I beat my challenge run of Pokemon X, where I only have 6 random pokemon of other people's choosing + not allowed to use the stores at any point. I ended up beating the champ with a Charizard, a Marowak, A Butterfree, a Pigeot, an Electross, and a Carrascosta. It bothers me deeply how disgustingly easy the game is, it's a children's game, but come on.
So I'm redoing it, this time with the added rule that I'm not allowed to accept Starters or any other pokemon I've beaten the game with previously, including in my vanilla run. I still anticipate that it's gonna be pretty easy, since I'm pretty sure you can't ladle on enough challenges to give the game anything resembling an actual difficulty curve.
...but I enjoy the randomness of not knowing what you're gonna be working with, and I enjoy finally stepping out of my comfort zone with certain Mons, since it'd always be the case where most get neglected, placed into the PC, never to be seen again. This forces me to actually use them! Plus there's quite alot that's been added to the Universe since I stopped playing in the good ol' days of RBY, so there's alot to learn. And the game just has a kind of innocent charm to it, that's appealing.
So in my new run, I'm starting with a Poliwag, a Dwebble, and after trading the Squirtle that Prof gives you, I get a Heracross. So It's a Water type, a Bug/rock type, and a bug/fighting type. It already feels like it's gonna be more fun.
Have you tried Nuzlocke runs? Any fainted 'mons are "dead", you can only catch one 'mon per route (must be the first one you find), and you can add whatever other rules you wish (no stores is a popular one).
You could also try some rules that prevent grinding, although those tend to be a pain in the ass to work out. You can't really restrict the number of wild pokemon encounters, for example, since they're random. You could also say no pokemon centers, but then you'd run out of PP pretty consistently.
I once tried to do a Nuzlocke run where I could only use each pokemon center 3 times. I, well, died. That's how that ended. Stupid gym leaders.
Alright, this is the additional rule I've added to my run:
I can only use any one pokemon center or equivalent exactly once. Any time I COULD use one when I approach it in the story, and decide not to use it, I get a 'credit'.
If I consciously use any healing spot, it costs me a credit. If I white out, and thus my whole party gets a free heal, it costs a credit. I'm ALLOWED to use a center while I'm still at +0.
So, currently, I'm at +1 credit after just completing the 3rd gym, but that's only because I refused the pokecenter in my home town, which gave me a freebie credit, in a sense.
The catch, and this is the important part, is that if I white out while at +0, it sends me into the negative to -1 credits, meaning I can't consciously choose to use the NEXT pokecenter or equivalent that I come across to, instead I'll be forced to refrain from using it, and my balance will return to +0.
The TWIST is that, if at the end of the game, if I white out to the Elite 4 or the champion whilst having a negative balance of credits (meaning there's no more spots where I could consciously heal), I lose the game and I erase my save file. Game over man, game over.
This is in addition to not being able to use any stores, mind you.
It's already produced some thrilling moments, actually exciting moments of tension and compromise, and almost constant decisions between trying to play it safe, and trying to forge ahead for more resources, and every encounter is dwindling my finite game resources.
Going up to Shalour City, I got out of the mirror cave with my life, thanks to a shameless usage of the Rest TM to keep my key players alive and well, but not wanting to use the pokecenter, and with a party still mostly alive, I challenge my rival, who gets sweeped handily, but throwing a few hits in. The Shalour fighting gym is very tense, this is actually my first time playing with Exp Share OFF so my Heracross is carrying the whole team at the moment with his blessed Aerial Ace move. I sweep through the whole gym, but there's moments where I'm SURE that one of these fighting types is gonna bust out the rock-type move to lay the hurting on my Heracross.
I get to the leader, and sweep through her Mons till I get to her ace-in-the-hole Hawlucha, who spams flying presses like no tomorrow and is one of the few mons actually faster than Heracross. This quickly turns into an extremely expensive battle as I use a hyper potion and three super potions to keep Heracross alive. I had my poliwhirl evolve very early on into a Poliwrath, but he still has a ways to go as he got crushed earlier, and my Dwebble is just not up the task of fighting this guy period, so Heracross has to stay alive no matter what. Whiting out here not only means losing a credit, it means respawning back in Geosenge and having to go through the cave again, so I bite the cost until Hawlucha finally uses a turn to use a buff move, giving me enough hit points and an opportunity to attack. Heracross eats an attack buffed flying press, leaving him with
6 health as he deals the finishing blow. My heart was pounding at that one, but it paid off, and I use the Shalour Pokecenter gratefully before heading on to the next area.
At this point in the story, I get two more Mons added into my party through the story, that being Lucario (named BILL COSBY) and Lapras (aka THX OBAMA), who get Wonder Traded as per my conditions, and I get a Honedge (nicknamed Rats, it's so rare to get a WT'd pokemon that has a name!) and a Marill, both lvl 1.
I'm not sure if I should be strict on myself about not using the EXP Share, cause leveling these guys up to respectable strength is going to be very very difficult under these conditions.
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Topic: [MILK] There were 12 eggs here what did you do with them? (Happy thread?!) (Read 16268262 times)