Fans of the Some Assembly Required Podcast and readers of my previous works know I suffer from something a so-called “Psychologist” might call “Comedic Sociopathy”. In plain English, I take a bit too much relish in things that are only slightly funny, and enjoy games like Saints Row, which might as well call itself “Old Lady Killer Sim” for all its authenticity, just a tad too much. It was in one of my forages into the realm of the internet when I stumbled across a Pokemon challenge; also known as the “Nuzlocke”, the challenge had two simple rules:
1.) You may only catch the first Pokemon you see on each route. It is encouraged, but not required that you nickname every Pokemon you catch.
2.) If a Pokemon faints, it is dead and cannot be revived or used again. You may either permanently box the Pokemon or release it. Should you run out of Pokemon in a battle, you are dead and the file is wiped.
The challenge is intended to make Pokemon difficult; it has the often unintended side-effect of making the player almost unnaturally connected with the game, and while I originally set out on the Nuzlocke challenge to test my battle and grinding ability, I found myself treasuring each Pokemon for much more than their ability to battle. I played Pokemon: Fire Redand began with a Charmander, named “Kat” for my best-friend. The game began like any other, with me wiping the floor with my rival and grinding through the first route with ease. I eventually caught a Pidgey which I named “Norris”, a Mankey I named “Mackenzie”, a Ratatata named “Ali”, a Weedle named “Janice”, and a Caterpie named “Riley”. As I built and “grinded” my team I found myself panicking when they were poisoned
In the regular game: Harmless cannon fodder. In Nuzlocke: Your worst nightmare.
and critically hit, disregarding the training to rush them to aid when they were hurt; Janice, whom I briefly considered re-naming “Lucky” was constantly hit with criticals and left with 1 hp. Her luck ran out on a random encounter and for a brief ...
