with the extra % buff from Dire Hit, we were getting crits almost every time, overcoming the attack debuff and winning us the battle. Phew. So I'm one more Z Move, one more defeated captain, and one more loss. My party's come out ahead, more diverse and interesting than it was yesterday, but it hasn't been easy. Too many close calls for comfort. We're not comfortably ahead of the difficulty curve by any means, yall.

RIP TOBIATHA





THE PARTY


Struan the Torracat
-Still the best
-King of the jungle
-Barely needed him today, with all the watery pokes afoot

 
Aoife the Trumbeak
-I always feel safe knowing she's with me


Cleopatra the Roggenrolla
-Left the lineup, then returned after Tobiatha's demise
-Still not too attached to her, but being able to Rock Blast birds feels nice.
-Her only sensory organ is an ear


Macho the Machop
-Feels like the weakest link here in terms of defense, but he's still got that boosted exp and lots of potential
-Did I mention his ability is No Guard? That'll be fun later.


Freddy the Mudbray
-Stamina makes him totally unique. I'm really excited about him
-He's quick enough that he gets flinches with Stomp often, and Bulldoze slows his foes down when he's outpaced
-He looks like a doof


Bouncee the Steenee
-She evolved shortly after the trade! She's a champ. MVP today.
-Razor Leaf, Magical Leaf, Rapid Spin, Protect. She's practically competitive.
-She likes to thrash about


ONWARD BABYYY

Moon Gets Heavy

A little context. In Sun/Moon, you're not traveling around a region getting eight badges to gain entry to challenge the elite four. Nope. Instead you're doing an island challenge. The parameters here, and the endgame, are still a bit nebulous at this point. Every island has a big kahuna trainer that you can challenge after you beat their captains. Effectively these trainers are all gym leaders.

I've beaten one captain and one kahuna, and just made it to my second island... but not without a price.

I beat the captain on Melemele island, and then I beat his totem pokemon, a big chubby black Raticate that really had me quaking for a minute. That battle introduced a new game mechanic where wild pokemon can call for buddies in the middle of a fight, so I found myself fighting a gigantic Raticate who had used focus energy and leer a lot, AND his little Rattata buddy. It was lucky that Smarshall was able to get a couple of sand attacks on him right out the gate, or else a critical hit Hyper Fang would have wrecked someone.

Winning that fight allowed me to start using Z Powers. Instead of XY's Mega Evolutions, this game has a function where, once per battle, one of your pokemon can use a Z Move, provided you have them holding a Z item that matches one of their moves by type. So there I was, tromping around the wilderness with my boy Smarshall the Yungoos as he did this ridiculous screaming Super Saiyan tackle to every wild spearow we saw. It was a gas... until it all went wrong.

A wild Vullaby showed up. Dark/bird, high defense. It was able to tank a Z move, and it called for help (doesn't always work, but it doesn't require an action). Before I knew it Smarshall was at 2 hp, facing two wild Vullabys, each maybe two levels below him. I dropped a super potion, figuring he'd be able to take a couple hits, wondering if he'd be able to tank through it and still get an attack off on the next turn. One hit would kill the first Vullaby.

I should have run. They killed him. RIP Smarshall. This Nuz will be no cake.

I caught a Petilil shortly after and named it Winnifred. She knew leech seed and sleep powder and mega drain after I trained her up a few levels - an unstoppable force of cheesy grass moves. We challenged the kahuna.

The kahuna of Melemele island uses fighting pokemon, and he also uses fighting z moves. Crabrawler, a fighting-type crab dude, laid Winnie out from full health with a Z move. I won the fight just fine, with Aoife the (now evolved) Trumbeak plucking the fighters to death handily and Struan, now evolved into Torracat, on deck... but the price was high.

I reluctantly caught a Zubat named Bronda and a Spearow named Dingdong, then traded Dingdong in a pokemon center for an NPC's Machop - that boosted exp will be delicious. Before leaving the first island, I explored a little cave and caught a Roggenrolla, Cleopatra, who has no face.

So Delbert and Bronda are in the party as backups, pokemon that I'm not really fond of and have trained many times before. I'd rather pump the exp into the new ones that I love (Aiofe and Struan, my OGs) than retrain old ones just to replace them later. But Macho and Cleo flesh out the party really nicely, so I'm taking them seriously. I still have nothing that's good against water, but we'll figure that out as we go.

RIP 

Smarshall and Winnifred. You were too good for this world.
 

POKEMON I NOW HATE FOREVER:

BIG DUMB IDIOTS ALL

THE PARTY


Struan the Torracat
-Our brave leader
-An unstoppable force
-Will never leave me 
-Petting his little neck thing burns your hand so don't do it
Aoife the Trumbeak
-My beloved first catch of the game
-Is awesome
Cleopatra the Roggenrolla
-The newest arrival
-Not super attached to her breed, so she's replaceable
-Gonna be a great meat shield if I need one
Macho the Machop
-Boosted exp, baby
-Knows seismic toss, so he'll be a good backup if my offense falls apart
-Is holding my new FIGHTINIUM Z


Bronda the Zubat
-On deck for sacrifice
-Dead weight
-I will be so happy to lose this thing
-A pokemon with supersonic and good speed and flinching attacks is cool though. Maybe she'll prove herself.


Delbert the Makuhita
-I'm putting more effort into Macho as my fighting type now, but he's still a decent tank
-Fake out and sand attack are good in any situation

It begins

I have no badges. Will I ever? HOW COULD ANYONE KNOW. Alola is wacky.
But I'm about to go on a trial, and I am very scared.


I could have had a Zubat in my party, but I got mad at it and killed it.


Will my humanity survive this Nuzlocke? Or will I become the thing I have sworn to hate.


MEET THE BUDDIES!


Struan the Litten
- Likes getting his chin scratched
-I named him after a Scottish baby I've never met
-Shoots fire out of his face
-Never gives up
-Is the best
-Meows often


Aoife the Trumbeak
-Was a Pikipek until a few minutes ago
-Her name is Irish. It rhymes with FIFA 2016
-Fast and hitty



Smarshall the Yungoos
-Has Donald Trump's hairpiece
-Is very angry



Delbert the Makuhita
-Is whatever
-Will make a great mule someday