Bay 12 Games Forum

Now that I have enough badges, I can receive the SQUIRTBOTTLE from the flower shop lady. Since Sudowoodo has been moved from that three way intersection in Route 36 to Ilex Forest, the SQUIRTBOTTLE doesn't actually clear any roadblocks, but it'll let me catch Sudowoodo later if I want to. Sudowoodo kind of a mediocre Pokemon, but it's an event encounter, so I believe it'll scale up if I save it for when I need an appropriately level replacement for a fallen team member in the late game.


Alright, for the next step of my plan, I'm gonna need a Ghost-type. There's a place I can trade a Snubbull for a Misdreavus at, so I'm gonna shoot for a 30% chance to encounter a Snubbul at Route 34, which should effectively be a 60% encounter chance due to dupes clause.


Damn.



Well, might as well catch it anyway, if only for later dupes clause exploitation.

Lemme check my notes for the more consistent route for catching Snu- Wait, ah shit. The catching route I had come up with actually uses Route 34 as a component.


Specifically, Morning!Route 34 or Day!Route 34, because Night!Route 34 has a 0% encounter rate for Snubbull.


Okay, Jigglypuff's chance of being encountered doesn't vary based on the time of day (and I didn't need to invoke dupes clause), so rolling for an encounter at the wrong time of day technically wasn't the cause of me not rolling a Snubbull encounter. Still, that was sloppy of me.



As was losing Cleopatra to some random ass trainer with a Rock Throw Geodude. I don't recall the exact circumstances of their death, but I think I hard switched into them from Nuke, predicting a Ground-type move like Magnitude.



Fun fact: Slugma and Magcargo are actually Gen 2 Pokemon, not Gen 3 Pokemon. You could only catch Slugma (in an underleveled state) in Kanto in the vanilla games, though. It couldn't even be encountered near Cinnabar Island, a logical place for it- no, you could only catch it near Cycling Road for some reason. And Magcargo could only be obtained by evolving Slugma, which could only be caught around 6-12-ish levels away from the level it evolved at. At least Blaine got one?


Ooh, on my way to Route 11 to try to fish for another Snubbull encounter, I found this fella lounging around in an area that technically counted as being a part of Vermillion City. I know where to find another, but this one is probably better due to not conflicting with any (non-water) encounters.


Anyway, time for my Route 11 encounter.


This Rattata was a dupe, but I forgot to give Bort a Smoke Ball, so I switched into Nuke for maximum safety while running away. I'm very concerned by how much damage Nuke took from this crit. Yeah, crits do 2x damage instead of 1.5x damage in this generation, but this is a Rattata, and Nuke is a god.

Fortunately, I manage to run away. If I had lost Nuke to a wild Rattata, I'd have been unimaginably tilted.


After healing and returning, I encounter a Girafarig. It's a mediocre Pokemon, but at least it's of a relevant level. And later on, it can Baton Pass speed boosts from Agility.


... A mediocre Pokemon who can almost one-shot Bort? with a non-crit Confusion.


And actually one-shot Snubbed, which means I can still encounter Jigglypuff again at a later date. Damnit.

[I forgot to take a screenshot here, but the Girafarig also deals over 1/3 of Nuke's health in damage with one move.]
I... have to pull out here. I can't risk Legacy getting one-shot before he gets a chance to evolve, and if Nuke dies from a crit, it's all over. The possibility of catching this Girafarig isn't worth potentially losing the entire run.

... I've been forced to retreat by a WILD GODDAMN GIRAFARIG. Something needs to change, because this is unacceptable.


I have only 4 'mons in my party, and the only one with solid stats is Nuke. I have some more in my box, but they're all trash and/or important for dupes clause manipulation. There are some killer 'mons I'd like to catch, but I need to hold out for a bit longer to get the tools to catch them with.

I see only one option here: Pump power into Nuke and Legacy to make them strong enough to carry me where I need to go. And to do that, I'm gonna need to turn that mindset...














... into a grindset.

The keyboard you can see on the screen there is there because BGB's speed up function is hard bound to numpad plus for some reason, which my laptop doesn't have. I have to hold down left click on the numpad plus button on that on-screen keyboard in order to speed up the game. As far as I'm aware, there isn't a toggle, I have to actually hold it down.

I'd also like to issue an apology:


I was incorrect when I claimed in a previous update that Crystal Clear gives you no warning that Frank is a miniboss. If you talk to your follower Pokemon in the Underground Tunnel, a warning that the guy in the blue shirt is dangerous is in the pool of possible responses. Thank you, Crystal Clear, very cool.

Anyway, uh, I've gotten a bit bored of spamming A on Legacy until he indicate that he's picked up an item, removing it from him, and then repeating the process, so I'm gonna go do a different form of grinding now.


Welcome back to the Ruins of Alph, which is filled with level 5 Unown, which have decent-ish base stats for stat experience grinding.

For those of you who don't know what stat experience is, it's basically Gen 2's equivalent of EVs. Bulbapedia gives a good explanation of them:


Since Legacy will be holding an experience share, half of the stat exp. that Legacy gains will be sent to Legacy instead, so they'll both get stronger.




Let the slaughter commence.























okay I killed 50 unown with all of nuke's pp and I'm only like 1/65th of the way there fuck this shit lmao


After giving up on stat experience grinding and bothering Legacy some more, I finally have a silver leaf.



And now I don't have to wait until level 37 to get a Baton Pass Umbreon (unless there's a tutor for teaching moves from a previous evolution, in which case that's a bit of egg on my face).


Minor problem, though: Eevee -> Umbreon is a friendship evolution, the happiness threshold required for a Pokemon to perform a friendship evolution is 220, and Legacy's happiness value is currently 142.


It's time to take a long walk. Er, jog.


And after a LOT of running around, Legacy likes us enough to become an Umbreon.





He's very close to leveling up, so we might as well add another Unown corpse to the pile.





Hell yeah.


For reference, these are Legacy's stats from before he evolved.



And here are his post-evolution stats. He CHONKY.

I've also come up with a near-guaranteed strategy to get a Misdreavus (for the other plan I mentioned earlier in this update), but I'll need a level 15 Pokemon for it.




After beating up a trainer in Sabrina's gym and another in Lt. Surge's, Nuke levels from level 14 to level 15. It's time to execute the plan.




It turns out that the only level 15+ Pokemon that can appear on Route 5 are Pidgeotto and Misdreavus. Since I have a Pidgey in my PC, I can ignore Pidgeottoes due to the dupes clause, so by using a repel with Nuke as my lead Pokemon, I can ensure that my next valid encounter on this route will be a level 15 Misdreavus. It won't receive the traded EXP boost like the one I planned to get by trading a Snubbull would, but you know how the saying goes: A caught Misdreavus in the hand is better than a traded Misdreavus in the bush.



I apparently didn't take a screenshot of my nicknaming of Misdreavus, but I nicknamed him Stone.

I'd like to take a moment here to go on a tangent about how Misdreavus was given an unbelievably raw deal in Gen 2. You thought Magcargo had it rough? Misdreavus somehow had it worse.

There are only four Ghost-types in Gen 2: the members of the Gastly line and Misdreavus (Mismagius didn't exist yet). The Ghost-type was physical before the physical/special split, presumably because Lick was the only Ghost-type move in Gen 1 that actually cared about your attacking stats. Gen 2 added one new "normal" Ghost-type move: Shadow Ball, a BP 80 move, which unfortunately couldn't be used very effectively by the Gastly line, as the Gastly line's base stats greatly prefer Special Attack over Attack. Game Freak, in their infinite wisdom, decided to make Misdreavus be ANOTHER Special Attacking Ghost-type Pokemon, meaning that in Gen 2, Ghost-type moves were used better by non-Ghosts than by any of the generation's actual Ghost-type Pokemon.

It's like GF forgot that the Ghost type was Physical instead of Special. Further evidence to support this theory is the fact that Shadow Ball has a chance to reduce your opponent's Sp. Defense stat, not their Defense stat.

Being a special attacking ghost also made Misdreavus's niche overlap pretty heavily with that of the Gastly line's niche. Compare their stat totals:

Misdreavus is basically an inferior Gengar, barring its 10 additional points in base Sp. Def and its lack of a secondary typing. Admittedly, that lack of a weakness to Ground-type moves and Psychic-type moves does go a long way, but not far enough to make up for Misdreavus's other shortcomings in comparison to the Gastly line, IMO. I guess it gives Misdreavus a more defensive role than Gengar, even though its defensive stats are mediocre at best (although that's counteracted by stat EXP making every Pokemon in competitive GSC pretty chonky)?

So right out of the gate, things are already pretty rough for Misdreavus. But it gets worse.

Morty is Johto's Ghost-type gym leader. He has four Pokemon: a Gastly, a Haunter, a Gengar... and ANOTHER HAUNTER. The man was so determined to not use the ONLY PURE GHOST-TYPE IN GEN 2 that he decided to just use a duplicate Pokemon instead of a Misdreavus. All of his gym leaders also only use the Gastly line, presumably because a Misdreavus killed Morty's dog or something.

Agatha, the Ghost-type E4 member, has been replaced in Gen 2, which conveniently robs the player of another opportunity to see Misdreavus.

Okay, so no major opponents use Misdreavus, but maybe the player will want to use a Misdreavus on their team. Where can they catch one?

I want you to guess where (or when) the earliest-accessible location you can catch Misdreavus in vanilla GSC is. Go on, guess.

























MOUNT. FUCKING. SILVER.

AND EVEN THERE, IT CAN ONLY BE ENCOUNTERED AT NIGHT.

If you haven't played Gen 2 yet and don't know what Mt. Silver is, Mt. Silver is the dungeon that houses Red, the game's true final boss. It is only accessible after you defeat every gym leader in both Johto and Kanto (which in turn requires defeating the E4 as well). Gastly, meanwhile, can be caught before you fight the first gym leader.

Gen 2!Game Freak treated Misdreavus like the Dursleys treated Harry Potter, and for that, Stone gets my sympathy.




Okay, tangent over. In 4 levels, Stone will gain access to Dream Look, which will make catching Pokemon who can run away SO much easier and less stressful.



Crystal Clear also gives Misdreavus access to Baton Pass and Growth, which could potentially let Stone fill in Legacy's planned roll if they, uh, kick the bucket.


Ooh, and Lovely Kiss. That'll be helpful shortly.





Mighty archdemon of sloth, I command thee to rise, for I hath performed thine ritual of awakening!



Behold, Snorlax in its prime. It DEFINES the GSC OU metagame. Its win rate in GSC OU is close to 50%, not because it's average, but because it's on every non-joke team, and if two teams that both have a Snorlax face each other and don't end up in a draw, one has to win and one has to lose.


And this wild Snorlax doesn't have any moves that can hit Ghost-type Pokemon, which lets me catch it without worrying about it sweeping my entire team. Which is a good thing, because after a few turns, Stone literally cannot hurt Snorlax faster than its leftovers heal it (without a crit). I forgot that Gen 2!Night Shade doesn't affect Normal-types like it did in Gen 1, so we're gonna have to just put Snorlax to sleep and try to catch it while its health bar is full. Fortunately, I brought around a dozen heavy balls and almost 20 great balls to this fight, so we SHOULD be fine.

[imagine there's a screenshot of Lovely Kiss's PP being low here]
[imagine there's a screenshot of my Heavy Ball count being low here]
Uh, I said, we should be fine.


Thank god, that was actually getting stressful.


I, uh, couldn't come up with an actual good nickname for a female Snorlax (I was gonna name 'em WALLy if they were male), so I just went with Amanda WALLer. I'm open for suggestions for a replacement nickname.




Awwwwww yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.


And hey, I can tutor Magnitude onto Amanda for Ground-type coverage until I get an Earthquake TM. Fun fact: Normal+Ground coverage is almost perfect in Gen 2- the only two Pokemon that aren't hit at least neutrally by it are Skarmory and Aerodactyl. Levitate doesn't exist yet, y'see. It also helps that 3 out of the 4 Ghost-types in the game are part Poison-type and thus weak to Ground-type moves.


I explore around Vermillion City a bit more and come across a docks area that's behind a zone transition. This guy here is selling S.S. Aqua tickets for 10,000 Poke each. Eh, not yet, I dunno if the trainers on that ship are scaled to my level.


Wait, this docks area still counts as being a part of Vermillion City? Shit, I might've just screwed myself out of getting Mew. Ah well, I'm sure there are some teammates we can pick up who'll be around as strong as a Mew, if not stronger.


Let's get some revenge, shall we, Stone?




Legacy naturally has a field day here, although there are some concerningly close shaves. Morty's gym is tricksy, despite only using one evolutionary line. I actually go back and teach Metal Claw over Tri-Attack so that he won't be left unable to harm his opponent once Thief's 10 PP get Spite'd away.


Hello, Morty. I've got a Misdreavus here who'd like to have a word with you. And by "word", I mean "bloodcurdling scream".

Hi, I'm ATHATH, welcome to Jackass!


ow

Despite what it looks like from these screenshots, you actually activate this feature by pressing A on a headbutt tree while riding a bike, not by running into a headbutt tree at full speed. Not gonna lie, I'm kind of disappointed.


Ooh, a Natu! And because I have a godawful sleep schedule, I headbutted this Natu out of this tree at night, so it started this battle asleep! Convenient!



I have a bit of a soft spot for Natu- back in Gen 7, it was the only Pokemon in the PU tier with the Magic Bounce ability, which gave it a critical role in my "Shedinja+5 Pokemon that can benefit from switching into moves that can hurt Shedinja" team, as it could bounce back Toxic, hazards, etc. on the turn it switched in. It was also able to put in a surprising amount of work once it was in with its Eviolite+T-Wave+Roost+Night Shade set. The team I used it on was awful (Natu can't learn Defog, so literally the only form of hazard control my Shedinja-focused team had was Natu bouncing hazards back on the turn my opponent tried to set them), but it was fun to pilot.





Anyway, abilities and Eviolite don't exist yet, so while Natu has an amazingly smug/judgmental status menu sprite, it's not very good (especially with those DVs, yikes). If I'm being frank, Xatu isn't very good either, so Cleopatra is probably gonna become the next No Gliscor, but unlike No Gliscor, they'll at least get some respect.


I use some move tutors to give Cleopatra a better move list, just in case they see combat as anything other than a sacrifice for a stronger 'mon.






So, now that we have a full team of 6 again, it's time to knock out the next gym on my list: Goldenrod City's Normal-type gym. I want to nip this in the bud early so that Whitney won't get, like, Tauros or something later.


Imma keep it real with you, chief, the non-gym leader battles in this gym were total stomps that aren't really worth documenting. I think Bort? managed to get some KOs, but that was about the only thing of note that happened as I made my way to Whitney. I'll just post the before and after party member lists and skip to the Whitney fight.











Whitney's boasting here isn't unfounded- she's an infamous Nuzlocke killer in normal GSC. Clefairy's Metronome makes it unpredictable, and Miltank has solid stats and knows Rollout, which punishes potion spam and can force Nuzlockers to make multiple sacrifices if it gets going.

But this ain't my first rodeo, and it won't be my last.





My plan is to have Digimon solo this fight by using Barrier+Leftovers to set up to +6 on Clefairy, then using that Defense boost to survive long enough to KO Miltank without exposing my other, more vulnerable team members.





Setting up on Clefairy is risky, of course, but it won't always use Metronome, and even when it does, its meh stats prevent it from doing much with attack moves it pulls.




Clefairy's usage of Mimic lets Digimon's Leftovers recovery return it to full health. Things are looking good so far.





That Bite hit Digimon's +0 Special Defense, by the way, not their +6 Defense. They're a hell of a tank.





And here's the big girl herself. Batten down the hatches, boys, this is gonna get ugly.




Miltank leading with Defense Curl is actually bad for me. A hidden attribute of Rollout is that if you've used Defense Curl (and haven't switched out since then), its power is doubled. Miltank has effectively already started her Rollout chain, except instead of the first move of that Rollout chain dealing pitiful damage that could be pretty much immediately be negated by Leftovers recovery, it's instead reduced the damage that Miltank will take from my physical moves for the rest of the battle by 1/3.

And as you can see, that +1 Defense boost from Defense Curl and Miltank's natural physical bulk have made it take a concerningly low amount of damage from Digimon's Tri Attack. Perhaps a special move will deal more da- ah hell, I forgot to replace Psybeam with Flamethrower. Well, it'll still probably deal more damage than Tri Attack, so it's worth a shot.



...

Let's try that again, shall we?


And so it begi-


Uh oh.



Okay, that Rollout crit dealt double damage and bypassed Digimon's Defense boosts, so if the next hit of Rollout doesn't crit, Digimon should only take 1/4 the damage they took from this hit. I think we'll be okay.






This is fine.




This is not fine. This is actually very bad.


Miltank is about to use a (double power) stage 4 Rollout. Even at +6 Defense, Digimon cannot take that with its remaining 9 HP. My one saving grace is that Miltank is confused (and Rollout is only 90% accurate). The correct play at this point is to hard switch into Cleopatra to burn a rollout turn and roll a chance for Miltank to break her Rollout chain by hitting herself in its confusion. If Miltank KOs Cleopatra, Bort can come in and try to paralyze her on a confusion turn or burn Miltank's 5th rollout turn by sacrificing itself. If Miltank doesn't KO Cleopatra, her chain will be broken and I can work from there. Cleopatra is pretty frail, Rollout's power is doubled, and Cleopatra is weak to Rollout, so even if Miltank whiffs against Cleopatra, she won't be able to build up much of a new Rollout chain on Cleopatra before she KOs them. Then again, even a stage 2 Rollout will have an effective BP of 120 due to Defense Curl...

Unfortunately, despite my usage of the present and future tenses, this is actually post-commentary, and I did not hard switch to Cleopatra. Fearing that the rest of my team couldn't stand up to even a low health Miltank, I opted to stay in with Digimon, hoping for Miltank to hit herself in confusion or to miss her next Rollout.






But Miltank strikes true. Losing Digimon (and their held Leftovers) here REALLY hurts. You saw how they took even effective BP 240 Rollouts with relative ease (at +6 Defense, but still), and they had just saved the run during the Frank fight.

Well, I can get Bort in for free now, who can try to Thunder Wave Miltank during a confusion turn and then cheese it to death with Substitute spam or faint from stage 5 Rollout, which'd give Arcanine a free switch in.


... Or at least, I COULD have gotten Bort in for free if I didn't make another misplay and send in Cleopatra in a sac attempt. Because Miltank is a Normal-type, Cleopatra can't hit her with Shadow Ball or Night Shade, which means that she can only hit Miltank (who's at +1 Defense) with a BP 35 Peck. There's a very real chance that, if Miltank has Milk Drink in her fourth move slot, she can whiff Rollout here, fail to faint from Peck, and then Milk Drink back up to green health, at which point the fate of the run would basically entirely be decided by Rollout's miss chance.

Well, I've made my decision, and now I have to live with it. Use Peck, Cleopatra.






THE CLEOPATRA CLUTCH LET'S GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

I don't know if that crit actually mattered, but I'm not about to do the calc and lessen the moment by confirming that it wasn't needed for the KO. Cleopatra can have this.






Mm, delicious salt.




You're damn right I did, and I'll do it again. Digimon was a part of the family.








And that's our second badge, folks!


Oh, and the TM for Attract, I guess.

In the next update, I think I'll try to find a new 'mon or two to fill the Digimon-shaped hole in my heart. If y'all have any suggestions for which gym to fight next, leave them in the replies, and I'll consider 'em.

My apologies for the gap between this update and the last; I procrastinated writing it up for quite a while.



I suppose I should mention this guy and his brother, who're part of the reason that I'm planning to evolve Legacy into an Umbreon. For the price of a gold or silver leaf, they can teach a Pokemon an egg move or a move that they could learn from a move reminder if they were level 100 (in other words, a move that's anywhere in their level up learnset), respectively. Since Eevee learns Baton Pass at level 33 but Umbreon doesn't, without the help of the silver leaf-lover, I'd need to delay Legacy's evolution until level 34.


Unfortunately, I, ah, don't have a silver leaf, as the leaves are a bit of a pain to get. IIRC, you can get silver leaves either by spending points from The Arena (haha, noooooooooooooooo) or by stealing them from (or catching) certain species of wild pokemon that can hold them as their held items. Gold leaves, meanwhile, can sometimes be obtained by talking to your partner Pokemon in the overworld.

... It looks like I haven't mentioned pseudo-abilities yet either, which kind of tie into these leaf collection methods a bit. Eh, I'll just dump an excerpt from the documentation here and move on.



EDIT: THE FOLLOWING IS INCORRECT INFORMATION

This is a bit unrelated, but while I was browsing the Pokedex, I learned that, according to its own Pokedex, Crystal Clear removed the secret level 50 Magikarp from Route 43 (that Route that leads to the Lake of Rage). Sad!

If you don't know what the secret level 50 Magikarp is, it's basically a level 50 Magikarp that was thrown into the surfing encounter table for Route 43. If you surf around with a repel active and a strong-ish lead Pokemon there, it should be pretty easy to find them. After that, you'll just need to rare candy it once, and hey presto, level 51 Gyarados! They're there in the remakes as well.
END OF INCORRECT INFORMATION SEGMENT


I decide to beat up the trainers in Goldenrod Tunnel for some EXP and d'aww at Legacy's Substitute sprite along the way.

Gligar also contributes a surprising amount here, since the Grimers and Magnemites used by the trainers in this tunnel are weak to Earthquake. Not enough to graduate to "person" status (especially since it's failing to OHKO some 'mons that're weak to Earthquake), but enough to make me slightly more hesitant to throw it away.

Digimon, meanwhile, has been soaking up some sweet, sweet EXP with their Exp. Share. I'll switch that out for some Leftovers after another level or two.



I also buy Legacy a massage, since although I'm not ready to evolve them yet, I still want to prepare them for when I am ready to evolve them.





After defeating every other trainer in Goldenrod Tunnel and fully healing myself, I prepare to talk to Frank, another OC added by Crystal Clear. This guy was a real pain in a previous run, so I'm excited to get some revenge he-














oh fuck off

TIL, this son of a bitch is un-fucking-scaled. I just happened to fight him at an appropriate badge count in that aforementioned previous run, and he STILL took a 'mon from me then.

I would like to point out here that the screenshots I've shown so far have been my only interactions with Frank so far this run. The game has given me no warning that he's a miniboss, no indication that he's even a trainer, no option to back down from fighting him after talking to him, no warning that he's unscaled, and no REASONING as to why he's unscaled. As far as I'm aware, he's totally unrelated to the main plot. He's just sitting around with some level 20+ Pokemon in a city that's otherwise very friendly to new runs.

And now my run's going to abruptly and unsatisfyingly end because of this motherfucker and his team's insane level advantage over mine. FUCK this game, man.

sigh

I guess I might as well give this my best shot.


Even if it has the lowest IVs possible, Frank's level 22 Bayleef will still be able to outspeed Arcanine AND will easily avoid getting OHKO'd by Dragon Rage if it wastes its first turn with a non-attacking move or something.

Fortunately, I'm a diligent screenshot hoarder, so I know what Frank's remaining two Pokemon are. One's a level 20 Sudowoodo with Lick as its only (attacking?) move. Its basically free if I have any Normal types remaining, so I'm not too concerned about it.

The other is a level 23 Crobat with Flail, Reversal, and Hyper Beam. Even if I get past Bayleef, this thing is going to take at least one victim with it. I think my only chance is to just throw 'mons into it and Dragon Rage it on its recharge turns. If I knock it low but not low enough, though, it could start OHKOing with even Flail and Reversal, and then I'm basically screwed unless the AI decides to be dumb.

Well, let's focus on the Bayleef for now. My only shot here is if it just fails to do much of anything for the first two turns.





Holy shit, we might have a chance.

Bayleef decided to charge up Solar Beam on turn 1, so we were able to nick it during its charge turn. Now, though, it's going to fire off a BP 120 Grass move on turn 2 that basically no one on my team can survive- I'm going to have to sacrifice someone.




Did you really expect anything else?

Unfortunately, this Bayleef is holding Leftovers, and it's gotten a two Leftovers ticks in since that first Dragon Rage usage (one of which was already factored into that Dragon Rage damage screenshot from earlier). I'm not sure if Dragon Rage will KO from this range, but I really don't have any better options.




Is this... winnable?




Digimon levels up, and I teach them Psybeam over Flamethrower. While Psybeam has a low base power than Flamethrower does, it'll be better than Flamethrower against the remaining opponents in this life-or-death fight and I can reteach Flamethrower for free later.


Wait, Frank just sent out Sudowoodo instead of Crobat, presumably because Sudowoodo is a Rock-type and Arcanine is a Fire-type.

I have a potential route to victory.



Lick is a Ghost-type move, so Digimon is immune to it.



And it looks like my prediction was right: Frank is too dumb to switch Sudowoodo out, so Digimon can safely set up three Barriers on it to reach +6 Defense.





Even though Sudowoodo can't hurt Digimon directly, it can still take a LOT of punishment, and I'll need to conserve some of Digimon's PP for Crobat. This is gonna take a while.

Many Psybeams later...




You bastard.

Many MORE Psybeams later...



FINALLY.



The run killer cometh.

As mentioned earlier, unlike the other members of Frank's team, this Crobat isn't screwing around. Digimon is at +6 Defense and (as far as I'm aware) all of Crobat's moves are Physical, yes, but if Crobat gets a single crit here with basically any of its moves, that'll ignore all of Digimon's defensive boosts and allow Crobat to cleave through the rest of my team. Even if Crobat doesn't crit, a super-effective Reversal while Crobat is at low health will still hit HARD, Defense boosts or no Defense boosts.

Also, uh, remember how I said earlier that I had given Digimon an Exp. Share and was planning to replace it with Leftovers later? Well, uh, I haven't done that yet, so Digimon can't actually heal itself during this fight. Any damage that Crobat does to Digimon will last until the end of the battle, as I can't use healing items on Digimon mid-battle.

There's a very real possibility here that Crobat will win this damage race, even without any crits.


Good news: We know what Crobat's 4th move is now.



Bad news: A super-effective Psybeam does way less damage to Crobat than I thought it would.



Flail is doing a concerning amount of damage, considering that Crobat is pretty healthy and also knows Reversal, which will be super-effective and deal twice the damage that Flail would.



OW. We can't take much more of this, cap'n.

Fortunately, it looks like we'll be able to KO Crobat before it can get two more of those o-



Motherfucker.



... I'm screwed, aren't I? My only way out is to get, like, a crit or something.




THAT'S A "SOMETHING", I'LL TAKE IT




And so, it's come to this. Two Pokemon face each other down, both barely clinging to life. The next successful strike will determine the victor of this battle, and possibly even this Nuzlocke.

The sensible move here would be to use Psybeam again, as it's 100% accurate and it looks like Crobat's in range of being KO'd by it.


But I'm not a sensible man.



EAT HYPER BEAM, YOU SON OF A BITCH




We... won. We actually won against evolved 'mons that were twice our level. Holy shit.





fuck you








So you're telling me that all of that was for NOTHING?! This UNSCALED FIGHT wasn't guarding ANYTHING? No special Pokemon, no special items, or even the satisfaction of calling the cops in to stop this blatant burglary and send you to jail?

...


...............



....................................................................................





I hope you trip face-first into a Slugma, Frank. Actually, make that chest-first, so that you'll have time to register the pain.





I apologize for being a bit more foul-mouthed than usual this update, but this fight's existence existence genuinely tilts me. Next update, I'll be fighting Whitney, which'll hopefully be less pointless and ludicrously dangerous than the Frank fight.

The flow and spacing of the screenshots will be a bit wonkier from here on out, as I'm now usually taking them while playing the game instead of recording the game and taking screenshots of the recording. The need to wait for the pause/play interface to fade away whenever I wanted to rewind to grab a screenshot with the latter method was incredibly annoying.


After some Voltorb Flip grinding, I finally have enough coins to buy what I came here for.






Why am I choosing Porgyon in a single player run? You'll find out soon.


Okay, I came here for Porygon, but man, an Exp. Share really would be handy to have.


Back to the tables!

Some Voltorb Flip grinding later...



That Rare Candy is a surprise tool that will help us later.

Now, on to why I chose Porygon...


This guy is somehow in the first floor of both of the department stores at the same time. You can trade a Pokemon to him, and as his name implies, he'll trade it right back.


Hello, BST 515 Pokemon! Porygon-Z doesn't exist yet, sadly, but Porygon2 is more than strong (and chonky) enough for our purposes.




I teach Digimon Barrier from the EVENT TUTOR and Hyper Beam from that Hyper Beam TM I picked up earlier. Barrier + Leftovers (+ Recover) will be a very potent combo later, but for now, I give Digimon an Exp. Share so I won't have to risk its life while training it in the next few fights.


That Voltorb Flip grinding really didn't take much time at all, as evidenced by the short time gap between this save and my previous one.

I forgot to take a screenshot of it, but I accidentally got a Morning encounter in Dark Cave instead of a Night one, resulting in me rolling a 5% Teddiursa encounter instead of the Geodude or Zubat encounter I wanted to get there. Said Teddiursa then proceeded to run away before I could catch it. Yes, certain species of Pokemon can do that in Gen 2, even if they're not a roamer, although none of them have a 100% chance to try to flee in any given round like roamers do.

This is... a pretty sizeable annoyance. While I don't plan on putting Geodude or Zubat on my team, I do want them to block other Geodudes and Zubats from counting as my first encounters in various cave areas. Because there are a limited number of cave areas with small encounter pools in Gen 2, this is going to throw off my encounter routing a bit.


I catch an Unown in the Ruins of Alph so that I can catch an actually good static Pokemon in a certain area that I'll enter several gyms from now.


In Unown's defense, Crystal Clear adds a special Unown-only move tutor to the Ruins of Alph that can teach Unown various moves, mostly utility ones.


Sadly, a STAB Psychic move isn't among those tutorable moves, and even if there was, Unown's base stats still wouldn't be good enough to make it a viable team member past the early game.




I suppose now's a good of a time as any to mention Crystal Clear's enhanced Pokedex. It has an in-game tutorial that you should definitely read if you want to actually play Crystal Clear for yourself, so I won't go too in-depth about its features. Suffice it to say that it can show me the encounter tables for an area I'm in, tell me everywhere I can find a certain Pokemon, etc. Sure, I could try to use Bulbapedia or the like for that, but quite a few of the encounter tables of Crystal Clear have been changed from vanilla Crystal, and Crystal Clear even adds some extra areas of its own to the game (that of course wouldn't be on Bulbapedia).

My current objective is reach the BATTLE TUTOR, which, according to the documentation, can be found either somewhere in Dark Cave or in one of the exits to Mount Moon.

Since I'm in the area, I try to catch a Rattata or a Raticate in Route 4 to make Gastly a guaranteed catch in Sprout Tower, but find a Pidgey there instead, which normally can't even appear on that route. As I said before, many of the encounter tables have been tweaked.





Mount Moon is much larger in Crystal Clear than in vanilla Crystal (in which it's pathetically small), and much more closely resembles its Gen 1 version than its Gen 2 version.



I catch a Sandshrew there.


And rescue our lord and savior.

There's an extra exit in Mt. Moon Square. Beyond it lies...

Ace Trainer HQ, the place that all of those Ace Trainers apparently come from.



Also here is Grizz's Lab. Seems perfectly safe to me.




Grizz is the BATTLE TUTOR, and also the guy who maintains the remote tutor access part of the PC. The BATTLE TUTOR can teach your Pokemon moves that they didn't have access to in vanilla Crystal, but probably should have had access to. Y'know, stuff like Tri-Attack for Magneton. These "illegal" moves can and will be used by the teams of some of those miniboss NPCs, so don't be ashamed to teach 'em to your Pokes.

You can also battle (and re-battle) Grizz, and his team changes drastically after each badge, from what I've heard on the Crystal Clear Discord server. I donk him with Arcanine here since Dragon Rage is still ludicrous, but I don't think that coming back after future badges would be a good idea- his lab is explosion-themed, after all, and Self-Destruct and Explosion are incredibly scary in Gen 2, as they halve the defending Pokemon's Defense just before they deal their damage.


Ace Trainer HQ is apparently not fully set up yet, so there's not much we can do here.




It does have a healing machine and a PC, though, which I use to teach my Pokemon some very spicy BATTLE TUTOR moves.


I fly back to Goldenrod to do some off-screen shopping, as well as to visit this guy. In vanilla Crystal, he's only available in the lategame and charges coins for his services instead of Poke, but here, he'll accept cold, hard cash in either Goldenrod or Celadon.

What does he do, you may ask?

He teaches the beam moves (Flamethrower, Ice Beam, and Thunderbolt) at a price of 4K a pop. Remember how I said in the second part that it didn't really matter that Arcanine couldn't learn Flamethrower by level up after evolving? This is why.


In search of a Rattata, I visit some of the low-leveled routes and meet a legend in one of them.



I was worried for a moment that he'd have an overleveled Rattata or something, but no, he fell just as easily as the rest of them.


Hoothoot!

On to Pallet Town.


For some reason, Red's mom lets me play on her son's N64.



Oak sadly doesn't have any Pokemon for us, but he does have some research data on his computer that I can add to my Pokedex (not that I actually need any of it).


Finally, on Route 1, I catch a Rattata. Which means that in Sprout Tower...


... I find a Bellsprout. Fuck.

Crystal Clear added them to the encounter pool of Sprout Tower (which makes sense), and I forgot to check my Pokedex before trying to get an encounter.

Missing Teddiursa earlier was an inconvenience. Missing Gastly here is pretty huge. Not only is Gastly VERY good on its own (it has a base Sp. Atk stat of 100 and a base Speed stat of 80... BEFORE evolving), it's also pretty essential to a plan I have to catch a VERY powerful, metagame-defining Pokemon that I currently have access to without risking it wiping my entire team.



I can catch a Gastly or a Zubat on Route 31, but they have very low encounter rates compared to these two Barneys, so I'll need to find a way dupes clause my way around them. I'll focus on Poliwag first.


I have pretty good odds of encountering one on Route 22, so let's try there.


Damn.

Well, Gligar's not, like, awful, but its stats are mediocre and it does have a particularly glaring issue that'll probably keep it from finding long-term success on my team.

That issue being that Gliscor doesn't exist yet, so it can't evolve.



Ironically, Gligar's vanilla non-event moveset being so dogshit actually helps it quite a bit here, as it allows the EVENT TUTOR and BATTLE TUTOR to teach it Earthquake and Rock Slide, respectively.





Because of its decent typing for pivoting, the aforementioned access to some solid moves (in Crystal Clear), and my lack of many other good candidates, Gligar earns itself a temporary spot on my team. I give it a Berry instead of Leftovers, though, since I don't want it taking something valuable with itself if I decide to sac it to give an actually important 'mon a free switch in. Maybe Gligar will prove itself in some future battle, but until then, it's staying a disposable "it", not a "he".



I have some decent odds of finding a Poliwag on Route 44, and the only other 'mon that I can encounter there at night that I don't already have is Tangela. Even after catching Tangela, the levels of the Route 44 Poliwags will still be too high for me to safely catch one of them at my team's current level, but I can wait a gym or two to make the fight less risky.



Tangela's a bit of a pain to consistently encounter, but there's a nice little patch of grass that Crystal Clear added just south of Pallet Town that you can find 'em in.



God. Fucking. Damnit.

Screw this, let's grab something else, like the best Water-type move in the game.





Ah, that's better. Don't worry, the lady in this house said that we could take anything we wanted to from these boxes.

While there are some places that have pretty decent surfing encounter rates for Poliwag (like, 90%), no one in my party or box can currently learn Surf. *sigh*


The fishing guru of Vermillion City... doesn't give me a better fishing rod. Huh. I'll look into this later.


After doing a bit of research in my Pokedex, I found that Zubat has a pretty darn good encounter rate in Slowpoke Well. With a Zubat and the Bellsprout that I caught earlier, I think I can use one of my previously discarded species clause chain routes to get myself a Haunter a few gyms from now- and with it, safe access to that incredibly powerful Pokemon I mentioned earlier.


C'mon...


YES.

Crobat is actually available in Gen 2, but this Zubat's DVs are kind of eh (00 Speed DV, yikes), its final form is a friendship evolution, and its typing won't complement the team I plan to make well.

Fun Agonizing Crobat Fact: In Fire Red/Leaf Green, you can't evolve Golbat into Crobat into after you obtain the National Pokedex. Why? Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?

Let's check in on the Underground Path, since IIRC, you can get a Pokemon there. Who knows, it might be one of the ones I'm looking for.









The two Underground Paths are connected to each other in Crystal Clear, and the stairway in their crossing point leads to The Arena, the battle facility of this game.



Sure enough, some Pokemon are available for sale here. Unfortunately, the currency used here is Battle Points, not Poke, which I'll need to fight at least some arena battles to get. While scaled battles are available here, they scale to the highest leveled Pokemon in your party, not your badge count. The usage of Dragon Rage is also forbidden here, so I can't just cheese all of the fights with it. While I can tap out of any arena fight at any time, actually losing a Pokemon here does count as losing them in Crystal Clear's Nuzlocke ruleset.


Without the crutch that is Dragon Rage or consistent heals between battles, it seems that most of the stuff that costs BP is off of the table, as there's not a chance in Hell that I'll risk an important 'mon here.

... Maybe I can run Gligar and some other rejects through The Arena later, actually.


Copycat offers mirror matches here. Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeell no.




AND ATHATH JUMPS INTO THE RING!

AND THEN HE JUMPS RIGHT OUT AGAIN BECAUSE HE HAS THINGS TO DO!


LIKE CHALLENGING THE CIANWOOD CITY GYM!


Wait... Oh no.

These two Blackbelts normally have a Hitmontop and a Hitmonchan. But because they've been scaled down to be of a level appropriate for the first gym, they have Tyrogues instead.


They're just KIDS.



Nuke, wait-




ohmygodwe'resettingchildrenonfire


Okay, something nonhumanoid, thank god.






STOP MAKING ME FEEL BAD FOR PUTTING THIS OFF FOR SO LONG.


Chuck confronts us for our sins.








oh no he's cool


Definitely, that was a really sick flip.



Oh, right.




Mm, yeah, you're right, flipping ability doesn't really carry over to battling ability as a trainer.


His ace isn't even a Fighting-type at this level. Oof.


Really?





Because it looks like you have.

Well, that looks like a good a place as any to end the update at. I think I'm gonna gun for some more gyms next update, since I wanna get Haunter and some of the other powerhouses I've been eyeing soon if possible. Hopefully the fights of these next few updates will become a bit less one-sided as Dragon Rage's effectiveness starts to taper off.

Hello again, Bay 12! I'm ATHATH, and this is...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hg8pZe38dr4

Pokemon Crystal Clear. Specifically, my second attempt at completing a Nuzlocke of it.


This is the first screen of the game after that fantastic opening (the background music is a cover of MM3's title screen's theme, BTW). If you hold down Select while pressing A on NEW GAME...


You'll be asked if you want to enable NUZLOCKE MODE. Since that's what we're here to do, we of course say YES.


After rejecting the game's offer of explaining the Nuzlocke rules it uses and the NUZLOCKE MODE-specific changes to Crystal Clear (you have to beat all 16 gyms to challenge the E4, you don't have to fill out the Pokedex to fight the true final boss, etc.), we're presented with a list of clauses that we can accept or decline. I'm not going to post images of all of them (or their explanations) here, but I'll list the important ones I've enabled:

• Natural odds shiny clause
• Dupes clause
• No item use in battle (Pokeballs (when fighting wild Pokemon) and held items are exceptions, of course)
• Legendaries ARE legal (if they meet the other Nuzlocke requirements)
• Set battle style is always used, regardless of settings (this optional clause is here to "prevent temptation", according to the game)
• The stat EXP (basically the Gen 2 equivalent of EVs) of the 'mons of enemy trainers will scale with the number of gym badges I have
• A level cap based on the number of gym badges I have is enforced (I can't use 'mons with levels over the cap and my 'mons can't gain EXP once they reach it)

Note that, possibly due to technical limitations, Crystal Clear interprets the dupes clause a bit oddly- if a 'mon ends up dying, it's removed from your list of dupes, allowing you to catch another member of its species in another area. This can be a hindrance if you're trying to manipulate the dupes clause to your advantage.



We now get the option to select not just our starting region...


... but also our starting town.

I suppose I should explain- Crystal Clear's defining feature is that it turns Pokemon Crystal into an open world game. Most of the obstacles preventing travel between locations without specific HMs, plot progress, etc. have been removed, allowing you to go where you please and challenge the gyms in any order. The magnet train works from the get-go and ships can take you to more ports, which really helps make Kanto and Johto feel less disconnected from each other (and gives a point to the magnet train's existence). Pretty much the entire Team Rocket part of the plotline has been ripped out, including the Rocket Hideout (thank god). Almost every trainer and gym leader in the game will scale to your badge count, so the Kanto leaders and overworld trainers won't just immediately dunk on you. The wild Pokemon (aside from most of the static ones), however, won't, which is apparently an "intentional design decision". I'd recommend either grabbing a smoke ball ASAP or keeping out of the tall grass in the early game.

Anyway, my choice of Saffron City here is important for reasons I'll explain later. One of them is that your starter counts as an encounter for the city you start in, and Saffron doesn't have any available gift Pokemon like, say, Goldenrod does.



There's also character customization. You can choose both your sprite and the colors of its color palette, along with the colors of your bag and Pokedex.


There's a variety of available player character sprites (including ones for some of the manga-only characters, I believe), but I'm going to go with Blue's here because it will cause a special interaction with Viridian City's gym leader, according to the game's documentation.


To make my character not look exactly like Blue, I give them a color palette that makes them look as pale as a ghost sheet.


Nothing fancy here, just my name.


And we're on to starter selection.


Crystal Clear has a wide variety of available starters, with most of them having gimmicks. The badge requirements for HMs have been removed, so trainers who choose Seel can use Surf from the get-go, for example. I chose Eevee for my first run, which was a somewhat foolish decision, as you can easily pick up a gift Eevee from not one, but two different locations (and buy them from the Game Corners).



For this run, we're choosing Growlithe, because Growlithe's gimmick is being an absolutely busted starter.


I know I have a screwed up sleep schedule, game, you don't have to rub it in.


Crystal Clear gives you the option to save just before receiving a gift pokemon, to make shiny hunting them less painful.

It also lets you see a 'mon's DVs at the top of its nicknaming screen, allowing you to give them a more appropriate initial nickname.


.....



Hello again, Bay 12! I'm ATHATH, and this is...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hg8pZe38dr4

Pokemon Crystal Clear. Specifically, my second third attempt at completing a Nuzlocke of it.


Much better (DVs range from 0-15 in Gen 2). Sadly, "Disc One Nuke" is too long to be a nickname in this game, so we'll have to settle for just "Nuke".

To close off this starting update, here are some screenshots of the summary menus of our soon-to-be-terrifyingly-powerful pupper. Note that both Special Attack and Special Defence use the same "SPC" DV in this generation, and that DV is positioned AFTER the DV for Speed ("SPE").