At the end of last month, I was about ready to quit I Never. A trend in the previous months is that I often find it difficult to do I Never because of time and money constraints. Last month, for the first time, I actually didn’t manage to do an I Never. As a small side-note, I should apologize to Wouter, who provided me with an opportunity to do an I Never, but I didn’t realize cactus figs couldn’t be kept in the fridge for a week, which made me completely waste them :/

But, a few days ago I realized, I did do something that I’d never done before and had wanted to do for a long time: the Nuzlocke challenge. Most people probably have never heard of it, so I’ll give a brief explanation: the Nuzlocke challenge is a run through a Pokémon game with two additional rules. 1: you can only catch the first Pokémon you encounter on each route. 2: any Pokémon that faints is dead and must be released or boxed forever.

If the previous paragraph bored you to death, it’s probably best to stop reading now.

I don’t know how I first got to know of the challenge, but I liked the sound of it and wanted to do it on Pokémon Moon. However, starting this run requires a reset of the game, which meant I could no longer play the Battle Tree with Lena. So I was waiting for Ultra Sun/Moon to be released, so we can move to that Battle Tree and I could reset the game.

But at my birthday last month, I got a surprise: Alexander got me Pokémon Sun, which meant I could start my challenge! Now, I originally wanted to record my adventure in comic-form, but figuring that would take more time, skill and dedication than I have available, here’s my progress so far:

I started off with my favorite spherical bird: Rowlet! Unfortunately for my derp-head, I made a mistake in determining the areas and missed one opportunity for catching a Slowpoke. Still, my team was soon expanded by a Pikipek and  Yungoos. Full of confidence, I made my way through Hau’oli City, defeated Team Skull in the harbor and managed to get my entire team wiped by Ilima. So much for my first attempt. Turns out I have much to learn still. But, I got some practice in Pokémon Gold and am ready to make my second attempt in the world of Pokémon Sun!

Alola!