For those who have completed Pokémon games many times over, nuzlockes can be a fun challenge to take on. They can also be incredibly, incredibly frustrating; I’m on my 11th try in Black 2 as I’m writing this. It all depends on your luck and your patience, really; even basic knowledge of type matchups won’t stop you if you level up enough! Before starting, though, allow me to share five things you should know before diving right in!
Also, there’s a lot of technical information here, so if you’re new to Pokémon, hopefully the included links will help you out!
- The Basic Rules
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There are only two core rules of nuzlockes:
One, if one of your Pokémon faints in battle, you can never use it again in that run. That means you either have to release it or put it in your PC for the rest of the run, with the option to transfer it to another game if you wish. Whether it’s because of a wild Pokémon, a move produced from Metronome, or a status condition such as poison or a burn eating the last of your Pokémon’s HP, as soon as it drops to 0 HP, it’s over.
Two, you can only catch the first Pokémon in each area. If it runs or faints, you don’t get a do-over for that area unless—and it’s a very big unless—you manage to find a Shiny Pokémon. It also does not apply to static encounters; these are usually special Pokémon that, if defeated, do not respawn and cannot be caught again. Generally, these Pokémon are found in the overworld, and their battles are initiated, not instant like wild encounters.
If the first Pokémon is encountered in a double battle with another Pokémon, you get to choose which you want to catch. Just be careful—remember that you can’t catch one until the other faints!
There are generally a couple other rules that are used in most nuzlockes, such as that you have to nickname all of the Pokémon you catch. Because of this and my terrible past runs, I decided this run to name all of my Pokémon after Grey’s Anatomy characters, since they seem to like dying on me as well. Right now, my team consists of Meredith the Whimsicott, Derek the Minccino and Grey the Krookodile.
The game ends when one of four things happens: either you lose all of the Pokémon that you caught; you lose all of your team members (referred to as black/white out; this is generally for higher-difficulty runs); you beat the Elite Four and Champion; or you give up out of frustration. I don’t blame you for the latter.
- Keep a Reserve Team
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Trust me on this one. My first ten runs, I lost so many Pokémon before the third gym that I almost never had a reserve team. The only reason I’ve gotten so far in this run (I’m already past the gym leaders and if I advance in plot, I’ll be fighting one of the two main antagonists) is because I decided before the first gym that I was going to build a reserve team. Since it happened a couple times last run that I lost my entire team at once, I knew that I needed to have enough Pokémon in my reserves that I would have good type coverage.
This can mean a couple things: you have the option to box whatever Pokémon you want for reserves, but I suggest boxing repeat-types (i.e. a bug-type when you already have a bug- and grass-type on your team) to maintain some semblance of type coverage later on. Trust me on this, you’ll need it when you eventually get cocky and decide to take on one of the last two or three gym leaders and lose your type advantage to them.
I’m totally not speaking from experience.
Oh, and it might be a good idea to level them up to at least a good starting point. Trust me, it’s no fun to have to train one of your reserve Pokémon up to level 60 from level 24. I’ll let you know when I finally get there.
- Grinding Using Experience Items
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Using items like the Exp. Share seems like a good idea at first, especially since it’s less time consuming than switch-training. Remember, though, that the Pokémon doing the battling will receive less experience from each battle when the Exp. Share is used. I’ve been using the Exp. Share along with the Lucky Egg to increase the amount of experience, but it still takes a long time.
This also depends on the generation you’re playing, since that affects the availability of some items and how they’re used, as well as who you’re battling. Pokémon all have different experience yields, with Chansey, Blissey and Audino having the highest yields out of non-legendary Pokémon. In fact, they have experience yields greater than most legendaries and pseudo-legendaries! Additionally, trainer battles yield more experience than wild Pokémon battles. In some generations, even the current level of your Pokémon will affect how much experience it gets, so be on the lookout for that.
- It Will Take a Lot of Time
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Trust me on this one. Between leveling up the Pokémon you have available, getting through cutscenes for plot, unavoidable trainer battles and a bunch of other things you may want to do, it will cut into a lot of your time. Especially if you experience a death of a Pokémon that uses an HM like Fly or Surf; you would likely have to grab another Pokémon who can use those moves from your PC and level it up to match your team. Or, if you’re like me, you have slow-leveling Pokémon, numerous deaths and a reserve box that’s several levels below the rest of your team. I hope you have all the luck in the world to avoid that.
And if you have that luck, I’m insanely jealous.
- You Can Modify the Rules
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In addition to the core rules, which are what makes a nuzlocke a nuzlocke, there are additional rules you can tweak to really make it your own. Some suggestions can be found here, but it’s up to you whether you want to make your challenge harder or easier. Trust me, even something as simple as the Dupes Clause (listed under additional rules) can change your entire game.
There are other kinds of nuzlockes as well, such as the wonderlocke, but it’s up to you whether or not to pursue those!
All in all, the point of the nuzlocke challenge is to have fun on a higher difficulty level! It’s not for everyone, and if I weren’t so stubborn I would absolutely end my run right here right now, but there’s enough room for anyone to try! So get out there and have fun!
Edit March 12: I ended up beating my run last night with a full team of six, including a shiny Audino! So if I can have that much luck, you can win your own nuzlocke!