There are only three certainties in life: death, taxes, and 30-year-olds complaining about Pokemon being too easy. While that last one usually gives me a headache, the unfortunate truth is that the recently launched Pokemon Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl are, well… too easy. During the review period, I decided to Nuzlocke my way through Sinnoh to spice up my playthrough, which h🌼ad about as much of an impact as Salt Bae doing his weird sorcery fingers to unhygienically and unevenly season the steak that went cold while you were waiting for him.
I’ve done enough Nuzlockes in my day to have become quite good at them. In fact, Diamond, Pearl, and Platinum are among the games I have most down to a T, so it’s safe to say I was pretty confident going into Brilliant Diamond & Shin𝓰ing Pearl. I didn’t imagine it was going to be child’s play - despite the fact these games are designed for children to play - but surely it would be at least rela♚tively manageable. I would soon learn that my dog could probably Nuzlocke BDSP with his teeth, in an hour, while sleepwalking.
Admittedly, I got pretty lucky early on. My random starter was Chimchar - to ensure it was actually random, I assigned all ꦡthree starters to number groups of 0-3, 4-6, and 7-9. The group and corresponding starter I chose were decided by the last number in my Trainer ID. After leaving Lake Verity, I caught a Starly on route 201 and my first encounter on Route 202 was a Shinx. Provided I ꦦcould keep these three alive, I already had the first forms of three of Sinnoh’s most powerful native Pokemon.
Using my aforementioned knowledge of Nuzlocking Gen 4, I immediately went west of Jubilife to get an Old Rod and fish up a Magikarp before heading north to add a Budew from Route 204 to my team. By the time I did the Route 203 rival ⛎battle - which takes place before you even earn your first gym badge - I had five out of six endgame Pokemon. The only issue was the need to keep them all alive and kicking.
Except it wasn’t really an issue at a🐈ll. As well as only catching the first encounter in each area and adhering to the rule that a fainted Pokemon should be considered dead, I added in a couple of additional conditions to make the Nuzlocke a bit tougher. I couldn’t use items in battle; after the first route, I couldn’t farm wild Pokemon for experience; and I wasn’t allowed to retreat to Pokemon Centres from new routes, meaning I had to heal my Pokemon using items until I reached the next city. Even with these additional restrictions, however, the majority of the ﷽run was easy peasy lemon… Drowzee. Close enough.
Because Chimchar evolves at the conveniently low level of 14 after learning Power-Up Punch at level 12, my Monferno was able to use a 40 base power STAB attack once on Geodude and twice on Onix before facing Roark’s infamous Cranidos. Because of Power-Up Punch’s gimmick, this also means its attack was raised by three stages by the time Oreburgh Gym’s resident dino headbutted its way🐈 onto the battlefield. Given that Fighting moves are super-effective against Rock types, guess what that 🐼40 base damage was now? 300. Yes, my Monferno one-shotted the bane of ten-year-old Cian’s existence.
Gardenia was a joke. Maylene’s Lucario temporarily frightened me until I remembered I could just crack it with Flame Wheel. Crasher Wake, thanks to my Roselia and Luxio, was 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:a shadow of his former self. Fantina has never been particularly tough. Byron barely put up more of a fight than his son’s Cr🌳anidos. Candice has no idea how type advantages work given that all three starters have super-effective moves against her Abomasnow. And Volkner… yeah, alright, Volknඣer’s no pushover. I did push him over though.
Throughout all of this, eac🎉h and every trainer battle between gyms was a breeze. There are several reasons as to why this is the case - the game gives you a deluge of free items early on, friendship mechanics make critical hits and 1HP endures commonplace, and the automatically enabled party-wide EXP Share means it’s rare you’re ever going to come up against an opponent with higher-leveled Pokemon than yours. Even the Elite Four paled in comparison to my team, which, by the end of Victory Road, had its sixth slot occupied by the Riolu - now a Lucario - you get from Riley.
“I’ve done it,﷽” I thought to myself. “I’m the first person in history to Nuzlocke Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl without a single one of my Pokemon fainting.” Sure enough, Aaron and his bugs got squashed. Bertha and her sen♛tient rocks crumbled to dust. Flint and his fiery friends burnt out. Lucian and his psychics had their minds not only read, but thoroughly blown.
Then it happened. She Who Shan’t Be Named. The People’s Champ. Garchomp’s Gaffer. Cynthia🐟 herself waltzed out into the middle of the Pokemon League’s final arena and introduced herself as the secret Champion lying in wait behind the Elite Four. “No worries,” I thought to myself. “One more battle and we’re going back home for 𒁏the biggest session Twinleaf has ever seen.”
As it turns out, Cynthia had other plans. Her Spiritomb shook me a bit - while I didn’t lose any Pokemon to it, my Gyarados took a hit I wasn&r🌳squo;t planning for. Fortunately, it was a couple of Dragon Dances up and I thought I’d be able to take out Gastrodon with one Waterfall. I was wrong.
Despite having the Sticky Hold ability in the original Diamond & Pearl, Cynthia’s Gastrodon now has Storm ✅Drain in the remakes. Luck being on my side, its Rock Tomb missed and I was able to switch into Roselia and get a 4x super-effective Giga Drain off. After two close encounters with death though, I wasn’t just worried about the integrity of my no💖-faint Nuzlocke - I was worried I was going to fail my self-imposed challenge at the very last hurdle.
Cynthia’s Roserade, despite being faster than Usain Bolt with Concorde technology implemented into his shins, fell pretty easily. Funny enough, Lucario wasn’t much of a threat and Milotic, despite 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:boasting a competitive-ready build, didn’t do too much damage. By the time Cynthia was on her last Pokemon, I still had all six of mine ready to go. It was a hard fight, bu💯t it seemed me and mine were about to final🃏ly prevail.
Then I saw it. The Maw Of Misery. The꧂ Scourge Of Sinnoh. Pokemon’s Bipedal Megalodon. Cynthia’s level 66 Garchomp stepped onto the battlefield, danced around with some swords, and instantly wiped 67 percent of my team. Do you know how I beat it? I tried to click Dragon Dance when I switched into Gyarados to hope my 1.5x Speed would allow me to hit it first next turn 🦩with 1.5x Attack. Instead, I selected Avalanche - surely this misclick would cost me the match.
Nope. I knew Avalanche was 4x super-effective against Chomp and would pack a real punch, but I was also concerned I wouldn't kill it in one hit, hence the preliminary risky Dragon Dance. As a matter of fact, Avalanche’s power doubles if you take damage before using it. As opposed to 60 base power, my Gyarados hit Garchomp with a whopping 480 and one-shotted it. With just Gyarados and Roserade left standing, I had become the Champion of Sinnoh - but Cynthia’s Garchomp, the last Pokemon I faced, straight up murdered the first and only four Pokemon I lost during the whole run.
I’m not quite sure what to do with this information. I’ve rebattled all of the Gym Leaders since and am convinced I could Nuzlocke the eight gyms again with the exact same team. As I discussed recently, the Elite Four are quite a bit more difficult the second time around, and continue to become gradually harder with each subsequent victory. Cynthia’s Garchomp, though… It’s the only thing in the entirety of BDSP that is truly, relentlessly unforgiving. These games are so easy that I managed to almost Nuzlocke them firsꦅt try. In stark contrast to that, Garchomp is such a bastard that it belongs in a FromSoft game modded to be ♉as painfully punishing as possible.
Basically, fork you Garchomp. Despite being a massive bipedal s💙hark, you&rsqꦺuo;re actually a bit of a loser. Sorry, but them’s the breaks.