God Plays Dice.

For each life that begins its journey in the world, the cosmic omnihedrons fly again.

We're all born with a set of skills, resources and obstacles. The size and quantity of each varies wildly- unless we're to believe that by the age of 30, someone born in Uganda and stolen into Kony's child army will be on roughly equal footing with a western kid who throws a tantrum over getting an expensive car in the wrong colour.

Some of us are born with severe disabilities, others are born healthy and with private heath insurance.

Some of us are born with an abusive parent (or two), others are born into the kind of family that will do anything to support them.

Some of us end up going to over-crowded schools with under-qualified or over-worked teachers, others go to the top private schools in the country and learn from the best.

A vast multitude of factors have a huge say on who we are, where we end up and what we take with us, even before we've matured enough to take a measure control of it for ourselves- assuming we get what we need to do that.

By the time you started understand how the game works, you already had a lot of dice rolled for you and you're stuck with the results- all you can do from there is whatever options they now afford you.

A lot of people work very hard for what they end up with after that point, and a lot of people don't. Those people don't divide up neatly by how much they have (inversely or not).

The main skill you need to achieve anything in life would be your ability to milk whatever advantages come your way. If they do.

We all like to think that anything we get, we get because we're awesome and deserve it, but in reality that was only a small part of it- much more of our lives come from a cosmic random number generator. And I hate living in a world where wealth is so dependant on that.

So I guess what I'm saying here is this: God plays dice with our lives, and it is on this we may either prosper or perish.

(Nuzloke) Scraping Through and Moving On

Much has happened in my Nuzloke Challenge since my last blog update.

Firstly I lost Tyrion. I decided to fight another trainer- a Rocket this time, and his L16 Raticate one-hit him with Hyper Fang. One hit. All 51 HP.

Well, on the bright side I learned that Hyper Fang is good, and Jay Lenno learned it.
Also Stormtide learned Tackle, I forgot he gets that.

Then I recklessly overextended myself, I decided to scout ahead in Mt Moon, and found myself face to face with another Rocket that I forgot was there. (The last one of Mt Moon however.)

In that battle I lost Karn and Ratty.

Went back to heal up and release the fallen, then struggled on through with my only two survivors-  Stormtide the Magikarp and Jay Lenno the Rattata.
Hyper Fang carried me through the last trainer and I acquired the Sacred Helix Fossil.

Emerging from Mt Moon, I find myself on Route 4 and by God I totally forgot this was a new route and not a continuation of Route 3. Thankfully after some prompting I checked my map and saw it was indeed another route- which means I can catch another Pokémon.
Disappointingly, I landed myself ANOTHER Rattata. I named him Mr Nibbles and he was Lv8.

Then after healing up in Cerulean I went back to Route 4- now the only place I can fight wild Pokémon without initiating that rival battle and then having to take down all of Nugget Bridge.
Noticing that Jay Lenno can Quick Attack to one-hit almost anything here without taking damage himself, I proceeded to grind him right up to Lv20, at which point he evolved into Raticate.
But despite being surprisingly powerful, I felt this wouldn't be enough. So, on to training Stormtide!
Some slightly more tedious grinding later and I have him to Lv18, and feed him the two Rare Candies from my inventory. (One came from Mt Moon, the other is in Cerulean and can only be found with the Itemfinder normally but after after all these years I still remember where to find it.)
Suddenly, Gyarados! :D
Then got Mr Nibbles to 14, so he learns Hyper Fang.

I went on to stomp right up Nugget Bridge like a badass. A Gyarados and Raticate will do that.

Route 24, I caught a Lv7 Weedle which I named Vorapede. He has since become a Beedrill.
Route 25 (right around the corner, yes it is a different route!) I failed to catch a Lv7 Metapod. I don't know how that was so hard. But after getting it to low health and running out of Pokéballs I had to give up. No great loss though.

After meeting up with Bill and stomping on the last few trainers I missed, it was time to go kick Misty's ass. And I've never had an easier time of it, honestly.

Onwards! Route 5 yielded me an Oddish (Lv13), I named it Saproling, and we are now up to date.

Party:
Jay Lenno (Raticate) Lv22
Stormtide (Gyarados) Lv22
Mr Nibbles (Rattata) Lv17
Vorapede (Beedrill) Lv15
Saproling (Oddish) Lv13

List of the Slain:
Bulbasaur. Lv5-14. Pallet Town-Route 3.
Vermin (Rattata). Lv3-10. Route 2-Route 3.
Zazu (Spearow). Lv7. Route 3-Mt. Moon.
Tyrion (Butterfree). Lv3-16. Viridian Forest-Mt. Moon.
Karn (Geodude). Lv8-14. Mt. Moon.
Ratty (Rattata). Lv3-12. Route 22-Mt. Moon.

(Nuzloke) Preparations...

Mt. Moon. The first *real* challenge of the Pokémon games.
Ahead lies a gauntlet of trainers and wild Pokémon. While any one or two are easy enough, the number of them is what used to wear me down.

So in preparation I've been doing a combination of training against wild Pokémon, and turtling through by fighting one or two trainers at a time before retreating to heal up at the Pokémon Centre outside.

I bought the Magikarp from the old man and named it Stormtide. Then, the first thing I encountered in Mt. Moon was a Geodude, who is now mine, and is named Karn. (These are both MTG-themed names.) I can see Karn carrying me quite a way.

But as luck would have it, no sooner had I entered Mt. Moon as I'd had an unfortunate trainer battle (the Lass with a Lv14 Clefary) in which I lost Zazu. That was pretty short-lived.

RIP Zazu (Spearow) Lv7. Route 3-Mt. Moon.

Still, my levelling goes well. Though I swear I got my entire team to Lv11, they appear not to be- must've forgotten to save at some point. Gah.
At any rate, my main plan is to keep putting Stormtide out first so that he can gain enough EXP to eventually become non-worthless, and switching out for one of my Rattata Team. Training Karn is low-priority as I don't mean for him to see any action in the second gym, for obvious reasons. For Misty, I hope to be able to catch a grass-type above Nugget Bridge, or failing that rely on my Rattatas, plus Tyrion and (evolution permitting) Stormtide to win the day.

First, though, I actually need to get through this damn mountain.

Party:
Jay Lenno (Rattata)
Ratty (Rattata)
Tyrion (Butterfree)
Stormtide (Magikarp)
Karn (Geodude)

List of the Slain:
Bulbasaur. Lv5-14. Pallet Town-Route 3.
Vermin (Rattata). Lv3-10. Route 2-Route 3.
Zazu (Spearow). Lv7. Route 3-Mt. Moon.

(Nuzloke) Picking up the Pieces

Well, I finally found it in me to continue the Pokémon run. I headed back to Pewter City where I sat for a while, struggling with myself before finally releasing Bulbasaur.
I could've just stuck him in a PC box for all eternity, and let him stay there. Or SOMETHING. Just because I couldn't bear to release him. But, that wouldn't be in the spirit of the Nuzloke Challenge. This challenge is as much about strength of character as it is about making Pokémon more difficult.

RIP Bulbasaur. Lv5-14. Pallet Town-Route 3.

I pressed on through Route 3. Fortunately I'd managed to already clear out all the other trainers before the patch of grass.
So I into the grass I went, intent on catching another critter, hopefully one that is not a Rattata.
True enough, I snagged myself a Spearow. Not sure how I feel about that, after losing Bulbasaur I have now developed something of a prejudice against all Spearow. And Youngsters. And people who approach me to talk about shorts.
But for the sake of the run, I shall consort with the enemy.
My Spearow, after a long time spent pondering over nicknames, came to be named Zazu.

Then I made another mistake.
I decided to take on that one Lass in the tall grass on Route 3, with the Jigglypuff.
I remembered that it used to be an annoying fight, because Jigglypuff can sing my critters to sleep, but how bad can one Jigglypuff be, right?
It was level 14.
Long story short, I lost Vermin. Once I realised how much damage Jiggly was doing with Pound, I immediately switched to the Pokémon I care about least. Sadly, I wasn't paying attention when Vermin was put to sleep, and then he was knocked out. Victory was mine, however.

RIP Vermin (Rattata). Lv3-10. Route 2-Route 3.

So, now I'm in the Pokémon Centre immediately before Mt Moon. Time to release Vermin, heal up, pick my ass off the floor and move on.

I intend to buy the Magikarp for sale here, too. Could come in handy. I need more Pokémon in general, especially anything that isn't normal-type, and if I start training now I could easily have a Gyarados by the time I reach Vermilion.

Onward!

Party:
Jay Lenno (Rattata)
Ratty (Rattata)
Tyrion (Butterfree)
Zazu (Spearow)

List of the Slain:
Bulbasaur. Lv5-14. Pallet Town-Route 3.
Vermin (Rattata). Lv3-10. Route 2-Route 3.

EDIT: New additions of Stormtide (Magikarp) Lv5 and Karn (Geodude) Lv8. From the obvious locations of Mt Moon and the Pokémon Cente outside it.

Bulbasaur RIP

FUCK. Fuck fuck McFucking fuck fucknuts. FUCK.

I lost Bulbasaur. On Route 3. To that little bastard with the Spearow who accused me of not wearing shorts.
I underestimated how much damage it could do with Peck. I... I could've saved him. If I'd switched him out... Or used another potion.... Dammit this wasn't even a battle I needed to fight.

Not sure I want to continue this run now I've lost my best. I was counting on Bulbasaur to carry me through damn near half the game.

*sigh*

I'll come back to this later. I'm in no mood to keep playing tonight.