Gameplay Journal Brilliant Diamond - Archeologist Nuzlocke

Let's do this again! I have gone through this run on platinum before but it failed. I really like the types and find that it fits Sinnoh so well so I wanted to try again.

Raced Barry along the first couple of routes and speed ran everything to get my starter, a cute little Turtwig I nicknamed Geb. Sprinted into Route 203, smacked Barry's team around a bit and got a bit worried from all the Chimchar leers but it worked out. Tried my luck into getting an Abra but my quickly thrown Pokéball could not hold him . Headed over to the Oreburgh gate and picked up Rock Smash and my first additional Pokémon Ceres the mighty Geodude!

So here is the team so far!

Going to do some training and getting Ceres up to Geb's level, will update tomorrow!

 

Ended up doing most of this late last night, got busy today.
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Headed back to the Pokémon school to get mocked by a couple of kids and their Abras. Thankfully they both only seemed to know Charge Beam which Ceres shrugged off. Picked up the Work Up TM, got through the oreburgh gate after grinding a bit, Rock smashing through Ceres' Geodude kin. She is all caught up to Geb now so time for the Oreburgh mines! Doing more rock smashing than the actual crew of workers there we fought our way through and had a chat with Roark, on the way out the third member of our little merry band showed himself Amurru the Onix. Now how the TMs work for Brilliant Diamond is that they do break on use but you can get multiples. Thankfully this was the case for Rock Smash so I set up Amurru with his own Karate class and go him busting boulders as well. We made short work of Roark's young assistants and got to the man himself, well equipped to deal with his team with each team member having at least one super effective move. First badge in hand and Stealth Rock TM stashed away for now we went back to Jubilife to kick our first dose of team Galactic butt. Geb picked up Razor leaf and chopped them down to size, got thanked by the professor and proceeded north to begin the ascent through route 204 and into Floaroma town. No major issues so far, the team is complimenting each other pretty well with the rock duo to deal with fliers and Geb to go after other grass Pokémon as well as water types. Quickly dipped into the Valley Windworks and made friends with the adorable Ceto the Shellos. Took a break here, I know things will start getting threatning with our first Galactic Admin match coming up so getting everyone in tip top shape before going into that.

Are you guys liking the nicknames so far? I find they fit nicely with the run theme and the Pokémon themselves.

 

Trained up a bit and decided to go after Team Galactic inside the Windworks. Ceres and Amurru tanked everything like champs and we were able to chase the bad guys out of there. Route 205 north from there went well, sadly no captures to be had here. Its odd, my brain had some sort of innate fear of Aroma Lady Elizabeth here, but Geb took care of her Budew with no issues. While battling around that area Geb evolved and learned how to bite things which is really handy for all the things resistant to Razor leaf out here.

Made it to Eterna forest, using Cheryl's help to train up Ceto some. Almost got careless with the psychic pairs here, I almost swaped Ceto for Ceres against the Abras but chose to go with Geb instead. Turns out they are both running Energy Ball which would have wrecked the rest of the team for sure, whew! Camped out in eterna forest for the night, brought Cheryl to the exit in the morning and double backed to check on my honey trees. Found Colelcab the Burmy on the one in Floaroma meadow! Trained her a bit on my way back up to Eterna City, being careful to not over level her outside of a building or cavern (so she has the right typing as a Wormadam).

Got to Eterna city and went straight to the Underground man's home to discuss our common interest in digging and found my way into the huge maze that is the Sinnoh underground. Time to get our digging caps on and get us some fossils! Took about 20 minutes but I found myself my first fossil, a skull fossil! Other things of note were a flame plate and all sorts of cool statues. Took a break from the underground to double back to Oreburgh and reanimate my first fossil friend: Ananth the Cranidos! Fossils are revived at level 1 so I was kinda glad of the forced xp share and made my way back to Eterna. Boxing Amurru for now to let the newbie get some levels.

Once back in Eterna I finished talking to everyone and dipped into Route 211 and caught a bad ass little Meditite by the name of Asura. Packing Adamant and Purepower, she is a perfect powerhouse for the team and will be needed for dealing with Gardenia most likely, I also took some time to have Colelcab battle against the gym aides to get her pretty trash camo on, ready to evolve into the steel bunker of Wormadam-S.

I found the best way to get quick XP for now is training in the new underground areas. While I was down there I found a lone Magnemite that I made friends with and nicknamed Deadalus. This team is already looking pretty solid and getting quite different from my last run with these parameters.

 

Finished up all the caverns in the area underground and got everyone to around level 20. Made sure both Asura and Colel were up a bit from there since they would be the main ones going up against Gardenia. Asura bullied her first two Pokémon and Colel tanked Roserade beautifully (I am glad she is not packing sunny day/weatherball). Ceres also evolved from the shared XP and is now a Graveler.

Used our newly upgraded Cut to double back to route 205 and pick up some berries and items. Also went by the Old Chateau, no captures to be had there but some simple training for Deadalus the Magnemite and a bunch of items. Feeling pretty strong I started my ascent of the Galactic building, knowing full well that the admin at the top could be a big problem. Thankfully both Ceres and Ceto made quick work of this first encounter with Skuntank, I know it only gets tougher from here.

With the bike store owner's Pokémon now safe he handed me a lovely yellow bicycle and I made my way down cycling road. At the end of the road I found Lucas with a couple of very handy Poketch upgrades. Looped up to the Wayward cave to find our next companion. I kept my fingers crossed and ran through trying to get to the basement for my chance at a Gible but a Ghanta the Bronzor found me first. Not a bad get in the least, I am quite fond of the line. I cleared up the area of all of the trainer pairs and picked up all sorts of goodies in there before escape roping out of there (that cave is annoying to navigate even with flash). Leveled up some and headed towards Hearthome, taking a little time to go back underground in a new region to dig up some new things and check out some new caverns. While training down there we had our first casualty...Anath the Cranidos. Fell to a lickitung of all things while training, supersoniced while it was low and Anath was such a muscle head that she hit herself super hard in confusion, taking of I kid you not almost have her HP. The low damage bodyslam did the rest. Why does lickitung learn supersonic anyway! Grrrrr...

I carried on for a bit, doing all of the little things around Hearthome, had a lovely walk with Geb and am now able to walk around with anyone which was really nice to see. A bit of a cheer up after such a crappy loss. Wound my way around to route 209 and the Solaceon ruins. Got myself a cute little unknown and forgot to go into the grass for a Mime Jr capture so I will do that in the morning! Here is the team as of now.



Rest in peace Anath, your head was too hard, even for yourself...

 

Went back around route 209 and searched for a Mime Jr. Found one and named him after a god of theatre, Dionysus. I set up Colelcab and Amurru in the daycare to help them catch up with the rest of the team. Took Dionysus with me to get him leveled faster, helpful to have a fairy type around for later.

Trained a lot, Fantina is no joke even in this version from what I know. She can be a run ender so I am taking her seriously.
Cleared out the trainers in the cafe while I was there and picked up some moomoo milk while I was there. Ceto, Geb and Daedalus evolved!Went to route 215, found a Kadabra and nicknamed him Damballa. Keeping him aside for now, safe in the box.

Made my way back around to go to Pastoria city, between Gem and Daedalus the gym should go well. Had no problems all the way to Pastoria, headed over to the Great Marsh and caught myself the adorable meme lord Wooper! Nicknamed Nommo after the amphibian african spririts. For now he stays in the box but we will unleash the best soon as we head to Veilstone and have to box the Pokémon that dislike getting punched.

Got into the Gym and had no issue at all, between Daedalus and Geb this was a piece of cake (a crit ice fang from Wake's Floatzel gave me a scare but it worked out just fine!) With this third badge in hand I did a bit of team re-arranging, getting ready for Veilstone next. Maylene can be trouble for this run but I am quite happy with all of the psychic types we have so far. Put aside my steel types/rock types and decided to train my Kadabra from earlier and the newcomer. Got the the resort area which is usualy a great location to get some XP, especially the cafe. Sadly our second death occured here, Damballa got buried by a crit stone edge from a Sudowoodo (who wood hammered really hard and almost took out someone else X( ) I am sorry you couldnt grow to be the powerhouse your kin normally grows to be...

Back at it tomorrow.

 

Took a bit of a break, worked on other games a while but I got back into the thick of it. Battled my way back north to Veilstone from Pastoria, no other casualties after Damballa. Helped out Lucas with a couple of Galactic goons in the north of town and got my hands on the fly TM, gotta head back to Pastoria to chase down the goons buddies for the key but for now I think I have a gym badge to get. First though I drop by the department store and go TM shopping. Especially happy with picking up Psychic for both Ghanta and Dionysus, got some other fun options as well for the rest of them.

Now Maylene is a sore spot for me, she took down a large part of my team the last time I did this themed run and I didnt want it to happen again. Thankfully this time I went through pastoria first and had time to train + get a fun squishy boy called Nommo leveled up and evolved to help Toxic tank though anything that got annoying. Dionysus and Asura took care of most of it though with Geb to wrap up Lucario pretty safely. 4 badges down, 4 to go!

I am glad they added the "assist" feature to the old HM moves (now TMs) where you dont have to teach them to anyone on your team to use the ability out of combat. So I stole a nearby Staraptor from its nest and got it to fly me back to Pastoria to chase down that galactic goon. Barry dropped in for a quick fight and I obliged him. Geb tanked and messed up his team pretty bad even with the disadvantages, XP share is nice for these limited runs heh. Chased the goon all the way to the lake front and went past a bit since I missed some trainers on the way up, I also missed a capture. I met with Hel the Girafarig and we became buddies. We surprised that Galactic Grunt by showing up ahead of him instead and defeated him, met with Cynthia again and got the secret medicine from her for that fun group of Psyduck past Solaceon. Felt like a good spot to stop for the day after checking up on my Pokémon in the daycare.

To the north we go!

 

Here is to hoping! Haven't updated in a bit, played a bit slow since I was working on some animal crossing stuff a lot.

Started the day by helping out that swarm of psyducks with some medicine. Did some loops around the tall grass to get all of the trainers hiding within, healed up a bit with some moomoo milk and pushed further north into the thick fog bank. Thankfully I picked up defog from an ace trainer in the Great Marsh so I asked a nearby Staraptor to defog the area so I could see where I was going. The trainers here are great xp but some are a bit tricky, Ace trainers tend to be. No issues though thankfully. I picked up an armful of new berries as well as some Roost and Shadow ball tms and some good xp for the team. Got to the quiet little town of Celestic and found the man with permanent grump, Cyrus. Had a fun chat about world domination after dispatching of his goon. Delivered the charm to the kind old lady and got a nice lore dump while in the caverns, went shopping a bit and got some Blackglasses from a shady fellow in the store.

Finished here I flew out to Hearthome to finally face Fantina. I didnt have anyone that was a perfect ace for ghost Pokémon but at least I had some bulky mons to take them on with decent neutral moves, Daedalus dealt with most of the trainers on the way to Fantina herself then it was a split between Daedalus bolting things down and Geb biting what's left. No major issues which was nice, Fantina can be really tough with some runs, especially specifically themed ones.

Now with Surf available I did a lot of exploring and getting some things hidden away behind bodies of water. I also took the opportunity to head to Fuego ironworks and train there for a bit get everyone to the 40s in levels, sadly no new mons around for me to add to the team sadly. I really wish the Aron from the pokeradar would be here normally I love that line so much. Finally surfed my way across to Canalave, beat up
Barry's team a bit and visited the infamous library that made cannon the marriage of Pokémon to people and enabled a lot of ... odd stories in the fandom. Oh and the book about straight up eating Pokémon which was assumed but hey its fun to read about. I also forgot that no items or anything are in here so I headed back out and headed into the gym. The tag team of Nommo and Ceto is able to deal with the gym trainers without issue, for Byron himself I brought out the secret weapon of Ghanta packing Grass Knot. This was perfect for the powerhouse that is Steelix, levitating to avoid earthquakes, safeguard to prevent annoying thunder fang paralysis and just grass knot away. Byron ended up using his healing on him which was fine by me, plenty of PP on grass knot to go around. Battle finished up quickly after that, Ceto Earth Powering his Bastiodon down, crumbling his defenses with her pretty good special attack.

And with that the Mine Badge is ours and we are getting the end last stretch of the game. Barry brings us over to the library were we met with the Professor and Lucas, as we chat a big rumble is felt through the building, Team Galactic is up to no good and its time to go deal with them once more. I will be spending some time with the boxed mons to get them leveled up a good amount as well and have them keep up. I realised that I completely forgot about a really important part of any ground/steel team Hippopotas! Its a tricky capture but thankfully its in a unique place that I have yet to really go into, time to go hang out with a fellow Ruin Maniac and find myself a cute hippo! If I missed any other captures along the day do let me know, I did not look at every route in details so I probably missed some things along the way.

Here is the team after the gym battle with Byron:

 

A quick detour to the Ruin Maniac's tunnel, scoured them and encountered by target: An adorable Hippopotas! Nicknamed him Ozzy after Ozymandias. Fun fact about me, I really like the Hippopotas line and since I wanted that sweet, sweet sandstorm set up as my opener I got Ozzy to a respectable level 40 before heading to the lakes to deal with the commanders. Lakes Verity and Valor cleared of foes I started my trek north to the mysterious Lake Acuity, climbed my way through the northern face of Mt. Coronet and emerged on the other side mid blizzard. Being careful with the multitude of ice type Pokémon and avoiding leaving my ground types out in the cold, Daedalus had a good amount of work ahead, flash cannoning everything away. Reaching Snowpoint and shaking the snow out of my boots I got ready for the gym. This is a tricky one since a lot of my Pokémon are ground types that need to avoid ice beams and the likes so I went in with Daedalus, Ceto, Asura and Ghanta rotating them as I went and avoiding danger. Candice was not too bad, Asura rocked all of her team almost, Daedalus cleaning up the rest.

With the new badge in my case we set out to Lake Acuity to deal with the last of the commanders. Jupiter had filled up on beating my rival and opted to skedaddle instead of facing me. I gave my rival a pat on the back and after he left I surfed across the lake to the patch of grass to find myself a new addition to the team, Fortuna the Chingling. Flew to Veilstone and passed by the department store first and filled up on some TMs, taught Fortuna both Light Screen and Reflect and had her hold a light clay for now. Could be handy in upcoming tough fights once I have her leveled. So I kept her in the party as I went through the Galactic HQ in Veilstone, Ozzy and Ghanta dealing with most of the grunt's Pokémon with ease. Got up to Cyrus himself and listened through his evil monologue for a bit before letting Ozzy and Daedalus loose on him and his team of mostly fliers, needless to say I am happy that he isn't running a Gliscor. Afterwards, the team dealt with Commander Saturn, lurking in the back closet where they were keeping the adorable but powerful lake Pokémon. Defeated him quickly and as he glared at me in a huff I pressed the large yellow button to free the trio who quickly vanished. Saturn mentions something about a chain to bind something at the top of Mt. Coronet so I head there next, climbing up and up, following a trail of cyan bowl cuts...

Here is the team so far on the ascent.

 

Legends Arceus has put this run on hiatus a bit, will be back soon though.

 

Oh man, I did find a lot of my Pokémon getting KOed in Arceus so I wouldnt be keen on nuzlocking it just yet but I might look into it for the future.
Speaking of, I am done with Arceus now so I will starting up this run again soon.

 

So after a bit of a break I took up the hike again, following the Team Galaxy grunts from spot on the mountain to the other, through the caves and up the slopes. No problem at all getting through them, Dionysus and Ozzy alternating fights and dealing with all the poison types. Got to the top of the mountain and fought Cyrus, his team not causing too many issues but Honchcrow who's high crits area always scary. No deaths though so next was Dialga itself. I did not take a chance here and master balled it right away, I wont be using it in the playthrough anyway so I didnt feel too bad about the shortcut. Took a breather from the tough fights and flew off too route 222 where disaster struck in the form of Beauty Nicola and her Lopunny, surprised me with a Mirror Coat counter against Dionysus' Psychic. He was KOd instantly

Ozzy finished off the bunny and I took a small break to review the team and train up a bit more. I dont want any more KOs before getting to the league...

 

Woops lost my update from the rollback. Keeping it short then:
Victory road was next, cleared through there with Ozzy and Daedalus mainly. No deaths, no issues. Made our way into the last Pokémon Center and got surprised by Barry coming in and looking for a fight. Ended the fight with most of the Pokémon at half hp but all good, thankfully nurse joy was right there to help out.

After that fight I started thinking that I might actually need to level a bit more before taking on the Elite 4. This is the arguably hardest Elite 4/Champ in the series afterall...

So here is the team before training, I will be taking some time to level before heading into this last stretch:

 

The party arises from the frozen ground near Snowpoint, wiping Mr. Mime face paint off of Ozzy's maw. After a few days of training in the underground we are finally ready for the Elite Four and the Champion. Got everyone to level 70 and up, got some Leftovers for Ozzy to hold onto and got everyone's movesets settled. We clean up after our flight to the league entrance, toping off on items as needed and heading in to face bug master Aaron.

Ozzy and Daedalus took care of most of Aaron's team, the only one that got a bit dicey was his Heracross but a quick switch to Ghanta while I healed up Ozzy was enough to close that out. Very happy to have plenty of earthquakes for his Drapion, the crits from that thing can be really problematic. Speaking of earthquakes, Bertha is up next so that means Ozzy leaving his lead spot in favor of Geb to clear out those tough water/ground types, setting up a Yache berry in advance for the Ice Beam Whiscash is sporting. Once both Water/Grounds were dispatched it was time for Ghanta to shine, very happily levitating over the Earthquakes and Psychic/Solar Beaming the opposition. The only one I had to swap out for was her Hippowdown, between Crunch and Ice Fang I had to switch to a couple of other options to take it down, ended up wrapping it up with Asura, drain punching it down with Asura's superior speed.

Next up is the afro wonder himself, Flint. Leading with Ozzy and setting up Sandstorm and started Earthquaking away. Thankfully avoided the bizarre Hypnosis that Rapidash sports and took down most of the team following. Got a bit scary on his Steelix with it's crit Iron Tail and baton passed Minimize stacks (that dang drifblim is such a pain). But a couple of nicely timed hits were able to take it down without too much issue. Very happy his Infernape doesnt run Grass Knot or Ice Punch so Ozzy was able to take down his whole team.

Last of the Elite Four, the mysterious Lucian. His team is tricky for us as we lack hard effective moves that work on all of them but hopefully our tankiness will be enough to prevail. Ozzy was raring to go, got a crit earthquake right out the gate to take down Mr. Mime through Reflect. This victory was short lived though, Lucian's Medicham hit hard with a high jump kick and was put to half by the reflect nerfed earthquake. Healed Ozzy through it which angered the fighter more I guess, it came back with a crit high jump kick which OHKOed Ozzy...Switched to Geb and finished off the Medicham with another EQ and some sandstorm chip. Girafarig was no issue though he did leave Geb with a weakened sp.def so I needed to swap on Alakazam for sure. Went over to Daedalus for his psychic resistance and took the scary mon down in a couple of Discharges (thanks paralysis for making that a lot cleaner). Now he did leave a Future Sight out there so I made sure Daedalus stayed topped off as Bronzong came in. Volt Switched out to avoid an Earthquake and had Ceta come in. Took our time and chipped down the bell with multiple surfs and recovers staying safe the whole time. Losing another here would be disastrous. Elite four down, champion to go.

 

Figured I would leave Cynthia for tomorrow but nah I want to finish this today so here we go! After some quick TM and held item swapping and a set of lovely formal introductions (plus one of the best theme songs starting), the first match up begins:

Cynthia's Spiritomb vs Daedalus. Discharge for the para, she follows gets a crit shadowball out the gate, thankfully Daedalus can take a beating and lives at about 1/3 health. Volt switch to finish it off and go to Ghanta to follow up, her Gastrodon comes out so I stick with Ghanta, readying a Solarbeam, she goes for the Rock Tomb, lowers my speed but not much damage. Solar Beam hits and KOs her Gastrodon. Roserade is next, Ghanta sticks around and tanks a Shadow ball and returns with a OHKO with Psychic.

Now onto the hardest trio: I left Ghanta in for Lucario and full restored, took an Aura sphere for about a third HP. Had Ghanta dish out a Psychic and took a second Aura Sphere, restore again and repeat, KOing Lucario (thank goodness for no crits). Chose to restore on the first turn of Milotic being out since it doesn't carry anything too harsh for Ghanta, Milotic goes for Scald which insta burns but what else is new . Now her Mirror Coat has me worried about using Solar Beam so I start to chip a bit with Psychic to get her Sp.Def down a bit, hopefully setting up for a OHKO with Geb's Leafstorm or Daedalus' Discharge later. Crit Scald has me gritting my teeth but Ghanta pulls through and gets restored, Cynthia does the same on the following turn with her own Full Restore so the stall begins again. This continues for a while as we Full Restore stall at each other but jokes on her, I have a lot more than she does . On her last one though I predict it and switch to Daedalus to discharge for super effective and hopefully paralyze which works! Another Discharge wraps it up as she is out of Full Restores.

This brings the great beast that is Cynthia's Garchomp...*audible gulp*
Swap to Ghanta to avoid the Earthquake I am sure she is readying. EQ misses, I heal up it goes for the Dragon Claw which definitely doesn't tickle, Ghanta responds with a Psychic, Garchomp goes for the another claw and looking at the damage I am doing I need to scald garchomp ASAP before it goes for a Swords Dance and starts sweeping. Ceto comes out and as if by magic Garchomp goes for a swords dance, I mash Scald but he goes first with an Earthquake that rocks Ceto to about 10 HP. Scald hits and burn connects thank goodness. I full restore but she keeps EQing and soon enough the inevitable happens and she gets a crit taking out Ceto for good. At this point Garchomp's HP is at about half so I have a choice:
1- Go back to Ghanta to try and chip and risk it going for another Swords Dance and wreck havoc
2- Switch to my previously restored Daedalus and go for the mother of all Flash Cannons (backed up by scald burn) to wrap this up.

I go for option two and Daedalus comes out, survives the EQ thanks to the Focus Sash effect of the affection system and retaliates with a Flash Cannon. Garchomp lives but just barely, burn finishes it off...

And it is a bitter sweet ending but I can officially say that this Themed Nuzlocke has come to a close. Here is our final team of champions, may Ozzy and Ceto look upon the others with pride from the rainbow pokebridge beyond.


And the final team chart post beating Cynthia.
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