Pokémon FireRed Nuzlocke Challenge - Part Nine

Grab your Poké Balls and your Pikachu, folks - it's once again time to head back to the region of Kanto for the latest instalment in my Pokémon FireRed Nuzlocke Challenge blog series. If you're new to the series and have a hard time telling your Arceus from your Electabuzz, this probably isn't the best place to start. Instead, I'd advise you begin with Part Zero, which explains in detail the specific rules that govern this playthrough of Pokémon FireRed Version. If you've missed any of the previous episodes, you can access them using the handy-dandy navigation links at the top and bottom of this blog post. When you're all caught up, read on and discover what Judi Drench and co. have been up to this week...

Part Nine - Back To The Badges

We pick up the action where we last left off, having just arrived in Fuchsia City on our continuing search for a new Cutter for our team. Instead of immediately returning to the hunt, I decide to take some time out to explore the city.

Not too far from the Pokémon Center is the home of the Safari Zone's Warden. He's talking nonsensical gibberish on account of having lost his teeth somewhere in the Safari Zone, but it seems as though he's willing to reward us if we can find them for him. We'll have to keep an eye out for those teeth when we get to exploring the Safari Zone later on.

Also residing in Fuchsia City is the third and final Fishing Guru, who kindly presents us with a Good Rod to complete our three-piece fishing kit. We don't have any immediate use for it, but it could come in handy when searching for encounters on water routes later on in the Nuzlocke.

With Fuchsia City explored, our next major destination is the Safari Zone. It's a special Pokémon reserve where trainers can pay to play in a catching game, trying to snag as many of the Zone's resident Pokémon as possible before they run out of time or Safari Balls. Catching Pokémon in the Safari Zone is not governed by conventional battling, but instead boils down to a simple-but-frustrating stand-off with every wild Pokémon you meet. You can throw bait to make the wild Pokémon less likely to flee but harder to catch, or you can throw rocks to make them easier to catch but more likely to run away from you. Being as we're under strict Nuzlocke rules, the Safari game isn't our primary concern here. Instead, we're here for two main purposes - to find the Warden's lost teeth, and to find the Secret House at the end of the Zone where we can pick up the all-important Surf HM.

Our first encounter in the Safari Zone is a male Nidoran. Instantly my disinterest in playing the Safari game dissipates, tension taking its place. This little guy can learn Cut. If we catch him, our Cutter worries will finally be over. Steeling myself, I throw my first Safari Ball. It shakes twice, but can't contain the Nidoran. Having broken free from the ball, I expect it to scarper. It doesn't. My nerves all seem to have congregated into a knot in my throat as I throw the second Safari Ball. It shakes once... twice... three times... and settles.

I can't believe it. After hours of searching, we finally find our new Cutter, and in a place where I was fully expecting not to catch anything. Barney the male Nidoran instantly occupies the sixth slot in our party, and I waste no time in reaching into the bag and grabbing the Cut HM to teach to him. It feels like a heavy weight has been lifted off my shoulders - for now, at least, the Nuzlocke is back on track.

After our capture for the area, our journey through the rest of the Safari Zone progresses without incident. Thanks to the altered "battle" mechanics there's no danger of any of my team fainting, so I can focus on navigating its maze-like pathways. After some time I find a sign confirming that the Warden's gold teeth are indeed lost somewhere inside the Safari Zone:

Around four steps to the south of this very sign:

Illogical level design aside, we've managed to get hold of the Warden's lost teeth. The question is, can we reach the Secret House from here with our remaining step count?

Our reward for making it all the way to the Secret House at the end of the Safari Zone is the Surf HM, which I immediately teach to our resident Water-type Judi Drench. Its extra power more than makes up for sacrificing Water Pulse's slim chance to confuse, which was already pretty much obsolete given Clownbat has recently learned the never-miss Confuse Ray. Unfortunately we can't use Surf in the field just yet - we need to beat the Fuchsia gym leader Koga first.

Upon leaving the Safari Zone I decide to move our new acquisition Barney to the front of our party, hoping to switch-train him for a little while until he reaches roughly the same level as the rest of the party. A bit of training on Route 15 quickly pushes him up a level, resulting in his first evolution:

I then reach back into my bag and pull out a Moon Stone, eager to instil Barney with an extra injection of power and bulk:

There's one last loose end to tie up before I head over to the Fuchsia City gym - the Warden needs his gold teeth back. I head back to his house and hand over his choppers.

Now able to speak again, he thanks me for finding them and rewards me with Strength, another HM that allows me to move boulders outside of battle (or at least, it will as soon as we get the Marshbadge from Sabrina). I decide to teach it to PDT the Snorlax - his high Attack stat and Normal typing will hopefully make it as useful in battle as it will be in the field.

I head back to the Pokémon Center to quickly heal the team before we tackle the Fuchsia City gym. Inside the gym, the path to the leader Koga is blocked by a series of invisible walls, which must be navigated around in order to reach him and challenge him for the Soulbadge. Following the twisting, turning corridors brings me into battle with a number of trainers, presumably Koga's disciples. This is nothing new - it's a staple of the series to have to battle a handful of lesser type-themed trainers before you reach a gym's leader, to prepare the player for what's to come. What's frustrating about it in this case is that not one of the trainers standing between us and Koga uses Poison-type Pokémon. They're all rocking various Psychic-type Pokémon instead, making them a pretty poor means of preparing to deal with Koga's team and tactics.

We finally reach Koga and launch straight into the battle for what will be our fourth gym badge. The Poison master leads off with a Koffing and I open with Barney, our new Nidoking, who's instantly switched out in favour of Clownbat. My rough plan is to use Clownbat throughout this gym battle, because her Poison typing will mean she resists most of Koga's attacks, while her never-miss Aerial Ace will cut through his Pokémon's tendency to spam accuracy-lowering and evasion-raising moves. Aerial Ace does the job well, negating the Koffing's Smokescreen and tearing through its reasonable defences in only three hits. The same fate befalls Koga's next Koffing in an almost identical display.

Next up is Koga's Muk, and it's here where I do something stupid. Instead of sticking with my fail-safe battle strategy, I decide to try and mix things up. I send out Aunt Sue the Flareon, hoping that her high Attack and access to the Ground-type move Dig will get rid of Muk a little faster than the slow-and-steady approach with Clownbat. I regret my decision almost instantly - Muk uses Minimize to raise its evasion while Aunt Sue is underground. The Dig misses, and Muk uses its free turn to hit Aunt Sue with a powerful Sludge attack that also manages to inflict the Poison status effect. A little irritated, I switch out Aunt Sue and bring Clownbat back into the fray, admitting to myself that I'm better off playing the safer long game after all.

Eventually the Muk falls, and from there it's only a matter of time and Super Potions until his bulky Weezing suffers the same fate. Koga reluctantly hands over the Soulbadge as proof of our victory, along with the TM for Toxic. I decide to hold onto it for the time being rather than using it on any team members.

The Soulbadge also allows us to use Surf in the field, theoretically allowing us to sail south to the Seafoam Islands, and westward from there towards Cinnabar Island. However, we're not quite finished with mainland Kanto yet. For a start, there's our unfinished business with Celadon City's gym, which we can finally reach now we have another Cutter in our party. Keen to push our badge total up from four to five, I heal up at the Pokémon Center, and then begin the long trek northeast back to Lavender Town.

While backtracking through Routes 13 and 14, I'm finally able to cut away the trees blocking access to the long grass and try to pick up some captures for those routes. Route 13 doesn't have anything new in its grass, but on Route 14 we run into something that we definitely haven't seen before:

Barney is still leading the party, and he manages to poison the wild Ditto with a Poison sting before it uses Transform. From there it's simply a case of riding out its ineffective attacks and letting the Poison go to work while throwing Poké Balls. It escapes the first two, but third time proves to be the charm as our upswing of luck continues. The ball stays closed, and Ditto is whisked away to Bill's PC.

From Route 13 it's a clean run through to Lavender Town, where I pause briefly to heal the team and pick up some more supplies before heading west through Saffron City to Celadon City. The path takes me back through Route 8, another route where we were previously denied a capture by an obstructive Cut tree. Barney knows what to do:

I wander around in the grass, and sure enough, a potential capture soon appears:

It's another Growlithe. Given I didn't catch the one I encountered on Route 7, species clause doesn't apply here - it's still a legitimate potential capture. It might be because I'm still riding high on our recent good fortune, but I have a positive feeling about this one. In my mind, I've already decided on her nickname: '2nd Chance'. I send out Barney and manage to chip her health down into the red with Cut, then throw a Great Ball. Two shakes, and she breaks out. No problem, I tell myself, and am thinking of throwing a second when:

Once again, we're denied a Growlithe by its own Roar. I'm not too sour this time, seeing as we have Aunt Sue on the team now. I just hope this isn't a sign of our luck once again starting to go bad.

We soon arrive back in Celadon City, where we heal up the team before making a beeline for Erika's Grass-type gym:

The Celadon gym is full of Beauties and Lasses, who I'm happy to report are all using Grass-type Pokémon, as befits the gym. As a result of us skipping so far ahead of ourselves, they're also significantly underlevelled compared to our team. Consequently, they don't put up too much resistance against the powerful Flying-type attacks of Bird Jesus and Clownbat, and it doesn't take us long to reach Erika at the very back of the gym.

Erika's trio of Grass types might have given us some problems if we'd faced them two episodes ago as planned, but at our current levels they barely get a look-in. Bird Jesus's superior speed outmanoeuvres Victreebel, Tangel and Vileplume, her powerful Wing Attack managing to take all three down with one hit. The battle is over almost as soon as it began, leaving Erika speechless.

Erika hands us a Rainbowbadge as proof of our victory, in addition to the TM for Giga Drain. It's a neat move, but it has no place on my current team, so it'll be staying inside the TM case for the time being. The experience from the battle also takes Bird Jesus to level 36, bringing about her second and final transformation:

I graciously accept the badge and pin it to my trainer card, almost unable to believe how far we've come in such a short space of time. At the start of this episode we had three badges, no Cutter, and it was starting to look like our luck had run out. Less than two hours of gameplay later, we have five badges and a new Pokémon who can not only use Cut, but should also be more than capable of holding his own in battle after some training, and our team as a whole is looking stronger than ever. I head back to Celadon's Pokémon Center and heal the team one last time before saving our progress. The next leg of our journey awaits, in nearby Saffron City...

Progress Report:

Aww yeah, the Nuzlocke is back on track, baby! Considering this time two weeks ago it looked like we might have to abandon the challenge due to a frustrating technicality, it's incredible to see just how much our luck seems to have turned around. In our next episode we'll be moving back east into Saffron City, where I hope to clear Silph Co., beat the Fighting Dojo, and take on the mighty Sabrina in pursuit of our sixth gym badge. Ordinarily I'd be worried about facing Sabrina - I've always struggled against her, even outside of the Nuzlocke format - but given how the last couple of episodes have panned out, I'm feeling quietly confident about things. Until then, all that remains to be said is thanks very much for reading, take care, and I'll see you around.

Dan

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Currently playing - Pokémon FireRed Nuzlocke (GBA)