Pokemon Fire Red - Nuzlocke Challenge

2013-01-21 01:58:24 pm

Hi guys,
I'm new active member, but I lurk on this website and watch speedrun videos 2y from now.

I'd like start my speedrun experience by a game that I like alot : Pokemon Fire Red. And then I recently heard about the Nuzlocke Challenge and I was thinking, why don't link both challenges. Finish the run as fast as we can, with extra difficulties.The Nuzlocke Challenge induce 2 things : 1st, if a pkmn is ko, it cannot be reanimate. KO = death. 2nd you can only catch one single pkmn by zone, route or city. If the first pokemon met is killed or escaped. You cannot try again to catch another pokemon on this area.

This challenge appears to be bearable for a pokemon run but seeing deeply it's not as simple as it looks. The first problem is caused by the national pokedex. To finish the game and beat the elite four a second time you need the national pokedex. To get it you need at least 60 different pokemons. This could be a big problem if you accidentaly killed some pokemon you tried to catch or get the same pokemon on different routes (that happens alot). I'm not even sure that you can get 60 different pokemon on all routes and cities around Khanto. The second difficulty is the risk value of speedrunning. I mean, when you speedrun a game, you take lots of risks to finish it as fast as you can. If you're killed or make a mistake, you can loose 30s to 1mn to ressurect your pkmns and continue a run that become sloppy or abit slower but you can continue. With this challenge, no mistakes allowed. That mean that you have to get more potions, that you can't switch between many many pokemon to refill your main because if they're dead they can't be reanimated... Lots of things to look into.

I started annotate a route, based on werster's speedrun but with more steps, more hidden items and shop and pokemon center stops.
I'd like some advices to adapt this challenge and make it doable. (It has to stay entertaining too). For example, I was wondering if we could consider that walking or fishing on the same area could allow you to get 2 different pokemons on the same zone, maybe surfing could allow a third pokemon too. Lots of thing that I'd like to discuss with other pokemon speedrunners if they like this project.

Feel free to participate and let comments.

PS : Sorry for gramatical, tenses or any other mistakes I may have made. English is not my mothern tongue... Sad

Thread title:

Hi guys,
I'm new active member, but I lurk on this website and watch speedrun videos 2y from now.

I'd like start my speedrun experience by a game that I like alot : Pokemon Fire Red. And then I recently heard about the Nuzlocke Challenge and I was thinking, why don't link both challenges. Finish the run as fast as we can, with extra difficulties.The Nuzlocke Challenge induce 2 things : 1st, if a pkmn is ko, it cannot be reanimate. KO = death. 2nd you can only catch one single pkmn by zone, route or city. If the first pokemon met is killed or escaped. You cannot try again to catch another pokemon on this area.

This challenge appears to be bearable for a pokemon run but seeing deeply it's not as simple as it looks. The first problem is caused by the national pokedex. To finish the game and beat the elite four a second time you need the national pokedex. To get it you need at least 60 different pokemons. This could be a big problem if you accidentaly killed some pokemon you tried to catch or get the same pokemon on different routes (that happens alot). I'm not even sure that you can get 60 different pokemon on all routes and cities around Khanto. The second difficulty is the risk value of speedrunning. I mean, when you speedrun a game, you take lots of risks to finish it as fast as you can. If you're killed or make a mistake, you can loose 30s to 1mn to ressurect your pkmns and continue a run that become sloppy or abit slower but you can continue. With this challenge, no mistakes allowed. That mean that you have to get more potions, that you can't switch between many many pokemon to refill your main because if they're dead they can't be reanimated... Lots of things to look into.

I started annotate a route, based on werster's speedrun but with more steps, more hidden items and shop and pokemon center stops.
I'd like some advices to adapt this challenge and make it doable. (It has to stay entertaining too). For example, I was wondering if we could consider that walking or fishing on the same area could allow you to get 2 different pokemons on the same zone, maybe surfing could allow a third pokemon too. Lots of thing that I'd like to discuss with other pokemon speedrunners if they like this project.

Feel free to participate and let comments.

PS : Sorry for gramatical, tenses or any other mistakes I may have made. English is not my mothern tongue... :(

Rileylol

2013-01-22 09:00:45 am

Seems interesting! Some notes, however:

-Nuzlocking is similar to regular pokemon speedrunning in one way; if your main pokemon faints, its a reset. There's no way to keep multiple pokemon at a close enough level to be relevant and you're better just super charging one.
-There aren't actually enough zones in the game, even if you somehow met a different pokemon in each zone and caught every single one, to end up with 60 different pokemon if you're only catching one per zone. This means that, for a true Nuzlocke, the challenge would have to end after E4 Round 1.
-If the Nuzlocke challenge ends at E4 round one, you'd be better off just running with Squirte/Wartortle/Blastoise and then Zapdos, the way Werster did, as catching other pokemon will just slow you down.

So, I mean, it's a great idea, but you'd have to find some kind of compromise with the challenge rules to make it possible. Let me know what you think!

cR4p0

2013-01-22 09:48:18 am

Yeah, I see what you mean. But the idea of adding challenge by Nuzlocke was not on my mind for doing the same run as any%. Because real any% FR/LG run is exactly the same as Nuzlocke challenge whether you specify it or not. I mean, on any% run, if your regular pkm die, it's a reset too.

I agree when you say that we can't afford have a 5-6 pkmn team. The ideal team is Blastoise/Zapdos as the WR may show, for R1 and R2 as well. I'm practicing alot werster's route for R2 speedrun, in order to find optimized extra items/extra cash.
The #1 problem is the number of pokemons noticeable on each route, and the little amount of routes on this game. Even with extra islands you cannot reach the correct amount of pokemon to get national pokedex.
The better compromise could be dissociate walking, surfing and running on each route to get 3 different pokemons on each route. I know that there is fewer pokemon on water (Magikarp, Gyarados, Horsea, Seadra, Tentacool, Tentacruel, Krabby, Kingler, Psyduck, Golduck, Goldeen, Seaking, Poliwag, Poliwhirl...) It's not enough but it'm better than nothing. We can derogate the rule to Safari Zone too. I don't want to break the challenge but only make it doable.

E4 R1 is not really appropriate for Nuzlocke Challenge, so I'd rather figure it how adapt NC to E4 R2. I'm practicing normal route with tons of saves and lurking on records. If you guys have any idea how manage NC with this type of run, let me know. Or maybe if you want to race it feel free to join and search with me ! Smiley

Yeah, I see what you mean. But the idea of adding challenge by Nuzlocke was not on my mind for doing the same run as any%. Because real any% FR/LG run is exactly the same as Nuzlocke challenge whether you specify it or not. I mean, on any% run, if your regular pkm die, it's a reset too.

I agree when you say that we can't afford have a 5-6 pkmn team. The ideal team is Blastoise/Zapdos as the WR may show, for R1 and R2 as well. I'm practicing alot werster's route for R2 speedrun, in order to find optimized extra items/extra cash.
The #1 problem is the number of pokemons noticeable on each route, and the little amount of routes on this game. Even with extra islands you cannot reach the correct amount of pokemon to get national pokedex.
The better compromise could be dissociate walking, surfing and running on each route to get 3 different pokemons on each route. I know that there is fewer pokemon on water (Magikarp, Gyarados, Horsea, Seadra, Tentacool, Tentacruel, Krabby, Kingler, Psyduck, Golduck, Goldeen, Seaking, Poliwag,	Poliwhirl...) It's not enough but it'm better than nothing. We can derogate the rule to Safari Zone too. I don't want to break the challenge but only make it doable.

E4 R1 is not really appropriate for Nuzlocke Challenge, so I'd rather figure it how adapt NC to E4 R2. I'm practicing normal route with tons of saves and lurking on records. If you guys have any idea how manage NC with this type of run, let me know. Or maybe if you want to race it feel free to join and search with me ! :)

Garryl

2013-01-22 01:12:18 pm

Would it be possible to get the required 60 pokemon by evolving and/or trading to add more to the Pokedex without catching more pokemon? I haven't played any of the newer generation games, but I assume that Caterpie -> Metapod -> Butterfree (or the same with the Weedle line) is still a very quick three entries? You can also save on leveling time on pokemon destined for evolution by sending some of them to the daycare trainer guy. He's still there, right?

cR4p0

2013-01-22 04:19:57 pm

Quote from Garryl:

Would it be possible to get the required 60 pokemon by evolving and/or trading to add more to the Pokedex without catching more pokemon? I haven't played any of the newer generation games, but I assume that Caterpie -> Metapod -> Butterfree (or the same with the Weedle line) is still a very quick three entries? You can also save on leveling time on pokemon destined for evolution by sending some of them to the daycare trainer guy. He's still there, right?

Yeah, Caterpie and Weedle are some basic pokemons that can evolve quickly. Magikarp can be caught on lvl 20+ too so only 1lvl and it evolves too. Nidoran (m/f) can be caught on high lvl on safari zone too so one up to nidorino (or nidorina) and a moon stone to get all 6 pokemons (m & f). But even with this amount, we're far from 60.
I think the daycare is not a solution because the leveling take so long in there and only for one pokemon that you have to bring on and back. It's a waste of time for speedrunning I think. The ideal is to catch pokemon the highest lvl as you can on primary evolution, so that they can evolve using a rarecandy. (most of them are used to evolved other pkmn than main (blastoise/zapdos))

If I can list pokemon who need stone/rare candy (quick up) to evolved I'd say :

Growlithe (firestone)
Pikachu, Evee (pierre foudre)
Nidoran (m/f), Clefairy, Jigglypuff (moonstone)
Exeggcute, Gloom (leafstone)
Shellder, Poliwhirl (waterstone)

Safari zone :
- Paras (lvl 23) -> Evolve 24
- Nidoran (m/f) (lvl 22) -> Evolve 16
- Psyduck* (lvl 20-40) -> Evolve 30
...etc

There's more of them, but I'm really tired, I'll edit it tomorrow (1am here)

[quote="Garryl"]Would it be possible to get the required 60 pokemon by evolving and/or trading to add more to the Pokedex without catching more pokemon? I haven't played any of the newer generation games, but I assume that Caterpie -> Metapod -> Butterfree (or the same with the Weedle line) is still a very quick three entries? You can also save on leveling time on pokemon destined for evolution by sending some of them to the daycare trainer guy. He's still there, right?
[/quote]

Yeah, Caterpie and Weedle are some basic pokemons that can evolve quickly. Magikarp can be caught on lvl 20+ too so only 1lvl and it evolves too. Nidoran (m/f) can be caught on high lvl on safari zone too so one up to nidorino (or nidorina) and a moon stone to get all 6 pokemons (m & f). But even with this amount, we're far from 60.
I think the daycare is not a solution because the leveling take so long in there and only for one pokemon that you have to bring on and back. It's a waste of time for speedrunning I think. The ideal is to catch pokemon the highest lvl as you can on primary evolution, so that they can evolve using a rarecandy. (most of them are used to evolved other pkmn than main (blastoise/zapdos))

If I can list pokemon who need stone/rare candy (quick up) to evolved I'd say :

Growlithe (firestone)
Pikachu, Evee (pierre foudre)
Nidoran (m/f), Clefairy, Jigglypuff (moonstone)
Exeggcute, Gloom (leafstone)
Shellder, Poliwhirl (waterstone)

Safari zone :
 - Paras (lvl 23) -> Evolve 24
 - Nidoran (m/f) (lvl 22) -> Evolve 16
 - Psyduck* (lvl 20-40) -> Evolve 30
...etc

There's more of them, but I'm really tired, I'll edit it tomorrow (1am here)

Dalimyr

2013-01-23 05:54:18 am

Quote from cR4p0:

Because real any% FR/LG run is exactly the same as Nuzlocke challenge whether you specify it or not.

No it's not. In an absolutely perfect run, it kind of would be, but in any% you're not restricting yourself to only catching the first pokemon you meet in any given area - you might give yourself a vague time limit to try and catch what you need (e.g. Pidgey or Spearow for learning Fly) and keep running from battles until you get the Pokemon you need and catch it, and reset if it takes too long (this is most often an issue with Pokemon Yellow runs where you're trying to get a male Nidoran as quickly as possible), but it's not 'run over' if the first thing to show up isn't the specific pokemon you're after.

Quote from Garryl:

Would it be possible to get the required 60 pokemon by evolving and/or trading to add more to the Pokedex without catching more pokemon? I haven't played any of the newer generation games, but I assume that Caterpie -> Metapod -> Butterfree (or the same with the Weedle line) is still a very quick three entries? You can also save on leveling time on pokemon destined for evolution by sending some of them to the daycare trainer guy. He's still there, right?

Trades often aren't efficient for this as you have to give away an unevolved pokemon to get a pokemon that can't evolve (e.g. by trading Abra for Mr Mime, you increase your Pokedex by 1 but if you keep the Abra and level it up, you'll increase your 'dex by 2 by getting Kadabra and Alakazam)
At a glance, there are only three trades worth doing - Nidoran of one sex for one of the opposite sex (this'd give you 4 pokedex entries rather than 3 by keeping the original Nidoran yourself), Poliwhirl for Jynx (there'll be several opportunities to catch a second Poliwag/Poliwhirl to level it up to Poliwrath) and Spearow for Farfetch'd (likewise, Spearow is fairly common on several routes to catch a second time to add Fearow to the pokedex)
Levelling up pokemon would be essential - you couldn't get the 60 without evolutions.

The thing is that while in theory it's possible to get 60+ Pokemon (I was plotting it out via a normal casual route through the game and got to 45 pokemon by the time I was in Lavender Town, which didn't include pokemon you could get via surfing or fishing in cities that otherwise have no grass or anything for you to get random encounters in, so 60+ is definitely possible), in practice with the rules as they are it simply wouldn't work out without liberal saving/loading because on many routes where there's a rare Pokemon you might have to collect (e.g. Mt Moon is the only place you can find Clefairy, and it only has a 1% chance of appearing there), you're going to be screwed by something else you don't want appearing (in Mt Moon, most likely a Zubat, which can be found in several other areas - other things like Pidgey, Rattata, Caterpie, Weedle...they're all so bloody common in large chunks of the world map). Other pokemon like to screw you further by being relatively rare and then fleeing (classic example being Abra always using teleport on its first turn because it doesn't know any other moves). On route 1 you'll almost certainly get into an encounter before you even have pokeballs. And on some routes you may not want to get a random encounter until you have some item (e.g. by the time you're on Route 6 you might already have a Pidgey, Meowth and Oddish (the only ones to appear there) so you might want to try and use a fishing rod or surfing there to catch something like a Psyduck or Poliwag), but if you get a random encounter in that area before you acquire the item or ability you need to be able to encounter the pokemon you'd want to meet there, you can't then do that.

With all of that in mind, if you're having to save/reload constantly to have a realistic chance of actually getting the 60+ pokemon you need in order to beat the entire game, it kind of defeats the purpose of doing a challenge with such stringent rules in place. Doing a run up to the first round of the Elite Four, sure, that's not a problem, but beyond that it's just not really that feasible in practice, it's just placing far, FAR too much emphasis on getting insanely good luck throughout the entire game...plus the amount of grinding you'd have to do to level all your pokemon to evolve them so you get your 60 pokemon would be incredibly dull from a speedrunning perspective.

[quote="cR4p0"]Because real any% FR/LG run is exactly the same as Nuzlocke challenge whether you specify it or not.[/quote]No it's not. In an absolutely perfect run, it kind of would be, but in any% you're not restricting yourself to only catching the first pokemon you meet in any given area - you might give yourself a vague time limit to try and catch what you need (e.g. Pidgey or Spearow for learning Fly) and keep running from battles until you get the Pokemon you need and catch it, and reset if it takes too long (this is most often an issue with Pokemon Yellow runs where you're trying to get a male Nidoran as quickly as possible), but it's not 'run over' if the first thing to show up isn't the specific pokemon you're after.

[quote="Garryl"]Would it be possible to get the required 60 pokemon by evolving and/or trading to add more to the Pokedex without catching more pokemon? I haven't played any of the newer generation games, but I assume that Caterpie -> Metapod -> Butterfree (or the same with the Weedle line) is still a very quick three entries? You can also save on leveling time on pokemon destined for evolution by sending some of them to the daycare trainer guy. He's still there, right?
[/quote]Trades often aren't efficient for this as you have to give away an unevolved pokemon to get a pokemon that can't evolve (e.g. by trading Abra for Mr Mime, you increase your Pokedex by 1 but if you keep the Abra and level it up, you'll increase your 'dex by 2 by getting Kadabra and Alakazam)
At a glance, there are only three trades worth doing - Nidoran of one sex for one of the opposite sex (this'd give you 4 pokedex entries rather than 3 by keeping the original Nidoran yourself), Poliwhirl for Jynx (there'll be several opportunities to catch a second Poliwag/Poliwhirl to level it up to Poliwrath) and Spearow for Farfetch'd (likewise, Spearow is fairly common on several routes to catch a second time to add Fearow to the pokedex)
Levelling up pokemon would be essential - you couldn't get the 60 without evolutions.

The thing is that while [b]in theory[/b] it's possible to get 60+ Pokemon (I was plotting it out via a normal casual route through the game and got to 45 pokemon by the time I was in Lavender Town, which didn't include pokemon you could get via surfing or fishing in cities that otherwise have no grass or anything for you to get random encounters in, so 60+ is definitely possible), in practice with the rules as they are it simply wouldn't work out without liberal saving/loading because on many routes where there's a rare Pokemon you might have to collect (e.g. Mt Moon is the only place you can find Clefairy, and it only has a 1% chance of appearing there), you're going to be screwed by something else you don't want appearing (in Mt Moon, most likely a Zubat, which can be found in several other areas - other things like Pidgey, Rattata, Caterpie, Weedle...they're all so bloody common in large chunks of the world map). Other pokemon like to screw you further by being relatively rare and then fleeing (classic example being Abra always using teleport on its first turn because it doesn't know any other moves). On route 1 you'll almost certainly get into an encounter before you even have pokeballs. And on some routes you may not want to get a random encounter until you have some item (e.g. by the time you're on Route 6 you might already have a Pidgey, Meowth and Oddish (the only ones to appear there) so you might want to try and use a fishing rod or surfing there to catch something like a Psyduck or Poliwag), but if you get a random encounter in that area before you acquire the item or ability you need to be able to encounter the pokemon you'd want to meet there, you can't then do that.

With all of that in mind, if you're having to save/reload constantly to have a realistic chance of actually getting the 60+ pokemon you need in order to beat the entire game, it kind of defeats the purpose of doing a challenge with such stringent rules in place. Doing a run up to the first round of the Elite Four, sure, that's not a problem, but beyond that it's just not really that feasible in practice, it's just placing far, FAR too much emphasis on getting insanely good luck throughout the entire game...plus the amount of grinding you'd have to do to level all your pokemon to evolve them so you get your 60 pokemon would be incredibly dull from a speedrunning perspective.

cR4p0

2013-01-23 03:22:58 pm

I agree on all points.
I may not have consider deeply all aspects of the challenge and how random route planning and pokemon could be before planning to do it.
I still want to learn it because I love it and I'm still stuck on troll Koga...

Thank you for advices, explanations... I'll keep all you've said in mind.

Dalimyr

2013-01-26 08:03:21 am

OK, it'd been so long since I played Pokemon that the stuff I said about trades is mostly complete rubbish Lips Sealed

So, yeah, looks like trades are normally going to be worth it after all...

Abra for Mr Mime is worth it (saves levelling up to evolve into Kadabra, and Alakazam is got via trading with another player, not something you can do in a single-player game)
Nidoran (M) for Nidoran (F) is worth it (as I said above, 4 'dex entries rather than 3)
Spearow for Farfetch'd is the same as the Abra (choice of trading versus levelling up for one extra entry, trading's quicker)
Poliwrath isn't received via levelling up, but evolves by water stone. Would be quicker versus trading a Poliwhirl for Jynx, but if you can get two Poliwags (they're common enough once you've got the good rod, though it's less common than Goldeen) then get your Jynx with the second one.
Golduck for Lickitung is worth it (as far as the 150 is concerned, Golduck's a final evolution, so Lickitung adds one where you otherwise wouldn't get any more)

But yeah, levelling up by and large is slow and dull. The Exp Share item helps speed things along, but you a) get that fairly late on in the game (outside Fuschia) and b) need 50+ Pokemon recorded to get it as well, so by then you've likely got fairly little use for it.

OK, it'd been so long since I played Pokemon that the stuff I said about trades is mostly complete rubbish :-X

So, yeah, looks like trades are normally going to be worth it after all...

Abra for Mr Mime is worth it (saves levelling up to evolve into Kadabra, and Alakazam is got via trading with another player, not something you can do in a single-player game)
Nidoran (M) for Nidoran (F) is worth it (as I said above, 4 'dex entries rather than 3)
Spearow for Farfetch'd is the same as the Abra (choice of trading versus levelling up for one extra entry, trading's quicker)
Poliwrath isn't received via levelling up, but evolves by water stone. Would be quicker versus trading a Poliwhirl for Jynx, but if you can get two Poliwags (they're common enough once you've got the good rod, though it's less common than Goldeen) then get your Jynx with the second one.
Golduck for Lickitung is worth it (as far as the 150 is concerned, Golduck's a final evolution, so Lickitung adds one where you otherwise wouldn't get any more)

But yeah, levelling up by and large is slow and dull. The Exp Share item helps speed things along, but you a) get that fairly late on in the game (outside Fuschia) and b) need 50+ Pokemon recorded to get it as well, so by then you've likely got fairly little use for it.

Kitty Box

2013-05-08 09:52:37 pm

This seems like an incredibly interesting idea. I might actually attempt to do this some time since I like doing Nuzlocke challenges(though I still have yet to beat one). I'm not sure how easy it'd be though seeing as how the randomness of the game becomes even more threatening to a run than ever seeing as how the first pokémon you find in an area is the one you get.

Zehal

2013-07-15 12:11:59 am

I've considering doing this as well, and the only thing I could come up with is a small addendum to the Nuzlocke rules; once you defeat the E4, you may then freely catch Pokemon, but cannot use them. This honestly makes sense to an extent, since the Nuzlocke itself technically ends when you beat the original goal of the E4, so it isn't technically "cheating" to allow you free catching post R1.