New Side Quest!: The Road to Z-A: Part 1 - X: The Softcore Nuzlocke

Since Pokemon Legends Z-A is confirmed to be a late 2025 release, I thought it’d be fun to have another run through various Pokemon titles I have already played, some of them in new ways, to prepare myself for the new title. Since Z-A is set in Kalos, I figured I should start in the original Kalos game.

The only problem is, X and Y are very easy games, making my third time playing a little boring. To make my experience more challenging, I’m implementing the following rules

• Set Battle style (The game doesn’t warn you of the opponents next Pokemon)

• No items in Battle (Only held items)

• Level Cap next Major Boss battle’s Ace Pokemon

• Matching the Boss’s team size

• No Mega evolution (Unless my opponent does)

All of this sounds like the general ruleset used in Nuzlockes, with optional additions like the team size (Usually just for X/Y due to their easiness) however this not a Hardcore Nuzlocke. A nuzlocke requires a Pokemon to be boxed and never used again if it faints. That’s a little rough for me so any fainting gets a one gym time out instead.

Nuzlockes also usually have some kind of theme, usually exclusively using one type. My theme is Pokemon central to a Kalos Journey – Starter, Second Starter, the Regional Bird, a Regional Fossil, the new Eeveelution of the brand new type and er, Snorlax who blocks a path early game.

The team then, consisted of:

- Kaeru the Greninja

- Oggdo Bogdo the Venusaur

- Red Arrow the Talonflame

- Napoleon the Lucario

- Swan the Tyrantrum

- And Luma the Sylveon

- Honorary Members – Louvre the Snorlax, the nicknameless Delibird I caught to use Fly and Nike the Bibarrel who was my victory road HM escort.

So if I was actually following my own rules, I’d have failed this challenge in like three different spots but if I cared about the actual sanctity of the challenge then I’d have done a Hardcore Nuzlocke. Apart from checking gym leader ace levels, I did no research for this challenge.

Fail 1: Against Grant, the second Gym Leader – Exceeded team limit of 2 by using all 6 Pokemon, including Frogadeer who had fainted in Gym 1.

Fail 2: Against Korrina, the third Gym Leader – After ‘resetting’ the team so they were all back in the running, my team of 3 wiped on Korrina. Got her on the second attempt. Think I forgot the time out rule somewhere around this point too.

Fail 3: Not so much a fail as it was the result of the Kalos level scaling. There is a decent sized distance between gyms 4 and 5 with a lot of mandatory fights but a very small increase in Ace Pokemon level. Consequently, I overlevelled.

Other than those instances, there was very little to talk about – Talonflame solo’d Ramos, the Grass Type Gym Leader (Gym 4) while Lucario solo’d Valerie and Wulfric – Fairy and Ice, 6 and 8 respectively. Finally Greninja solo’d Olympia, Gym 7 which is Psychic. The lack of healing barely came into account for these battles. The most difficult encounters I had were Lysandre 1 and a random Cloyster in Wulfric’s Gym. Lysandre Gyarados was more dangerous in his normal form than the mega in Lysandre 3.

Speaking of Megas, I really don’t see the point of them here in X. They were introduced here but across the story, there’s only 3 instances of it – the tutorial with Korrina, the final Lysandre fight and Champion Diantha’s Ace Pokemon Gardevoir. My rule for the run was no mega evolution except when the opponent does but I only mega evolved for the Korrina fight since it’s just designed for you to do it there. Didn’t feel the need for the other two.

Getting a little ahead of myself, the Elite Four was a mixed bag – Malva (Fire) went down to four Surf’s from Greninja, Drasna (Dragon) required Tyrantrum, Greninja and then Sylveon to tidy up a little. I fumbled massively with Wikstrom (Steel), going through Tyrantrum, Lucario, and Talonflame in quick succession. I tried to hold on with Venusaur through stall but in the end I had to bring in Greninja to finish off. Last up was Siebold (Water) – it was going fine with Venusaur and Greninja until Barbaracle came out and team just fell apart.

If you operate on the matching team size rule, the Champion fight is the only major encounter that lets you use your full team of Six. Not that I needed it, Diantha is one of the easiest fights in the game, let alone the league. I used Greninja, Talonflame, Sylveon and Lucario but I could have easily done it with just Lucario and Sylveon.

Oh and the final bonus/epilogue fight with AZ also went down to two Surf’s and two Thief’s from Greninja

The final levels were:

• Greninja 66

• Venusaur 65

• Talonflame 66

• Tyrantrum 65

• Lucario 66

• Sylveon 62

My final time was 17:55 (IGT).

Overall, a pretty fun run to do. I’m thinking the next game in this mini series is going to be Pokemon Heartgold but I may end up not getting the chance before I go back for a final run of Pokemon Violet. Regardless, stay tuned for more on the road to Legends Z-A!.