For anyone unfamiliar, a Nuzlocke is a “hard mode” challenge run of any Pokemon game, where you only catch one Pokemon per route, must give them nicknames, and if they faint, they are considered dead and can no longer be used. The hardcore variant adds several other rules to the mix to further increase the challenge. Set mode must be on and you absolutely can not use items in battle whatsoever.
I’m not particularly fond of the hardcore ruleset, not because it’s too hard or anything, I just don’t like set mode in a singles format, it turns into a swap-fest and stalling tactics. I prefer set mode for competitive doubles, it makes more sense there and you have a lot more strategic swap options. However, despite having done plenty of nuzlockes in the past, even soul-links with friends, I’d never actually done a hardcore one, so I set myself down and forced myself to do one (streaming it once a week to a friend on Discord). I chose Platinum, my favourite Pokemon game and also one I’m most familiar with, but also a rather hard game to do a hardcore run in.
I won’t go over the whole run or I’ll be here all week, I primarily want to discuss how my Champion Cynthia battle went. I will note a few events though, I had hatched the Riolu egg and went through the trouble of evolving it, only for it to immediately die to a crit against Byron. Also, Candice was a menace, her Froslass is an eldritch nightmare with the hail active…
Worth noting before I go further, I had a naming theme for all of my Pokemon, tools and utilities. Why? Because why not? Some favourites go to Steelbrush the Lucario, Sandpaper the Garchomp and Glue gun the Shellos (I don’t think I evolved them, or even used them…)
So, without further ado, here’s how Cynthia almost ended the whole thing.
I went into the Elite Four with the best team I could muster, including the Giratina encounter from the Distortion World, named Eraser. My starter was long since dead, so they unfortunately wouldn’t be accompanying me to the finale, rest in peace Wrench the Chimchar/Monferno. Otherwise, I had Sandpaper the Garchomp, Knife the Weavile, Pruners the Roserade, Mop the Tentacruel and Dremel the Jolteon (with Choice Specs, I’ll add).
However, even before I had made it to the ominous piano echoing through the halls of the league, my team was down two members. Mop, the Tentacruel, died first to Bertha, I switched him in whilst having Pruners the Roserade out to take on the Whiscash. She'd swapped into Gliscor, who has both Fire and Ice Fang, so keeping Pruners in wasn't remotely safe, but APPARENTLY Bertha is completely married to the idea of using Earthquake constantly which would've been neutral on Pruners, so Mop just took it full-force upon the switch…
Pruners fell to Lucian, it was kinda the only way for a safe switch with the Alakazam so I could get Knife the Weavile in for the guaranteed Night Slash OHKO (even that was risky because 'Zam is faster and has Focus Blast, it missed thankfully). I really needed Knife though, as it has Ice Punch for Cynthia's Garchomp and boy, did I need it…
I led Cynthia with Dremel the Jolteon, because I actually wanted to bait the Garchomp out ASAP, it absolutely can not be allowed to survive and linger in the back of my mind through the whole fight, so Dremel dealt with the Spiritomb and switched out to Eraser the Giratina, who was sacked on the Garchomp (ironic, bringing the box art legendary into the champion fight and its only job was to die…) Knife OHKO'd the Garchomp easily, as I’d hoped, he outsped with an Ice Punch and finished off without worry. After this though, things kinda start to blur in my memory, it was a back and forth between Sandpaper the Garchomp, Knife and Dremel, steadily wiping out the rest of her team whilst the adrenaline was pumping through me.
I had Sandpaper out against her Milotic, which would've been a death sentence, so I swapped to Knife and, due to its low health at that point, bit it to the predicted Ice Beam, but allowed the safe switch to Dremel once again, who cooked it with Choice Specs Thunderbolt. I had to swap out on the Roserade though, but it defeated Sandpaper despite the resistances, I was kinda panicking at this stage.
Roserade was in red health and resisted Dremel, Cynthia had healed up and I was just kinda stuck there, having to 3 hit KO with Thunderbolts and steadily dwindling HP. It had used Toxic too, further placing a time limit on my efforts. At this point, it was do or die, and only Togekiss remained.
I had to OHKO it immediately, if it survived it would've done terrifying damage, maybe KOing, but the Toxic damage would definitely done Dremel in any way. This was it, the deciding moment.
Dremel outsped, Thunderbolt came out.
The infamous Gen IV HP bar slowly ticked down.
What feels like an age passes by.
It makes it to red, my heart is racing.
Would this be enough?
Yes, it would.
I won.
Dremel was the only survivor, but I won.
Despite my grievances with the ruleset, and some frustrating moments and losses I feel I could’ve avoided, the final gauntlet at the end made it all worth it. Would I do another hardcore nuzlocke in the future? No, I would not! But that doesn’t change how exhilarating and memorable that final battle against Cynthia truly was.
