May 10, 2025
System
WHy Are POkemon Nuzlockes so Entertaining?
WHy Are POkemon Nuzlockes so Entertaining?
WHy Are POkemon Nuzlockes so Entertaining?
System
Pokémon is a franchise known all around the world. You’d be hard pressed to find someone who hasn’t seen Pikachu at least once in their life. The first games in this franchise came out in 1996 for the Gameboy which were titled Pokémon Red, and Pokémon Blue with an anime called Pokémon in 1997 that followed the adventures of Pokémon trainer Ash Ketchum or Satoshi if you watched the original Japanese dub.
Even to this day nearly every year a new game duology and a new season is announced for the series to break sales records. However, every year, it receives the same criticism especially from its most die-hard fans, which is that the game is too easy.
Now getting into difficulty of games is a can of worms for another time, but I do want to focus on what the community did to try to fix this common complaint.
Pokémon is a franchise known all around the world. You’d be hard pressed to find someone who hasn’t seen Pikachu at least once in their life. The first games in this franchise came out in 1996 for the Gameboy which were titled Pokémon Red, and Pokémon Blue with an anime called Pokémon in 1997 that followed the adventures of Pokémon trainer Ash Ketchum or Satoshi if you watched the original Japanese dub.
Even to this day nearly every year a new game duology and a new season is announced for the series to break sales records. However, every year, it receives the same criticism especially from its most die-hard fans, which is that the game is too easy.
Now getting into difficulty of games is a can of worms for another time, but I do want to focus on what the community did to try to fix this common complaint.
The Nuzlocke Challenege
The Nuzlocke challenge was started by Nick Franco in a series of comics he made known as Pokémon Hard mode. He started off with just two rules.
The Nuzlocke challenge was started by Nick Franco in a series of comics he made known as Pokémon Hard mode. He started off with just two rules.
This led to the case of how what would happen if you didn't have anymore pokemon to release? That's Game Over and you restart the entire game!
An Unoffical Rule that people use as well is to name every single Pokemon. They're your friends give them a little love!
This led to the case of how what would happen if you didn't have anymore pokemon to release? That's Game Over and you restart the entire game!
An Unoffical Rule that people use as well is to name every single Pokemon. They're your friends give them a little love!
Now before I go into more detail, I think a little background about my experience with Pokémon would be nice. I started off my Pokémon journey with Leaf Green on my Flame Red Gameboy Advance SP and fell in love with the world and franchise almost immediately. From the opening cinematic of Gengar and Nidorino fighting one another, the epic music on the main screen, being able to play as a girl, catching my first Pokemon, collecting all 8 badges, beating the Elite Four, collecting legendary Zapdos (My electric chicken goat for real), and facing off with the heartless genetic mutation known as Mewtwo. I loved everything about Leaf Green and the world it provided.
I liked playing through the games till Gen 3 with Pokemon Emerald after which it switched over to the Nintendo DS, which I never ended up getting. I dropped off fairly early from the series, but I always liked seeing the buildup for the next game, and would often use my Pokemon Leaf Green or Emerald games to give region specific Pokemons to my friends with some even paying a fee for me to find them and level them up to a certain level. Insane how my first way of earning money was to literally play Pokemon for others haha. However despite not actively playing the games I too could notice that as years went on every new generation felt like it followed the same pattern.
You would get your Pokémon with interesting designs, some stupid designs, and a gimmick that Game Freak would try for one year and abandon almost immediately. (RIP DynaMax, you were gone too soon). I too started to fall into the mindset that Pokémon is the same game just being released year after year. With constant complaints of the game getting easier and easier as the years went on, it never really managed to grab me back and it became a franchise I avoided.
Now before I go into more detail, I think a little background about my experience with Pokémon would be nice. I started off my Pokémon journey with Leaf Green on my Flame Red Gameboy Advance SP and fell in love with the world and franchise almost immediately. From the opening cinematic of Gengar and Nidorino fighting one another, the epic music on the main screen, being able to play as a girl, catching my first Pokemon, collecting all 8 badges, beating the Elite Four, collecting legendary Zapdos (My electric chicken goat for real), and facing off with the heartless genetic mutation known as Mewtwo. I loved everything about Leaf Green and the world it provided.
I liked playing through the games till Gen 3 with Pokemon Emerald after which it switched over to the Nintendo DS, which I never ended up getting. I dropped off fairly early from the series, but I always liked seeing the buildup for the next game, and would often use my Pokemon Leaf Green or Emerald games to give region specific Pokemons to my friends with some even paying a fee for me to find them and level them up to a certain level. Insane how my first way of earning money was to literally play Pokemon for others haha. However despite not actively playing the games I too could notice that as years went on every new generation felt like it followed the same pattern.
You would get your Pokémon with interesting designs, some stupid designs, and a gimmick that Game Freak would try for one year and abandon almost immediately. (RIP DynaMax, you were gone too soon). I too started to fall into the mindset that Pokémon is the same game just being released year after year. With constant complaints of the game getting easier and easier as the years went on, it never really managed to grab me back and it became a franchise I avoided.
What really turned me around on the idea of Pokémon was a small indie streamer called Ludwig. He released a video of a ROMHACK, Drayano had made for him called Mogul Platinum. It was a romhack made especially for Ludwig with the main character sprites resembling him and the rest of the trainers being his friends or people incredibly famous in the Nuzlocke community.
To really make it stand out, Ludwig had added an interesting rule which is that he would name Pokemon captured after a viewer and if that Pokemon died He WOULD BAN the viewer until the end of the run.
It was a genius way of getting viewers to care and feel included in the run as it wasn’t just Ludwig that would suffer if he wiped out, but you too if a Pokemon was named after you.
I watched the video he had made relating to that run, it created this longing to go back to the franchise and see if it was as fun as it seemed like in the video. I started playing Ultra Sun on my 3DS and started off playing the game blind with the Nuzlocke Rules,
which ended disastrously.
What I thought was just a great way of upping the challenge of a children's game actually turns out to be this intensive test of understanding mechanics and memorization.
No longer were you a 10-YEAR-OLD who wanted to explore the friendly world of pokemon collecting silly little friends. You are now a squishy little punching bag that had to learn quick and adapt to survive the harsh world.
What really turned me around on the idea of Pokémon was a small indie streamer called Ludwig. He released a video of a ROMHACK, Drayano had made for him called Mogul Platinum. It was a romhack made especially for Ludwig with the main character sprites resembling him and the rest of the trainers being his friends or people incredibly famous in the Nuzlocke community.
To really make it stand out, Ludwig had added an interesting rule which is that he would name Pokemon captured after a viewer and if that Pokemon died He WOULD BAN the viewer until the end of the run.
It was a genius way of getting viewers to care and feel included in the run as it wasn’t just Ludwig that would suffer if he wiped out, but you too if a Pokemon was named after you.
I watched the video he had made relating to that run, it created this longing to go back to the franchise and see if it was as fun as it seemed like in the video. I started playing Ultra Sun on my 3DS and started off playing the game blind with the Nuzlocke Rules,
which ended disastrously.
What I thought was just a great way of upping the challenge of a children's game actually turns out to be this intensive test of understanding mechanics and memorization.
No longer were you a 10-YEAR-OLD who wanted to explore the friendly world of pokemon collecting silly little friends. You are now a squishy little punching bag that had to learn quick and adapt to survive the harsh world.
The childhood strategy of overpowering one Pokémon loses a lot of appeal as if that Pokémon kneels over, you’re in for a world of pain. You want to keep your Pokémon around the same level so you can switch over to them and not have to worry about being too under leveled.
It makes team composition so much more important instead of just rocking with your favorite looking Pokémon. You need to pick and choose Pokemon that are ideal for the battle. You start noticing patterns with enemy attacks and can start breaking down Pokémon battles with IV’s, turn order,status effects and attack damage instead of blindly spamming the A button through every fight. It’s a fascinating change that makes you appreciate the smaller intricacies of the battle system.
Each battle feels like a game of chance no matter how overpowered your Pokémon might be as even the random critical hit could spell the end of that Pokémon making all your effort in raising them and leveling up disappear in an instant. You want to pick and choose your battles in such a way that you know that you have a good chance of winning and escaping becomes an actual option to protect and save Pokémon. This can be the small difference between keeping a Rockstar Pokemon that comes in clutch and crashing adn burning
Traversal becomes its own challenge as well in the game. Due to the fact that you can only catch the first Pokémon along a route makes something as simple as going into Grass a strategic decision as well. Do you walk into the first patch of grass you see, or should you try to get as far in the route as possible to maybe have the chance to get something better later on?
You also need to keep in mind trainer positions and where your rivals may pop to make your life hell. I used to like the strategy of just letting my Pokémon get their ass handed to them and go back to the Poke center to re-heal and try again. That strategy is no longer viable because of how important each Pokémon is at this point. It’s a creative way of maintaining tension and keeping players on their toes while promoting the usage of items like HP and PP heals.
All of these changes made me start thinking about one of my favorite JRPG's known as Shin Megami Tensei 3: Nocturne. Nocturne scratched that itch for me that Pokémon was never able to after I turned 15 as it let me collect cool sick looking demons, but the combat system was deep and complex and forced me to think 5 moves in advance to try to defeat a tough boss, but even if I had been fully prepared, I could still get my ass kicked with one wrong move. It was a great experience. I always thought about why Pokémon and SMT led to such different experiences while playing and I always put it off to "It must be a difficulty thing" and not think about it more.
However, I think I found out a deeper reason for why they feel so different and why Nuzlockes are so entertaining. Well, the added difficulty helps, but I propose the main reason is the chance for....
Emergent narrative.
The childhood strategy of overpowering one Pokémon loses a lot of appeal as if that Pokémon kneels over, you’re in for a world of pain. You want to keep your Pokémon around the same level so you can switch over to them and not have to worry about being too under leveled.
It makes team composition so much more important instead of just rocking with your favorite looking Pokémon. You need to pick and choose Pokemon that are ideal for the battle. You start noticing patterns with enemy attacks and can start breaking down Pokémon battles with IV’s, turn order,status effects and attack damage instead of blindly spamming the A button through every fight. It’s a fascinating change that makes you appreciate the smaller intricacies of the battle system.
Each battle feels like a game of chance no matter how overpowered your Pokémon might be as even the random critical hit could spell the end of that Pokémon making all your effort in raising them and leveling up disappear in an instant. You want to pick and choose your battles in such a way that you know that you have a good chance of winning and escaping becomes an actual option to protect and save Pokémon. This can be the small difference between keeping a Rockstar Pokemon that comes in clutch and crashing adn burning
Traversal becomes its own challenge as well in the game. Due to the fact that you can only catch the first Pokémon along a route makes something as simple as going into Grass a strategic decision as well. Do you walk into the first patch of grass you see, or should you try to get as far in the route as possible to maybe have the chance to get something better later on?
You also need to keep in mind trainer positions and where your rivals may pop to make your life hell. I used to like the strategy of just letting my Pokémon get their ass handed to them and go back to the Poke center to re-heal and try again. That strategy is no longer viable because of how important each Pokémon is at this point. It’s a creative way of maintaining tension and keeping players on their toes while promoting the usage of items like HP and PP heals.
All of these changes made me start thinking about one of my favorite JRPG's known as Shin Megami Tensei 3: Nocturne. Nocturne scratched that itch for me that Pokémon was never able to after I turned 15 as it let me collect cool sick looking demons, but the combat system was deep and complex and forced me to think 5 moves in advance to try to defeat a tough boss, but even if I had been fully prepared, I could still get my ass kicked with one wrong move. It was a great experience. I always thought about why Pokémon and SMT led to such different experiences while playing and I always put it off to "It must be a difficulty thing" and not think about it more.
However, I think I found out a deeper reason for why they feel so different and why Nuzlockes are so entertaining. Well, the added difficulty helps, but I propose the main reason is the chance for....
Emergent narrative.
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