Dark Colors (Randomized Dark Type Monolocke Emerald Run)

[Noblejanobii]

Hey guys I'm back with another challenge run. Kinda in the mood for another monotype Emerald run since those are fun. I actually randomized this ROM file a while ago and don't really remember the randomization settings, so I'll put what I THINK I randomized it as below but honestly it's kind of an adventure here because I also don't have the randomization log, so I have no idea where any potential catches might be.

Rules:

Spoiler:

1. You may only catch the first dark type pokemon (or pokemon that becomes a dark type when it evolves) you encounter on each route.
2. If a pokemon faints, it is dead and must be boxed.
3. Everyone must be nicknamed.
4. Dupes clause is in effect. You cannot catch a pokemon you have already caught so long as that pokemon is alive.
5. If the pokemon has died, however, dupes clause does not apply and you must catch it.
6. Shiny clause is in effect. But only dark type shinies may be used.

Randomization Settings:

Spoiler:

1. Starters and their Held Items completely randomized
2. Randomized wild held items and field items
3. Randomized movesets and TMs
4. Randomized Color Palettes
5. Randomized wild and trainer Pokémon
6. TMs come in stacks of 90
7. Randomized Opponent's Held Items (might actually be a glitch, unsure)

Current Team:

Spoiler:

Milo [Mightyena, Male]	Casey [Crawdaunt, Male]	Hall [Sneasel, Male]
Ianthe [Houndoom, Male]

Dead:

Spoiler:

Current Stats:

Spoiler:

Party:

Spoiler:

Name: Milo
Species: Mightyena
Gender: Male
Level: 32
Ability: Intimidate
Nature: Impish
Moves: Aerial Ace, Hydro Pump, Dragon Rage, and Protect
Item: Shell Bell

Name: Casey
Species: Crawdaunt
Gender: Male
Level: 31
Ability: Shell Armor
Nature: Naughty
Moves: Needle Arm, Bounce, Stomp, and Sludge Bomb
Item: Quick Claw

Name: Hall
Species: Sneasel
Gender: Male
Level: 31
Ability: Keen Eye
Nature: Bashful
Moves: Reversal, Giga Drain, Mega Punch, and Blizzard
Item: Silk Scarf


Name: Ianthe
Species: Houdoom
Gender: Male
Level: 31
Ability: Early Bird
Nature: Sassy
Moves: Tri Attack, Frenzy Plant, Swagger, and Destiny Bond
Item: Scope Lens

[Noblejanobii]

Progress Thus Far
So I started my journey by breaking free from the back of my mom's moving truck and helping out Professor Birch when he was being attacked by a rogue Illumise. I knew I wanted to do a monotypelocke from the start but I was going to let my starter determine which type I'd monolocke with. My options at the start were Duskull, Misdreavus, and Mightyena, so since there's more dark types in Gen 3 than ghost types, I went with Mightyena. Kinda instantly regretted it though because most of the early routes had a bunch of ghost types. Enough to have four members before the first gym. He was also holding the Spell Tag to make matters even worse so hopefully someone learns a ghost move down the line or something. But oh well! Rival was a pushover. He had a Remoraid as his starter which ironically is like the one Pokémon glitched out to not have a randomized palette in this run for some reason.

Nothing super eventful happened until Route 104 when I encountered my first dark type, a Shiftry! And then Milo proceeded to crit it and kill it. So that was fun. Undeterred I proceeded onwards until Rustboro city. Did you know the game automatically won't trigger Double Battles if you only have one Pokémon? I didn't. Makes things interesting that's for sure. Finally on Route 116, I got another encounter, a Corphish. This time I didn't even risk attacking I just chucked pokéballs at the thing until it finally got in one. He only knew Needle Arm when I caught him but a quick grinding session later and Casey was developing a real powerhouse of a moveset featuring moves like Stomp. Didn't find any potential catches in Rusturf Tunnel but I did find a Shell Bell which I gave to Milo, as well as giving the Quick Claw I got in town to Casey.

So I decided after a bit to challenge Roxanne. The trainers in her gym were easy and I figured she would be too. Incorrect. I won't lie, I actually wiped to Roxanne the first time I challenged her. Her team was entirely full evolved Pokémon: a Venusaur, Mightyena, and Ninetales. The Venusaur was easy enough because by now Casey knew Bounce so two hits did it in. But her Mightyena was where things got nasty. See, I'm not sure how, but her Mightyena had a vastly different moveset from mine, including moves like Aeroblast and Dragon Rage. Milo, despite being 8 levels higher than her Mightyena, never had the opportunity to learn either of these moves, so it took me completely off guard. Dragon Rage decimated poor Casey (who only had 39 max HP at the time) and even though Milo was able to take out the Mightyena, her Ninetales knew Megahorn and quickly finished us off.

Since I'm still early in the game I opted to just keep going rather than start over since at this point I had literally been playing for like ten minutes. I grinded the two up a bit, Milo to level 24 and Casey to level 22, then took on Roxanne again. Again, Venusaur was a pushover. Mightyena still put up a whale of a fight, unleashing Aeroblast and Dragon Rages. So I finally got to face off against the Ninetales again, and right as I was about to knock it out, Roxanne reveals her trap card. She has Sacred Ashes and Revives. I guess the randomizer also randomized her items because she revived both Mightyena and Venusaur and I had to take them both down AGAIN before I won. It was wild. We barely got by on the skin of our teeth. Just to add insult to injury, the TM Roxanne gave me was Dragon Rage, which I promptly taught to Milo.

But with that over and done with, we then headed to Dewford to deliver Steven's Letter. After fishing around a bit, I finally ventured into Granite Cave to deliver his letter and after delivering it I ran into a Sneasel while grinding! I named him Hall and gave him the Silk Scarf which I picked up in town. Currently I am grinding him and the rest of the team up since Roxanne has left me very nervous for Brawly. Either way it's been an interesting ride thus far and I'm hoping I won't have to cheat again but we'll see, haha.

[Noblejanobii]

Gym #2

Not much of a big update but an update nonetheless. We defeated Brawly! His first Pokémon, a Walrein, was a bit of a challenge. I sent out Hall first and Walrein immediately hit us with a super effective Hidden Power. This left me in a bit of a pickle because this could've easily been like a bug type hidden power that'd be super effective on everyone or something that's just super effective against Hall like fire type. I knew it wasn't fighting given it didn't hit Hall too hard, but I opted to go the route of leaving Hall out to battle the Walrein since he was really the best equipped anyway. Hall knows both Giga Drain and Reversal so he could leech health and then if it got close just hit with a really strong reversal. Which is essentially what ended up happening. We Giga Drained the Walrein down until both of us were at low health, then hit with a Reversal. After the Walrein went down it was just a matter of taking down the remaining Dragonite and Aggron, which Milo made short work of. So badge get!

Here's the Team after the Brawly fight:



From there we took the route to Slateport and have now arrived in Mauville. Nothing really eventful happened. I did encounter another dark type, a Poochyena, but since I have dupes clause I couldn't catch it. Hopefully after Mauville I can get some more team members. Also trying to decide who I want to saddle with Rock Smash since I'll need that to progress soon. Everyone's level 28 now and Hall actually earned the achievement of being the first mon to learn a stab move, Blizzard! So that's fun. Been really useful too.

Anyway that's all for now. Until next time!

[Cleobel]

@Noblejanobii Thank you for posting about your Monolocke run, and congratulations on your first two gym badges! :) I like your current team, by the way. Hopefully, Casey will evolve soon.
Good luck with your adventure!

Also, regarding the current stats in the first post :

Spoiler:

Who is Blake the Noctowl? And what is that "Giga Dragon" move that Hall knows?

[Noblejanobii]

@Noblejanobii Thank you for posting about your Monolocke run, and congratulations on your first two gym badges! :) I like your current team, by the way. Hopefully, Casey will evolve soon.
Good luck with your adventure!

Also, regarding the current stats in the first post :

Spoiler:

Who is Blake the Noctowl? And what is that "Giga Dragon" move that Hall knows?

Yep Casey should evolve in two levels so that's exciting! Especially since I can't remember if I randomized evolutions or not (hopefully not).

Oh oops. XD I copied the code for the first post from my Flying type monolocke so Blake is left over from that run. Whoopsie! And that's supposed to be Giga Drain not Giga Dragon. Thanks for pointing those out. Both have been fixed.

[Cleobel]

Yep Casey should evolve in two levels so that's exciting! Especially since I can't remember if I randomized evolutions or not (hopefully not).

Oh oops. XD I copied the code for the first post from my Flying type monolocke so Blake is left over from that run. Whoopsie! And that's supposed to be Giga Drain not Giga Dragon. Thanks for pointing those out. Both have been fixed.

No worries, thank you for updating the first post! I look forward to your next post. :)

[Noblejanobii]

Gym #3

We're back with another update! So this time around we've trekked from Dewford to Mauville City! In that time I had a bunch of routes for potential encounters aaaand I only actually got one. Still that's better than none I suppose!



So the all male team continues! I caught Ianthe just outside of Mauville and quickled grinded him, as well as the rest of the team, to level 30. I wasn't sure what to expect out of Watson and I didn't want to take any risks if at all possible. Of course since we're grinding to level 30 that means we had two evolutions!





Both Casey and Ianthe evolved so finally, for the time being, our team is fully evolved. Even with our level advantage though, I was very nervous about the Watson fight. With how much of a train wreck Roxanne was and how close Brawly's fight was, I didn't want this to be a repeat of that.

Thankfully, it wasn't. I lead with Hall and Watson lead with a Jumpluff, so a STAB Blizzard made quick work of Watson's Jumpluff. Hall also did decent damage to Watson's next Pokémon, a Meganium, before having to switch out because the Meganium knew Mach Punch. Sure it's super effective on everyone but Hall's the only one with a quad weakness to it so I opted to switch in Casey to take the next Mach Punch and finish off the Meganium with Sludge Bomb. Milo switched in for the Scizor and took it down with Dragon Rages, then Ianthe finished the battle off with a OHKO Frenzy Plant on his Cloyster.

So here's a pic of the team after Watson. I also caught a Poochyena to use as a Rock Smash HM slave since I don't really want to give any HM moves to my main team if I can help it.

[Cleobel]

@Noblejanobii Thank you for the update! Congratulations on your new Pokemon and gym badge! Good luck with your adventure! :)