Nuzlocke part 3

[greg_r]

Route 8:
So much for leveling Moira.
Caught! Natalie, level 15 Abra. Excellent! I'm swapping Moira for Natalie immediately so I have more than one pokemon good against the next two gyms.
So Karl babysits Natalie leveling up against trainers on route 8 and both of them evolve in the same battle. Cool. Natalie can now look after herself as we beat up trainers. Use the pokemon centre in Celadon City so more critters than Natalie have moves they can use.

Time to take out team rocket, which is remarkably easy and helps levelling Natalie as more than half their pokemon are poison or fighting type. Defeat Giovanni and Natalie is at level 26 but no uses of confusion left. I want to get her Psywave before heading to battle Erika so head to the patch of grass, unfortunately I kill the Duduo rather than catch it, c'est la vie. Going into my battle with Erika my team are as follows:
Natalie: Kadabra, level 27
Alice: Pidgeotto, level 28
Liam, Nidoking, level 25
Karl, Hypno, level 27
Frank, Gyarados, level 28
Hattie, Gloom, level 26

Everything in Erika's gym goes well until that trainer with all the high level Bellsprouts. Psybeam misses and Natalie takes a stunspore, now she's slower than Bellsprout and can be premi-wrapped. Swap out for Karl who finishes that fight. Psywave doesn't miss again. Simples. Natalie is now level 31 after that gym got rekt.

Picked up Olivia the Eevee here as well, because I didn't use the slot machines. Now onto Pokemon Tower! John wants to fight, ok sure. I'll crush him with Natalie.
Casualty! First round vs. Fearow, psybeam leaves it with a tiny sliver of HP left, fury attack, crital hit, lasts 4 rounds, goodbye Natalie. RIP Natalie level 15 - 31. That's a big blow, she was top level on the team and part of team "use physics to beat the stuffing out of gym 5.

Immediately catch Percival a level 22 Ghastly, but I'll be using Pokemon Tower to level Karl seeing as the next two gyms use psychic pokemon extensively.

I'm so glad that I saved a the Lavender Town pokemon centre earlier. Just moved alond rout 13, 14 and 15 which are all joined into one and contains almost as many mandatory trainer battles as Cerulean to Vermillion. Even with the pokemon centre battle ...
Castualty! Moira, Geodude level 14 - 15. I didn't level her up enough and she suffered for it. On route 13 we also ..
Caught! Quentin, Bellsprout, level 24. Probably not going to make the a team unless something happens to Hattie though.

In other news, Karl has developed a hatred of Fearows, I think he was close to Natalie after helping her evolve. Now I need to decide how to evolve Olivia. I usually pick Jolteon because pin missile is amazing and she's super-fast, I'm a little bit tempted by Flareon though as getting a fire type pokemon full stop isn't guaranteed in this play-through. After getting surf now that I'm in Fuchsia City I might head south from Pallet town to Cinnabar to explore the mansion and see what I get before deciding...

Next up though is Koga, this is the team as we arrive in Fuchsia:

I think Karl can probably tank the gym with help from Percival, but time will tell...

First up is the Safari Zone. I'm going to call each area of the Safari zone a unique place for catching pokemon but leave in the rule that I can only catch the first thing I see, if it runs away then hard luck. With this in mind, my total haul for the Safari zone is ... *Drum roll* ...
Caught! Rachel, Nidoran Female, level 29. I'm ok with htis, I was honestly expecting to come away with nothing, The things which ran way were, Chancy (*sob sob*, she's my favourite pokemon), Ryhorn and Scyther.

Liam has learned Surf because I don't want to fill up Frank's move list with rubbish. If I thought a bit harder about this I'd have probably given Frank Surf and Liam Strength, as it stands I need to either change my team to include a strength-slave or give Frank or Liam Strength anyway. *sigh*

Karl /just/ managed to tank the gym with some support. I'd have never managed it if he hadn't learnt psychic just before facing Koga. I count myself very lucky and had completely forgotten how high level Koga's venomoth was.

This is how things now look:

I really need to grind experience to level everyone, with the possible exception of Karl (for now) and see what I catch on Seafoam island, the power plant and pokemon mansion.

Swimming to Cinnabar:
I KOed the level 5 Tentacool that showed up. Oops. Trying to level some folk up, especially Alice to see if I keep her on the main team or if she gets an early retirement.
Casualty! Alice!!!!!!!!!! NOOOOOOoooo! You bastard Cloyster! How could I forget a) that you have ice moves and b) that ice is super-effective against flying. Shit. Not at all pleased about that. It doesn't mechanically affect much, as I was probably going to box Alice as the weakest member of the team in terms of stats, but to lose my first caught pokemon this far along is a massive blow. You'll be missed.
RIP Alice, Pidgeotto level 4 - 33.

Pokemon mansion:
Caught! Simon, level 26 Growlithe. I'm 100% cool with this. SO glad it's not a muk and I'll probably give Olivia a thunderstone.
Left immediately after catching Simon.

Power plant: Killed the level 10 goldeen that showed up in the water as I think I caught something on route 9 already.
Caught! Tina, level 32 Voltorb. That's pretty high level, probably not good enough to stop me levelling up Olivia, who'snow been given a thunderstone.

I'm officially ready for Team Rocket and Saffron Town Gym. I have used Fuchsia cities gym. Hope to heal in Saffron only after defeating team rocket and Sabrina. The current roster is:

and the focus will be levelling Simon and Olivia. I really want Olivia to be level 36 before taking on Sabrina so I have pin missile at my disposal. Otherwise that might be a difficult boss fight...