Soul Silver Nuzlocke Part 2: Electric Boogaloo

Greetings and salutations! Picking up from where we left off, we'd just caught Totodile the Pidgey, who was in dire need of a training montage. Also, will probably edit this with a link to part 1 as soon as I figure out how. Onward!

**EDIT**: Okay, so apparently any edits have to be done from desktop as the mobile app lacks that feature. Regardless, Part 1 for those of you who are interested: https://imgur.com/a/7ovpm

A quick note on grinding: low-levelled 'mons can and will be absolutely unable to accomplish things on their own. Especially in Nuzlocke, you can expect a lot of switching and exp-sharing as you can't just battle until they're weak and risk an unlucky crit.

It's usually around levels 5-7 that most Pokemon can pull their own weight. Below that, they're reeeeaaaallykindofprettyuseless. Also, very few moves.

The stat curve is also a lot steeper at lower levels, but movesets tend to round out pretty quickly.

Case in point, our first flying-type move!

Lukas also got a level from holding Totodile's hand through that. She kept waddling behind him and trying to make lizard noises. Luke had to make wings out of twigs and leaves to get her to use Gust. This could get tricky later on.

Game note: Gen2 introduced an internal clock that allowed various systems to work. Among them, berries/apricorns regrowing every real-time day. It seems even silly to mention it now; as technology progressed, games started to just use the console's date and time settings. The original GSC games opened by Oak waking up and asking you to set the clock. It just felt so new and amazing, at the time- a game doing things according to time passing in the real world! [/nostalgiarant]

Aaaaaand this is where things started going not so swell. Walked into Route 30, and our potential catch for this route iiiiis... Weedle.

I was always more of a Caterpie person, but here I am thinking hey, let's just make the most of this. How bad can it be.

Lukas' Rage has a low base power, so despite being overleveled, we can safely weaken Weedle for capture.

I didn't realize it at the time, but this would become a bit of an issue for the next few hours.

Weedle's overworld sprite is actually hella cute.

foreshadowing.png

Thus began the handholding. Bluntle was introduced to the team and Totodile decided to teach her how to be a Totodile, much to the little worm's confusion.

Mentoring rewards!

A lot of switching out happens, as Bluntle proves absolutely incapable of murdering things on her own-

In fact, this begins to slow things down a little. Before we know it, it's-

--nighttime. Remember the internal clock I mentioned? Gen2 introduced, along with it, a day/night system that quickly became one of my favorite features. Depending on the time of day, the overworld changed from Morning, to Day, to Afternoon, to Night, with different events happening on different days of the week and different Pokemon appearing at night or early in the morning. It was awesome, is what I'm saying.

Ding!

Woop woop!

Got a small bump in stats and a new move. This is the point where I thought training Bluntle would speed up a little.

I was wrong.

I thought maybe the problem was that wild Pokemon give too little experience for my overlevelled party. So I sought out the Master of Memes, Youngster Joey himself.

He didn't mince words.

Jokes aside, there was a rumor about there being truth to Joey's claims about his Rattata being in the top percentage of Rattata. Something about it actually having a godly IV spread, apparently. For the uninformed, IVs are like, unnecessarily complicated PokeGenetics that help determine stats.

Then someone used an editor to acquire and look at Joey's Rattata. As it turns out...

His Rattata is trash-tier and so is he.

Here's another Gen2 staple: Errbody wants your digits.

Certain trainers will exchange numbers with you after you beat them, and every so often they may call you to share items with you, let you know of swarms of rare Pokemon, challenge you to a rematch or simply chat. Joey has been known to call you just to brag about his Rattata chewing on a Weedle or something, the poor, deluded sap.

We'll come back to steal his lunch money down the line.

Beat the Other, Less Important Youngster and healed up just from sheer lack of PP on Poison Sting.

As in the real world, avoid eye contact at all costs. You never know what you might--

Oh for heaven's sake I was looking away :c that girl lied to me.

Now, these things are just about the only things Bluntle can slowly murder right now. Remember when I said it would be an issue?

See, Weedle only has Poison Sting for damage, which has a laughably low base power. Weedle's attack is also not very impressive.

But Bluntle also has a Calm nature. Natures in Pokemon all raise one stat by 10% and lower another one by the same amount. Another one of those things competitive battlers tend to obsess over.

The Calm nature raises Sp. Defense, and lowers *attack*. Bluntle might as well be the Ginosaji right now. And Lukas had to tag in to finish this Weedle off because Poison Sting was literally doing one damage per hit.

Good thing we stocked up on these things.

One day later, and at route 31; Bluntle is still underlevelled and very much still a coccoon. And apparently Imgur caps me off at 50 images for one album so I gotta make a cutoff here.

Oblivious little jerk. Stop being adorable.

(Part 3 later today if all goes well.)