Thread: Themed run throughs

So, I'm planning a run-though of Pearl with a themed party, Canine Pokemon.

I plan on playing normally until I can access the union room, then using a second DS available to me, trade my party (freshly hatched at lvl 1 or so I think) over from SS.


Have any of you ever done this, or something similar? Any tips for me?

I attempted to go through Red with only water types once. Got to Surge and gave up, lol. I'm gonna do a bunch of Elite Four runs with themed teams, though.

I've bred and EV trained teams for HG and SS, for the first run through I did in Japanese HG I transferred level 1 pokemon, which works ok, but can be difficult to level them at the start as the struggle with wild pokemon. Since then I breed and EV train then level to 4 or 5 before trading.

That's a good point with wanting to level them up to 4 or 5 before the trade...

Slightly off topic, but where should I go to get help on party building? I'm still a bit green on these specific forums.

Originally Posted by revaar

That's a good point with wanting to level them up to 4 or 5 before the trade...

Slightly off topic, but where should I go to get help on party building? I'm still a bit green on these specific forums.

On this forum, and more specifically in the In-Game Teams thread if you're looking for help with the normal game team.

I did a run-through on gold once of all the cattle-like pokémon. Tauros, Miltank, Stantler, and Girafarig. Worked pretty well actually.

I've always wanted to create a team of only Eevee evolutions, but I've never actually gone through it.

I played through platinum with a monosteel team, all caught in game:
empoleon, steelix, magenzone, bronzong, probapass, and lucario. no troubles there, except afterwards I found out my magnezone was adamant natured, LOL. ou could also try a nuzlocke challenge. the rules are:

1. If a pokemon faints, you must release it as soon as possible.
2. You can ONLY catch the first pokemon you encounter in a route/cave/town/area (You get the idea). If you defeat the first pokemon you see, tough shit, you get nothing from this area.
3. Obviously if you run out of pokemon, you must start again.
4. Potions, healing items of any kind infact, are DISALLOWED.

I'm playing ruby through like that. Its challenging yet fun.

Originally Posted by coolking503

I played through platinum with a monosteel team, all caught in game:
empoleon, steelix, magenzone, bronzong, probapass, and lucario. no troubles there, except afterwards I found out my magnezone was adamant natured, LOL. ou could also try a nuzlocke challenge. the rules are:

1. If a pokemon faints, you must release it as soon as possible.
2. You can ONLY catch the first pokemon you encounter in a route/cave/town/area (You get the idea). If you defeat the first pokemon you see, tough shit, you get nothing from this area.
3. Obviously if you run out of pokemon, you must start again.
4. Potions, healing items of any kind infact, are DISALLOWED.

I'm playing ruby through like that. Its challenging yet fun.

that sounds awesome. you'd really want to grind your pokémon so they won't faint. it would be so frustrating if they did though! "Ratata used Quick Attack! Critical Hit!" "FUCK!"

it should be called the Fire Emblem challenge!

Originally Posted by 1998

I've always wanted to create a team of only Eevee evolutions, but I've never actually gone through it.

I had considered that too, but I just can't really bring myself to do it. I didn't consider enough of them aesthetically pleasing or strong enough. ^^'

I am tempted to trade over a Dratini and make myself a Dragon playthrough. Might be a bit too easy compared to others to keep me entertained, though.

Originally Posted by revaar

That's a good point with wanting to level them up to 4 or 5 before the trade...

Actually, I'd recommend against that. In fact, you should send them over as eggs. It's actually very easy to overlevel an outsider Pokemon in the early stages of the game. I learned this the hard way when I restarted my Pt game and brought over a bunch of hatchlings for my team.

As far as themes go, I've always wanted to make a Hound team, but I've never gotten around to it. I think my biggest issue would be that most hound type Pokemon that aren't Legendaries or Eeveelutions are Fire-Types.

When i get HG, i'm gonna transfer in some pokemon and do a All-Fighing run through
My current plan is Machamp, Hariama, Lucario, Hitmonchan,Hitmonlee and Blazeikan

Originally Posted by coolking503

I played through platinum with a monosteel team, all caught in game:
empoleon, steelix, magenzone, bronzong, probapass, and lucario. no troubles there, except afterwards I found out my magnezone was adamant natured, LOL. ou could also try a nuzlocke challenge. the rules are:

1. If a pokemon faints, you must release it as soon as possible.
2. You can ONLY catch the first pokemon you encounter in a route/cave/town/area (You get the idea). If you defeat the first pokemon you see, tough shit, you get nothing from this area.
3. Obviously if you run out of pokemon, you must start again.
4. Potions, healing items of any kind infact, are DISALLOWED.

I'm playing ruby through like that. Its challenging yet fun.

Oh...that just sounds...cruel...

I want to do a playthrough of Heart Gold with only Water-types my next time around...but no Water-types outside of RSE can learn Fly, so I'm either going to have to bite the bullet and get something else, or just use a Pidgey or something to get everywhere.

I've always wanted to have a Flying team, because of the vast number of types they're matched with, and you'd be good as long as you have a Gliger/Gliscour to handle the electrics, the only thing that's stopped me is that for real type diversity you'd have to use a couple of legendaries, and that just feels cheap to me.


Plus I had Zapdos. I mean look at him.

Yes, most hound like Pokemon are mostly fire or legendaries which is a pain when you are going for that theme. I have been trying to get around to doing an eeveelution play through as it would be very fun! I would probably go with all of them but Leafeon or exchange Umbreon and Leafeon out as I need them, it would actually be good to stick with the Sinnoh based evolutions though you are unable to get Glaceon until much later in the game so Leafeon would probably do for the time being.

Since CoolKing mentioned the Nuzlocke Challenge, here are a few others that I found:

The Solo Pokemon Challenge:

This is one that most people will probably have done even unintentionally - the objective is simply to only use one Pokemon througout the entire game during battles. Other Pokemon are however allowed to be in the team to act as HM Slaves but are disallowed in battle. Whether the Pokemon can evolve, whether you can
swap to another Pokemon to heal when your one faints etc is entirely up to the player's discretion, however. As long as you are only using one Pokemon for the battling, you are following this challenge. This sort of thing is probably the fastest way to complete the game, though.

The Mono-type Challenge:

One that most people will have heard of, the mono-type challenge involves the player only using Pokemon of one particular type. Usually, the rules allow the use of dual-type Pokemon, as well as the use of any Pokemon that are not that type to begin with but will eventually evolve into that type (note that this does not apply the other way around - you cannot use Bellossom on a Poison challenge, for example). Otherwise, you play as normal. HM Slaves (Pokemon caught solely for the purpose of HMs such as Cut and Rock Smash) ARE allowed, but shouldn't be used in battle wherever possible. Any of the seventeen types are possible, but obviously some will be much, much harder to complete the challenge with than others. You must obtain a Pokemon of your chosen type as soon as possible, however. For example, say you choose the
Flying-type, then as soon as you get some Poke Balls, catch a Pidgey, Spearow or Hoothoot and drop your starter in the PC. Of course, that's the ideal way - it's your challenge, so you are welcome to bend the rules a little if you're insecure about your Pokemon surviving.

The hardest types to do would probably be Dragon and Ghost. Dragon would only give you Horsea and Dratini to use, while Ghost allows just Misdreavus and Gastly. All the other types have more to use prior to the Elite Four although many types aren't especially early.

For the best experience you will probably want to choose a type where you can get something of that type early on. Before finishing the first gym, you can already start a mono challenge for most of the types, and even have more than one Pokemon for a couple of them like Normal, Flying or Ground.

These challenges aren't always that hard unless you happen to have a type that is a bit on the bad side (ie Bug, not counting Scyther/Scizor/Pinsir/Heracross) but they can be pretty fun, especally for a type like Water where you have a hell of a lot of choices.

The Mono-colour Challenge:

Something most people haven't really done (in fact I haven't done one of these myself) but it's like the mono-type challenge except you can only use Pokemon of a certain colour. Preferably, the Pokemon would be almost entirely of that colour such as Treecko being green, Mareep being yellow etcetera but that can be left up to debate, so you may wish to use the PokeDex classifications to decide on the colours.

This one won't really be that difficult, though.

The no Poke Ball Challenge:

This challenge means the player is not allowed to use Poke Balls for the whole of the game. This means that the only Pokemon you are allowed to get are those that you get given; all Wild Pokemon, including legendaries, are completely off
limits. This means the player can only use the following Pokemon (going from the beginning up to beating Red):

• * Chikorita / Totodile / Cyndaquil
  * Togepi
  * Spearow
  * Eevee
  * Abra
  * Ekans / Sandshrew
  * Dratini
  * Shuckle
  * Tyrogue
  * Mr. Mime
  * Porygon

All of these Pokemon can be gotten without the use of a Poke Ball, either via being given the Pokemon as a gift or through buying them at the Game Corner.

The main problem with this are the HMs - to complete the game, you need to use Cut, Surf, Strength, Whirlpool, Rock Smash, Waterfall and Rock Climb; Fly is the only one that isn't required.

This isn't too hard to orchestrate since the starter and other Pokemon can
handle it just fine. For example, you can choose any of the starters to use
Cut, Strength, Rock Smash and Rock Climb, which leaves you with just Surf,
Whirlpool and Waterfall; evolving Eevee into Vaporeon will solve this, as
Vaporeon can use all three. Thus you are sorted for a no Pokeball game, though you can also pick up the Spearow or evolve Togepi to be able to use Fly.

It actually isn't that hard all things considered, but you may have a slight problem with terrible movesets. Be sure to make good use of the move deleter in Blackthorn City so that you aren't stuck with Cut etc.

The No Pokecenter Challenge:

As the name says, this involves taking on the game without the use of a Pokemon Center. This means you'll be keeping any damage your Pokemon take for a long time, as well as quite possibly having a lot of PP problems with your Pokemon.

PC use is also disallowed for the purpose of healing; it should only be used in the event you are permanently trading out a member of your party for another Pokemon in the PC.

There are some healing points in the game that are forced; this means you get a couple of chances to heal, but not very many at all:

• * Talking to Mr. Pokemon about the egg
  * Getting healed by Lance in the Mahogany Rocket Base
  * Defeating Lance at the Pokemon League
  * Defeating Red at Mt. Silver

Apart from these, there is nothing you can do to heal, so you will have to
strive very highly on items to survive. You may also need to catch more Pokemon to share out the PP use, since you won't be able to consistently use one Pokemon unless you have a lot of PP to spare.

The No Pokemart Challenge:

Again like the name states, this involves playing the game without the use of a PokeMart - you can certainly go in one, but you cannot buy anything, and this generally includes not being able to get items that your mother buys either (though this is entirely up to the challenger.) This means you get no extra healing items or Poke Balls, so you will have to make do with what you have. You'll also be unable to pick up any of the strong TMs at Goldenrod, so you'll have to settle for whatever Ice-type moves you can get.

The Survival Challenge:

This combines the former two into one - no Pokemon Centers and no Poke Marts! This means you cannot heal, and the only healing items you are going to get is anything you pick up in the field - I would highly recommend the use of the Dowsing MCHN to pick up items as you will want everything you can find, particularly regarding Ethers and whatnot. Remember that breaking rocks in the Ruins of Alph will occasionally treat you to a Max Revive or Max Ether as well; this will be an invaluable tool.