Ongoing The CapsLocke - TheCapsFan's Nuzlocke Challenge Series

[TheCapsFan]

Hey everyone! I'll be starting a new series on the Bulbagarden Twitch channel on Thursdays called The CapsLocke, a challenge where I will attempt to Nuzlocke every single main series Pokemon game.

I'll be using this thread as the basis for all discussion relating to the series, including any changes/updates to the format of the challenge, as well as sharing tips and asking around for teambuilding advice if I need it! Feel free to add your own input as well if you'd like to see me do a certain format of Nuzlocke during this challenge, share clips of hype or embarassing moments, or just laugh at my inevitable misplays!

I'll be highlighting every episode and storing them in a Twitch collection, which you'll be able to find...after the first episode when I get a link to the collection. I'll update this post with a link to that then! And, I'll make a threadmark in this thread whenever I finish a game in the challenge.

Once again, this stream will be taking place every Thursday at 8PM Eastern Time on the Bulbagarden Twitch channel. Hope to see you there!

 

[TheCapsFan]

CapsLocke FAQ​

Q: What is the CapsLocke?
A: The CapsLocke is a Pokemon challenge where I will be doing a Nuzlocke of every main series Pokemon game, streamed to the Bulbagarden Twitch channel.

Q: What is a Nuzlocke?
A: A Nuzlocke is a self-imposed challenge with two basic rules: I can only catch the first Pokemon I see in each area/route, and once a Pokemon faints, it cannot be used for the remainder of the run. For more details, check out the Bulbapedia page on the subject!

Q: That sounds tough! Are there any additional rules you’ll be using?
A: Yes actually! I’ll be adding the following base rules to my challenge runs:

• If my encounter is a Pokemon that I’ve already caught, or part of an evolutionary family with a species I've already caught, I am allowed to gain an extra encounter (duplicates clause).
• If I've run out of valid encounters in any area by following duplicates clause, I will take the first encounter at random like normal (anti-dupes clause).
• I will be nicknaming any Pokemon that I encounter. You can suggest nicknames for my Pokemon by redeeming Channel Point Rewards!
• X-items and EXP Candies will be banned, but all other items will be allowed.
• My starter will be chosen using the last digit of my Trainer ID (1-3 = grass, 4-6 = fire, 7-9 = water, 0 = my choice!)
• Gift Pokemon will count as a potential encounter for the area they were given to the player in. Eggs and Game Corner Pokemon will count as Gift Pokemon.
• If I run into a Shiny Pokemon, I can catch it, but I can only use it if it is the first encounter in that area.
• If I white out at any point, the run is over and I have to restart from the beginning of the game.

Additional rules may be added for each individual challenge.

Q: I’ve heard of these super-hard Nuzlockes called “Hardcore Nuzlockes.” Will you be doing any of those for this challenge?
A: Not at the start, I’m a noob when it comes to this stuff. But - later down the line, possibly!
EDIT: I'm not doing a full hardcore ruleset for Shining Pearl, but I am disallowing healing items in battle and implementing loose level caps for this run.

Q: What about any other Nuzlocke variants?
A: I do plan to do a couple of variants here and there, though I haven’t decided on everything yet. A couple of things I’ve already thought about doing are a starter-only run of LGPE, and a Nuzlocke using only Wonder Trade Pokemon for one of the later generation games (maybe something like Sun/Moon).

Q: What games will this challenge cover?
A: This challenge will cover one game from each pair in Generations 1-9 including remakes, in addition to all third versions, B2W2, USUM, and Legends Arceus. For example, for Generation 1, I will play one game between Red and Blue, as well as Yellow.

Q: But…that’s not every game, is it? What about the other pairs?
A: sigh no, it’s not every game. I’ll probably save the other pairs for the very end of the challenge, if I’m not bored of Nuzlockes by then!

Q: What order will you play the games in?
A: Whichever order I want! I will probably save the third versions for after the pairs, and want to avoid playing the same region back-to-back. The only exception to this will be Black/White and Black/White 2, which I plan to do back-to-back...though, that's subject to change.

Q: Which games will you be playing in the near future?
A: I’ll be starting with LeafGreen, and I plan to play one of Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl after that. Click here to access a Google Sheet that contains info about my progress in this challenge.
EDIT: The current game is Shining Pearl.

Q: At what point will you consider a game "complete" for the sake of the challenge?
A: The "end point" of any run differs depending on the game. For example, for FireRed/LeafGreen, I will consider the run over when I defeat the Elite Four and Champion. But, for the Johto games, I will consider the run over when I defeat Red. Regardless, I will only consider a game complete when I have successfully completed a Nuzlocke run of that game. If I lose the run, I will continuously attempt until I complete the game!

Q: Will you be using any…uh…"self-added QoL improvements" to the games?
A: You can say the C-word. And no, I won’t be adding any cheats, like infinite rare candies, or anything like that which are standard for some nuzlockers. I’ll be playing everything on actual hardware too. Unfortunately, this means there will probably be a bit of grinding in some places (and little speedup DURING grinding), but I will try to limit that to off-stream where possible.

Q: Sounds like it’s going to take a while…any estimates on how long this will take?
A: Nope! Definitely over a year. This is gonna be at minimum, a challenge of 21 games. So, assuming that I stream once a week, and each game takes five to seven streams (15-21 hours) to complete, that’s already over two years, maybe three without any restarts. Idk. I’m bad at math. Point is, it will definitely take a while.

Q: How can we interact with your challenge?
A: Great question! Bulbagarden has a variety of channel point rewards that you can redeem using channel points to affect the stream. One in particular costs 1000 points and allows the user to ban an ingame action. Obviously, this can be pretty detrimental for Nuzlockes in certain instances - so I'll be banning any "ban" on using Pokeballs or using a specific Pokemon. You can, however, ban specific moves or items! Furthermore, I'll be disallowing any sort of "force or ban" channel point rewards during boss trainer fights. I want to complete these tougher fights without any sort of outside interference that may put me in a situation where I lose due to a circumstance that's not related to the game itself!

Q: Wow, I can’t wait! But hold on…who are you, again?
A: I’m TheCapsFan! I’m Bulbagarden’s Deputy Multimedia Executive, as well as an administrator on our Forums. I’ve been a part of the Bulbagarden community for over ten years, and began streaming on the Bulbagarden Twitch channel in the summer of 2022. I’ll also do the occasional non-Pokemon stream on my personal Twitch channel, which you can find here.

Q: Where can I be notified each time you go live?
A: Follow the Bulbagarden Twitch Channel! I stream every Thursday at 8PM Eastern Time, and have a secondary casual stream where I play Mystery Dungeon and/or various other Pokemon games on Saturday mornings. You can also check out our Discord server, where we’ll be creating Events for every Bulbagarden stream. Lastly, I post before every time I go live on my personal Twitter, so feel free to follow that too!

 

[Greninjaman]

@TheCapsFan
I have heard of a similar challenge called the generationlocke, which is the same idea (going through each generation).

 

[TheCapsFan]

@TheCapsFan
I have heard of a similar challenge called the generationlocke, which is the same idea (going through each generation).

I imagine this sort of thing has been done before, but I wanted to brand my challenge a bit

Also, don't forget I'm adding in third versions too, and Legends Arceus. Not sure if that's included in the generationlocke.

 

[Greninjaman]

I imagine this sort of thing has been done before, but I wanted to brand my challenge a bit

Also, don't forget I'm adding in third versions too, and Legends Arceus. Not sure if that's included in the generationlocke.

Your challenge. Your rules.
If you want to add Legends Arceus, go for it.

 

[TheCapsFan]

Updated the FAQ with a progress document ahead of tonight's stream. Super excited to get started!

 

[TheCapsFan]

We had our first stream of the challenge on Thursday, kicking things off with LeafGreen version! Brock gave us a scare, but we were able to power through.

Spoiler: LeafGreen Episode 1

Current Team (after Brock):

• Cody the Charmeleon (Lv17)
• ht14 the Mankey (Lv15)
• Richie the Ratatta (Lv8)
• Archaic the Kakuna (Lv7)

So far, only one death to sacrifice our Lv2 Pidgey (named Staraptor) to Brock for a safe switch-in from Charmander to Mankey - in hindsight though, we definitely didn't need to sac him! Mankey was bulky enough to tank two Rock Tombs; but, we would have risked a higher chance for a speed drop which could have gotten us into trouble. Overall though, not too bad - we got the most optimal encounters for a Charmander starter (aside from maybe Caterpie or Pikachu > Weedle).

Also, I've added a few additional rules to the FAQ:

• Shiny clause will be allowed
• Set mode will be played wherever possible
• Clarification around when the challenge will be completed - if I fail, then I will attempt the nuzlocke again until I succeed.

 

[TheCapsFan]

Forgot to post after the last stream, but we've had a couple of more streams since I last gave an update! In the second stream, we easily made it through Mt. Moon, Rival 2, and Nugget Bridge, but in the third stream we hit our first real challenge with Lt. Surge.

Spoiler: LeafGreen Episode 2

Spoiler: LeafGreen Episode 3

Current Team (before Rock Tunnel)

• Cody the Charmeleon (Lv26)
• Jr hut the Weepinbell (Lv27)
• Feesh the Gyarados (Lv25)
• Archaic the Beedrill (Lv20)
• Klara the Nidorina (Lv17)
• Red the Voltorb (Lv14)

Reserves

• ht14 the Mankey (Lv20)
• WhackAMole the Diglett (Lv16)
• Clay the Sandshrew (Lv12)

Well, the good news is that we're starting to develop a decent core between Charmeleon, Weepinbell, and Gyarados. The bad news is that we had two COMPLETELY avoidable deaths.

The first was the death of our beloved Raticate Richie, to a poorly-timed Shock Wave crit from Lt. Surge's +5 Double-Teamed Raichu. It was preventable because I knew it could have died to crit, but decided to risk it to try and get the kill off with a Guts-boosted Quick attack. Really there was no reason for me to keep it in there, but I had been switching Pokemon in and out to heal Richie and I started to not have many more safe switch-ins. So, in the moment, I thought that it was my best option to risk the crit because I could tank another normal Shock Wave. The real play was to swap in Weepinbell and have it use Bullet Seed, which is how I ended the match.

The second death was of our Spearow named greg, whom we had just caught earlier in the stream. It was completely my fault and I'm going to blame it on me kinda zoning out as I was taking on trainers on Route 9. I sent it in against a Machop which 1hKO'd it with a Karate Chop crit. And, I know that's ALWAYS a stupid decision, but like I said, I was zoning out. Even though Raticate was a stronger Pokemon, this death hurts more just because of how stupid it was. Plus, this gets rid of all Flying type options until Cody can evolve, or we get the Old Amber restored. We can cover against Bug/Grass types with Cody for now, but if he dies we have a second major weakness in our team. Which, speaking of major weaknesses...

Our team is gonna have a real problem with Sabrina, unless I can get some good encounters. The OP Psychic-types in Gen 1 really kind of persist in this game, with very few opportunities for answers against them. Right now our best options are Feesh, which knows Bite + high Attack, or sending in Beedrill and praying that we outspeed + 1hKO with Twineedle. If anyone has any suggestions for potential counters to shoot for against Sabrina, let me know.

Things are starting to get very interesting, and I'm getting more and more excited to play this each week! Let's hope I can keep my stupidity to a minimum and continue to build up the team.

 

[There Is No Arceus]

hi; i just came across this and couldn't help but notice the similarities to what i've been doing in this thread TINA's Nuzlocke Series for the past year. i've also been doing nuzlockes of all the games, though obviously our rules are not the same. curious to see how you'll progress.

 

[TheCapsFan]

hi; i just came across this and couldn't help but notice the similarities to what i've been doing in this thread TINA's Nuzlocke Series for the past year. i've also been doing nuzlockes of all the games, though obviously our rules are not the same. curious to see how you'll progress.

Yeah! Seems like it's definitely a pretty common challenge. Or, at least more common than I've initially thought, after interacting with some viewers in streams and stuff.

In your run, you used a Jolteon with Pin Missile to deal with Sabrina...hm. Something to consider. I do think Sabrina will be the hardest fight in the game, but we'll see how it goes.

Will definitely keep up with your progress as well!

 

[There Is No Arceus]

Yeah! Seems like it's definitely a pretty common challenge. Or, at least more common than I've initially thought, after interacting with some viewers in streams and stuff.

In your run, you used a Jolteon with Pin Missile to deal with Sabrina...hm. Something to consider. I do think Sabrina will be the hardest fight in the game, but we'll see how it goes.

Will definitely keep up with your progress as well!

actually, Koga gave me more issues than Sabrina did, with his minimizing Muk. for Sabrina you just need some strong physical moves.

 

[TheCapsFan]

We had another stream on Thursday - this time, we got all the way through Rock Tunnel and beat Erika!

Spoiler: LeafGreen Episode 4

Current Team (after Erika)

• Cody the Charmeleon (Lv32)
• Jr hut the Weepinbell (Lv28)
• Archaic the Beedrill (Lv26)
• Feesh the Gyarados (Lv29)
• Klara the Nidorina (Lv27)
• Oscar the Jolteon (Lv25)

Reserves

• Red the Voltorb (Lv24)
• ht14 the Mankey (Lv20)
• Snowy R. the Vulpix (Lv18)
• Brock the Geodude (Lv16)

This stream was relatively low-key and free of many dangers. With Gyarados and Charmeleon at the helm, both of the major challenges facing us were pretty easy to take care of. There were a couple scares, with Klara the Nidorina getting all the way down to redbar after being hit by a Magnitude 10, and some sticky situations with regards to potential crits, but overall we made it through this stream scot-free.

Prior to heading through Rock Tunnel, I spent some time on my own to get Archaic, Klara, and Red up to par with our primary core of three. I managed to get Red and Archaic all the way up to Lv21, but only had enough time to train Klara up a couple of levels. So, I decided to lead mostly with Klara through Rock Tunnel, so she could get some experience taking down a lot of the rock-type Pokemon there, and had Feesh as backup in case she got low.

Erika was taken out easily by Cody and Archaic, with Cody getting a lucky 1hKO on her lead Victreebell and a subsequent KO on Tangela. The two of them tag teamed to take out Vileplume in the back.

We got our fair share of encounters throughout the stream, starting with a Geodude in Rock Tunnel who we named Brock. I wanted to repel-stall for the potential Onix encounter, but...I forgot, about two steps into the cave. Whoops. Our next encounter was a Vulpix, whom I...unfortunately killed. But, we were redeemed by getting a second chance at catching a Vulpix on Route 7, which I did catch & named Snowy R. (after @Snowy , of course).

Lastly, we had the Celadon City encounter. I had a couple options for this one - I could grind in the Game Corner, probably for something like Dratini - or, I could take the free Eevee in the Condominiums. Taking inspiration from @There Is No Arceus , I decided that it would be best to take the Eevee and evolve it into Jolteon, which is honestly the best Electric type we'll have access to in the game. With high speed and decent attack, and the fact it learns Pin Missile later, this will be our primary counter to Psychic-types. At the suggestion of @DawningWinds , I named it after my cat Oscar, who was causing chaos in the background during the stream Red was quickly shelved for Oscar prior to taking on the gym.

Speaking of, I think I'm going to add another rule to my standard - if I've gotten all the possible encounters on a specific route, dupes clause is removed for that route only and I will be able to catch the first Pokemon I encounter. This makes the game easier, but it could also make it more interesting too since there's a chance we'll get to see some of our fallen friends reborn. Consider the Route 7 encounter - had I caught the first Vulpix I encountered, I would have had a chance at potentially getting another Pidgey or Ratatta instead of just wasting the encounter. Personally, I think that's more fun.

Excited to continue with the run this week!

 

[TheCapsFan]

It's been a while, but let's check in on our progress!

Spoiler: LeafGreen Episode 5

Spoiler: LeafGreen Episode 6

Current Team (after Koga):

• Garfield the Snorlax (Lv33)
• Fitzy the Venomoth (Lv35)
• Oscar the Jolteon (Lv37)
• Cody the Charizard (Lv36)
• Feesh the Gyarados (Lv34)
• Abi the Slowbro (Lv40)

Backups:

• Jr hut the Weepinbell (Lv30)
• Klara the Nidorina (Lv30)
• Archaic the Beedrill (Lv26)

So, in the fifth episode, we spent most of our time progressing the story a bit, and grabbing as many encounters as we could - and boy did we get some great ones! After easily taking care of Giovanni and getting the Silph Scope, we headed out to Pokemon Tower caught a Gastly, and grabbed the Poke Flute.

With the flute in hand, we had a choice of which Snorlax to wake up to try and catch. Knowing that I wanted a pretty strong Psychic-type user, I wanted to shoot for Venonat as a potential early encounter, as I've used Venomoth as my Psychic sweeper in past runs. So, we went for the Route 16 Snorlax in the off chance to potentially get a Venonat on Route 12. With some insane luck, we ended up getting both Pokemon - naming Snorlax Garfield and Venonat Fitzy! But, our luck didn't end there - heading further south on Route 13, I decided to fish with the Super Rod for our encounter there - and we ended up catching a 1% CHANCE SLOWPOKE which we named Abi! All three Pokemon landed on the team, replacing Archaic, Klara, and Jr. Hut.

-----

In the sixth episode, we spent some decent time training up our new team members in prep for the gym battle against Koga. In the process, we evolved Fitzy into a Venomoth, Abi into a Slowbro, and Cody into a Charizard. We grabbed a couple of extra encounters along the way - we had a guaranteed Ditto on Route 15, which triggered our first instance of anti-dupes clause to catch a second Bellsprout on Route 14. Last but not least was our Safari Zone encounter - I wanted to try for either Pinsr or Rhyhorn in the Central Area, but we ended up encountering an Exeggcute instead, which ran before I could catch it.

While training up our Pokemon in prep for Koga, I realized that it wasn't actually Koga that was going to be the tough part in his gym - it was getting past his gauntlet of Gym Trainers who, for some reason, use Psychic types instead of Poison types. Needless to say, it felt like every single Pokemon I fought used Poison Gas, and every single time Abi entered in a fight, she would get poisoned. This combined with viewers' channel point redemptions to ban healing items made Koga's gym soooooo much more difficult than it needed to be. Nevertheless, we persevered and headed through to fight the Gym Leader.

Koga was probably the toughest gym fight yet, even with his trainers being a little overly difficult. We lead with Garfield against Koffing, since I was confident that he could tank a Selfdestruct with relative ease. Getting down into the yellow, though, I didn't expect. So, with Muk out next we switched to Fitzy so he could use Psychic. Muk Minimized, but Fitzy still got the attack off, doing...only about 40% health. Not ideal, especially after Muk used Minimize again. To counter the Minimize, I sent out Oscar to use Shock Wave, but a Sludge from Muk put Oscar into crit range without even getting an attack off. Back out to Fitzy anticipating the Sludge, I decided to just Psychic again to hit through the Minimizes. Unfortunately, Muk got right into healing range and Fitzy took a second Sludge to the yellow. Switching now to Abi, I spammed Confusion until Muk was dead, healing when necessary. Abi was going to be our ace in this fight. Eventually, after a THIRD minimize, Muk went down. But the fight wasn't over yet.

Koga still had a second Koffing that could blow up, along with his ace, Weezing. Seeing that there were no safe switches to prepare for the stink bomb, I had to either heal Abi or sacrifice a mon. After some quick maths, I decided to just heal Abi up to full and hope for the best. Abi tanked & out came Weezing. I decided to Disable Sludge to minimize the amount of damage I would take, and just spam Confusion until it died. The strategy worked, though we did get Toxic'd and into the yellow in the process.

-----

With the new additions to the team, we are really coming into our own as a well-rounded unit. With Abi and Garfield included in place of a pair of Poison-types, and the ability to tank with high SpDef/resistance respectively, Psychic moves are less of an issue, which is good going into Sabrina. Instead, Electric is probably the biggest threat to our team with two 2x weaknesses and one 4x weakness, with Rock as a close second with one 2x weakness and one 4x weakness. A strong Rock or Ground-type Pokemon with high Attack could counter these weaknesses, as our best option for a physical attacker right now is Feesh whose best Physical move is going to be Thrash (ugh). Missing Rhyhorn in the Safari Zone was a huge loss, and I don't see many opportunities to fill this gap until Victory Road. I do have Brock the Geodude in the Box - he may be the best option as a long-term backup in the case we lose one of our current team members.

I'll be streaming tomorrow with another episode, so be sure to tune in then and see how the Sabrina fight unfolds!

 

[There Is No Arceus]

i remember that Muk. almost took down several of my team members iirc.

if you're still having problems with psychic types, i think you can get the TM for Shadow Ball in the game corner. It's a physical move in this gen. i tend to ban the game corner from my playthroughs because i hate gambling, but if you don't have a problem with that, you can use it.

 

[TheCapsFan]

i remember that Muk. almost took down several of my team members iirc.

if you're still having problems with psychic types, i think you can get the TM for Shadow Ball in the game corner. It's a physical move in this gen. i tend to ban the game corner from my playthroughs because i hate gambling, but if you don't have a problem with that, you can use it.

ooooh, I didn't think about that. this might be useful for Agatha, actually.

I'm allowing Game Corner grinding but I haven't done any of it yet.

 

[TheCapsFan]

Spoiler: LeafGreen Episode 7

Spoiler: LeafGreen Episode 8

Spoiler: LeafGreen Episode 9

So - it's been about a month since I updated this thread, and a lot has happened in the Nuzlocke since then. I'll try to recap things pretty quickly.

Episode 7 was a pretty eventful stream despite being relatively short. We took on Silph Co. with no real challenge posed by either the rival fight or the leader, Giovanni. Then, after cleaning house in Silph Co, we went to challenge Sabrina in the battle I was most worried about going into the run. Luckily, thanks to a solid primary 'mon in Oscar the Jolteon, we electricuted and Pin Missiled our way to victory without much trouble.

Episode 8 can be characterized as "the one I thought was going to be easy and ended up being very difficult thanks to some viewers messing me up." We started by grabbing a Hitmonlee from the Fighting Dojo, then getting a couple more encounters along the ocean routes and Seafoam Islands on our way to Cinnabar. We also managed to restore Aerodactyl from the Old Amber rather than Omanyte from the Helix Fossil. For the fight against Blaine, however, I was restricted from using Abi, our strong Slowbro, due to a channel point redemption award. Now, I've said in the past that I wouldn't allow restrictions against gym fights, but I was feeling a little frisky today and decided to let this one slide. As a result, we STRUGGLED through the fight with Blaine, with his high-leveled Arcanine preventing me from making any decent switches. Eventually, however, we got lucky on a couple missed Fire Blasts and Cody BARELY survived a Bite attack that absolutely would have killed on a crit, followed by an ACTUAL crit on Feesh that also put him into the red. Seeing no alternatives but to heal, I ended up healing Feesh and Water Pulse-ing the Arcanine to death. Seven gyms, only three deaths. Things were looking up and I felt unstoppable.

In Episode 9, however, I got too cocky. In search of more encounters & extra experience in prep for Giovanni, I followed Bill to One Island to do the small Sevii Islands quest that you can do during the main story. During that quest, you fight a set of four Bikers with Pokemon that know Explosion. With Abi in the lead, she comfortably swept the first three trainers...until the fourth trainer sent out a Weezing which outsped, and crit on a Selfdestruct. Thus, Abi was dead and we had some MAJOR issues ahead of Giovanni. Not only was Abi incredibly tanky, but she was a strong special attacker as well, easily able to take out Giovanni's Ground and Poison types. So, with no tanky Slowbro to hide behind, I took the rest of the episode to grind and start levelling up the party in prep for Giovanni.

------------

Current Team (before Giovanni):

• Cody the Charizard (Lv50)
• Oscar the Jolteon (Lv48)
• Feesh the Gyarados (Lv47)
• Bruce the Hitmonlee (Lv44)
• Fitzy the Venomoth (Lv45)
• Garfield the Snorlax (Lv40)

In reserve:

• Yandere the Rapidash (Lv37)
• Teller the Hypno (Lv30)
• Letters the Pikachu (Lv22)
• Gongie the Seel (Lv28)
• Shwifty the Aerodactyl (Lv5)
• Brock the Geodude (Lv16)

To replace Abi, I specifically wanted to bring on a Pokemon to counter Giovanni's two Rhyhorn. I already have Feesh, but Feesh is 2x weak to Rock-type moves and thus not a solid first option, since both his Rhyhorn know Rock Blast. On a 4-5hit attack, Feesh would faint. Plus, Feesh has incredibly low Special, which means if I do outspeed I don't think I KO. So, I trained up Bruce the Hitmonlee, who has turned out to be a pretty solid physical attacker who can hit Rhyhorn for 2x damage plus STAB. To replace Abi's special prowess, we have Fitzy already in the party, who, although noticeably weaker than Abi, can still hit hard with Psychic despite not having STAB. I considered bringing up Teller to replace Fitzy, but figured that we could at least play around with both of them later if necessary.

I also selected a few Pokemon from my reserves which I feel could be good replacements for some of my team going forward if things get rough - Yandere to replace Cody, Teller to replace Fitzy, Letters to replace Oscar, and Gongie to replace Feesh. In addition, I have Aerodactyl which can have a pretty varied moveset, and Brock with some good typing and access to Earthquake, if I feel like I need an extra bit of power. Unfortunately, though, I didn't get the time to train up some of my reserves that I wanted prior to the stream that's gonna be happening today. I'm still working through training up the rest of my team as well for Giovanni, so the levels may be a bit higher once I actually stream later this evening.

Episode 10 is probably going to be the scariest episode yet - coming off of a bad loss, I don't want to lose any more friends be sure to tune in tonight at 8PM Eastern if you're interested!

 

[There Is No Arceus]

i wish i could join you for your streams, but timezone constraints don't allow it (not gonna stay up from 2AM to 5AM). Fortunately i figured out that i can just watch the streams the day after on the bulbagarden twitch.

Seeing that Slowbro go down was painful. I probably would have made the same mistake; Slowbro's a bulky mon, i'd expect it to tank a crit selfdestruct from full HP.

Good luck against Giovanni

 

[TheCapsFan]

Update time!! It's a big one.

Spoiler: LeafGreen Episode 10

Spoiler: LeafGreen Episode 11

Spoiler: LeafGreen Episode 12

In Episode 10, we challenged Giovanni and sealed ourselves a victory - though it wasn't without trouble. We took care of the first Rhyhorn with Feesh, then switched into Garfield for the second (in hindsight, there was no need to do this). Trying to get a Yawn off, Garfield took a Scary Face, then an Earthquake...and then another one - this time a crit - and fell in battle. With the Rhyhorn asleep, Feesh came back in to finish the job and quickly took out the Dugtrio behind it. Then came in Nidoqueen, who ate up both of Gio's Full Restores as it fell to a couple of Surfs. Lastly, Nidoking fell to a lucky crit from Surf - though Feesh would have been able to kill it pretty quickly even if it hadn't been a crit. Overall it was an okay battle (with us not even needing the Pokemon we trained up for it, Bruce the Hitmonlee) at the cost of our last good tank, which turned out to be a worse loss than I would have expected.

From there, we replaced our fallen lasagna lover with a filler sac mon, a Bellsprout named "O," and trekked on through Victory Road, easily defeating our Rival along the way. In the Badge Check Gates, I caught a Poliwhirl and our Victory Road 'mon was a Marowak. We trained up our team, switching between the five remaining core members, with O getting a bit of spotlight when I used them to help take out an enemy trainer's Electrode.

Episode 11 was just a big training montage - we settled on Brock the Geodude-turned-Graveler as a replacement for Garfield, and trained on. Nothing super interesting happened, though we did end up having a few fun discussions with other staffers in the voice chat - three of my Bulbastaffer friends came to keep me company during the episode.

After Episode 11, I still had some training to do - so I took some time to level up the team all the way to my arbitrary level cap of 58. I spent the majority of the days before stream running calculations to see if my team could handle the E4 - and found that for the most part, they could! We just needed some extra psychic firepower to take out Bruno's Fighting-types that had coverage moves for Cody and Fitzy. So, with reluctance since I had essentially trained him up for nothing, I put Bruce back in the box in favor of Teller, the Hypno I caught in Berry Forest - and raised him to be an absolute machine.

At long last, the day had come. Episode 12, our challenge with the Elite Four. Here's how it went (spoilered since it's long):

Spoiler: Elite Four Summary

• Lorelei was pretty straightforward; lead with Oscar, Thunderbolt our way to victory until Jynx, then click Shadow Ball, then go back to Thunderbolting. Oscar did get hit with a crit putting him into redbar against Jynx and we traded heals after it put me to sleep more than a few times, but he managed to solo the fight pretty effectively otherwise.
• Bruno had our first big threat with his Machamp - but I had brought what I thought was a decent counter in Teller the Hypno. We led with Feesh to take out the Onix (in Aussie mode, mind you), then switched out into Teller for Hitmonchan. After tanking two crits, he finished it off then took out Hitmonlee in a 1HKO as well. Onix was out next, so we switched back into Feesh for a 1HKO. Lastly we had Machamp. Predicting Rock Tomb I switched back into Teller but took a speed drop in the process. Psychic put it into red and we traded heals, then a pair of Psychics finished it off.
• Agatha was more trouble than I expected. This was the Fitzy show. Leading off against Gengar, Fitzy had Gengar eat one of Agatha's healing items and took it out pretty easily with Psychic. Next was Golbat, so we switched into Oscar for a quick KO. Arbok came after, so we switched back into Fitzy. Fearing further lowered defense and the physical Ghost attacks, I switched into Feesh who used Taunt, then finished off the snake with a few Surfs, getting poisoned in the process. Her Ace Gengar came in next, so predicting Sludge Bomb I switched into Brock, then back into Fitzy - who, Defense reset to normal, dodged two Hypnosis in a row and took it out easily with Psychic. Haunter was no big deal with no way to attack with Fitzy awake.
• Lance was always going to be a tough fight, but it went incredibly well. Brock was going to be a huge contributor in the fight with his hearty defense to protect against the many Hyper Beams and Outrages we'd be facing. We led against Gyarados with Brock, which might sound odd until you realize that Lance's Gyarados doesn't have a water-type...but I forgot about Intimidate. I didn't want lowered Attack on Brock for the whole fight, so I switched out into Oscar who 1HKO'd with Thunderbolt. In came one of two Dragonairs and back came in Brock, who took a crit Outrage to the face on the switch-in. I healed, then spammed Earthquake until it and its brother were dead. Next, the ace Dragonite. If we took another Outrage crit, Brock was dead...luckily we dodged it three times in a row and got off a Rock Blast...just for it to only hit twice and not KO. We stalled some more but got lucky on a second Rock Blast, and Dragonite was down. Last, was Aerodactyl, who died pretty quickly to a few more Rock Blasts.
• Last, we had our Rival, M.E. - the only battle where I didn't do advanced calculations. He led with Pidgeot, which we easily took out with Brock. Next came Rhydon, which we took out with Feesh. Alakazam came after, so we sent in Teller to tank Psychic moves & Headbutted it to death, after a heal on Alakazam. Arcanine was next, so we switched back into Golem, who took a burn, but crit on a second Earthquake to take it down. Second to last up, we had Blastoise, and I made a few misplays. We switched in Feesh to get Intimidate and it used Hydro Pump, which was a good start. I thought it was going to start using Skull Bash, but it decided that it wanted to Hydro Pump pretty much every turn. I used Taunt thinking that would prevent it from setting up rain, but with two Hydro Pumps in, I switched into Jolteon thinking it would be fine...until poor Oscar got crit with a Hydro Pump to the face. Damn. My best Pokemon for most of the run, and best counter to this 'mon, gone. I went back into Feesh and Blastoise took a second Intimidate, rendering Skull Bash and Bite pretty much useless, and then stalled out the rest of the Hydro Pumps while spamming Hyper Beam, with a few Ice Beams to avoid heal range. Last up was Exeggcutor - whom we easily KO'd with Cody to finish off the Elite Four!!

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YOUR LEAFGREEN CHAMPIONS!!!

• Brock the Golem (Lv58)
• Teller the Hypno (Lv58)
• Fitzy the Venomoth (Lv57)
• Feesh the Gyarados (Lv58)
• Cody the Charizard (Lv58)

~the fallen~

• Staraptor the Pidgey (Lv2) - died to Brock's Onix
• Richie the Raticate (Lv24) - died to Lt. Surge's Raichu
• greg the Spearow (Lv19) - died to a random trainer's Machop on Route 9
• Abi the Slowbro (Lv47) - died to the lead Biker on Three Island's Weezing
• Garfield the Snorlax (Lv42) - died to Giovanni's Rhyhorn
• Oscar the Jolteon (Lv59) - died to Rival M.E.'s Blastoise

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Aaaaand, that's Game 1 of TheCapsLocke complete! We're not completely finished with our journey through Kanto yet - I still want to continue the Nuzlocke format through the Sevii Islands Postgame and attempt Elite Four Round 2 once, but for the purpose of the challenge, I will consider this game complete! Mostly so I don't have to replay it after beating it already lol. Overall I thought it was a really good run! I think my big thing is that I need to get over the fear of having to reset early if I fail. I don't need to be sacrificing good Pokemon in the earlygame. Obviously resetting is not ideal, but if it means taking a reset earlier in the game to prevent putting myself in a worse situation later, I need to take it. I think I did get a little better at recognizing the optimal plays, though I do think in the final fights I relied on healing a little too much - this is because I knew I wanted to keep most of my 'mons for Elite Four Round 2 and the Postgame. In future challenges I'm going to avoid healing in battle as much as possible, and probably outright ban it when we get back to some of the easier games.

Hope you all have enjoyed watching & listening to me rambling about the challenge in this thread! TheCapsLocke will continue as I push onward into FRLG's postgame, and then into Sinnoh with Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl!

 

[There Is No Arceus]

congrats on beating the game. Which one will you do after you beat the postgame?

 

[TheCapsFan]

congrats on beating the game. Which one will you do after you beat the postgame?

Thanks! I'll be doing BDSP next. Haven't decided which version yet