Back when Let’s Go, Eevee! had seen a release, I’d played through it normally, just enjoying beating everyone senseless with an overpowered Eevee and Alolan Raticate (plus a few others). Once that run was done, I wanted to go again, but this time not use Eevee at all. When starting out for the second time, I felt it would be interesting to limit myself further. And so a rough idea for this ruleset was born.
I had caught three Bellsprout, two Pidgey and a Spearow. The plan was to journey through Kanto with just these Pokémon, swapping one of those Pidgey for a Farfetch’d when I got to the place I could capture one. I had managed to do well, and after grinding enough to beat the perils of the Elite Four, I had completed the run I had dubbed the Bells and Birds run.
With Shield’s arrival, I had once again beaten the main story with a regular team. I used that team for the Isle of Armor and the Crown Tundra. Then it came to the point where I had a thought. I had been streaming for a while, and had already featured a bit of the game when showing off the Crown Tundra expansion. But I wanted to feature a full run of the story. Now, I could have just done another normal run. But I wanted it to be different.
I looked back to what I had done with Let’s Go, Eevee!, and found it could work as a challenge. It limits the types you can use, with situations needing you to be a bit more creative to overcome them – especially when at a type disadvantage. But what to use? Because of the nature of the run, I wanted most of the team set up before the first Gym. That meant looking at what could be caught on the first few Routes of the game, along with the Wild Area.
I had settled for three Wooloo, as it’s such a loveable bundle of wool. And I also returned to the birds, as this time I’d have a range of secondary types I could utilise with them. Thus, the Wool and Wings Run was born. As was this very loose ruleset. And I say loose because there’s only a few things you ever need to think about – and all of them come at the beginning of the game.
As I said, I wanted most of the team set up before the first Gym. If the first part of rule number one was deciding what limitations you placed on your team – with a single line and general descriptor, the second part would be making sure one ‘mon of each could be captured before the first Gym. Then it was a simple matter of having three of each.
For the single line, that’s easy. To use Hoenn as an example (specifically Omega Ruby), Route 102 holds Seedot, so catch three of those and that’s half of the team set up already. But then you need to plan the second half of the team. Do you go for Poochyena and hunt down two other dark types? Hunt a Slakoth in Petalburg Woods and go for some bulky bipeds? Or go for the easy birds of Taillow and Wingull?
The team must be full, so repeats of the second half of the team are necessary until you can capture the others. So while at first you’d have just three Slakoth, for example, on the journey you’d add Aron and Machop to your team. Once all are fully levelled, you would then have a bulky biped team of Slaking, Aggron, and Machoke. No trade evolutions here, so Machamp is unavailable.
If you so wanted, that general descriptor could even be based on a move various Pokémon can learn, but it might not be wise to choose a move that can be learnt by many ‘mon. After all, groovers and growlers sounds like a cool name for a run, but when half of any region’s Pokémon can learn Growl, it’s not much of a challenge (the groovers being Lombre).
The second and only other (major) rule is no over-levelling. This is meant to be a challenge, after all. There’s not much challenge in rocking up to a Gym of level 10s with something level 20. If you’re having trouble, there’s no problem in levelling up a bit, but you still want to be within range of the team you’re facing. As such, each Gym Leader and the Champion act as level checkpoints that you should not be more than five levels over before beating them.
Overlevelling will come naturally if you’re struggling, so it’s not like I’m going to say if a ‘mon goes over the overlevel limit it needs to be removed from the team until the checkpoint is beaten. In my latest 1:3:6 run on Shining Pearl, the Elite Four is proving a challenge, so the plan is to go beyond the overlevel limit. Just so that people watching on stream don’t have to suffer another three hours of me getting beaten by the elite trainers. Though there’s every possibility that will happen anyway.
Other than those two things to be aware of, there’s not really anything holding you back in this adventure. It’s not so serious a run that you can’t let a Pokémon faint or it’s out the game, or not heal up at a Poké Center until all the team are below half health, but if you want to impose such restrictions – you can. After all, it’s not up to me to dictate how you go about your run, but offer the guidelines from which to start it.
If you are going to take on such a run, I’d be interested in seeing what your team looks like and whether you have imposed further restrictions on yourself. The most important thing is to have fun with it. You might just find a new favourite to use in future teams. My own Buds and Bolts Run will end on the GRcade Twitch channel on the 30th of this month. If you want to see the end of it, I look forward to seeing you there, cheering me on.
Images Taken From:
Pokémon Let’s Go, Eevee! (Original Screenshot)
New Pokémon Snap (Original Screenshots)
Pokémon Shining Pearl (Original Screenshot)
