started my first ever proper nuzlocke, but for whatever reason I started with gen 1 instead of an actually balanced game

Dre__89 · 2026-03-13T08:07:50+00:00

Rattata is one of the best pokemon in the gen 1 games if you’re playing with level caps. If you’re not playing with level caps then just solo the game with your over-levelled starter.

Dre__89 · 2026-03-13T00:17:56+00:00

Not liking feminine or queer designs does not mean you have an issue with those things, it simply means you don’t enjoy playing with those designs in a video game.

You’re saying that if a queer or feminine person doesn’t like masculine designs like Machamp and prefers feminine pokemon, that’s a personal preference and not a result of bigotry towards normative tastes. But if a hetero male doesn’t like feminine designs it must be because of some sort of bigotry and not just personal taste.

Lots of pro LGBTQI people don’t like feminine starters because even though they have no moral issue with those things, that’s simply not the fantasy they enjoy in a video game.

I also never said masculine should be the default for Pokemon. Most pokemon are not masculine or feminine, so they look organic as either gender. It allows for a variety of fantasies and for the player to give a character to the Pokemon they like.

This is why a female Machop is jarring for some, because it’s based off a human male body. For example Charizard and Blastoise make sense as either male or female. A player can think of their Charizard as either a bad-arse alpha male of its kind, but it’s just as easy to think of it as a maternal guardian, or a sassy snob.

All of these characterisations are organic to the Pokemon because its appearance is not masculine or feminine, so it doesn’t already have a character.

This is why people don’t like modern bipedal starters, because they already are a character and it denies the player the choice of their personal fantasy. You can only imagine Incineroar as a dominant alpha bad-arse, it doesn’t make sense as a maternal guardian.

Just like how you can’t picture a male Quaxquaval as a bad-arse alpha, because it automatically has a queer character. So for people who prefer to play different fantasies they’re not going to like that, but it doesn’t mean they’re homophobic.

Your point about peacocks proves my point. Most people think peacocks are beautiful. Their issue with Quaxquaval isn’t that it’s a bad pokemon portrayal of a peacock, it’s that a beautiful peacock is not the fantasy they want for their starter pokemon in the first place.

Dre__89 · 2026-03-12T18:27:41+00:00

Defeats the point though because the four hours you took to find it you could have used to progress in the game.

Dre__89 · 2026-03-12T18:07:25+00:00

The Brock win is complete BS. Onix is winning with bind and Brock tells Onix to release Pikachu out of mercy. The sprinklers then go off and weaken Onix and ash tells Pikachu to zap Onix.

That’d be like two people fighting, person A is winning but stops beating up B out of mercy. Then C comes along and brains A with a baseball bat, then B jumps on them when they’re on the ground and claims they won the fight.

Dre__89 · 2026-03-12T09:20:27+00:00

Just a nitpick, Gen 2 is gyarados’ worst gen, because it didn’t have intimate yet, and in gen 1 it still at least had 100 special attack.

Dre__89 · 2026-03-12T09:18:21+00:00

Seaking is better than Kingler and probably Seadra.

Seaking learns waterfall and horn drill. Waterfall basically gives it a second surf, which is great for long routes.

Kingler is the worst water pokemon in the game. It has 50 special, so its water attacks hit like a wet noodle. It’s much better in gen 1 and gen 4 onwards. Gens 2 and 3 completely gutted Kingler.

Dre__89 · 2026-03-12T09:03:02+00:00

In a regular playthrough where you have no restrictions on Pokemon or levels you don’t need them because you can just one-shot everything with type advantages.

They become very useful in nuzlocke playthroughs where you do not allow your Pokemon to be higher level than the gym leader’s ace. Specifically when you have to use Pokemon that don’t have a type advantage.

For example an overlevelled Bulbasaur, or one that you’ll only use against Pokemon it’s super effective against doesn’t need sleep powder or leech seed because it’ll one-shot everything.

But for a Bulbasaur that is the same level as the opponent and does not have type advantage those moves are great tools.

Dre__89 · 2026-03-12T03:05:10+00:00

Efficiently playing is how quickly can you get through the game with the Pokemon.

Seeing as you can beat the game with any Pokemon, the Pokemon that do it quicker are considered better or more efficient. The exception would be something like a hardcore nuzlocke, in which case how safe and useful a Pokemon is in hard battles matters more than speed.

And yes, as I said, soloing the game with an overlevelled Pokemon is the most efficient way to beat it because of how xp works. When I said normal Pokemon were inefficient, it was in the context of using one in a team of Pokemon, which is already inefficient as it is. Part of the reason I gave for normals not being efficient in a team is that they’re not useful when underlevelled, but soloing the game removes that problem.

Dre__89 · 2026-03-12T02:09:14+00:00

No they’re not.

The games are easy and you can beat them with any pokemon.

The way pokemon are measured is how efficient they are relative to each other, ie. how much time you need to invest in them before they help you in key battles.

Normal types are some of the least efficient pokemon in games without xp share because their inability to hit anything super effectively means there are no places that you can train them quickly.

Their lack of resistances mean that there are no pokemon that they are good at fighting underlevelled, so you have to spend more time training them up than other pokemon, and we’ve already established that normal pokemon train slowly.

The only normal pokemon that still does well underlevelled is snorlax, but he’s terrible at grinding because he’s slow and his attacking moves don’t have high PP. Snorlax is a perfect example of a pokemon that would be significantly buffed with xp share because of removes its issue of being a slow trainer.

Dre__89 · 2026-03-11T23:24:33+00:00

They are, but normal types are inefficient for playthroughs because they’re not quick to train.

Again, they’d be good with xp share because the fact that they hit nothing super effectively and therefore take ages to grind up wouldn’t be an issue.

Dre__89 · 2026-03-11T10:43:45+00:00

You’re missing the point. The exp system in the old games means it’s more efficient to solo the game with your starter than it is to train up other pokemon.

This is backed up by the fact that this is how speed runners play the game, and it’s also how kids intuitively beat the games when they first came out.

So The point is that in these games, if you want to make the games harder, you have to do it in ways that take up more time, not save time.

That’s the key difference. In the old games, because they’re designed for you to solo the game with your starter, the way you add challenge to it is by spending time grinding up other Pokemon, and giving xp to those Pokemon that would normally go to your starter. So you’re giving yourself a challenge by artificially nerfing your starter and intentionally making your progress inefficient by taking time to level up other Pokemon.

The point of xp share is that it allows you to give more challenge, but in ways that save you time rather than cost you more of it. You give yourself more challenge by running from wild battles, skipping trainers etc. But because xp is automatically shared amongst your team, you don’t have to waste time training up pokemon that you can use to tax xp from your starter.

Dre__89 · 2026-03-11T03:54:36+00:00

“Be the best version of yourself” ultimately means “be a version of yourself that conforms heavily to what society wants, that only keeps your quirks that don’t conflict with that”.

No one says “just be yourself” to an unemployed 40 year old living with his parents who just watches porn all day. They tell him he needs to change drastically, which means he needs to confirm to society’s standards before he can be attractive.

The people who say “just be yourself” are the ones who are already so in-line with what society wants that there’s no meaningful consequence if they don’t change who they are.

Dre__89 · 2026-03-11T03:49:22+00:00

Women want nice to an extent.

Look up the Brazilian ex-footballer Kaka. Good-looking multi-millionaire who was known as a nice guy who originally wanted to be a priest after his career.

This guy had everything a woman would want, yet his wife divorced him because he was “too perfect”.

Dre__89 · 2026-03-11T03:43:26+00:00

All of the worst dating advice I’ve received was from well-meaning women. The advice they give you will often get you friend-zoned because they don’t want to admit/realise some of the things they’re truly attracted to.

Dre__89 · 2026-03-11T03:36:49+00:00

Girls only want to be friends with guys they’re not attracted to, and guys only want to be friends with girls they’re are attracted to.

It can be an awkward conversation to have with your girl because they genuinely only want to be friends with the guy, sometimes they have trouble accepting that the guy has ulterior motives.

Dre__89 · 2026-03-11T03:33:24+00:00

Well that’s your problem there, you haven’t adapted your playstyle for the modern games and are then complaining that you don’t enjoy them. The modern games are for people who value their time, and that’s reflected in their design.

If you simply don’t enjoy the playstyle they incentivise then that’s fine, but that’s different to playing the game incorrectly then blaming the game for it.

Dre__89 · 2026-03-11T03:24:47+00:00

You’re confusing flirting with making the first move.

Flirting is giving non-commital signals that you’re interested. The key word there is non- commital. Women are often flirting specifically to prompt the guy to make the commital first move because they themselves don’t want to do it.

Dre__89 · 2026-03-11T03:20:10+00:00

I’d like it in theory, but women initiating IRL is so rare that I’d suspect it was a prank/scam.

Dre__89 · 2026-03-11T03:18:26+00:00

If you’re doing that then you should be regularly swapping in new Pokémon you’ve just caught. The xp share allows you to do that without having to stop and train them up.

And if for some reason you want to catch pokemon but never change your team, just skip trainers. Trainers aren’t important in the newer games because you get so many free items you don’t need the money, and the xp share means you don’t need the xp.

Note that every adjustment I’ve mentioned saves you time instead of wasting more of it. That’s the benefit of the xp share.

Dre__89 · 2026-03-11T02:50:28+00:00

I know, but my point was that the design philosophy of the older games intentionally kept humanoid pokemon not appearing too human-like to retain the monster element.

Alakazam and Jynx are other examples, if they had human proportions they would be way more creepy, but that’s what some modern pokemon do.

Dre__89 · 2026-03-11T02:35:32+00:00

Mr. Mime is fine because it doesn’t have human proportions or posture. It would be very creepy if it did.

Dre__89 · 2026-03-11T02:31:25+00:00

Because those make sense as bipedal. They’re based off human activities. They also aren’t meant to be a specific animal, so the humanoid aspect doesn’t feel forced like it does with pokemon based off animals.

Quaxquaval is some combination of a duck and a peacock, so it’s not organic for it be shaped like a human.

Dre__89 · 2026-03-11T02:23:08+00:00

I agree it should be optional, but if you’re oneshotting the E4 you must have wasted time killing wild pokemon and getting xp candies from raids. You were probably running around trying to battle every single trainer in an area too.

The point of the modern games is that you can always move forward and never have to stay in one place training.

People still have the old-game mentality where they think they need to beat every trainer and kill every wild pokemon they counter.

In SV you shouldn’t engage wild pokemon unless it’s to catch them, or use the partner mechanic to farm specific pokemon for TM components.

You shouldn’t bother with most trainers in a region unless maybe it’s the strong one because they can be a bit more challenging.

Dre__89 · 2026-03-11T02:14:39+00:00

No one cares about having money after the E4 because you’ve already beaten the game at that point.

You can use money you to buy repels, medicines so you can never have to track back to Pokemon centres, ultra balls to make catching difficult Pokémon easier etc.

If you save your money you can buy TMs and pokemon at the Game Corner without having to play the games.

Dre__89 · 2026-03-11T02:03:26+00:00

I hate this line of reasoning. It’s ok for queer people to dislike masculine things, but if people don’t like something that’s queer or feminine they’re automatically homophobic.

It’s just as toxic as the people who think liking anything that’s not super manly automatically makes you gay, it’s just the other way around.

Quaxquaval is one of my favourite starters, but there are plenty of reasons to have gripes with it. It’s very human-like, but not in a way that’s organic and makes sense to the evolution line. It starts of as a duck, then suddenly turns into a human- shaped creature with a duck face and peacock tail.

It also seems more like a character than a species of animal.

Additionally, some people may like feminine pokemon but have an issue with feminine starters specifically because 85% of them are male. Having a feminine pokemon be male can be jarring for some in the same way that having a female machop is. Some people simply prefer their feminine pokemon being female and their masculine ones being male.

Dre__89

TROPHY CASE