My First Pokemon Only Run: Part 5 Wally and Wallace

After healing up at the Pokemon Center, I ran across Wally, who I help catch his first Pokemon, in front of the 3rd gym.

He wanted to battle me so we battled.  1 Standchu handle him without any problem.  Then I went into the gym and beat all the trainers.  I went to heal then head back to face gym leader Wallace.

Wallace has got to be the easiest gym leader I faced so far.  But that didn't mean he went down without a fight.  The only thing that made me take multiple tries to beat him was dang Voltorb with the stupid self-destruct! >_<

Every battle, the Magamite (sorry for misspellings, I just don't feel like looking up the right way to spell it) would weaken Standchu to the point where self-destruct would finish the job.

The battle I won, I got real lucky.  I got a critical hit on his Magamite with Thunderbolt, taking it out it one shot before it could paralyze Standchu or get any damage on him.  Then I pulled off a sweet kiss and the Voltorb kept hitting itself until Slam could finish the job.

Finally was Magaton.  At this point I won the battle, but I just had to make sure Standchu's health didn't get too low.  Thunderwave made things annoying too but I got the job done.

So now I have 3 badges and now can use Rock Smash outside of battle.  Off to Peddleburg.  I use Rock Smash in the area blocked off by the rocks and got Strength. 

I go to teach it to HM Helper and... uh-oh!  He can't learn the move!  But wait, 1 Standchu can, and it's just as powerful as Slam but with 100% accuracy!  HM moves on my main Pokemon in an Only Run might not be a good idea but I'm pretty sure by the time I need to get rid of Strength, I'll be able to with the help of the Move Deleter.

With that, I go back to Rustbro using my new short-cut and restock up on X-Atacks, X-Defends, and X-Speeds and head back to Mawhile.  (By the way I forgot to mention it before, but you can get X-Specials in Peddleburg Mart, I know that will be handy for the future so of course I picked some up.)

Along the way I picked up my Ralts who I left in the Day-care during this time to get some level-ups. It only gain 2 levels and still is a bit away from learning telport.  So I'll stick an exp share on it for now until it learns the move.  I think 1 Standchu has enough experience at this point of the game to share a little with Ralts just till it learns teleport.

My First Pokemon Only Run: Part 4 VS Brendan

Well made it to Slateport.  We delivered the goods to Captain Stern.  Oh and we fought some grunts but none of them were tough enough to meation.  In fact they all had water and flying types, both which are weak to electric types so it was a joke.

We met the team Aqua Leader who I believe is Archie but no big deal.

After that I made made my way over to Mauville city and guess who I ran into along the way?  That's right Brendan, and he wants to fight me.

I'll admit it took a few tries and leveling Standchu up a level but I did it.  The thing that really made the fight hard was his Shroomish using Leech Seed and the fact that his starter already evolved into a Marshomp.  I honestly didn't think I would have to worry about the ground sub-type till at least the 3rd fight.

What I did to win in the end was got 2 X-defends and a X-attack up while Shroomish was out.  I also used an X-accuracy I picked up along the way, which I think was extremly helpful since Sweet Kiss and Slam are two key moves I need yet aren't perfect in accuracy.  I just wish I had another one for a gym leader I may need it on but I should eventually be able to buy all these X-items.

Only problem with using the Shroomish to set up was that it was able to get the leech seed on my Pokemon which I had to deal with for the rest of the match since I have only one Pokemon to fight with.

But with my defense up, I didn't have to worry about Mud Shot one-hit-KOing me.  So that made the fight bearable.  He had a Numel too but surprisingly it just kept embering me and didn't use any ground types.  A bit annoying, since it got Standchu burnt so Slam got weaken but my X-Attack kept Slam strong enough to get the job done.

Throughout the fight I had to keep a close eye on my health and use potions and soda pop I got from the beach shop to keep his health out of KOing range.

Overall though, once I got a strategy down the fight wasn't as bad as it could of been.  It just took a few tries to pull off.

Standchu's health was low & I was still burn and since it wasn't a major battle anymore, I put my Ralts out in front and went through the rest of the grass skipping trainers.

Yes I have other Pokemon, and yes I've been training Ralts a bit on the wild Pokemon.  I'll confess to this now.  1 Standchu is still taking on all the trainers I come across so as far as I care, this Only Run is still an Only Run.

I'm only training my Ralts because I want it to learn teleport.  It's a really handy move and I think it'll make training a whole lot easier on me.  Especially since we won't get Fly for quite some time.

Speaking of other Pokemon, my HM helper just  picked up a King's Rock.  That's an item that makes it so any attack on an opposing Pokemon may make it flinch.

It's tempting to use but I think the Silk Scarf will still be more helpful for Standchu for now. 

So after beating all the trainers I skipped before, 1 Standchu is all the way at Lv.30.  Feels weird for this point of the game.  But since this is an only run I'll need all the extra levels I can get.

PS:
Can't wait till Ralts learns teleport.  Sadly, it's only at Lv.11 and it learns the move at Lv.16 so I'm still a bit away especially since I want 1 Standchu to get all good experience since he's the only one I'm using in trainer and actual battles. :(

My First Pokemon Only Run: Part 3 Two Gyms Down

So I finally evolved my 1 Standchu into a Pikachu.  It took a lot of tedious running randomly running around to increase it's happiness, but I watch some videos that I was going to watch anyways so it wasn't too bad of grinding.

During that time I also gained my first victory against a ground type.  Emoing a Nincia to death with confusion actually worked for once. It evolved right the fight.  I still had to grind it to level 20 to learn Slam but like I said before, I know how to make grinding as enjoyable as it can be.

So I went into the gym and took out the gym trainers without much trouble.  However, despite my grinding Roxane was still no piece of cake.  The way I did it was I had to confuse her Geodude and then I used a Xdefend and a Xattack.  Then it was just a matter of Slamming it away while keeping it confused.

However the Geodude didn't agree and it took at least 3 attempts to take it down.  Her Nosepass was a joke compared to that though since it's a pure rock type so I can actually use thundershock till it goes down.

After getting the badge, Team Aqua was up to no good so I go kick that grunt's butt.  Compared to the gym he was nothing. :p

So that resulted in me being able to progress the plot.  Yeah!  So now I'm in the town with the second gym. 

Before heading in, on the town or island more to say I picked up a Silk Scarf with boosts normal-type move which makes it even stronger than Thundershock for now.

Gym trainers are a joke compared to what I've seen before.  No trouble what-so-ever.  I did kind-of underestimated Brawly though.

Machop was OK and I got through it with just Slaming. Really underestimated Makuhita though.  First thing the dang thing did was Sand Attack me until I couldn't do anything.

After that fail attempt, I went in with an actual strategy.  I started with confusing and paralyzing the Machop so I could could get an Xattack on Pikachu so I could sweep through the team with slam before my accuracy gets too low from the sand attacks from Makuhita.

A critical hit from Machop's Karate Chop foiled that plan at first but I pulled off a victory in my 3rd attempt and claimed my badge.

So overall the fight was nowhere near as the first gym leader but it wasn't cake-walk easy.

Then I went off and deliver the letter we got to Steven now that we can use flash and got some nice experience for Standchu.

With all of that, onward to Staleport or something to progress the plot I need to go through to get the next badge. :)

Sorry if I don't remember the names of places it's been a while since I've played this game.

My First Pokemon Only Run: Part 2 Challenge Right from the Start

So what is inside the egg? A Pichu! Yeah I'm playing through the game using just that Pichu. Though it can and needs to evolve.

It was a boy and I named it 1 Standchu because it's standing on it's own in this playthrough. Though in this blog I'll call it Standchu for short.

I trained it up a bit before it's first trainer battle and it did pretty well until I got into Pettleburg Woods.

No it wasn't the Aqua grunt. He was a sitnch I spent a bunch of time setting up on him just to realize I didn't even need to.

No it was the bug catcher right after I started having trouble. Those dang Nincada with their ground type. I wouldn't mind if it wasn't for the problem that Pichu's only offense move is Thundershock.

The only thing I could do is use sweet kiss on it and hope it KOed itself in confusion. I almost beat it too. If only Sweet Kiss had more than 10 PP. I was tempted to use an Ether but PP restoring items are so rare I didn't want to waste it.

I'm regretting forgetting Tail Whip instead of Charm. If I kept Tail Whip I could make my foes take more damage from confusion since the damage is based off the difference between a Pokemon's attack and defense.

So I skipped that trainer for now and I'm probably going to have to avoid Bug Catchers and Hikers until Standchu evolves.

Which brings me to my next dilemma.. handling the first gym. I made it to the town it was at but Standchu needs to learn a non-electric attacking move before I can even stand a chance.

The gym is rock types but as you probably know in these rock gyms most if not all the Pokemon are also ground type, which resists electric attacks.

It can't learn Quick Attack since it learns that as a Pikachu at lv. 11 which he was already pass when I learned that. The only other move it can learn I can used is Slam at Lv.20.

Which is ironic since I always complain about how bad Slam is of a move, but it's all I can get.

So I need Standchu to evolve before I can take on the gym but it needs to be before Lv. 20 otherwise I think I'm screwed. Shouldn't be a problem if I just run around to raise Standchu's friendship but it could be a bit tedious. ._.

Well that's about it for now, just started the playthrough and I already need Standchu to evolve. I was kind-of hoping to enjoy Pichu's sprite for a bit more.

My First Pokemon Only Run: Part 1 Setting up

So I started my Pokemon Sapphire game over to do my first ever only run. For those of you who don't know, that's when you play through an entire game with only one Pokemon.  The only time you're allow to use other Pokemon is for HM moves like Cut and Surf outside of battle.  Normally you don't let the Pokemon evolve either but since I have to bring it over as a Pokemon egg I'm gonna make an exception.

So let's begin.  But first I got to get to a point of the game I can trade the egg over before it really begins.  I start the game, chose the girl...hey I never used her before so I wanted to try it out.

I move in and first thing I noticed is that the Brendan's theme (the boy in the game if you chose the female character) is different from May's theme (the girl in the game if you chose the male character) It's not different by much, but enough to notice.

So after talking to him. I head out and see professor Birch is in trouble and I need to choose a Pokemon to help him. I decide to go with Torchic because your rival, May if your a boy Brendan if your a girl, always has the opposite starter to you.

So since I chose the fire starter he'll have the water starter.  Which is going to make this only run easier until that starter evolves then it's gonna be hardest I can make it on me. After all this only run is basically a test to see if I can pull it off in a recorded project.  Worst thing I could imagine is starting an only run playthrough on my Youtube and have to cancel it because it's too hard. 

So I'm going to use a Pokemon the same type as the one I'd want to use in the only run. And have my rival have type that completely resists my Pokemon.  If I can beat the game with that set up.  I should have no problem beating an only run for real.

After I save him from a weak Poochyena, (fail), we go back to the lab and he lets me keep the Pokemon.  I give it the name Nanny since it's only purpose is to be there until my egg hatches once I trade it over.

Birch then tells me to go meet up with Bret. (I'm just gonna call him that from now on since I can actually spell it without looking it up every time.  So I head over there and take care of that since I have to beat him before I can get the Pokedex and Pokeballs that will allow me to trade over the Pokemon I'm actually using in this Only Run. 

After a little grinding to assure an easy victory it's battle time... and I beat him in 3-4 Scratches.  I'm only at level 7 and he's at 5 I'm not that over-leveled. :p  I get 69 experience and level up. :3  Now we both have to head back to the lab, to get the Poke'dex I assume.  I head back, and I was right.  I also got 5 Pokeballs and the running shoes.

I know just what I'm doing with these Poke'balls too.  First catching a Pokemon to trade over for the egg I'm actually using in the only run, then catching a Zigzagoon.  They actually make great HM slaves because they learn a huge diversity of HMs, including surf.  Got to thank darkfool99's Ruby LP for that pointer.

And speaking of which, as I tried to do that my second wild encounter just happens to be with a Ralts, the rarest Pokemon on the route. I catch it but I don't know if I want to trade it away since it's so rare and I caught it so soon.

Not using it of course, it's still a only run, but teleport might come in handy till I get Fly. I go back to the first route because I wasn't having luck finding the HM slave I wanted and then I find and catch it.  HM slave sounds too mean so I decide to actually call it HM "Helper'. :p

So I finally caught what I needed so now I can go trade the egg with the Pokemon I'm actually using in my only run, hatch it and finally begin this only run.

Just what is this Pokemon I'm doing my only run with?  You'll have to find out in the next blog when it hatches.