Hello Internet!
I hope everyone is doing well and staying healthy! Every week I wish you well and hope that the world will be less crazy, but uh… here we are. Maybe this will be the week that the world gets its act together and I don’t have to worry about an ongoing pandemic. Or maybe it will be a thing until 2021 or 2022 or 2023… Ummm… Never mind. Let’s just quickly move on to what I published in the past week. Last Sunday, I published a Weekly Blog about how I’m Relearning Spanish With Duolingo. I’m taking a very casual approach to using Duolingo to relearn Spanish. I took three years of Spanish in High School and two semesters in College but speak very little Spanish. So Duolingo is helping me relearn some stuff that’s deep within my mind. I don’t know how well Duolingo would be at learning a language from scratch, but for what I’m doing, it is working pretty well. Then on Wednesday, I published a Poem titled “Hero Training” which combines poetry with my love of Dungeons and Dragons. All of us can take a little bit of inspiration from Dungeons Dragons Races like Dwarves, Elves, and even Humans. We can all be a hero in our ever day lives, even if it sounds a little cheesy to say that. Finally, on Friday, I published a Writing Prompt Piece titled “Wall Watchers.” Most of my time I get my Writing Prompts from Reddit, but I do have a book of Writing Prompts I was given for Christmas two years ago which I’m slowly getting through. This Writing Prompt Piece is based on one of those prompts. It follows a new soldier tasked with guarding the city walls who learns about the creatures living outside the safety of the futuristic city. If any of those published posts interest you, I hope you check them out. I also have over 500 other pieces on the website so I know you will find something to love!
Moving on from what I did this past week to another thing I did this past week and the subject matter of this week’s Weekly Blog. This past week I decided to do something that I’ve never done before: do a Nuzlocke challenge of a Pokemon Game. I have played Pokemon since I was very very young, but I always play it the normal way. But no longer! This week I played it with a more difficult mode. Now you may not know what I’m talking about so let me give you a rundown of what a Pokemon Nuzlocke challenge actually details. Usually Pokemon games are pretty easy and you can beat the game as long as you know your type match ups and do a little bit of grinding between each Gym, but Nuzlockes add extra challenge to a typical Pokemon game. In Nuzlocke’s there are two main rules which add to the difficulty. The first is that you can only catch one Pokemon per route and this Pokemon must be the first encounter you have. Doesn’t matter if the Pokemon is good or not, it’s the only one you can catch for this section of the game. Also if you knock it out, you don’t get a second chance. You just have to move on and hope you have better luck with the next route. The second rule is that if your Pokemon loses all it’s healthy points and feints, it is considered dead. You can not heal it with items or with the Pokemon centers. You have to either stick it in the PC box or release it into the wild. Death is permanent. So with those two strict rules in place, I started my Pokemon challenge and oh boy did it start out really rocky.
My first and second playthroughs of Emerald resulted in me losing all by Pokemon and losing the challenge. The first time I played through, I got to the second Gym Leader Brawly who defeated me with his Fighting-Type Pokemon and the second time I played, I got defeated by the third Gym Leader, Wattson and his Electric-Type Pokemon. 
So obviously Gym leaders are tough when you get very little say into the make up of your team. If you don’t have positive type match ups, you will lose. Luckily my third type doing this went a little bit better so let me give you some details on how it went. I started my play through like the other two by picking the Grass-Type Starter Pokemon, Treecko. I just watched Jaiden Animation do her first Pokemon Nuzlocke with Pokemon Ruby in which she picked Mudkip, but I thought I’d try my hand at using Treecko to get the job done. Early on I found a bunch of Poochyena which I did not work out for me with my other Nuzlocke runs, but I did find a Zigzagoon which knew pick up. This allowed me to gain a bunch of extra items throughout the run which was a huge help. I also caught two different Wurmples which evolved into Beautifly and Dustox.
I was able to use my Treecko to take down the first Gym Leader, Roxanne and her Rock-Type Pokemon. Then I went to Dewford Island to take on Brawly. Before I took on the second gym, I went to the cave hoping to pick up a Rock-Type Pokemon, but got the Fighting-Type Pokemon, Makuhita instead. I then challenged Brawly and used my two butterfly Pokemon to take him out and get the badge. Things were looking up!
Now ahead of me was the third Gym Leader, Wattson and another potential end to my Nuzlocke Challenge. Thankfully with a little bit of grinding and a little bit of luck I managed to take out Wattson and his Pokemon without losing one of my own. I was now on a roll. At this point I switched out my two butterflies for some stronger Pokemon. 
I ended up picking up a Numel and a Skarmory on the next two routes. Of course between the third and fourth gyms, I did end up losing the Numel during an encounter with a Spoink. That’s the problem with Nuzlockes. Sometimes your Pokemon will die while you are trying to train them up and the effort it takes to grind with new Pokemon can sometimes be frustrating. That’s why you have to play in a way to keep your Pokemon alive at all costs. Anyway, I ended up catching the Spoink and nicknamed it Death since it killed my Numel. Also during this time I had some run ins with both Team Aqua and Team Magma (the antagonists of the game) and made my way to the fourth Gym. I took on Flannery and her Fire-Type Pokemon, but the battle had some casualties. Flannery knocked out my Linoone (evolution of Zigzagoon) and I lost all my free items. 
I then went to the desert where I caught a Trampinch which died while I was trying to train it up. I also ended up losing Spoink in the desert so Death was short lived. Eventually I made my way to face the fifth Gym Leader, Norman the Normal-Type Gym Leader which is the Protagonists Dad. This battle was pretty easy. I just relied on my Hariyama (evolution of Makuhita) and I swept my Dad without any casulties. I now possessed Five Gym Badges and I was halfway through the game.
I then continued my journey through the Hoen region, fighting off Team Aqua and Team Magma until I made it to the sixth Gym Leader, Winona. Now Winona is a Flying-Type Pokemon Trainer and her Pokemon are really strong. I didn’t have a lot of confidence going into the battle, but it honestly went alright. My Skarmory really put in the work against her Altaria and I received my sixth Gym Badge. 
After that I managed to pick up the Ghost-Type Pokemon Shuppet and evolved it into Banette. I had to battle my way through both Team Magma’s home base and Team Aqua’s home base and found myself across Hoen’s ocean to take on the seventh Pokemon Gym. This Gym Battle is a double battle with two Gym Leaders, Tate and Liza, who specialize in Psychic-Type Pokemon. I beat the two Gym Leaders but ended up losing my Banette and Crowbat (which I raised from Zubat). I ended up bringing a Voltorb I caught in New Mauville, Natu which I caught in the Safari Zone, and Spheal which I caught in the Shoal Cave. I train up all my Pokemon to the same level and then went back to beating up on Team Magma and Team Aqua. I stopped Team Magma from stealing rocket fuel and tracked Team Aqua to their deep sea cave.
I haven’t really talked about the plot of Pokemon Emerald too much, because I figure a lot of people reading this are probably familiar with Pokemon Emerald. However I will quickly get into the plot here for people who aren’t familiar. Basically there are two rival teams, Team Aqua and Team Magma who are both interested in ancient Pokemon said to control the weather. Team Aqua wants to find Kyogre which can cause heavy rains and control the oceans while Team Magma wants to find Groudon which causes droughts and controls the earth. Well both teams end up stealing special orbs which are supposed to control the weather titans, but they don’t work. 
Team Aqua and Team Magma unleash these Pokemon on the world and I have to clean up their mess. I have to go to The Sky Pillar and call for the aid of Rayquaza. Rayquaza is the legendary Pokemon on the box of Pokemon Emerald as well as the Dragon of the sky which can clear up weather conditions and end the fighting between Kyogre and Groudon. I go ahead and do that bringing peace to the Hoen region once again. After that, I prepare for the 8th Gym Leader, Juan, and his Water-Type Pokemon. I’ll talk about the Gym battle in a second, but first I want to highlight the puzzle before the battle. This puzzle is probably my favorite Gym puzzle (second best is Winona’s). Most Gyms have some sort of puzzle you have to complete before fighting the Gym Leader, but this one involves ice tiles you have to step on in a certain order to unlock stairs to the Gym Leader. You can only step on each tile once or you will fall through the ice and have to fight additional trainers. When I was a kid, I thought I was a genius for figuring them out. I loved it then and I still loved it now. Anyway, I defeat Wallace in a long, drawn out Pokemon battle with his Kingdra (I feel strong foreshadowing) and end up losing my Tentacruel and Skarmory. I win the battle and receive my final Gym Badge.
But that’s not where the story ends. After completing the Pokemon Gym Challenge and receiving my eighth Gym Badge, I was ready to take on The Pokemon League. I make my way through victory road with my team consisting of Sceptile (evolution of Treecko), Hariyama, Xatu (evolution of Natu), Electrode (evolution of Voltorb), Walrein (evolution of Spheal), and Pelipper. I got a little lost in Victory Road but eventually made my way to the other side and I took on the Pokemon League. Now I knew this was going to be hard. My Pokemon were under-leveled and I had to take on the Elite Four and the Pokemon Champion back-to-back without any chance to return to a Pokemon Center. It’s a final challenge which requires some major endurance. I’m not going to talk about every battle, but throughout each battle I managed to punch above my weight for the first couple. 
Unfortunately, by the time I got to the fourth member of the Elite Four, Drake, I only had two Pokemon left: Sceptile and Walrein. Drake has a variety of Dragon-Type Pokemon which are known as being the most powerful type of Pokemon. Lucky for me I did have Walrein which is partly an Ice-Type Pokemon which is good against Dragons. Walrein carried me throughout the battle, but eventually I ran into Drake’s Kingdra. Warren’s Kingdra kicked my butt and Drake’s did the same. The Kingdra knocked out my Sceptile and I was down to only Walrein. My Water-Type and Ice-Type moves did nothing against Kingdra, but it couldn’t do too much against me. Eventually, I ran out of all my moves and my Pokemon began to struggle. At this point the battle was pretty much over. Without any real moves, my Walrein was doomed and even though I managed to knock out the Kingdra, Drake’s final Pokemon knocked me out. I was out of Pokemon and I lost. I made it to the final member of the Elite Four and just couldn’t pull out a final victory. Unfortunately that’s where the story ends. After all the effort I put into that final try at the Pokemon Emerald Nuzlocke Challenge. Maybe I’ll give it a little bit of time and revisit the Nuzlocke Challenge.
Thank you for reading my Weekly Blog and learning about my Pokemon Emerald Nuzlocke Challenge. It was a ton of fun to do but definitely had its stresses and less enjoyable parts like losing Pokemon and having to level up others took a lot of time. Maybe this will inspire others to take on their own Nuzlocke challenge. It’s possible to do in any Pokemon game, so if you want to add some difficultly to your favorite Pokemon game, I say go for it! If you are not much for video games and would rather spend your time reading, you are in luck. You have found yourself on my blog which is full of Weekly Blogs, Poems, Writing Prompt Pieces, Pokemon Fanfiction, and other creative writing pieces. There are literally hundreds of pieces on here which you can spend your time reading. You can also Follow me here on WordPress if you enjoy my stuff and want to be a part of this positive and creative space on the internet. You can also Follow me on Twitter so you will know when new pieces get published. But no pressure! If you just want to lurk and read my stuff, that’s alright with me! I appreciate all my supporters new and old, active and passive. I love all the love and support!
Thank you again for reading and I hope you have a wonderful week!
-Allen_The_Writer
Header Photo Credit to Bulbapedia
https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Pok%C3%A9mon_Emerald_Version
Photo of Pokemon credit to Bulbapedia
https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Main_Page
Allen The Writer 