Monday, May 21, 2012

Nuzlocke for Life (or Death)

So there's this thing that crazy folks (like me) are apparently want to do. It's called a "Nuzlocke Challenge", and I've been talked into it j_verts. If you're too lazy to google it, here's what I'm talking about. The rules are fairly simple: Play through a pokemon game. Catch only the first pokemon in any given area (no second chances if it faints or flees). Any time a pokemon faints for any reason, it is now "dead", and you must release it immediately.

Yep. Gonna be that kind of a summer. My roommate started his own such run yesterday on Fire Red, so I'll be doing Leaf Green, assuming I have the ROM (I do!). Let's get it on.

Oh Oak. You slay me. First choice: boy or girl? I figure this only affects pronouns (do they even ever use any?) and appearance, so really it comes down to who looks more badass. Naturally they don't show you in game, so the first trip to bulbapedia is in order. The boy looks kinda depressed, and clearly doesn't give a rat's (rattata's) ass about anything. Meh. The girl is rocking a messenger bag instead of a backpack, and those silly loose socks. That said, at least she's smiling. I fully expect to have a dead soul by the end of this, but let's try to start out on a happy note, shall we?

Forgot that disabling sound speeds the emulator way WAY up. Really freaking annoying to play on constant turbo. Unfortunately, macs don't have the convenient sound output mixer that windows does, and the mac version of vba doesn't have a mute option... huh? Why not?? UGH. Already wasted 15 minutes trying to deal with this. Decided to mess around with values at random, and something that I changed right back seems to have done it. Hopefully, this will be the worst of the technical issues.

Naming time! Gotta go with "KOOPA" for myself, but what to name the rival... I was thinking about "BOWSER", but although he always loses in the end, I gotta have respect for how hard he makes some of the challenges along the way. Not gonna give this sucker any cred I don't have to, so let's go with the poser punk version "BOWSA". Perfect.

Time to actually play. Time I predict until I cave and start using turbo mode walking around? 5 minutes. Actual time I last? ~45 seconds. *sigh*.

Definitely taking Squirtle. Charmander used to be my main man, but Squirtle is, sadly, way better. Plus my roommate is starting with Charmander, so a little variation might be nice. Opening battle? Easy win. Was briefly kinda worried about a false start, but Squirtle's great. I hate grass types. Onward!

2 comments:

gbz said...

It's funny you're predicting a "dead soul", since the article that first pointed me to this was about how it made for closer emotional connections to your pokemon.

Don't forget to buy those potions :D

dr_koopon said...

Of course it will build stronger emotional bonds. And then it will break them, when I'm forced to release those pokemon which are dearest to me. Roommate-boy (aka red shirt) lost his rattata to sloppy play already, so I'm super paranoid.

Antidotes are worth their weight in gold at this point.