Around the time AI Coliseum was ending, I found this video by PChal. It's about a Pokemon Emerald romhack made by Dekzeh, Run&Bun. This is one of the longest and most complex romhacks ever made, and especially it's designed to be hardcore nuzlocked.
In short, I'm currently streaming this game in my Twitch account, uploading the VODs here. But if you want more context:
What is a hardcore nuzlocke?
It consists of playing Pokemon with the following basic restrictions:
- You can only catch one Pokemon per route, and it has to be the first one you encounter.
- If a Pokemon faints, it's considered 'dead' and you can't use it anymore.
- If you lose a battle (all Pokemon in the party faint), yo have to restart the game.
There are some extra rules like not catching dupes, but the most important rules are those.
Pokemon Run&Bun
There are a few reasons why this game is very appealing, but I'm not going to cover all of them: I recommend watching a video instead, especially the one I linked before.
- It's a very long game: a bit less than 400 mandatory fights you have to beat, with around 70-80 possible encounters.
- There are a lot of Pokemon you can catch and use from generations 1-8. Mechanics are also Gen 8, even if it looks like OG Emerald.
- The game enforces hard level caps to avoid overleveling, and it gives you infinite rare candies + repels so you focus on the fun side of the game.
- The trainer AI is custom and extensively documented. Players have to learn it and take as much advantage as possible, although it's balanced enough to avoid cheesing most fights.
- The game's generally very balanced, with a few limited resources to rectify bad RNG, good encounter routing with many Pokemon having solid viability, never centering around one or two broken options.
- It's not as reset-heavy as all other difficult Pokemon hacks I know, such as Ironmon or other Kaizos, even though it's a lot longer and harder, which I'd say is impressive.
There are many more cool things in this game, such as mega evolutions, but I'll keep it this short.
The Calc
Players use (most of the time) a damage calculator to play this game, so information on specific damage rolls, speed, etc. is always available to the player. This synergizes really well with having knowledge about the trainer AI and lets you plan fights, as if solving a puzzle.
It really doesn't seem like Pokemon anymore, but for me it's a nice balance between knowing what you're doing and it still being a bit chaotic, because even though the AI is clear, sometimes it can choose between more than one move, it can hit critical strikes or proc additional effects like flinches or paralysis. Since you're risking Pokemon from your box and the whole run every single fight, there is a lot to plan for.
Playing this game
I have been playing this game since October last year, but I was just doing a more casual run where all rules were in play except the hardcore rules like permadeath and resetting in case of wipe. This was because:
- I didn't know that much about Pokemon: abilities, held items, modern moves...
- I wanted to see how a complete run looks like, and then if I still wanted to, I could start seriously doing runs with hardcore rules, since I would then know about the difficult sections, and decisions that have to be made ver in advance.
I got to the elite four in that run after four months, and very recently I started playing the game seriously. Apparently, playing 200+ hours of a difficult Pokemon romhack teaches you almost all you need to know.
Streaming
There are a couple reasons why I am encouraged to livestream me playing this game. Usually, it's because it's a long and hard game, and many people prefer watching over playing it. Apart from that, the community maintains a public spreadsheet where all winning runs are recorded, which is called the Hall of Fame. There are less than 100 people there, and the main requirement to get in there is to stream the whole run, uploading all VODs, so it's as legit as it can be proven to be.
These are solid reasons to stream, but none of them matter to me. I'm not interested in streaming professionally, and I can live without being put on a spreadsheet. However, I thought that playing like this would make it a lot easier to actually follow the rules: if no one's watching and nothing is uploaded anywhere, when you get unlucky you sometimes feel like you can undo it and try again. By doing it live, even if no one is watching, just by uploading the VODs it feels easier to stick with the rules. That's especially important to me, because I want the hardcore nuzlocke experience, but I can't convince myself to reset a run if only I know about it.
So I started streaming it in my Twitch account, uploading the VODs here. Very soon I also started talking on stream, just thinking aloud, and it's very useful. Also, it's a small detail, but by streaming in English I get to practice my pronunciation, which has never been good.
I'm just playing and not really creating content. I stream when I want to, for as long as I want to. But if you know me, you're reading this and you're interested in having a look or just coming say hello, you're welcome too!