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[ATHATH]

Spoiler: Part 1: Character Creation (click to show/hide)

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").

[ATHATH]

If someone knows of a way to resize Imgur images that are embedded in a post, I'd be glad to hear about it. Needing to hide them in spoilers is kind of annoying.

[None]

When you use the [img ] tag, you can add 'width' or 'height' as one of the tags, so you'd have [img=linkhere width=600] for example if you wanted your picture  to be 600 pixels wide.

Godspeed.

[ATHATH]

When you use the [img ] tag, you can add 'width' or 'height' as one of the tags, so you'd have [img=linkhere width=600] for example if you wanted your picture  to be 600 pixels wide.

Godspeed.

Ah, thanks. I'll shrink the images later today, then. EDIT: Done!

Also, I forgot to mention two very important clauses (a level cap and scaling enemy trainer stat EXP) in this update, which I've now edited in.

[King Zultan]

PTW

[delphonso]

PTW - this mod looks cool.

[ATHATH]

Spoiler: Part 2: A God Amongst Mortals (click to show/hide)

Some of you might be wondering why I called Growlithe the most busted starter in the game. Well, I'm about to show you.


Growlithe starts the game holding a Fire Stone.




I just made Growlithe's base stat line go from this:

to this:


"But ATHATH!", I hear you say, "Growlithe can't learn any moves (other than Extreme Speed) by level up now that you've evolved it into Arcanine!".

Yeah, and? Who cares about any of Growlithe's level up moves other than Flamethrower? We're about to give our g'boy some much better ones, and even Flamethrower won't be out of reach for long.



I forgot to mention the Options menu configuration that I'm using in the last update, so I might as well go over it now. Most of the options I'm using are self-explanatory, but I'll explain the ones that aren't:

• TEXT SPEED: NONE makes text appear basically instantly instead of being typed out.
• Crystal Clear gives your character the ability to run (at bicycle speed) like in the later games, and this option removes the need to hold down the B button to run.
• I... don't remember what MENU ACCOUNT does. It defaulted to being on, so I left it that way.
• ENCOUNTER: FAST removes the pre-battle sliding animation, the "Got away safely!" text, the "Wild XYZ appeared!" text, and "XYZ used Sweet Scent!" text from wild Pokemon battles.
• NURSE: QUICK removes the Nurse Joy dialogue, leaving just the animation of her healing your Pokemon. Regardless of what you set this to, your character will turn around after talking to Nurse Joy so that they won't accidentally re-initiate dialogue while trying to mash through her text.
• CONTINUE: QUICK causes the game to jump right back into gameplay after a reload.
• The LAST FLOWN option lets you choose whether or not the Fly cursor should start where you are or in the default position for your region. I've left it on its default setting.

Daaaamn, my character somehow managed to afford a three story house in a major city. Props to them, I guess.

Fun fact: If I had an Escape Rope or a Pokemon with Teleport, Dig, or Fly in my party, I could teleport back to my house using my house key, no matter where I last healed at. Fly's still ideal to have on at least one of your pokes, but it's no longer nigh-necessary- not just because of the buff to Teleport/Dig/Escape Ropes, but also because it's much easier to navigate the world on foot in Crystal Clear than in Crystal.


Mr. Psychic still hands out the TM for Psychic, even though I'm only like 5 minutes into the game. Nice.


Off to Goldenrod. Choo chooooo!

You can end the magnet train cutscene whenever you want by pressing A, or you can stick around to honk the horn by pressing SELECT.


If I step into what used to be the Name Rater's house...


I'm teleported to the Modification Station, a place where the Name Rater, Move Deleter, Move Reminder, and some people who'll help set your 'mons up for transfer to other games all reside. Don't worry, leaving this room will bring me back to the place I entered it from.


Arcanine might only have one level up move, but it still has some solid level 1 moves. It's time for an upgrade.




Mm, I love the smell of POWER in the morning.


Oh yeah, I forgot to mention this before, but if you press SELECT on a Pokemon in your party...


They'll start following you around in the overworld, like in HG/SS. Each Pokemon species has its own set of overworld (and party menu) sprites, and there are also many species-specific interactions.

... Yeah, that's probably a feature I should've mentioned in the first update, come to think of it.


I check the menu at the local cafe.


Did I stutter?



What kind of an establishment are you running here?! Do I look like I'm made of Poke?

Then again, I do own a 3 story house in a big city...

((That's the same price as the other options on this menu, by the way. This place apparently sells coffee that the cafe's owners think is worth 9,800 poke.))


If you want to move into a house in a different city, you can buy one from this guy. Since I'm barely ever going to visit my house anyway, this is basically a waste of Poke for me.


I drop by Bill's house to pick up my Goldenrod City encounter: an Eevee. Yes, gift Pokemon count as encounters in Crystal Clear's Nuzlocke ruleset.






I'm planning to evolve this Eevee into an Umbreon who can safely slow Baton Pass in my other 'mons, so that is actually a pretty amazing DV spread.

On to the Goldenrod Radio Tower, where free stuff awaits!



On the first floor is the EVENT MOVE TUTOR, who can teach your Pokemon moves that they can ONLY have through events. He can't teach Growth to a Bellsprout, for example, even though he can teach it to my Eevee.

Once we've talked to them, the EVENT MOVE TUTOR's services will be remotely accessible from my PC. The same applies to two other important move tutors in the game.


This lady on the first floor gives me the TM for Hyper Beam for completing her quiz, which is a bit suspicious, but hey, I'll take it. Sure, using Hyper Beam often is a bad habit for Nuzlockes, but that beam that goes BYEUU-U-U-U-UM feels SO satisfying to use.


A Pink Bow! I plan to be using multiple Normal types, so I think this'll be on at least one of my party members for a while.

There are some other items that I loot from the Goldenrod Radio Tower, but this one stands out among them:



... Because it's not actually an item at all! This is Bort the Voltorb, and he's holding a Smoke Ball that we want. Even though we got Eevee earlier, we can still catch Bort (as evidenced by the "!" under his name), because Goldenrod Radio Tower counts as its own area for some reason.



Nuke comes concerningly close to fainting to a Mimic'd Fire Spin, but we manage to catch Bort. I name him "Bort?" to distinguish him from the Bort from my first run.





Bort's moveset is interesting, but he sadly doesn't really have the stats to do much with it, because the Voltorb line kind of sucks ass. We'll almost certainly phase him out later, but for now, he's a decent Thunder Wave user.


We also pick up Kenya, since they count as a Route 35 encounter, not a Goldenrod City one.



With no moral baggage, to boot!





Wait... Crystal Clear!Kenya starts with Fly. That's... actually HUGE, and will Nuke's ascension to peak power even faster than I planned it to be.

Y'see, Crystal Clear removes the badge requirements for HMs. It also lets you Fly to (most) places you haven't visited yet, even ones in a different region. Time to go on a looting spree.

But first, let's check on how Legacy's doing.


... I probably should have healed them after the Bort fight.

One heal later...



In Crystal Clear, the first fishing guru you talk to will give you an Old Rod, the second fishing guru you talk to will give you a Good Rod, and the third fishing guru you talk to will give you a Super Rod. I have no need for the latter two right now (as my level cap is too low for most of their catches), but I'll try to swing by the other gurus at some point in the future.


Leftovers!


Strength!



Mail delivery!




The KANTO TM TUTOR!

This guy can teach my 'mons moves that could be taught by TMs in Gen 1 but not in Gen 2. Like the EVENT MOVE TUTOR, now that I've talked to him, I can remotely use his services from the PC.

Unlike the EVENT MOVE TUTOR, the KANTO TM TUTOR has a bit more to offer my team than just Growth. He can teach my 'mons Body Slam(!), Mimic, Substitute, etc., but there's one move in particular that stands out above the rest for the point of the game I'm in:

Motherfucking Dragon Rage. Arcanine is one of the 12 Gen 1 Pokemon whom the Dragon Rage TM works on (without the involvement of glitches).

For those of you who aren't already aware, Dragon Rage always does exactly 40 damage. At this point in the game, pretty much nothing has more than 40 max HP, so it's effectively a 100% accurate one hit kill move. On a fully evolved BST 555 'mon. At level 5. I haven't fought a single trainer yet.

We'll get an opportunity to take it out for a spin soon, but there are a few more items that I want to grab first.



There's an Amulet Coin in B1F of the Goldenrod Department Store. I put it on Nuke to maximize the amount of money that we'll gain in some upcoming fights, since there's something that I wanna save up for (and I spent most of my money on Pokemart items off screen).


Down the stairs, there's a computer that can change my character's appearance. Now I have mastery over both death and flesh!



I grab an Up-Grade from Silph Co. We'll need it for something in the next update.



Finally, I walk to Cerulean City and ""borrow"" a bicycle. It's not actually faster than my running speed, but I can bonk into headbutt trees with it to get encounters from them without needing a Headbutt 'mon.

And now, what you've all been waiting for... the first trainer battle of the run. This one is personal, for reasons that y'all will find out later.

https://youtu.be/ilSa_jMzoNE

I cleanse Route 4 of all other trainer-owned life forms, then decide to take on two minibosses.

https://youtu.be/hskz56Pz1Ws
https://youtu.be/Vti7QZcEZG4

Minibosses like these ones are scattered throughout the two regions in the forms of various OCs (some of which are inserts of friends of the hack's author, I believe). They're usually pretty scary, since their 'mons will have strong sets, but you can also decline to fight most of them. Of course, none of them can put up much of a fight against Dragon Rage Arcanine, so I decide to stop bullying them for now.




Last stop of the update: Celadon City. There are some very nice things that I'd like to buy with coins. All of the free coins on the ground and free coin handouts in the two Game Corners have been removed, though, aside from a guy who'll give you a single coin to start you off with. I guess that means that it's time to do some between-update gambling.


And by "gambling", I mean Voltorb Flipping, because Voltorb Flip was somehow ported to Crystal Clear. The slot machines and the card flipping game are also available, if you prefer playing them.


And with that, I'll save my game and end the update. I'll have grinded Voltorb Flip for all of the coins I'll need by next update, and then my accumulation of power before the first gym can continue.

... What, did you think that Dragon Rage Arcanine was the end of it?

Most of what I plan to grab before the first gym should be doable before the end of the next update, though, so I'm open for suggestions for which gym I should donk with Dragon Rage first. Ideally, it should be one that can become problematic later.

[None]

oof wow you blew crystal wide open from the word 'go'

I take it this sort of powergaming is more or less required to get primed for the later encounters?

[ATHATH]

I take it this sort of powergaming is more or less required to get primed for the later encounters?

Eh, it's probably ludicrous overkill. Despite what it may look like, I actually don't know very much about Crystal Clear- I'm mostly just using what I learned from my first attempt and the online documentation.

Then again, those minibosses are no joke, and I turned on the scaling enemy stat EXP option, so enemy trainers are going to start getting stat EXP invested into their 'mons.

For those of you who aren't aware of what stat EXP is, it's basically Gen 2's equivalent for EVs. Unlike EVs, though, it's possible to max out your stat EXP in all of your stats at the same time, giving you a boost to your stats equivalent to all of your base stats being 31.5 points higher than normal for your species.

[ATHATH]

Spoiler: Part 3: Currently Chuck's (click to show/hide)

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.

[ATHATH]

Spoiler: Interlude 1: The First Battle (click to show/hide)

((Spinarak used Constrict, a move with a BP of 10))

[ATHATH]

Spoiler: Part 4: oh fuck off (click to show/hide)

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.

[delphonso]

Brutal, but great work against Frank!

[ATHATH]

A correction to something I claimed in Part 4:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Gold and silver leaves can both be found via talking to your partner Pokemon. They can also both be found in the possession of certain wild Pokemon species, although the list of species that can be encountered holding gold leaves in the wild is not the same as the list of species that can be encountered holding silver leaves in the wild.

For some reason, this information (currently) isn't in Crystal Clear's GitHub documentation; I had to check the pinned messages of a specific channel in the Crystal Clear Discord server to find it.

EDIT: This information IS in the Crystal clear's GitHub documentation... technically. It's buried in one of the changelogs.

[None]

Damn, incredible work. That was filthy, Frank! F's to the fallen Gligar, you had a chance to be someone we cared about.