Pokémon fans love making things harder for themselves. There's the Nuzlocke Challenge, in which you can only catch the first Pokémon you meet in every area, and fainted Pokémon are considered "dead" and must be released. There's the original Twitch Plays Pokémon, which keeps popping up with more variants, like playing Pokémon Red and Blue simultaneously.
Reddit user Volman99 probably isn't the first person to play through the entire Pokémon series without repeating a single Pokémon, but he certainly is thorough. His rules include playing all the variants, like Red, Blue, and Yellow; being able to have, but not use "HM slaves" - a fan term for a Pokémon used to learn all the useful game progression moves, but generally not a member of the final team - and allowing himself to count Pokémon with multiple evolutionary branches as two separate entities.
"I tried to plan in advance," Volman99 says in a comment, "to avoid screwing myself over... but I made so many constant revisions that it was honestly a little bit of both [planning and winging it]."
The most difficult part of the challenge, he says, was the burnout, which settled in around the time he had to play Sun, Moon, Ultra Sun, and Ultra Moon back-to-back. He also wasn't a big fan of returning to Kanto ten times over the course of the challenge. However, he did contact Pokérus, the super-rare stat-boosting virus, three times, and found one shiny Pokémon, not counting the ones that are part of the game's story. In total, he used 388 unique Pokémon to complete the challenge.
"Will I do it again? Probably not, but I'd like to continue it for as long as it is actually possible as new games come out. It was a really refreshing way to play Pokemon and see how the series evolved over time and I got to use a lot of Pokemon I would probably never touch otherwise.
Some of the standouts were Passimian, Minior, Cacturne, Skuntank, Beedrill and Dustox. (Those last two had to solo Brock and Roxanne respectively)."
Volman99 took screenshots as he went, turning them into an album of his successes and final teams, which you can check out here.
[source reddit.com]
Comments 35
Should have been 12 visits to Kanto right? Or did they not count Let’s Go, Pikachu/Eevee for some reason?
Now that’s dedication. I really love playing series from the beginning as well, albeit a bit more traditionally. I did it with Tekken, Trails and I’m about a couple of weeks off finishing it with Assassin’s Creed.
@ALinkttPresent Yep! I didn't mention it in the article, but he didn't play Let's Go Pikachu and Eevee, "due to some questions regarding whether they are main series or spinoffs and their deviations from series norms."
Tbh, that's sounds rather boring than hard
Pokérus doesn't increase EXP gains though.
It increases the base stats earned in battle, and these are reflected in your stat gains upon level up or between battles, depending which generation you're playing.
How is that a challenge? 🤔
That is how I have played every Pokémon game to date and I assume that many others would do the same.
I feel him about the burnout. I skipped all DS games so I was pretty refreshed when I went back to Pokemon on XY. ORAS was great fun and Sun Moon was okay.
But!
Boy, oh boy. I spent the whole USUM run wishing I was doing something less insufferable like clawing my face off.
That said, yeah, I try to use a new team every new game/run I play
How is this possible? You only have three starters between Black/White/1/2, Ultra/Sun/Moon, Red/Blue/FireRed/LeafGreen, Gold/Silver/Crystal/HeartGold/SoulSilver, and Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald/Omega/Alpha. You'd have to at least use one of those to catch your second Pokemon, or else trade (and if trading is allowed, what's the point?).
@RupeeClock you're right! I've only ever had Pokérus once myself, and I had no idea what was happening. Thanks for the correction!
@MindWanderer he explains this in his "rules":
"I may use my starter until I can catch my first Pokemon of choice, and then box it. "
Ah, OK. That makes it even easier. Speedrunners can beat each game in just a few hours using only their starter and an HM slave or two. Following the rules he spelled out, he could put off swapping his starter out until the end of the game if he wanted.
besides my persistent use of dugtrio and ampharos, I don't think I really repeated any Pokemon across the series... granted I didn't play every version of each game.
Aside from jolteon (which is not really useful, but I just like him so much) that's how I always played... I guess most play it like that...
Just use starters mostly doesn’t seem difficult at all.
I don't even understand what this challenge was. What does it mean to not repeat any Pokémon?
Im not sure i understand. Does he not repeat a single pokemon as in every battle he has a different team ( start battle with 6 pokemon, uses, say a pikachu, then after battle he boxes pikachu and cant use it in any game after?) Or every game he just has a completely new team consisting of pokemon he hasn't used?
Interesting challenge. I'll stick with monotype for regular playthroughs and monotype nuzlocke for those rare moments i want to go back and challenge myself in a fresh pokemon run (I've only replayed a pokemon game twice, not counting remakes, so its rare)
Wow, thats crazy. not sure how people get the motivation to do things like this.
Oh, I read it like Fan plays Pokemon without Pokemon and did it twice
thats not really hard to be called a challenge just going back to play the gb color games is quite bothersome
Is "Pokérus" a real thing? Or just a way of saying he got lucky?
I usually get one or two shinys per game. Playing Black atm and no shiny yet though, might break my streak. 🙈
Sounds like a very boring and time consuming thing to do.
@Fandabidozi
That's crazy lucky!
Throughout my whole Pokémon career which practically includes each title but not their variants (a couple I didn't finish) I didn't encounter a shiny until Alpha Sapphire and that was when I was fish chaining, that was a Febas and I continued as I was trying to get Poliwag and did finally.
My most legit random shiny was Umbreon in Sun from sos battles where I was doing so to get a normal Umbreon. You could argue this is chaining too however despite not intending to go for that.
So yeah, whole Pokemon career and not one shiny that popped up from immediately entering a wild battle
@TimeVolt it’s a “real” thing... well in the game. I don’t remember all the details, but a pokemon can catch It, and spread it to others in boxes.
@gcunit Basically if he used a Pokémon in one game he couldn't use it at all in the rest.
Though considering there's Nearly 900 Pokemon and he technically needs as few as 6 for each game. If you look at his teams for each game, other than Alpha Sapphire you wouldn't even be able to tell he was doing a challenge run.
@Rosona
Yeah, I’ve heard of people getting none and I’m like, whaaat. My first was shiny Tokepi from the egg in Silver. I got two within minutes on Let’s Go this week while on the way to Articuno.
I’m not counting ones I’ve chained or Masuda method’d, just in regular play. Sending some luck your way 🍀.
@Silly_G - People tend to use their favorites in multiple plays...my fiancée, for example, always uses a Nidoking if available. It also makes HM slavery tougher, since you'd burn through the usual suspects early on.
@FluffiestP1llow - The way I read it was the latter. In Red, he could use Pokémon A/B/C/D/E/F; any subsequent games wouldn't be able to use them.
@Alsebra thats what I assumed but I wasn't sure. With hundreds of pokemon, surely that wouldn't be much of a challenge though, except maybe sword and shield where a lot of the dex was cut.
@mattesdude So can you see any signs of it? Or is it one of those things you just have to pay attention to see?
@TimeVolt I think there is like a purple virus symbol near their name in boxes...but again, I’m basing this off memory.
@Fandabidozi
Aww, that's so wholesome, thank you
@Fandabidozi - My only non-forced shiny ever was a Rattata I found just south of Moomoo Farm...in HG/SS. I've played every game up to and including US/UM (except Yellow) to the tune of at least 150 hours per game and that's still my only shiny.
@Alsebra
Yeah, I’m definitely batting above average. I do play a lot though. I’m 500+ hours into Sword and I did 600+ in X. Been playing since Red & Blue. Good times. ☺️
How come you’ve not played 🗡 & 🛡 ?
@KateGray Kind of strange since I believe they were officially confirmed as mainline.
Tap here to load 35 comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...