Nuzlocke Summer Scramble 2024: Pearl Nuzlocke

Hello everyone and welcome to my first ever proper nuzlocke. (I did do a soul link nuzlocke with someone on LV a few years ago in White 2, but we didn't get very far.) I understand the general gist of how to do a nuzlocke, but I don't have much actual experience. This should be fun. I will be playing Pokémon Pearl on Delta emulator. I understand it's not the most ideal game to do a nuzlocke run for (I'm assuming because of Mt. Coronet), but that's all I have access to at the moment.



Since I'm doing something new, I figured I'd do something else I've never done: pick Chimchar. I always play Diamond and always pick Piplup, but I'm trying something new.

 

A list of all my encounters:
Strikethrough: fainted

Verity Lakefront: Chimchar (EPIC FIST)
Route 201: N/A (not counting since I encountered a Pokémon before I had any Poké balls)
Route 202: Starly (Starboard)
Route 204: Shinx (Zing)
Ravaged Path: Geodude (Bash)
Route 203: N/A
Oreburgh Gate: Zubat (Batthew)
Route 207: Kricketot (Plinko)
Oreburgh Mine: N/A
Route 205: Shellos (Gloopy)
Valley Windworks: Buizel (Frederica)
Eterna Forest: Cascoon (Pollinease)
Old Chateau: Gastly (Jazzy)
Route 211: N/A (it would've been Chingling but I accidentally crit-ed it ;-; )
Route 206: N/A
Wayward Cave: N/A
Route 208: Machop (LesserFist)
Hearthome City: Happiny (Egghouse) (hatched from gifted egg)
Route 209: Bonsly (Pepper)
Route 210: Ponyta (BlaizeDash)
Route 212: Roselia (Briar)
Route 213: N/A
Route 214: N/A
Route 215: N/A
Route 218: Magikarp (Reginald)
Seaside Cave: N/A
Valor Lakefront: Bibarel (Peanutter)
Pastoria City: N/A (accidentally crit-ed the Remoraid while fishing)
Great Marsh: N/A (the Croagunk ran away from me ;-; )
Trophy Garden: N/A
Solaceon Ruins: Unown (Flamboyant) (Hidden Power Steel)
Celestic Town: N/A
Route 219: N/A
Twinleaf Town: Goldeen (Fergie)
Mining Museum: Shieldon (EatDirt)
Floaroma Meadow: Combee (female!) (Beezebub)
Eterna City: Barboach (Mudweiser)
Route 220: Tentacool (Baja Blast)
Fuego Ironworks: Pachirisu (RazzleDazz)

CURRENT TEAM:

• Monferno (EPIC FIST)
• Crobat (Batthew)
• Blissey (Egghouse)
• Luxio (Zing)
• Gyarados (Reginald)
• Haunter (Jazzy)

 

First gym cleared!



It was fairly straightforward. It was mostly Bash (who I taught Rock Smash) and EPIC FIST (who I evolved into Monferno prior to entering the gym) putting in the work. EPIC FIST one-shot the Cranidos with Mach Punch (after one Leer) which is great because I was worried about taking an attack from Cranidos. I did have to sacrifice Starduss in order to safely switch in EPIC FIST, but it was a duplicate Starly so I didn't really mind.



A look at the team:



Batricia is only here temporarily. I will replace him once I find another Pokémon.

 

Hello scramblers, it has been brought to my attention that I misunderstood the dupe clause. For this run, the dupe clause is that I get up to 3 tries to catch a new Pokémon on a new route, *or I don't get to catch anything on that route*. I thought that it meant you had to catch the third Pokémon, even if it was a dupe. To adjust to the clause, I have released Starduss and Batricia. Lesson learned, thank you LV Discord for catching this.

And now back to your scheduled Nuzlocke run.

 

Second gym cleared! This is as far as I'll be getting for Summer Scramble, but I will still continue the nuzlocke until I lose.



I clearly had the type advantage for the majority of my team, but I was still nervous going into this gym. I temporarily switched out Bash for Pollinease (who I evolved to Dustox) in case I needed to sack someone off. Starboard did the majority of the work against Gardenia, including 1v1'ing Roserade.

Unfortunately for me, Starboard was knocked out by Jupiter's Skuntank. I got too greedy and stayed in, thinking I could knock it out that turn. Even with multiple evasion boosts, it still hit Night Slash. I forgot it used Screech when I switched it in, so now I have to pay the price. This, coupled with losing the next three route encounters, is throwing a big curveball to what was seemingly a peaceful run.

This is a big hit to my team because it's a really strong Pokémon, and that was my one Intimidate user. (Zing has Rivalry, not Intimidate.) I'm also unsure if that means I can't catch any other Staravia if I find one on the first encounter. I'm trying to stay true to the dupe clause since I already broke it, but I'm also wondering if it counts since I caught Starly, not Staravia. (also I can't catch Staraptor because those don't appear in the wild) (pls I just want Staraptor on my team, it's such a good mon)



A look at the current team:

 

Well it's been some time since the last update. I have been updating the list of encounters (or lack thereof in my case, since I keep losing encounters...), but I was mostly planning on posting an update after each gym badge. And... we hit a massive setback before the third gym.

There was a double battle right before Veilstone City and my team was not in the best shape. I'm not good with remembering to heal my team, and I didn't have lots of healing items. They had a Kadabra and Gyarados, which are both really strong mons this early in the game. Long story short, I lost Gloopy (Shellos) and Pollinease (Dustox). Gyarados's Thrash randomly chose to hit her instead of the full HP Graveler, and I had to sacrifice Pollinease's turn to heal Bash and hope that the NPC would target Dustox so I could knock it out with Magnitude. (Both were at red HP, so I wasn't sure who they would attack) And honestly, it's a miracle I didn't lose the whole run right then and there. I just barely scraped by that battle.

That was a massive setback, seeing as we lost one of my few special attackers (Shellos) and a quad resistance to Fighting (Dustox). I evolved Magikarp, Happiny (into Chansey), and Bonsly. Not sure how much I would use the latter two, but Gyarados has been a great help so far (as it does in nuzlocke runs). It's the only Intimidate user I've got, since I lost my Staravia and my Luxio has Rivalry, not Intimidate.

Some other team members evolved: Bash (Geodude), Batthew (Zubat), and Jazzy (Gastly). Very poetic how Batthew (a Golbat at the time) managed to survive a Confusion from a Kadabra, knock it out with Bite, and it evolved into Crobat right after that battle. Rather unfortunate that I won't be able to evolve the other 2 any further since they're trade evolutions...

I spent way too long trying to raise up now 2 new team members to replace Gloopy and Pollinease. I settled on Jazzy (Haunter) and Reginald (Gyarados). My team was probably underlevelled, but I needed to stop stalling and actually start the third gym.

I guess I was a bit too cautious and worried about nothing, because it really wasn't that bad. I started with Jazzy, then would switch in either Reginald or Batthew, depending on the other Pokémon. The battle with Maylene was relatively straightforward. The only scary thing was Machoke using Rock Tomb on Batthew, but thankfully it missed.

Spoiler

A look at the current team:

Spoiler

I'm worried for the next gym because a lot of my mons do not appreciate Water types. (I mean, most of the mons I have are weaker on the special side, so...) Bash sat out the last gym, and he will sit this one out as well (as will EPIC FIST). I think this might be Zing's time to shine. He's my best answer to Water types. Briar (Roselia) I'm worried might get overpowered since he's frail, and I don't have a Shiny Stone to evolve him. Aside from those two, my next best options are with my Water types (Gyarados, Bibarel, Buizel) since they resist Water. It almost reminds me of my mono-Water run I'm doing in Diamond, because I have all 3 of them on my team there.

 

Just a minor update: no I haven't beaten the fourth gym yet. I wanted to share my graphic I made for this nuzlocke (and the Emerald nuzlocke I'm doing on the side - I probably won't make a thread for that). This is the proper use of my graphic design studies lol

Spoiler

We've got the rules I'm playing with, gym badges so far, my current team and their nicknames in green, the healthy PC box in yellow, and the R.I.P. box in red. The font is CCSignLanguage from Adobe fonts.

I'll start adding this at the end of each update as well.

 

Greetings again. I've been grinding in my Emerald nuzlocke so much recently that I left this one to the waste side, and I wanted to continue this one as well.

I set Bash (Graveler), EPIC FIST (Monferno), and Jazzy (Haunter) aside for this gym in favor of Briar (Roselia), Peanutter (Bibarel), and Frederica (Buizel). I really wish I could've evolved Briar before the gym, but I can't get a Shiny Stone until later in the game. Frederica was level 7 and I went through the effort of leveling it up 20 levels so it could evolve into Floatzel.

Once again, I was worried about nothing. The gym was a breeze. I only used Briar, Zing, and Reginald the whole time. Peanutter and Frederica didn't see the light of battle, even after all the leveling up I had to do for them. I guess that saves me some time in the long run, at the very least.

Spoiler

There was a new update with the Delta emulator app I've been using that allows you to take direct screenshots of the game. Before, I was just screenshotting the whole screen and then cropping it down.

And here's an updated version of that graphic:

Spoiler

As for the Ghost gym, I might let Jazzy sit this one out. I'm worried any super effective hit might just snap it like a twig, since it's pretty frail. Its best attack is Night Shade, which does a fixed amount of damage (not super effective Ghost damage). My other best idea is Bite, since half of my team knows Bite oddly enough. Maybe someone will learn Crunch at some point. And of course, we can rely on good old-fashioned brute force, if nothing else.

 

Welcome again, dear readers and fellow gamers.

Sad to report that I have lost another Pokémon. I've been scraping the bottom of the barrel to find ANY more encounters since I've been losing so many of them and I'm worried. I managed to find Goldeen, (female) Combee, and Shieldon. I wanted to raise the Shieldon (EatDirt) since maybe it would be helpful against Fantina since this was back when Steel resisted Ghost. I flew too close to the sun with the poor little guy. A Wingull confused it and knocked it to 1 HP, and I used Take Down. I was hoping it wouldn't hit itself in confusion and miss the attack, but it landed and it knocked itself out from the recoil damage. Godspeed, EatDirt.

I was stalling the gym battles since I wasn't sure if I was ready. For kicks, I brought along Egghouse (Chansey), which I evolved into Blissey, in place of Bash. Maybe its immunity to Ghost would come in handy. It proved to be extremely helpful, thanks to the Toxic TM. (Softboiled outside of battle helped in a pinch as well.) I'm not the biggest fan of this strategy, but I did in fact st*ll out her Drifblim and Mismagius with Minimize and healing with Softboiled when necessary. This didn't really work for Gengar since it's a Poison type, but I used Charm since it turned out to be a physical variant (?) with Poison Jab. I brought in Batthew to resist the impending Poison Jab, then used Bite until it got knocked out.

All was swell, until the game crashed on me after I left the gym. (Context: I try to play with a "super speed" option since DP are so painstakingly slow, but it causes the game to crash if a "!" appears on the screen, like when fishing or running into a trainer battle. I have to turn the setting off and back on in these cases so I don't crash the game. I had it on during the Fantina battle, and I left it on as I was leaving the gym. Cynthia was waiting outside, which prompted the "!" to appear, and the game crashed.) I didn't save after the battle (only before), so I had to battle Fantina AGAIN. This time, it went by even quicker. I tried to play more aggressively, because st*lling was taking too long. I did still use Toxic, but I switched in to other mons to deal damage along with the poison damage. Still both times, it was a deathless battle. I saved after the battle this time and turned off the super speed option when I left the gym.

Spoiler

The updated graphic:

Spoiler

As for the next gym, it's imperative that I evolve EPIC FIST. It's currently level 33 at the moment. I can't really use Blissey this time around since I can't poison Steel types, so I'll swap her for Bash maybe. Though it probably won't appreciate Steel type attacks... I might raise up that Barboach as well. Ponyta maybe? It takes really long to evolve though. Not sure what to do yet. I've already exhausted my encounter for the route before Canalave City (where I got the Magikarp), so my best bet for more encounters might be that water route below Sandgem Town.