Gameplay Journal Pokemon Scarlet - Blind Modded Nuzlocke run

Greetings fellow trainers! I am sure the hype has built up to critical mass for most of you over this game and honestly it has been the same for me. I kept myself from looking anything unofficial up this time around and honestly I am quite happy that they kept most of the new Pokémon under wraps before release because this will let me do something I have not been able to do in a long time, play my first play through truly blind! But that is not all, I will be running this with a bit of risk, I will be running a modified Nuzlocke rules set for this run.

- Catch 1 Pokémon per differently named map region. Since random encounters are pretty much gone I am allowing myself to pick from what I first see when arriving in the area.
- Only Pokémon new to Scarlet/Violet can be used. This will include older Pokémon that got new evolutions that I know about (like Girafarig). Now I don't know all of the Pokémon that got new evos this time around so I will just go with what I become aware of as I play.
- Downed Pokémon will be boxed as soon as possible.
- No duplicates unless they have a spit evo of some kind.
- No gift/legendary Pokémon used in combat if at all possible. I honestly love Koraidon but they will be my hang out and transport friend for this and will not be joining battles if I can avoid it.

Now this is important: I will be revealing images, moves and other data about new Pokémon as I add them to the team. If you dont want spoilers at all for the games and want to enjoy it blind like I am please dont read past this post! I will be spoiler tagging everything so its not seen at first glance if you want to avoid stuff.

Also please don't post spoilers of things I have yet to see below as that would kinda go against the spirit of this.

Whew that was a lot to get through, now onto the adventure ahead!

 

Started off in my mom's lovely home, seriously this place is really nice. Spoke with the visiting director of the fancy school I am heading off too and went into the yard to have some leisure time with the 3 starters before making my choice. Couldnt help but go "awww" when Quaxley headed to the nearby fence facing the ocean first followed by the other 2, that lad has a spirit of adventure! Got to the nearby Cabo Poco home which is honestly pretty impressive looking and met up with the director and a fellow student Nemona. She is really pumped about battling and so am I honestly so I pick my starter Fuecoco, now nicknamed Chipotle and meet her by the beach for our first battle. One tackle fight later, Chipotle and I emerge victorious! She hands us a few goodies and heads out to the first road nearby to show us how to catch Pokémon, I head there after exploring the beach a bit and picking up some items. She instructs me and I catch my first wild Pokémon, a perfect round boy Lechonk. I nickname him Boris (get it?) and our adventure starts proper, training on Poco Path.

Here is a look at the team after training Boris up and battling my first trainers along the path. (The levels were lower actually I made this well after the fact)

Spoiler: Team

So many nooks and crannies in that starter area so I had plenty of time to level up and meet some other new Pokémon. Found a big lizard friend by the beach and offered him the lunch my mom made me which got his energy levels back up. Explored a cave there but I did not see any new gen Pokémon in there so no new catch for now. I accompanied the friendly dragon out and up, avoiding some of the more unfriendly wildlife. Got some story bits as we got over to the quaint little lighthouse for a nice view on the surroundings and the future academy I would be attending. Got myself to the tiny town of Los Platos and learned about the new Pokémon Center stations which I found kind of neat, I especially like TM bot, he's pretty adorable.

I also noticed as I was leaving town that the area name had changed from Poco Path to South Province, Area 1, that meant it was time for a new buddy to join the team. I literally stumbled over this little lass on my way to a Fidough, he was so short the grass covered him right up. Welcome Spritz the Shroodle, the first not officially revealed 'mon to join the team! We saw its evolution I am quite sure so I cannot wait for her to grow up into the graffiti artist I always wanted to be as a child. I will be using these little icon art until some official art comes out for these unofficial mons just a heads up since they will look a bit different.

After a bit of leveling around this large area here is the team as we enter the first big city!

Spoiler: team

 

Attended some classes and had some fun exploring the school I proceeded the story forward a ways and after some time got to the big day, the beginning of the Treasure Hunt. Assembling in the courtyard of the school we are instructed to go out into the great big world and find something that we treasure. That is both adorably hopeful and vague, I like it. Now this is when 3 different folks are asking me to help with with things, for this run I will only consider it a win if I get all the badges and the league or equivalent as normal. As I go I will check out the side quests as well but if I find them too be too unsafe I will bail and come back to them later, perhaps in the postgame depending on how it works.

Looking at my now loaded map I decide to check out both the east and west areas next to the town for some new friends then proceed East to Artazon and taking on the Grass gym since we have both a fire and a poison type and no real issues with grass types so far. So out West we went first to check out the mountainous area first, hung out and did some picnics with the team while looking for a new friend. Pretty far in I spotted a rather funny looking hound. I approached and caught her, nicknamed Jowlene and I have to see she is my favorite new mon so far, I know she is just "my mom's pitbull" but I love that face lol. Explored a bit but decided to fly out to the east side of the city to find another friend.

This side is more of a rocky series of valleys and tunnels, straight out of a Road Runner episode. I quickly tripped over my next team mate, a blocky little Nacli I nicknamed Saltine. I was surprised to see that they were gendered which seemed unusual for an abstract rock Pokémon. After that I must say I spent like half a day running around the nooks and crannies of this place, training and finding a lot of different items. I also found a sparkly Jigglypuff that was a Water Terra which was neat and a bit scary since water is still tricky for this team atm.

Proceeded forward after a more elevated area where the Klawfs started spawning, the area seems to be named the same from what I could tell so I did not catch one. I did fight a few and honestly they are a pain in the but with that ability of theirs, to the point that one actually took out Saltine with a crit Rock Tomb. Moving on from our first loss I got the team to the high teen levels and that meant we got a couple of evolutions on our hands, Chipotle and Boris both grew to their next stage which I loved. Chipotle got a lovely fire sombrero which feels on the nose but is very cute tbh and Boris just evolved into sass which is great with me. Once these evolutions were done we trekked into Artazon proper and explored, the town is super pretty and filled with neat art installations by the local gym leader. I peeked behind the town a bit and found that the area name had changed allowing me another capture. I looped around the lovely grassy hill and found an odd pair of mice that I did not expect to be an actual duo. The fight with them was honestly kinda tough, they packed bullet seed and other multi hit move that they hit 4s and 5s on quite a lot. But at last I was able to catch the pesky duo that I nicknamed Brie n Gouda. Sadly they are one level over what I can control right now and with the rest of the team getting close to level 20, I am hard pressed to try out the grass gym and soon.

That's what I will be doing first thing in the morning I think. Here is the team so far:

Spoiler: Team

 

Thanks! Glad to see someone is reading this. Very proud of her name, making her my favorite of the team so far even if combat has been a mixed back with her.

So walked into the grass gym's lobby and was charged with finding 10 depressed Sunflora around the town. I don't know if they look like that in all games but it was pouring rain and night time in mine so it was a bad time to be a Sunflora. Found them all and we stop motioned (I love the jank in this game tbh) our way back to their paddock/growing area and reported my success to the gym receptionist. She guided me to the battlefield to face Brassius, our first gym challenge. Chipotle took down the Petilil and Smoliv without much issue. When it came to the Sudowoodo though, he took a break and was replaced by Boris for a turn to dig and avoid the first Tera attack from this "surprise" grass Pokémon. I saw in the previews that this guy was a Grass type on Terastallizing, what I did not expect was the new move he was packing; Trailblaze which speeds up the user after it hits. This made things tricky for Spritz and the rest of the team to juggle, but after setting up a toxic status with a Poison Fang that helped things go a lot smoother, thank the gods this Sudowoodo can't learn something that boosts its attack that would have been a problem for sure, that boy was zooming by the end of the battle. First badge in hand and a quick selfie with the morose artist and we are off again in search of friends.

I flew back West to make my way to the bug gym which was meant to be first in the order they were presented. The gym challenge is said to be doable in any order which is nice but it doesnt look like they level adapt to you so good luck if you make your way to a later one in the circle. So back to the western roads I did some offroading to the south to get to another subregion of the Western Province and find myself a new buddy to try and fill up the team. While leaping my way across with Koraidon I accidently landed on a Tera-Scyther that was none too pleased with the incursion and walloped my poor Spritz into the ground with a boosted double-hit. RIP rat lad, you were a champ in my heart and your ratty legacy lives on with the Cheese twins. Reached the new zone after some climbing and found our next party member chilling in a pond, everyone meet Wippor the Paldean Wooper (I couldn't resist the name tbh). Our new friend in tow, we pick-nicked and ate to the memory of Spritz and headed to the Bug gym to let off some steam. Chipotle set fire to all 3 of the lovely ladies Pokémon and probably half the town while he was at it...

Just past the olive fields the area number changed again so a new capture was available! Climbing along the hill I found the tiniest, most adorable little spicy friend; Rocoto the Capsakid. I also found a couple of sprigs of mint while I was wandering and I was thinking I might change the nature of the cheese twins to Hasty to better suit their learnset. I will wait for a few levels and figure it out then.

Here is the team as we wander into the eastern desert.

 

Whew yeah I kinda binged a bunch yesterday so there is a lot to catch up on and this might be out of order a bit, flew around a lot. Oh and I got my first crash which jumbled things up a bit as I had to re-get my progress since the save was a bit old.

The team and I wandered the land and picked up lots of neat items. Bit of an evolution montage: Brie N Gouda found a couple of friends and are now a quartet, I found a Fire Stone on the ground which went to Rocoto to become the hilariously villainous Scovilain (so happy to see this type combo at last). I over leveled Jowlene by accident (bad math when giving XP candy) so she is extra rowdy and extra big after evolving and going past lvl 30 so I cant control her without another badge.

Did a lot of wandering and found some spots where I could capture some new team members so welcome:
- VSM (If you know you are a champ) the Paldean Tauros, found in the rolling grasslands straight East from the center.
- Allegro the Flittle, found in a really neat desert area in the western zone.
- Squish the Tadbulb, found in the swampy area to the South-East.
- Clanker the Varoom, found on the outskirts of Port Marinada to the West.

I tried to make my way to the South West to the Psychic gym but I found the levels of the wild Pokémon jumped up a bit to the 40s and the area being blocked by a cavern wall I could not jump past for now. Since it was pretty dangerous I headed back East and higher north, aiming for the Electric gym on the coast. While going back through the eastern side of the map I took some time to take down the Stony Cliff Titan, Klawf. VSM took it down in record time with some Tera boosted Double Kicks and the first sprig of Herba Mystica was ours. One excellent sandwich later my ride or die Koraidon is now able to boost across the countryside at great speeds. Using this speed we bulldozed our way through the first of many Team Star bases, Wippor and VSM trampled over the minions as well as their fiery mistress Mela. She was actually pretty interesting and we left on pretty good terms. Continuing our trek north we had some close calls in training the new team members but we kept everyone alive thankfully and arrived at the gates of Levincia the city by the sea.

Here is the team after all that training and catching as we are about to enter the gym.

Spoiler: Team

 

Oh man I have been sick for a few days so this is going to be a lot of catching up as I couldn't get my thoughts down on paper due to brain fog.

So the Levincia gym with the rather adorable streamer Iono. The gym challenge was kinda fun, had to channel my Where's Waldo days and find Director Clavell through out various CCTV footage shots. Why was he here anyway? I think the old man is a little obsessed with me tbh. The fight against Iono was a piece of cake thanks to the combined efforts of Wippor and Chipotle, even the surprise Tera-Mismagius was tossed aside with some powered up Incinerates. After the battle was done and the new badge was picked up we did a bit of exploring and decided to go see to another titan quest in order to traverse the landscape easier from the back of Koraidon. Flew into Mesagoza once more to see if the Delibird Presents shop got some new stock with the progress we had made. Thankfully they now had Thunderstones in stock which let me evolve Squish into the avocado beauty he was always meant to be. Packing a really handy ability we went on a bit of a training journey, taking down water types left and right. Once secure in the mid 30s we travelled over to the high peaks that the Sky titan calls home. Dodging boulders during our climb and reaching the great big crane wasn't too hard and the fight against it was a bit of a joke as it poked Squish while he was Tera'd and he responded with the mother of all Thunderbolts, boosted by his "charge" ability. The crane did not stand a chance and the second herba mystica was discovered. One lovely sandwich lunch and story later (wont spoil this you should really see it for yourself), Koraidon was ready for the high seas!

Now I thought traversal in this game was pretty fun so far but I have to say, cruising down the interlaced rivers and down from the high mountain into various lakes and ponds with no interruptions is really fun. Dodging Psyducks and other Pokémon I was not meant to capture this run we did a bit of a boating trip and hit all of the coasts we were not able to swim into so far, making a couple of new marine friends on the way. Welcome to the team:
- Finn the Finizen found in the warm waters of the South Paldean Sea.
- Wugwam the Wugtrio, found right near Iono's town on the sandy shores of the Eastern Sea.

Now both were under-leveled a bit so to help them catch up and to not over level the rest of the group I took all of the reserves out for a training trip in the hills out west when tragedy struck. A Tera'd Torkoal OHKOd the bad ass VSM with a first turn Fissure, most likely too afraid of his power. Needless to say I cut my losses and ran from that fight, not wanting more of the party to fall to some bad luck. Another team member fell during training, Allegro the Flittle was taken down while training against a herd of Tauros. A crit Assurance did a lot more damage than expected and I honestly forgot they packed that move as Allegro was outspeeding them and KOing them with Psybeam without issue. That one was faster and angrier though and took Allegro down, I learned later what Flittles evolve into and I am kinda bummed as they look pretty cool when full grown .

Went into the Dark base for Team Star for a bit of a cheer up, walloped the lot of them with Wippor, Chipotle and Squish. Sent their charismatic leader Giacomo packing and earned myself a new makeshift Star badge. after all of that we were getting close to the level cap again for the main part of the team so I took everyone across the desert to the terraced town of Cascarrafa to face our next gym challenge, the master chef Kofu! I was very happy to have Squish on the team here as Veluza is a very fast and hard hitting water type. Packing Assault vest on Squish was also a godsend to add to the resilience and give us a bit more time to set up for the final mon on his team, a Water Tera Crabominable. Slow? sure but that thing can punch. Thankfully Squish's defenses held and we had obtained our 4th gym badge. Seeing as the team was reaching the high 30s and low 40s now I went into the other two seas to catch some higher level team members.
- The Western sea brought with it The Terror, so named for the terrifying speeds with which it chases you down for a fight.
- The northern sea islands hosted a colony of Killowattrel which brought in Voltaire, the pretty birdy.

Here is the team as we are exploring the mines north of Levincia, looking for the elusive Steel Titan.

Spoiler: Team

 

Oh man I am way behind on this, here is a fast recap as I played quite a bit since the last post:

New Members:
- Pysanky the Tinkaton, caught as a Tinkatuff in the Dalizapa Passage
- Kaimen the Lokix, found in the North Province (area 1)
- Kreel the Spidops, found in the heart of Tagtree Thicket.
- Fluke the Dudunsparce, found as a Dunsparce in Alfornada Cavern
- Hotbuns the Dachsbun, found in South Province (area 6)
- Fernando the Flamigo, found in North Province (area 3)
- Pola the Cetoddle, found near the very top of Glaseado mountain.
- lildude the Toedscool, found West Province (area 3)

Deaths:
- Pola the Cetoddle, taken out during training against a swarm of Drednaw (countered).
- lildude the Toedscool, taken out during the fight against team Star.
- Finn the Finizen, taken out during training in the desert.
- Brie n Gouda, cheese family took a hard hit during training for the Psychic gym.

Objectives:
- Defeated the Normal and Ghost gyms (I have to say I think Ryme is my favorite gym leader now).
- Defeated the Steel and Ground titans, gaining the ability to high jump and glide.
- We punched our way through Team Star's poison team, really love Atticus' design and over the top flourishes.

I finished a good amount of grinding and got everyone, including the reserves to level 50 and this is where we are at before I enter the Psychic gym.

Spoiler: Team

 

Whew, wrapped up a lot of the lead up to the end game while on a pretty dead day at work. So wrapping up loose ends the team tumbled down the rivers from the central mountain and headed into the last couple of gyms I had left to do. The area around the psychic town was interesting to navigate, a really large cave system that I did not expect and a really nice view from the city's colosseum structure. The Gym itself went quite well, Chipotle took down the team pretty much on his own. A very similar thing occurred at the ice gym where Chipotle shook the mountain with his beautiful voice and left the ice gym's team too burnt to get back up.

Next came the last of the Team Star bases I had left to clear. Ortega was a breeze with Clanker absolutely wrecking his team. Eri was more of an issue though since a lot of fighting types pack dark moves and her non-car last Pokémon is strong against most of my team members but we prevailed with no additional loses. The big boss of team star finally revealed themselves which led to a follow up battle back in front of the school. Before that though I wanted to get the last titan so we headed north to the large lake I avoided earlier since things were pretty high level there.

A fun chase ensued and the biggest of the titans revealed itself and was swiftly zapped by Squishy. Last herba mystica used and a lovely cut scene later, Koraidon is now fully upgraded and can climb up cliffs. Arven also offered to show me around the Professor's lab since she requested I drop by. Heading there he revealed some stuff and decided to test the party to make sure we were ready for the end game, I didnt know this was going to happen now but his team members had not seemed like too much of an issue in the past when he assisted me with the titans. His ace was a handful though, required a lot of defensive plays and healing items to deal with but it was done with no casualties (really close call for Jowlene). Did some leveling before heading back to school and meeting with Team Star's boss as I expected her to be a similar power level as Arven had been. Thankfully she was overall simpler to deal with (the battle right before her was a bit of a surprise but done without too much issue).

So the map is now complete except for the League and the big mystery that lays at the center of the region. Nemona had encouraged me so much through out my journey and she was awaiting, with her full powered team at the league so it was time for some leveling. Took a bit of time and I got everyone (back ups included) to level 60 and went TM hunting for some more options. Here is the team before heading into the League area.

Spoiler: Team

 

The last leg of the journey starts here! Well I did take like a day to complete all of the classes in school. I should have probably done that earlier, the items from them are not as useful now as they would have been. I do really like the teachers in this game though so it was pretty chill (I do wish they changed the music from class to class, I really dont like the school theme tbh.) Once all that was done I did some adjustments to the team to help them hit different types more consistently and headed out to what I thought was Victory road but it turns out tradition was up ended yet again and the short mountain route between town and the League was not full of big scary high level Pokémon but just a bunch of low level cuties. There was one high level trainer and a Garchomp way up in the mountains but not much else so I saved, took a deep breath and headed into the League building. Took my assessment test (that felt a bit random) and passed with flying colors.

First up was Rika with their team of sturdy ground types. Ground is a tricky type for my team so I banked a lot on The Terror to carry us through. It worked for the most part, had to bring in Fluke to take a couple of hits and paralyze to insure no loses but The Terror definitely lived up to its name. Second was little Poppy and Chipotle had a great time serenading her team, Torch Song is so good it honestly it felt unfair. Third was a surprise, the return of Larry the Normal Guy, this time reborn as Larry the Flying guy. Squishy and Fluke took down his team without too much trouble only the Alteria gave me pause, thankfully Squishy is made of sp bulk so that worked out (leftover PTSD from my Emerald Nuzlockes and Winona I think). Last of the four was my art teacher with his dragon team as per tradition at this point. Thankfully long gone are the days of Dragonites and Salamences for the elite four so things went pretty well. Close call from on Fluke his ace though, that thing packs a punch. So Elite Four complete and team healed up the Champion was next.

Took a good amount of swapping around during the fight to spread the damage a bit but once Chipotle was set up with a few Torch song boosts things went quite well and at last we had achieved Champion rank! Pats on the back all around (and one of the elite four bursting into tears of joy) and Nemona came by to congratulate us and remind us of the final battle against her still to come. I picked our final showdown location as the plaza in Mesagoza, stuffed some of my team members with the candy I got from finishing the classes and trained a little bit to get some team members to the high 60s to be safe. This was the final showdown after all so we could go all out.

Fluke flinched out her rock doggo and barely survived its last stone edge crit. Pysanky takes out her Goodra with Assault vest helping her tank up its Sp. atk hits. Chipotle then came out to deal with Pawmot and since it was already boosted we kept going and took out the rest of the team! Thank fully not much for fire resistance with the Goodra out of the way.

So that brings the end of this Nuzlocke journey. I had a great time on this journey and will be exploring the crater and going on to backtrack and catch all the things on this save. Overall this was a great blind experience and technical issues aside I found this gen really fun to play through. The expanded stories were pretty good, the rival characters were far from grating and actually had some personalities and designs that I enjoyed not to mention they were pretty good battlers which is rare to see all 3 rivals having.

The new Pokémon were really fun to use, highlights for me were:
- Fuecoco line did not disappoint and Torch song is amazing.
- Terrastralizing is a really good mechanic though I often forgot to use it tbh. I avoided raids during this play through to minimize losses but I will be checking them out with great interest now!
- Maschiff line is now among my favorites, the hilarious mouth design just gets me everytime.
- Bellibolt is a fantastic Pokémon in game, curious to see how well it does for me post game. Great bulk, recover and a useful ability. I do wish its coverage was a bit better.
- Toedscool line is amazing and I love them
- Tinkaton was a great surprise and kicks ass honestly.
- Flamigo wasnt mentioned much in my playthrough but I did use it when leveling especially and I was pleasantly surprised by its typing, pretty fun to use.
- The side characters, especially the teachers were very endearing.
- The updated textures for metallic Pokémon are really nice, I also love all the little animation detail I saw during my playthrough.

Spoiler: Final Team