nuzlocke Ultra Calamity - A Pokemon Ultra Moon Nuzlocke: Episode 8 - An Ultra Shocking Trial

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This is it, ladies and gentlemen.  With this, I am officially caught up on where I currently am in the Ultra Moon Nuzlocke.  Although, due to snow related problems because northeast US in March of 2018 apparently has to have winter 2.0 during spring, the next episode won't be up until next Friday.  Gives me a chance to grind up backup team members and generally work on other things, but we'll be back to the grind of avoiding despair and losing to a required encounter or something.

I'm honestly starting to think that my Rotom Dex is actively trying to make sure I lose by giving me nothing but useless Rotom Powers.  I have 14 Roto Hatches and a bunch of Roto Friendships I'll never use.  This is just getting bad at this point.  But on a more positive note, I raised up everyone that isn't named Mailbird to Lv. 32...because Mailbird is actually two levels ahead of everyone else.  Seeing as we have an Electric trial coming up and Mailbird is not getting any use in that one, I think we should be fine.  Now, how about we get to business.  We have a rival battle to do, and to be honest, this is the point where Hau's team actually gets scary.  Why, you ask?  Because Alolan Raichu.  It actually hits pretty hard for what it is.

Luckily, he still just leads with his starter.  He has a team of five now, though, which is honestly a bit scary.  I chose to lead with Mother for one special reason.  Since Tiny is dead and took my Fire type move with him, I went to Heahea Beach and tutored Fire Punch onto Mother, because let's be real here, there's a very slim chance that Mother will be getting an actual Fire type move for the next 3000 years.  Dartrix couldn't even take two Fire Punches.  What a weakling.

Now this is where things get a little dicey.  He has a Vaporeon now to check my totally not dead starter that's actually dead.  Only one bug can handle this job, and that's Spark Plug.  Two Sparks was all it took to bring him down.  After that, it's the big one.  The super intimidating Alolan Raichu.  Luckily for me, I have The Third, who, in theory, should hard wall this thing.  It ended up living on 3 HP or so from a Sucker Punch.  It still hits like a truck, though.

With the massive threat gone, all that remains is his Noibat and something else.  I had our boy Styles take on the Noibat and instakill with a Headbutt.  Now, for some reason, Hau has a Tauros.  He goes saying he wouldn't want to pet a Tauros, but now he has one in his team?  What's that logic all about?  Anyway, even with an Attack drop from Intimidate, Mother took the Pursuits and with a couple of Brick Breaks, we survived the scary encounter with no deaths.  For our efforts in destroying Hau's team, we get a Lycanium Z...which I can't use because I don't have a Lycanroc and can't catch one until super late in the game.  Even then, I get one chance anyway and it's doubtful I'll even get a Lycanroc.  Plus, I'm banned from using Z-Crystals, so like most of the things Hau gives me, it's useless.

With that business aside, it's time to head into Malie Garden and find Kukui, but more importantly than that, I'm going to score myself an encounter and pray this chain of bad encounters finally ends soon.  Part of me doubts it, but we can hope, right?

You know, by this point I should know that every time I try to be even slightly positive, the game chooses to instead give me the middle finger.  Maybe I should be more pessimistic than I already am.  Maybe then the game will give me encounters that aren't Ariados.  It could hardly touch Styles, so it made for an easy catch.  It's male and a spider, so I named him Spiderman.  Like everything else on the "Fun Train of Bad Mons," this one kinda sucks too.  No reliable moves that can hurt a Normal type except Fury Swipes with a Lax nature.  I think I know where he's going to stay.  It doesn't end with the bad encounters, does it?

After being forced to go the long way, Kukui was just sitting there on a bench, waiting.  Of course, making me go the long way.  We tell him about our Ultra Beast experience at Aether Paradise and get guided towards our next destination, but we need to take the bus on Route 10 to get there.  While Hau satisfies his malasada fetish once again, we're mostly free to our own devices for a bit.  There is a place in Malie City where we can get an encounter, but before that, there's one more very important thing to do.  Yup, shopping for clothes.

Yet of course, Lillie needs to get in my way.  She says she's going to the library and won't get lost, but we can bet right away that she's going to get lost.  Who cares about her?  I have a date with an apparel shop.  Here we have two of my favorite clothing items in the game, the Striped Halter Top and Plaid Miniskirt.  With this apparel shop, my ideal set is complete.  With that aside, let's go get an encounter.

So Malie City has an Outer Cape, and here, we can get an encounter...not that I'm expecting much at this point.  And apparently, being pessimistic doesn't help me not get garbage either, or in this case, Trubbish.  I'm not going to go on a marathon of complaining this time.  I'm just gonna catch it, name it something, and be on my way.  Since Trubbish is trash, I chose to name it after something that is trash, so I named it 50 Shades, because those books all suck.  It's a brave sack of trash...but I doubt she'll get any use unless I'm desperate.  To the box with it.

So before we can proceed on with our island challenge, we still have to continue our mission of being Lillie's babysitter...because it seems she can't even go into a library by herself without getting lost.  She had to get someone else to tell her where the library was.  At least we have another encounter with Hapu even though it's just for a short chat and not much else.  While looking for a book upstairs, we have a meeting with a girl who will likely be the next biggest threat to my locke.  Anyway, the book this time talks about the Light of Alola, and probably some stuff about Necrozma and Lunala.  You know, plot stuff that isn't super relevant yet because we haven't seen Lunala or Necrozma at all.

Acerola is going to stay with Lillie while we go off to do our own thing.  By "our own thing," it's more like we're going to Route 10 to get an encounter and take the bus to where our next trial awaits us.  But of course, we have to get a Fearow.  Sure, this means that now I can't get Fearow to annoy me later, but...I want a good encounter.  It's all I ask for other than winning the locke.  I'm going to name her Ms. Fowl, you know, that one character from Jimmy Neutron.  Unlike more than half the encounters I've gotten this run, Ms. Fowl certainly isn't terrible.  A neutral nature is something I'll always take.  A shame my party is full right now, or else I would consider using her.

Anyway, if you didn't do any grinding yet, I'd suggest doing some around here.  The encounters in the grass on this route offer some nice experience, and there's a lady who will heal your mons so you don't have to run back or Charizard Glide back to Malie City, so that's good.  I took the chance to grind up everyone except Spark Plug to Lv. 34.  Why didn't I level up Spark Plug?  Well, it's because the time for him to reach his true glory will be arriving soon.  For now, let's go catch the bus.

...Or we can run into a couple of Team Skull guys...trying to take the bus stop?  I knew these guys weren't the brightest tools in the shed, but honestly.  These guys are actually idiots.  There, I said it.  They were idiots on Melemele, they're idiots here, and they're idiots for challenging me.  Styles showed their Houndour who the top dog is.  His buddy didn't get off lightly either.  Styles shut down the Golbat too, and sent the grunts running off.  That'll show them to get in my way.  With them gone, Kukui shows up.  He goes on about "the league," something that Alola doesn't actually have until just now, apparently, but Kukui won't give the details.

After taking the bus who's driving record will absolutely slay you (the game's words, not mine), we ride on up to Mount Hokulani while Kukui shows us the tallest mountain in Alola, Mount Lanakila.  On that super cold mountain that probably isn't much bigger than Mt. Everest, he's going to establish a Pokemon League...because we can't have gyms but we can have a league.  Yeah, that makes sense.  But...I'll save my banter on that for later.

Well, who cares about some dumb old league, am I right?  You know what I care about?  Encounters.  Lots of them.  We can get one here on Mount Hokulani, and let's hope this kills the drought of bad encounters, because I swear, I'm getting tired of all the bad natures.

Ok, so I got Minior.  This thing can either be good or bad, but am I sure?  Totally not.  Apparently, you can't inflict a status on it while it's shields are up, so that's cool...I guess.  It's also a blue Minior, so that's cool.  I caught it with a Dive Ball by total accident because I was trying to scroll to my Great Balls.  Welp, looks like those Dive Balls finally got some use.  I'm stuck between naming him Cosmos or Star Bit, so I'm just gonna random number generator it and we'll see what we get.

And through the power of RNG, our new Minior shall be deemed Cosmos.  He's a part of the "I have a Speed lowering nature" club, but I could get mileage out of Quiet nature.  Once again, a shame that my party is full.  Not trying to jinx anything, but I'd actually consider putting Cosmos on the team if I had a spot.  It's more power in the PC, so I'll take it.  He also had Self-Destruct, so I'm glad he mainly spammed Ancient Power.

Now that's covered, let's head into the Hokulani Observatory to do our trial...is what I would say if there wasn't some dude blocking the way.  If he's a friend of Kukui, that automatically means he's probably going to be a source of dread later down the road.  And he also knows that Kukui's secret identity is...hold on a second.  I know how this is going to go.  I'm going to try saying the thing and then get randomly cut off mid sentence and thrown back onto the main topic.  It's already happened at least twice.  I'm expecting it now.  The moment I say that Kukui is-

Damn it, it happened again!  Fine, let's just ignore that part for now.  This guy is part of the Professor Kukui Cuck Club, or as we should call him, Molayne.  He's the weirdo who manages the PC boxes, and once upon a time, he was the captain.  The real captain is the idiot who designed the infamous Festival Plaza.  Before we get to important stuff, Kukui mentions a "favor" of some sort to Molayne.  Kukui's going to dash off to go pull Hau away from the malasada shop and Molayne hands us a free (and useless to me) Steelium Z.  He battles you in the original game, but not here.  Hmm, I wonder why.

And as soon as we step inside, we're introduced to Spark Plug's cousins that he never met...and a Togedemaru.  They aren't very important yet, so let's go and get this trial started, why don't we?  First, we need to meet Sophocles, the infamous Festival Plaza maker.  However, in order to do the trial, I must betray Spark Plug and put his cousins to work as slaves to make this trial work.  We're also going to be test subjects since this is the first time they're doing this.  I'm a bit worried now, mostly about the "this is the first time" part.  Don't take that out of context.

Rushing back outside, Spark Plug's cousins are all finished with dinner and ready for slave lab-I mean, the trial.  However, three of Spark Plug's cousins are missing.  As the parent to Spark Plug, I must find them and make them do my bidding in a trial that will likely get at least one of my team members killed.  Isn't that great?

The first two were easy to find, but the final one must've snuck off after dinner.  That dang Sevenjabug is always wandering off to weird places after dinnertime.  I could swear Spark Plug sends him letters once a week telling him not to do that anymore or he might get himself hurt.  Then again, being in a nuzlocke team is raising Spark Plug's death flag super high on it's own.  Anyway, while we were talking, that dang Sevenjabug was wandering around near the bus.  Doesn't he know Charjabug get killed by those things?  He's so reckless!

Luckily he got away from that bus, so that crisis is averted.  With all the Charjabug in tow, as always, we all know what time it is.  It's time for...

Trial #5: The Trial of Sophocles!  The Slavery of Spark Plug's Cousins, Puzzle Edition!  Actually, it has nothing to do with slavery...

Ok, as the title says, it's a puzzle.  We need to line up the Charjabug on the thingy and then, hopefully, it'll bring out the Totem Pokemon.  Of course, it's never that easy, so we will have to fight off some things before we do the real battle.  The first one is fairly simple and you'll have to fight an Elekid that came from complete nowhere.  One Magnitude put it down.

The second one isn't hard either if you know what you're doing.  So, with our second attempt to call out the totem, we get ourselves an Electabuzz that came from nowhere.  I wish I could teleport like these mons apparently can.

As always, third time's the charm.  Just make a Z with the Charjabug and it's time to hopefully get the totem this time.  With the power of Spark Plug's nine cousins...we overload the thingy.  Goes to show you how powerful Spark Plug is on his own.  If we had nine, then I'd really obliterate opposing Pokemon...and the thing broke off.  Uh oh.  Although, Togemaru to the rescue.  Sure, it can use Lightning Rod to save everyone, but it's too much power for one little Togedemaru.  If only we had a bigger one to-

...Oh.  Well, I was being sarcastic, but whatever.  We got just what the doctor ordered, a bigger Togedemaru to suck up the last of the electricity...and fight us at the same time.  Welp.  Anyway, welcome to the new totem to replace Vikavolt, a bigger Togedemaru.  It gets +2 Defense, so if you're like me and think you can just obliterate it on turn 1, then you may want to reconsider.  Even worse than that, it also has Spiky Shield, and if it uses it, then it gets a free SOS with no restrictions, which is pretty bad.

Fearing the early Spiky Shield, I opted to just Roto Boost so I can end this fight fast.  With a Defense boost, The Third can live an Iron Head no problem...but this thing SOS'd a Skarmory.  Why a Skarmory of all things?  Just so something won't die right away from a Ground move?  The Togedemaru ate a Magnitude 8 while Skarmory is doing annoying things like setting up Tailwind and Torment.  After a heal on the Spiky Shield and a Magnitude 7, the totem is finished, so all that remains is the Skarmory doing annoying things.  With a switch to Mother, I had her Fire Punch the Skarmory's lights out and the trial is ours.

That Roto Boost really came in handy, and so did the totem, I guess, since we may have all died without it sucking up the electricity.  While they think of ways to fix the Totem calling machine, we get ourselves an Electrium Z to celebrate our not death by electrocution.  After we're finished with that, we get forcibly dragged off to the Festival Plaza for a feature exclusive to Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, the Battle Agency, where we can rent out Pokemon and wear cool shades.  Once we're done with that, we get the Masked Royal's mask, who...ok, no.  I'm not falling for this trick again.  Something's not right here.  I'm seriously starting to suspect there's something going on behind the scenes here, because why can't I say that-

We're done with the trial, so let's go and show off that I didn't get completely destroyed to Kukui.  But before that, you know what time it is.  It's time for MVP Spotlight time.  Let's be real here, it's fairly obvious who this trial's MVP is.

You know him, you love him, it's The Third.  He might just be more than the third strongest member of the team, after all.  That's not too important, though.  We have to meet up with Kukui and meet the third best character in the game.  If you've noticed the tags I've been using since the start of the locke, you should know who it is.

As soon as we walk in, we find Kukui having a nice and casual conversation with a couple of Team Skull grunts while people stand and watch.  Kukui's a real jerk, calling these idiots out and challenging them to a totally not free-for-all.  Just because you killed my locke doesn't mean you get to be on your high horse, pal.

Suddenly, he appears.  The leader of Team Skull and the third best character in this game (in my opinion,) it's Guzma, the hated boss who beats you down, and beats you down, and never lets up.  We get a little backstory about Kukui and Guzma by association, I guess?  Kukui's not only going to rant, but he's going to drag us into this mess.  So, with his "it's your boy Guzma," it's time to begin.

I'll be honest, in my first playthrough, when I never knew what Emergency Exit did, I had found it weird why Guzma leads with his ace.  Now that I'm not nearly as much of an idiot as back then, I understand why.  Even worse, this thing gets a Bug type priority move and can also learn things like Razor Shell.  So, I chose to lead with Mailbird and pray I can just force it out on the first turn.  I tried to scout out the First Impression with Protect, but Guzma's playing no games and just going for the Razor Shell off the bat.  Let me also say that his Golisopod is on par with most of my team.  That's a little scary.

Luckily, Mailbird sent Golisopod running away after just one Air Cutter, forcing Masquerain to take it's place on the chopping block.  However, one Air Cutter nearly killed Mailbird.  That's...incredibly scary.  When I tried switching in The Third, he took a crit Bug Buzz that nearly killed him.  This team is actually very scary.  He still managed to put down the Masquerain, so I can sigh with relief...for a few seconds since Golisopod is coming back in.  Mailbird's HP is concerning, but she's my go to option for any First Impressions.  Luckily, no First Impression and an Air Cutter to survive the Guzma Nightmare.  Just think, I still have to face him two more times.  We really need to grind now.

So Hau must've showed up during my battle with Guzma, but he does acknowledge Hau is there in this game.  He gives Hau something to think about before going, and I think that does tie into Hau's character development, but like I said earlier, we'll have discussions about my opinions later.  With that aside, Kukui needs to pour salt in the wound by giving me a Z-Crystal for Incineroar.  You know, the Incineroar I totally don't have because Tiny is dead.  This man is a horrible person.  No wonder he's head of Kukui's Cuck Club.  He'll take the mask off of-

Why does that keep happening?  I didn't even get close to explaining this time!  Meanwhile, Hau seems a little lost in thoughts all alone...because I always need to bring up things from Fire Emblem Fates, apparently.  Anyway, Lillie and Acerola will swing on over.  Lillie thinks Team Skull is scary, but the only scary one is Guzma.  Kukui is going to Mount Lanakila for his weekly "find ways to kill my run" meeting with the Cuck Club while Acerola points us towards Route 11, where the path to our next trial awaits us.  Meanwhile, Lillie's getting dragged off to go shopping.  Talking with Hau tells me he's clearly thinking about what Guzma said, and while I do sort of care, I sort of don't because Guzma kinda tore my team up a bit.  I do at least want to get my good buddy Spark Plug evolved before we end it off today, so let's keep pressing on.

So Route 11 is here and Komala is my encounter.  Comatose is a thing, so...I have no idea what I'm going to do about it.  Master Derp nearly killed it, but we still got it.  I can't think of any female koala names, so I'll name it Des Koala.  Yes, the same name as that Yu-gi-oh card.

The Quiet nature stalks me like some creepy neighbor in a horror novel who turns out to be some kind of killer.  How many mons has it been that ended up with a Quiet nature?  70 Attack at Lv. 28 isn't bad, and with only one weakness and the fact that it can only be put to sleep is good...but my team is still going strong.  More power in the PC for me, and now it's time to fight our way to the next route.

After a number of battles and Mailbird getting even further ahead in levels, we're on our way to Route 12 and the upcoming Ghost trial.  Let's just assume someone or something is about to interrupt me, because yes, it is.  Actually, it's just Hapu, and for good reason, because we don't have the tools to navigate this route.  Luckily, Hapu will give us just what we need, and that's Mudsdale for our Ride Pager.  With that out of the way, let's press onward.  And speaking of which, this is a new route, so let's see what we can get for our first encounter.

Alolan Graveler.  This could either be good or bad...or not.  All it did was set up rocks and I got it in one Ultra Ball.  Welp, time to name it Rockzilla since that's the name I give all members of the Geodude line regardless of gender.  Although, since I accidentally sent her off to the box without checking her stats, I don't know of her potential.  Whoops.  Oh well, I guess it's not that important.  Let's press on because the time has come at long last for Spark Plug to reach his full glory.

Welcome to Blush Mountain, the place where another encounter awaits us along with Spark Plug's final evolution.  First thing's first, and that's Spark Plug.  I didn't think he'd live this long, to be honest.  Crazier things have happened, right?  That's not important.  What is important is that he's surpassed my expectations, and now he will earn his right to evolution...into a Vikavolt, a Pokemon that looks like it should be fast, but in reality, it really isn't.  His Special Attack jumps a lot, though, and even better than that, he learns Thunderbolt off the bat upon evolving.  Well, now we have some real special attacking presence on the team outside of Mailbird and Master Derp on occasion.  Now that we have a brand new Vikavolt, how about we get an encounter?

It's Ula'ula Island and I haven't caught a Mudbray yet?  That's kinda wild if you ask me.  But let's at least hope it's good because I just threw a Quick Ball at it, so I don't know what it's ability is.  It's not female, so I can't name it Epona, so I'll have to go with naming him Muddy.  He has Own Tempo with a Bold nature.  Stamina is a better ability and Bold is pretty bad.  I'd say overall he's not that good.  A shame, really.  Let's just make our way down to Route 13 and we'll call it there.

So Route 13 honestly has very little things of value at the moment, but it's on the way to where we need to go.  Let's remember, though, that this is Sun and Moon.  We need to get interrupted every 30 seconds by something either plot related or otherwise.  This time, I guess Hau finished his trial without getting electrocuted.  At least this time the item he hands over isn't complete trash or absolutely useless outside of money.

Oh look, it's Gladion the Edgelord.  What's he doing here?  Well, he does tell us that Team Skull is looking for Cosmog.  We don't know a thing, and even if we did, it's not like we'd say anything to him.  He does want us to protect Cosmog and keep it safe, though.  Is this a trick or something?  Well, we won't find out, but not even Gladion knows how Team Skull found out about Cosmog in the first place.  That's a little weird, but I guess it's not important just yet.

So Route 13 may have very little relevance, but we can fish up an encounter here since we can't go north until we finish the Ghost trial.  Spoilers, you never need to go north of Route 13 ever, so I fail to understand why the path is blocked off.  Anyway, my first encounter, after a bunch of Magikarp, was the Gen 7 varient of Magikarp, Wishiwashi.  Well, to be fair, at least Wishiwashi gets something to help it not suck in the form of it's ability, Schooling.  I do have to say though that I hate how they changed the mechanic that still allows you to throw balls at things using Dig, Fly, or Dive.  In Colosseum or XD, you could still chuck a Snag Ball at something using Dig, but nope, they "fixed" it so now you have to waste a turn.

...and now there's two of them.  I took out the first one and after weakening the second one, caught it first try while the first one was being difficult.  Not even bad.  I'm gonna name him Sardines.  Wow...this thing's stats suck when it's in Solo Form.  Schooling really is it's one saving grace.  Luckily, it uses Schooling when it comes in, so it's something, right?  A shame I have two other Water types I'd much rather use who have potential without requiring being at high HP.  It's neutral nature too, by the way.

Anyway, moving past Route 13, we arrive in Tapu Village.  Apparently, Tapu Bulu laid waste to the place once upon a time.  He must have some major anger issues for an island deity.  As we walk forward, we run into Hau again.  He goes on a bit about Mount Lanakila and the Elite Four, and if you have a mon that has to evolve on Mount Lanakila, you can go to it's general area and use a Rare Candy to evolve what you need to.  Since there's no elevator, you can't go any further than that....and then when I look down at my 2DS while typing this, suddenly the Ultra Recon Squad is here.

Apparently, once upon a time, Necrozma fought with the tapu in Tapu Village.  They also blather on about Z-Moves and Necrozma's light and their greedy ancestors trying to take advantage of Necrozma.  Sounds like a fun time for them.  While Hau needs to learn to stop being smiles all the time, we're going to call it there.  I need to prepare myself for the next trial and also get a few backup team members ready since Guzma is actually pretty scary right now and the next trial is pretty scary too.  So, until then...

But before we end the episode, it's time for the Styles Showcase.

Today's Style Showcase is the Pharaoh Trim.  Walk like an Egyptian with this nice and fancy trim for your Furfrou.  Now, I must go and prepare for the next trial, so until then.