Pokémon Gold/Silver thread

making a new thread because it deserves it

we have less than 1 hour until we get this shit

i can't be the only one pumped

You've purchased the wrong game and you know it, traitor.

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Somehow, I just noticed that the games have a different wild battle theme depending on if its day or night.

day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGuuR0kQIgg
night: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlG-uj4GMnQ

I think I always knew this in the back of my mind, but I've never been fully cognizant of it until now.

This comment blows my mind:

"There is a different version of the theme for night because Gold & Silver can be played on the original Gameboy. Since there is no way to tell the screen apart between day and night there is different music instead."

What is it, 1999? lol

What is it, 1999? lol

2000 bitch

What is it, 1999? lol

2000 bitch

LOL

okay, turns out the games aren't coming out until fucking NOON

brb killing myself

still haven't even beaten red version, i stopped playing before blaine

Somehow, I just noticed that the games have a different wild battle theme depending on if its day or night.

day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGuuR0kQIgg
night: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlG-uj4GMnQ

I think I always knew this in the back of my mind, but I've never been fully cognizant of it until now.

This comment blows my mind:

"There is a different version of the theme for night because Gold & Silver can be played on the original Gameboy. Since there is no way to tell the screen apart between day and night there is different music instead."

do the remakes have this as well?

it also clicked in my head, but i never played the originals

I'm going to Nuzlocke it.

do the remakes have this as well?

it also clicked in my head, but i never played the originals

not from what i can find

I'm going to Nuzlocke it.

same, might post updates if it's not gonna distract me too much from other things

Game is mine now.

I'm waiting on Crystal, but might replay HG in the mean time

My rules:

- Standard vanilla nuzlocke while playing on Set.
- Duplicates clause is NOT in effect—if I encounter a Pokémon I already have, then that's just what I get.
- Gift clause is NOT in effect. Gift Pokémon will count as my one encounter for the area they're found in.
- Shiny clause IS in effect. If I happen to find a shiny, I'm just gonna catch it regardless of whether I've already seen something on the route. They're just too rare to pass up, especially in this generation. I may or may not decide to use it.
- In-game trades are allowed, but I cannot trade with human players, especially for evolution.
- The challenge begins immediately, not after I get my Poké Balls. If I encounter something before I even obtain my first Poké Balls, tough luck for me—that route is lost.

Naturally, I chose Cyndaqul as my starter and named him Quill.

I may have over-trained him just slightly so I could take out the rival (who I named ???, because that's how he introduces himself to you). The last nuzlocke I attempted with this game resulted in me losing the first rival fight due to lack of preparation and an unlucky critical hit, so I needed to make sure that I'd win. I may or may not impose a level cap for certain segments of the game, but I don't know if I'm gonna worry about it too much.

I unfortunately lost both Route 29 and Route 30 due to my strict adherence to the original nuzlocke rules. I found a Sentret and a Weedle, but I couldn't catch either, because I didn't have any Poké Balls yet. I know that's not how most people do nuzlockes, but that's how I prefer to play them, because it feels more adherent to the original two rules.

That said, I expected to lose at least one of the two routes, but losing both of them kinda sucks—especially Route 30, because one of my favorites (Ledyba) starts appearing on that route in the morning. At least I have one more shot in the next route.

On Route 46, I caught a Rattata.

In my Blue nuzlocke, something incredible happened—I actually didn't lose Route 1, even though I ran back and forth between it, like, five times total. Not only does that never happen, the Pokémon that I caught on that route—a Rattata—ended up being a real MVP on my team. My naming theme at the time was based on the NATO Phonetic Alphabet, so I named him Bravo. I made it all the way to the Elite 4 with him.

So, to honor Bravo, I wanted to name this new Rattata something synonymous with the word "Bravo," which basically just means "nice job," so coming up with something good took a bit of thought. It eventually hit me when I thought of the phrase "atta boy," but that wasn't quite punny enough—so I went with Rattaboy.

I'm gonna do a little bit of training, but then I have to stop playing until tomorrow morning. The next route has a chance of Ledyba appearing, but only between 4 to 10 AM, so I'll have to wake up for that. Alternatively, I may end up with a Spearow or maybe even a Bellsprout, which would be fine and dandy with me.

I'm already getting the feeling that this is gonna be one of the best nuzlockes ever.

I wish they would just add skippable tutorials by now. I don't need to be told how to catch a Pokemon

I was delighted to be reminded that the Pokémon catching tutorial is completely optional in this game.

So like, how are you enjoying teh game?

So like, how are you enjoying teh game?

this is probably top 5 games of all time for me, so being able to play it again for the first time in six years is delightful

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Decided to get Gold Version. Here is my planned team so far:

-Ferraligatr
-Crobat
-Golem (because fuck Whitney)
-Ampharos
-Alakazam
-Heracross

Trade evos aren't really an issue for me since I have someone in the house with Silver and we agreed to help each other out.

Good luck finding a Heracross. Even without nuzlocke rules in place, it's a bitch to find.

This is just an emulation of the originals on the DS, right?

Yeah, and just like Red/Blue/Yellow, they didn't even fix any glitches or anything (for better or for worse).

Back then, glitches were literally the only thing allowing you to catch Pokémon like Mew—and especially Celebi, which was never even given a distribution event outside of Japan, so they're actually kind of nice to have in the game.

The only things they changed are very minor, like changing Jynx's old black-skinned sprites purple and stuff.

Just like I planned, I woke up early to catch myself a Ledyba on Route 31... except I found a Bellsprout instead. Meh. That's fine—but it's kind of the last Pokémon I wanted to see on this route. Not only will this thing not help at all against Falkner, I've already used one in my Blue nuzlocke, and it also puts me in this weird dilemma.

There's a boy in Violet City who offers you a trade—his Onix (named Rocky) for your Bellsprout. The Onix he gives you will be at the same level that your Bellsprout is when you trade it, and it's a fantastic Pokémon to have for the first two gyms. So, from a strategical point of view, it makes the most sense to make this trade—but I don't know. I'm still kind of iffy on taking advantage of in-game trades in nuzlockes, even though I already legalized them in my ruleset.

Not to mention, I like to think in the long-term as well. Onix will be useful for the first few gyms, sure—but it's not like I can ever evolve it. I have to trade it with a Metal Coat to get Steelix, and that requires a human player, which is definitely illegal according to my rules. At least I can fully evolve this Bellsprout, and it might actually come in handy later on, especially since it should be able to learn Cut.

So, yeah, I think I'll just keep him. I named it Patches—one, because that's a clown's name, and Bellsprout's entire evolution line always reminded me of clowns, and two, because it's a pitcher plant. Patches. Pitcher plant. You get it.

Dark Cave was another slight dilemma. I could've waited until I reached Blackthorn City to get something like a Wobbuffet on the north side of the cave, but I just said "fuck it" and got myself a Zubat. Getting a Geodude probably would've been better, or maybe even a Dunsparce for the memes, but I'm happy with what I got. I named him Bram.

Zubat and Bellsprout start out notoriously weak, only having access to weak shit like Leech Life and Vine Whip, so grinding them up to a satisfactory level was a bit slow, but at the same time, the grinding process really let me take in the game's splendid atmosphere. I'm a junkie for getting a sense of adventure out of my games, and I think only Wind Waker has ever given me a stronger feel for that. It's just such an exciting game to play, even during downtime—because all you can think about is the next exciting battle that's gonna happen, or which party member is gonna have an awesome little moment where they survive a super effective hit with 1 HP or something.

I stopped at Violet City after bringing everyone up to level 7. I'm not going into Sprout Tower yet—I'm gonna wait for Gastly to appear, and they only show up at night. I won't be able to get a Gengar, but Haunter is still cool enough for me to use, and Ghost-types are just awesome in nuzlockes in general, since they're immune to so many annoying attacks.

Obviously, Route 36 is blocked off by Sudowoodo. In Crystal, they actually placed an extra patch of grass that's accessible before the Sudowoodo, making it so you can catch a Nidoran or Stantler early. No such luck in Gold/Silver, though—so in a challenge run like this, that Sudowoodo is a guaranteed encounter. That's okay, though—I actually like that Pokémon anyway.

I could catch an Unown in the Ruins of Alph, but since I actually want something useful, I'll just wait until I have a bunch of Repels. You can catch Natu or maybe even a Smeargle in this area, but it requires you to traipse through the ruins, and I cannot run into a single Unown if I want anything better.

I could probably fight Falkner right now, but I don't know—I kinda want to do Sprout Tower first. As a kid, I always viewed Sprout Tower as like a "pre-gym," so it doesn't feel right to do them out of order. I should have them both beaten by tonight, though.

Falkner's gonna have to wait, I think.

After clearing Sprout Tower, I decided that, since my entire team is below level 10 anyway, I may as well try to see if I can't beat Falkner with a team of level 9s. The strongest Pokémon on his team is a Pidgeotto, and it's also level 9 (even though Pidgey isn't supposed to evolve until level 18). So, from this point on, I'm officially imposing a level cap for each gym, which will be the level of the strongest Pokémon on the leader's team. That should keep me from being too overpowered.

That said, I'm not interested in ensuring any of my Pokémon a certain death, so I'm still gonna try to play it safe. The reason I'm not fighting Falkner right now is because I'm fresh out of Berries, which will probably help me immensely, since they provide instant healing without taking a whole turn—but they only regrow on trees once per day. I can also only get two of them.

It may seem silly, but honestly, I think not picking them when I have the opportunity to do tomorrow so would be a huge mistake from a strategic standpoint. I'm already intentionally gimping myself by imposing a level limit, and I don't want anyone to die due to my own impatience, so I'm okay with waiting it out for now.

That said, I did at least clear Sprout Tower, like I mentioned.

As I planned, I waited until nighttime to catch my Gastly, which did end up in my party, but only after throwing four Poké Balls. The first female in the party, I decided to name her Blair, both after Bloody Mary (bit of a semi-portmanteau) and the Blair Witch Project. She'll never be a Gengar, but I'm already glad to have her on the team. Ghost-types are invaluable for their resistance to Normal-type moves and such, even if her attacks are kind of weak at the moment. I would've been much saltier if I wound up with another Rattata, since there's only a 15% chance of finding one vs. Gastly's 85%.

Training Gastly is interesting, too—she can't get hurt my Normal-type moves, but she can't hurt Normal-types, either. This will make her a sitting duck vs. anything like Pidgey or Hoothoot, since her only attacking move (Lick) is a Ghost-type move. At least she's good at fighting all those Bellsprout in the tower.

The final Sage in Sprout Tower has this level 10 Hoothoot that kind of gave me a run for my money. It landed two critical hits in a row on Bram (which was mostly his own fault, because he just kept missing his Supersonics...) but he and everyone else still made it out okay.

The rest of my session was spent contemplating what I was gonna do about Falkner.

Quill is resilient, but his only attack at the moment is Tackle, which is quite weak. He'll get bullied by Pidgeotto.
Rattaboy is fast and strong, but his low Defense stat will be the death of him against Pidgeotto.
Bram's Supersonic is really good... when it works. Half the time, it doesn't work at all. Dangerous and risky.
Patches is Pidgeotto food. He'll see no use in the fight whatsoever if everything goes as it should.
Blair is fast and can maybe put something to sleep if she's lucky, but it's still a gamble. She can't hurt anything either way.

So, yeah, I'm definitely gonna pick up those two Berries. Quill, Rattaboy, and maybe Bram will have to carry me to victory. I also found an X Defend in Sprout Tower, which will probably come in handy.

I'm not worried about losing the fight, or anything—it's a 5v2 fight, so I'm practically guaranteed to win. I just want to make sure everyone makes it out alive, 'cause death isn't cool.

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Last night, I decided it might be worthwhile to check whether Berries grow back after midnight, or by the game's definition of "morning" (4 AM). This'll be the determining factor for my fight against the gym leader.

I lucked out—just after midnight, I was able to pick the two Berries. This bit of extra preparation was crucial for everyone's survival, so I immediately headed straight to Violet City's gym.

The reason I'm so apprehensive about this fight is because I've already grown so attached to my team, which is a remarkable thing to happen so early in a challenge run like this. I'm already getting a sense for each member's "personality" just by how they behave in battle and stuff.

Quill is meant to be the leader, but despite being a Fire-type, he's actually pretty chill and laid back, almost to the point of laziness. He's happy to be part of the team, but doesn't always like getting too rough in the mud himself. Rattaboy is more energetic and loud-mouthed. He's proud of the fact that he's named after the hero of my last nuzlocke and fancies himself the "protagonist" of the team, despite not being much of a leader. Bram is very nervous and anxiety-ridden, which is why he misses his Supersonics 80% of the time. He doesn't seem to enjoy being part of this adventure at all. And then there's Blair the Gastly, who is very sassy and capricious. She doesn't give a shit about the team at all, but sympathizes with Bram's fear and looks out for him.

As for Patches, I'm not really sure yet. He just seems kinda quiet and standoffish.

That's how I see it playing out in my head, at least. My imagination tends to run wild with these things, and it's fun for me to look at nuzlockes as a story and adventure rather than just a challenge.

Anyway, it was time to fight Falkner.

I led with Cyndaquil and applied the X Defend on turn 1, not anticipating his level 7 Pidgey to be too much trouble. And then it used Mud Slap—and it was a critical hit. I wasn't prepared for this—I could've sworn only Pidgeotto knew the move. It's not the strongest attack in the game, or anything, but Cyndaquil is weak to it, and it also guarantees an accuracy drop, so things have already took a sour turn.

Still, I didn't switch out. I needed Quill to get enough experience points to reach level 10, because that's when he should learn Ember. Once he learns that move, the fight should be a breeze. I dropped the Pidgey's Defense twice with Leer and started Tackling, healing with one Potion when it became necessary (he had already eaten his Berry). Despite the critical hit, Quill was still tanking those Mud Slaps rather well, thanks to that +1 Defense buff. Losing Accuracy seemed like it would be a problem, but miraculously, Quill didn't miss a single one of his moves.

After felling the Pidgey, Cyndaquil leveled up to 10—but...

He didn't learn Ember.

He learns Ember at level 12.

Falkner sends out his Pidgeotto against my Emberless, yellow-health Cyndaquil with -6 Accuracy.

Knowing Quill still had the Defense buff, I knew he would be able to tank just one hit from Pidgeotto. I needed to gauge just how much damage it was gonna do, and in the meantime, since Quill's been landing all of his hits anyway, I might just be able to use Leer to drop its Defense a single time—it worked out. As predicted, it used Mud Slap—a super effective move, but it has such low power that even a critical hit wouldn't have knocked him out. Quill then proceeds to hit with Leer. Now I have a chance to win this fight with no casualties.

I switch out for Rattaboy, who ate a Mud Slap. Rat's the heaviest hitter on the team, so when I had him use Quick Attack, I was hoping for some BIG DAMAGE, especially with that Defense drop—but it only did about 20%. Pidgeotto then proceeded to use Gust, which did about 55%. Now Rattaboy can't take another hit.

With my two strongest Pokémon both out of commission, I start getting a little desperate.

I sent out Bram, who proceeds to take another Gust on the switch-in—and he surprisingly took the hit very well. It only did about 15%. I never realized it before, but Bram actually has the highest HP on my whole team. Not only that, but being a Flying-type makes him immune to Mud Slap. Better yet, he even outspeeds the Pidgeotto (and since Blair has the same Speed stat as Bram, I now know that Blair can outspeed it, too). It's just too bad he doesn't have any good moves.

I take a gamble with Supersonic. The first one misses, but the second one hit. If Pidgeotto hits itself with that debuff, it's definitely gonna hurt—and thankfully, it did after I switched to Blair.

Blair had one job: HIT WITH HYPNOSIS. Knowing she's faster than Pidgeotto, all I need to do is put it to sleep and buy enough turns to heal up Rattaboy and finish it off with a couple Quick Attacks—a plan that followed through exactly as it did in my head (which never happens).

Rattaboy lands the final blow, and the Zephyr Badge is mine. Poor Patches didn't see any action whatsoever, but I'm sure he'll get his spot in the limelight soon enough.

Immediately after exiting the gym, Professor Elm calls me and tells me to pick up that Egg they've been researching—obviously, the Egg contains a Togepi, and it does count as my encounter for Violet City. So, technically speaking, I kind of have a full team now. Kinda. Sorta.



I could've went straight south into Route 32 to get my next encounter, but I decided to sleep and wait until daytime instead, but not before getting the Miracle Seed from that dude who gives it to you. Perfect present for Patches.

The Pokémon I want the most on this route is Mareep, and they're slightly more common during the day.

I ended up just finding another Bellsprout. First duplicate of the run, and I'm not applying dupes clause, so I have no other chances. I decided to just catch it anyway and name it Doherty (Patches > Patch Adams > Patch Adam's real last name. Blah). I have no intention of replacing Patches, so Doherty will likely never see the light of day.

However—and it just dawned on me as I was typing this—if you remember that dilemma I had earlier, where I wasn't sure if I wanted to trade Patches for Rocky the Onix back in Violet City, well... That doesn't seem to be an issue anymore. I don't need two Bellsprout, so I guess I can just trade Doherty over to that guy. I won't be able to evolve it, but Onix is still cool, and it beats having two of the same Pokémon. So yeah, I think I'll do that immediately after typing this up. I have no qualms whatsoever about doing this.

Union Cave was a bit more a struggle than it needed to be. It's not a difficult area by any means, but Bram and Blair were really out of sorts, missing their Supersonics and Hypnoses left and right. My whole team was quite beat up by the end of the cave. As for my encounter, it was another Rattata. I named it Gnash to honor the other other Rattata I had during my Blue nuzlocke named Charlie. That said, I have no intentions of replacing Rattaboy at the moment, so he'll be boxed.

I decided to teach Mud Slap to Rattaboy. Quill finally learned Ember. Patches finally has another shitty move in the form of Wrap. Bram didn't learn a goddamn thing, but I did find a TM for Swift, which he can learn. It's not a great move, but it's something, and if Bram wasn't gonna learn something useful like Bite by level 12, I was gonna bust out Swift on him (thankfully, he eventually did learn Bite at level 12).

As I made it out of the cave, there was just one more small route just before the next town. Though there's some cool and interesting stuff available in the grass here, I decided to hold off until I get the TM for Headbutt. Heracross can be found in the trees in this area. I've already talked about how ridiculously silly finding this Pokémon is, but that makes finding one in a nuzlocke all the more appealing, so I don't want to squander too many opportunities. More likely than not, I'll find a Spearow in the trees here instead, which I'm actually pretty okay with, too. I definitely need a bird.

Azalea Town has been quietly overrun by Team Rocket—all the Slowpoke are missing and a couple areas (including the gym) are blocked off by a couple random thugs. After taking care of the necessary critical path story stuff, I headed down Slowpoke Well to shoo away the Rockets.

Even though I really wanted to get a Slowpoke, my odds of finding one down this well are only 15%, so of course, I found another Zubat instead. At least this one's female. I named it Balcombe, after Florence Balcombe, who was Bram Stoker's wife. Once again, no intention of using unless Bram happens to die.

While stomping Team Rocket, Rattaboy learned Hyper Fang—which is pretty awesome, because that move is ridiculously powerful this early in the game (80 power + 40 with STAB = 120 power move with near perfect accuracy and no drawback holy shit).

I decided to stop there, though. I'll be sure to take on the gym and head to Ilex Forest next—but not before trading that other Bellsprout for that Onix. That should be interesting.

PARTY:


BOX:

I like how you make your playthrough into a story.

Just had my first death tonight. Pretty upset about it since it was completely my fault and easily preventable. More on that later.

Can we talk for a minute about how fucking awesome Azalea Town's music is?

YouTube

Obviously, this whole game just cascades a waterfall of nostalgia over me, but it's this song, this one song right here, that just... DOES it for me. I can't explain it. I just listen to this track, and I'm literally a child again. It's wonderful. I can't say if it's my favorite song in the game, but it's certainly the one that's taken me back like nothing else has so far.

Anyway, I made it back to Violet City, and for better or for worse, Doherty the Bellsprout wound up in better hands. The dude's name is Kyle, apparently. Don't worry, I still have Patches. In exchange, I got Rocky the Onix from Kyle, whose level is always copied from the Bellsprout that you present him. In this case, he was level 6. It's unlikely that I'll ever need him for anything in the foreseeable future, but it's just nice to purge out some of the duplicates from my squad. I like variety.

From here on, the order of the things I did may be slightly off before heading to Ilex Forest, but it's honestly not a big deal.

I traveled all the way back to Azalea to do a little bit of training for my fight against Bugsy, the next gym leader. The level of his strongest Pokémon, Scyther, is 16, so I tried not to exceed that. Though, this proved to be a complete non-issue that I didn't have to "try" for at all, since Quill is a Fire-type, and Ember is known to mercilessly destroy those pesky Bug-types.

Nah, the fight I actually WAS kind of worried about was the second rival fight that takes place after defeating Team Rocket at Slowpoke Well. Since I've already done this, attempting to head west into Ilex Forest will now trigger the second rival fight, and there's no way out of it. He has three tough Pokémon in his party. From my memory, I remember getting my ass beat by his scary Croconaw, but he also has an annoying Gastly and Zubat, too. Not good news.

That said, I took care of Bugsy first, since he's such easy pickin's and all. Quill went in so hard, he evolved into Quilava, who is probably one of my all-time favorite middle stages (and I tend not to like four-legged Pokémon that much). It just looks so cool.



And damn, it's about time something on my team evolves. Everyone else takes so long.

Ironically, I actually didn't use Quill at all during the Bugsy fight. I let Rattaboy, Bram, and Blair take him out instead. Patches found himself without much use once again, but he shouldn't feel too bad about that. He kind of carried the team through Union Cave, so I suppose he deserves a break.

With the Hive Badge now in my possession, I knew I had to go fight the rival next. Since this fight is much scarier, I went back to Union Cave and trained everyone up to level 14.

It was during this training session that my Egg finally hatched, making Togepi an official member of the team. I couldn't think of a good nickname for him at first, so I thought it would funny to just call him "Nick," but then I went with the extended "Nicholas" instead. I always felt there was this holy, angelic air about this name that seemed to fit a Togepi well (and especially Togetic), so there you go.

If you call up Professor Elm after the Egg hatches, he'll ask you to stop by his lab (all the way back in the starting town) so that he can see it. If you do this, all he gives you in return is an Everstone, which is used to prevent your Pokémon from evolving. Sounds pretty useless, but I decided to head over there anyway, mostly so that I could actually train baby Nicholas in a safe location. You know, where he's not absolutely guaranteed to die. He's just a baby, after all. The amount footsteps I'll be taking will also boost his happiness by a lot, which is something I have to do anyway if I want him to evolve any time soon.

Since he only knows Growl and Charm, I taught him the move Swift from that TM I picked up to give him some kind of fighting chance. Seems like a fitting attack for him anyway (shooting stars). With STAB, it actually has 90 power, and it never misses, so there was no reason not to teach him the move.

To my surprise, he actually held his own against some of the tougher Pokémon in those early routes, and eventually learned the move Metronome. Normally, this is one of my favorite moves, but I strictly prohibit its use in nuzlockes (unless I'm feeling cheeky) because there's a 1/120 chance that Nicholas will end up blowing himself up with Self-destruct or Explosion. That's simply something that I cannot allow to happen, even when it's such a remote chance.

Eventually, I brought Nicholas up to level 11 and thought he was caught up enough for me to move on. It was time for me to fight the rival.

As I made my way back, I briefly revisited the Ruins of Alph to solve the Kabuto puzzle just for fun, and I used Repels to prevent myself from having to catch any of the Unown in the chamber. In order to get my encounter here, I need the move Surf, so I'm not quite ready yet.

Back in Azalea, I made my way towards the forest when, of course, my rival stopped me in my tracks. After refusing to believe that I was the one who stopped Team Rocket down Slowpoke Well, he challenged me.

He led with his Gastly, and I led with Rattaboy. This is perfect, since Gastly can't touch Rattaboy at all. I thought about switching to Blair so that we could have a cheeky Gastly fight, but nah, that would've been stupid. The obvious answer was to spam Mud Slap, which is not only super effective, but reduces Hypnosis's accuracy to near-nothing. I'm sure glad I taught him this move.

Even so, the Gastly was still faster, and tried to put Rattaboy to sleep twice in a row, which would've been horrifying, but it missed both times thanks to that Accuracy fall.

I fully expected him to send out his Croconaw next, but he went for his Zubat instead. What makes this thing annoying is its impeccable accuracy with Supersonic and its powerful Bite attack, which is a Dark-type move in this generation, so Blair is out of commission for this matchup. I stuck with Rattaboy, since he needed a level-up anyway, and just tried to Hyper Fang it to death. This worked splendidly.

Finally, Croconaw came out, and this thing was a level 16 monster with Water Gun, putting Quill out of commission. I seem to recall this thing having Bite as well, but I must have just been thinking about Zubat, because it didn't seem to use that move. Knowing this, I managed to put it to sleep with Blair and cut it down with a few Vine Whips from Patches, who also resisted his Water Gun attacks.

Not only did I win this fight with no casualties, I got to witness another great fight where my entire team plays off their strengths and weaknesses. There's a lot more synergy here than it seems, and it's gonna be exciting to see what kind of role Nicholas will play once he's at a proper level.

With the rival fight taken care of, I was free to enter the forest. It's here that I'll obtain the TM for Headbutt, which is a move I can use outside of battle to bump short little trees in the overworld to try to shake something rare or interesting out of it. I'm on the hunt for two things: a Heracross and a Pineco, both of which are some of my favorites, but I've never actually seen them before in the game, because it's such a weird and obscure mechanic.

But first, I had to teach someone on my team Cut, the infamous HM, because there's a skinny tree blocking the way towards the dude who gives you the Headbutt TM (and the next route).

Sorry, Patches, but you're getting the shaft again.

I made a beeline for the Headbutt dude, making sure to use plenty of Repel so that I don't waste my encounter on something silly like an Oddish. There are three areas where I can still encounter things: Here, Azalea, and the route just before Azalea. The forest and Azalea are considered "forest" regions, so I'll be looking for Pineco there. The route before Azalea is considered a mountain region, and that's where I hope to find a Heracross.

I eventually got Headbutt and taught it to Quill, replacing Tackle. I honestly could've taught it to Nicholas, so that may have been a mistake, but oh well.

It only took a couple tries to get my Ilex Forest encounter: An Exeggcute. This is probably the last thing I wanted to find, because it's such a hard thing to nickname, but I decided to name it Aubergine. Because it's an eggplant. I don't really wanna use an Exeggcute, but maybe I'll be desperate some day.

In Azalea, a Weedle fell from the tree. That's more along the lines of what I want, but still not the most exciting encounter. I named her Alkali. I might actually use her, since I really like Beedrill.

In the Route just before Azalea Town, my encounter was a Spearow (that was still sleeping). I named him December, after the Fearow I took to the Hall of Fame in my Blue nuzlocke (who was named November).

On a whim, however, I decided to headbutt the tree a second time. What did I find?

A motherfucking Heracross.

But since it's my second encounter, I don't get to have it at all. Son of a bitch. It's the first Heracross I've ever seen in my life, too. Even checking its dex entry doesn't reveal its nest anywhere.

I did take away something useful from the encounter, though: if you take too long to catch it or whatever, it will just run away after a few turns, just like the Legendary Beasts do. That's good to know, and it makes me proud to have Blair on my party, since she has both Hypnosis (which makes everything easier to catch) and Mean Look, which prevents things like Heracross from ever running away. I'll have to remember not to get rid of that move if I'm ever tempted to do so.

Blair in general has been a little more cooperative lately, like she's finally warming up to the team. Quill, too, seems to be taking this whole "nuzlocke" thing a lot more seriously, and is assuming the leadership role a lot more.

After picking up some Charcoal for Quill to hold (it boosts his Fire-type attacks by a little bit), I made it through Ilex Forest and began to make my way towards Goldenrod City.

PARTY:


BOX:


TRADED AWAY: