Volume 5: A Co-Operative Venture

Before anyone starts panicking: Yes, I have played Pokémon before. I might have my gaps, but I’m not quite that behind. That being said, I am about as casual a Pokémon fan as you can get. I spent a lot of time with it back in the 2010s, but ended up falling off the wagon at some stage. I’ve kept up with the series in passing, but I’m certainly no zealot. So when my co-columnist and good pal Ryan decided to pitch the idea of playing my first Nuzlocke for the sake of a collaborative column, I couldn’t really turn it down. 

I thought Black and White would make the most logical choice to start with; these were the first games I played, and the ones I’m the most familiar with. With Ryan leering over my shoulder, I learned very quickly that completing a Nuzlocke forces you to unlearn years of careless play. When a regular battle can spell the permanent end to a core member of your team, you learn to think about each move, and panic about each possibility.

For the uninitiated, the Nuzlocke challenge is a staple of the Pokémon fan community, and is a self-inflicted challenge. Ignoring the particular nuances of each game, you go through the main story while catching the first random encounter you see in a route. Not bad by itself, but this comes with the added stipulation that any Pokémon that “faint” are actually unusable for the rest of the game. In a nutshell, the Nuzlocke challenge is a self-imposed permadeath mode that pushes you to be resourceful with what you have, and careful about how you spend those resources. 

Pokémon is hardly known for its difficulty. It’s a series designed as a soft entry to monster-catching RPGs; anyone expecting more than that is probably actually looking for something like Shin Megami Tensei. That’s proven by how extensive the “rules” of this challenge are. There are bespoke community agreed level-caps for specific sections of the game, as to not trivialise the premise, you must not catch more than one Pokémon per route, and if you fail to catch it, that’s it. You cannot catch repeats. 

With these restrictions in mind, I should disclose that Ryan equipped me with all the resources to skip grinding spots where possible; my save was preloaded with items to help me level up to the maximum allowed level per section, letting us focus on the meat of the game, being the gyms and story battles.

On a normal playthrough, a move missing might be a minor inconvenience. You might have to swap a Pokémon in. In a Nuzlocke, missing a move might be the difference between life and death. 

The weight of those risks don’t really sink in until you’re the victim of one bad roll, and then you’re cooked. That tension adds a surprising sting to battles I previously would have steamrolled through without worry; I watched an opponent stack buff after buff, and I genuinely had to consider the possibility of a mistake costing me the entire run. 

I admire the Pokémon community’s dedication in making such a thorough ruleset to address a common critique. The Nuzlocke challenge being the product of an early internet webcomic is a humble origin that has left an incredible mark on the series as a whole. It puts the focus back on the actual “role-playing” part of “role-playing games”. I don’t particularly care about the game’s story; my own story is what counts. Naming each Pokémon after someone in my real life made every mishap that much more impactful when one went down in a blaze of glory. 

My first “proper” Nuzlocke ended at the fifth gym leader, without any real buildup. One mistake an hour beforehand cost one of the pillars of my team, and put me at a major disadvantage going into the battle. A random trainer battle, and an unfortunate critical hit, reminded me that I could take nothing for granted, and sent my starter Pokémon to an early grave. A totally avoidable battle, that I had been silly enough to fight.

Despite my best attempts to improvise and replace my starter, it wasn’t enough to offset the string of bad luck (and somewhat questionable choices) that bit me.  

Neither me, nor Ryan, really expected to get to the end on my first attempt. But we were certainly anticipating a more gradual decline, rather than being wiped by just one unfortunate battle. When all is said and done, that’s part of the fun. I’m by no means an expert when it comes to Pokémon strategy, but even I managed to see some fun opportunities to strategise and make some actually smart plays saving me a loss here and there. Even Ryan was impressed once or twice.

But Ryan wasn’t done with me yet. Dissatisfied with just the one Pokémon adventure, I was recruited for what is referred to as a “soul link”, wherein I would be playing co-operatively with Ryan. This iteration of the Nuzlocke formula has the added rule of having to essentially “share” Pokémon through nicknames, where if the named Pokémon dies in one player’s game, the other player must also stop using them. As well as being careful of your own mistakes, your partner might trip up at any moment, too. 

It’s a bit of a tougher sell in terms of “role-playing,” but was certainly another new spin on a classic formula I’d never really considered. This was propped up by the fact that every Pokémon we saw was out of a totally randomised pool out of potentially hundreds. Was it the most fun RPG I’ve ever played? I had to stand still and throw balls at a creature mindlessly for minutes at a time, and quite often got nothing for it, so no. It’s clear that we may have been somewhat pushing the envelope on what these games were built for, but there’s still a novelty to seeing how far the community has pushed the simple foundation of Pokémon.

With the advent of Pokémon actually pushing into new territory with recent releases, it’s become harder and harder to solidly implement the traditional Nuzlocke rules. Adaptations and concessions have been made to try and accommodate for overworld encounters, but it’s becoming more and more obvious that the games are outgrowing this invention. While it might be close to impossible to satisfyingly bring those rules into modern releases, the fact that there is such dedication to player-imposed challenges is inspiring, if nothing else. 

Love it or hate it, Pokémon is undeniably an influence on a lot of people, especially on relationships with RPGs. Playing my first Nuzlocke and being forced to learn a new language of Pokémon was a genuinely transformative experience, even if it isn’t strictly a “new” game to me. Have I broken my own rules? I make the rules. (I pitch the rules, my editors approve the rules.)

I’ll be returning to my solo adventures in the coming weeks, and Ryan will be writing an accompanying column that will surely put me on blast, but until then, never forget that it’s never too late to play!