The Nuzlocke Challenge is a fan-favorite way to play Pokémon games. The premise is simple: you can only catch the first Pokémon you encounter in each area, and if a Pokémon faints in battle, you can't use it again in subsequent matches. Nuzlocke requires a combination of luck and skill - and it relies heavily on random number generation. you can Buy Shiny Pokemon Sword and Shield at pkmbuy.
This all works well in a Pokémon game with linear, varying paths, where tall grass hides wild Pokémon just waiting to jump out and attack you. But with Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, the main series now has an open world where Pokémon can roam freely, with no random encounters at all. In a game that scans an area and picks out the Pokémon you need, how do you do a real Nuzlocke without getting stuck with whatever jumps out of the grass?
Traditional Nuzlocke might not quite work in Scarlet and Violet, but with a little creativity—and maybe a virtual roll of the dice—you can keep the spirit of the challenge alive. Let's step through the pillars of the Nuzlocke challenge to see which ones still work and which ones need to be adjusted to the times.
Step 1: Limit your Pokémon
Although the world of Crimson and Violet is vast and open, you can still absolutely limit yourself to catching one Pokémon per designated area in Paldea. The map is divided into north, south, east, and west sections, each section is further divided into numbered areas, and the game tells you when to leave one area and enter another. (Unlike most of the open-world spin-off Pokémon Legends: Arceus, progressing through Scarlet and Violet is not required to fill out your Pokédex.)
You might want to write down where you catch Pokémon, though. Tracking fuzzy provinces and territories is a bit harder than linear routes connecting city points on a map.
Step 2: Random Number
This is where it gets trickier. Scarlet and Violet do have randomness in that a different Pokémon may spawn in the same location each time you visit, but to maintain randomly caught Pokémon you'll have to do some RNG yourself. The easy way: when you first enter a new area, close your eyes and wander around until you come across a Pokémon, congratulations! That's what you get for Pokémon.
However, if you do, you may inadvertently enter a new territory, which can complicate the whole thing. So if randomness is your thing, but want to explore a bit more closely, you can try what a player on Reddit suggested: catch six Pokémon, then roll a six-sided die to decide which one qualifies your party. (You can also do this with higher numbers and more faces if you want.) Maybe it's a little easier than traditional Nuzlocke since you have the chance to get something other than Lechonk, but hey, it's still Kind of random!
Now, if you're really committed to randomness, you can check out the full list of Pokémon spawns in any given area on a site like Serebii, assigning each Pokémon a number from 1 to the total number of possible species in the area, and turn on a random number generator; the number you get is the Pokémon you want to catch. If it's a rare spawn, good luck.
If you want more randomness with less work - but possibly more powerful Pokémon to make Nuzlocke run easier - you can also just head to the first Tera Raid crystal you see and grab that Pokemon. Since each area has more than one crystal, you can use the dice roll method to determine which one to approach.
Step 3: When the Pokémon passes out
Depending on where you go and when you go, Crimson and Violet can be much harder than in previous Pokémon games. It's all too easy to wander from Breezy Meadows full of low-level Hoppips to Meadows that look very similar but have higher-level Pokémon. If you're not careful, your Pokémon will faint. As the Nuzlocke rules dictate, a fainted Pokémon is dead to you for the rest of the game.
Fortunately, grinding is made a lot easier (and safer) thanks to auto-battle, which allows you to send your leader Pokémon to battle wild Pokémon without your input. If a Pokémon is injured in these battles, it won't faint; if their HP gets too low, it will stop fighting. Level up so you can face stronger Pokémon but without the stress of regular battles! (However, this doesn't apply to the auto battles you have to do at Team Starbase. Your Pokémon will absolutely faint during these missions, so be careful.)
If you want to make Nuzlocke more challenging, you can disable auto-battle yourself and grind it out the old-fashioned way: through regular battles where your Pokémon does have a chance of fainting.
Step 4: Improve your own rules
Of course, the beauty of Nuzlocke challenges is that anyone can introduce their own house rules--maybe you can't catch more than one of the same Pokémon, or you can't use healing items in battle. There are many variations on the basic idea of Nuzlocke, which also applies to Scarlet and Violet.
In the end, these are just ideas. As more people play the game, the community will surely develop more ways to keep the spirit of Nuzlocke alive in Paldea.
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