What are your favorite challenge runs?

[Lugia2450]

I personally enjoy doing runs using Pokemon of only a single type, or monotype runs as they're often called. My last such run was in Red, with a Poison-type team of Nidoking, Gengar, Tentacruel, Weezing, Venusaur, and Beedrill. I was worried about Psychic types because of how overpowered they are in gen 1, but it actually wasn't an issue at all (mostly because Nidoking would often outspeed and one-hit KO them with Earthquake). Beedrill also came in handy because Bug attacks are super effective against Poison types in that gen.

Edited February 4, 2019 by Lugia2450

[Mod_Poplar]

Hey there Lugia2450!

 

I often end up accidentally playing through my games with one or two types just due to my affinity for Bug- and Grass-type Pokémon. Whoops!   Needless to say, Flying-type gyms are always my downfall.

 

Do you have a favorite type?

[Lugia2450]

Hey there Lugia2450!

 

I often end up accidentally playing through my games with one or two types just due to my affinity for Bug- and Grass-type Pokémon. Whoops!   Needless to say, Flying-type gyms are always my downfall.

 

Do you have a favorite type?

 

I enjoy using Normal types because of their versatility and usually being able to learn a wide variety of moves. I've done monotype runs with Normal types as well. The last time was in Gold when I bought it on the 3DS' Virtual Console, where I had a Furret with Surf and Girafarig with Thunder among other Pokemon.

[Sakura150612]

Have you ever tried doing a Nuzlocke run? Even with the bare minimum rules (KO'd Pokemon are gone forever, you can only catch the first Pokemon you encounter in each area) it's still pretty punishing. You'll be paranoid about critical hits the entire time xd I found it hard enough as it was, but some people like throwing in more rules (no healing items, each PKMN Center can only be used once).

 

It's pretty rough, but it certainly keeps you on your toes the entire time.

 

EDIT: Forgot to mention this, but Nidoking is actually extremely OP in gen 1. Besides being good across the board and having a wide type coverage (Thunderbolt, Earthquake, Ice Beam / Blizzard and Horn Drill is a fairly typical endgame moveset), OHKO moves are broken in this gen. To be more precise, in this game Accuracy X doesn't raise your accuracy raise by 1 stage, it makes you bypass the accuracy check altogether. It even makes you bypass the infamous gen 1 miss (due to a programing limitation, "100% accuracy" moves actually have a 1/256 chance of missing, but X Accuracy fixes that). This means that you will never miss a sinlge Horn Drill. The most optimal gen 1 speedruns only use Squirtle until Brock's Gym and from there on it's effectively a Nidoking solo run (not accounting for HM slaves that never battle). And yes, that means that Nidoking beats the entire Elite Four solo xd

Edited February 13, 2019 by Sakura150612

[Lugia2450]

I did a Nuzlocke in Black 2 that ended with 10 Pokemon losses. My final team was Magmar, Ferrothorn, Golduck, Excadrill, and Grumpig. I had Altaria as well going into the E4, but it got KO'd from a critical hit from Marshal's Conkeldurr. Excadrill was the MVP by far because it had an Adamant nature and a lot of coverage moves. Overall, it was a lot of fun. Nuzlockes make you use Pokemon you may not have used before, like Watchog in my case. It was actually pretty strong with its STAB Return.

 

EDIT: Forgot to mention this, but Nidoking is actually extremely OP in gen 1. Besides being good across the board and having a wide type coverage (Thunderbolt, Earthquake, Ice Beam / Blizzard and Horn Drill is a fairly typical endgame moveset), OHKO moves are broken in this gen. To be more precise, in this game Accuracy X doesn't raise your accuracy raise by 1 stage, it makes you bypass the accuracy check altogether. It even makes you bypass the infamous gen 1 miss (due to a programing limitation, "100% accuracy" moves actually have a 1/256 chance of missing, but X Accuracy fixes that). This means that you will never miss a sinlge Horn Drill.

 

That's exactly why I didn't teach my Nidoking Horn Drill. I didn't want to make things too easy.

Edited February 13, 2019 by Lugia2450

[Sakura150612]

Ah, I see. I did my Nuzlocke run in Pokemon Emerald, which is the game I spent the most time in. I actually invested a lot of time in that game trying to clear all the Gold Symbols in the Battle Frontier. I even bothered EV training to maximize the power of my team, but I only managed to get the Silver Symbols (rip xd). I came pretty close in the Battle Tower, but my defensive Toxic stall Registeel got crited at the worst possible moment and lost my streak.

 

Anyway, the Nuzlocke was pretty fun too. I'd definetely recommend it to anyone who hasn't tried it yet.

 

Regarding Nidoking, it's actually not that easy in a speedrun setting. The run is extremely optimized and the record is somewhere around 2 hours (from starting the game to clearing the E4). The fights are all planned out in detail beforehand and there is very little room for error, so even a single unlucky crit could end the run. Sabrina and Lance are particularly bad run killers (Sabrina because your Nidoking has just barely enough speed to beat Alakazam so if you get bad stats it's run over, and Lance because no matter what you do you need 1-2 turns to set up X items and Gyarados can Hyper Beam crit OHKO you on the first turn and there's nothing that you can do about it).

 

Speedrunning is pretty fun too for a challenge run. My personal best is 3 hours in-game time (probably around 4-5 hours real time since I had to reset and do extra grinding at some points due to messing up the experience route).

[sladecap]

My favourite challenge runs are always no exp share (as it's pretty game breaking) only up to 3 pokemon allowed in the team, no pokemon center healing, no revives and only 3 potions of each type allowed to be used (that includes the drinks and herbs) and of course having to release a pokemon after it faints, as well as I try to lvl cap all my pokes, avoiding battles if I think my pokemon are too much of a high lvl. Lemmie tell you it makes any pokemon game you play a lot harder.

Edited February 14, 2019 by sladecap

[Mod_Alder]

Hello Lugia2450!
 

I love doing runs where you only use one Pokémon type and I role play a future gym leader.