Previous Episodes:
Episode 7| Episode 8| Episode 9|Episode 10| Episode 11|
Episode 12: Victory Road – Indigo Plateau
(Lv. 58 Cap)
After eleven episodes, a lot of grinding, and more close calls than I probably should have survived, the Pokémon League is finally in sight.
The team is about as prepared as it can realistically be, although losing Zak at the end of the last episode has made the final stretch feel slightly less comfortable than it did before.
Victory Road, the Elite Four and the Champion all stand between me and the end of the run.
Assuming everything doesn’t completely collapse at the last possible moment.
Victory Road
After the disaster at the end of the rival fight, I head towards Victory Road with the run suddenly feeling a lot less comfortable again.
One final checkpoint remains before the Pokémon League. I present all eight badges one by one and finally gain access to the last stretch of the game.
It feels strangely calm considering what is waiting on the other side.
Before entering Victory Road itself, I pick up another encounter — a Psyduck on the nearby water route. I catch it and name it Quacker. After losing Zak, another Psychic type feels potentially useful, even if Psyduck itself does not exactly inspire confidence.
Inside Victory Road I run into a level 46 Onix. Sleep Powder makes the catch fairly simple and Big Head joins the box immediately.
Realistically, it was never making the final team.
Victory Road itself ends up being surprisingly uneventful. The trainers along the way seem very aware of where I’m heading next, and several recognise me immediately as another challenger making the final climb towards the Elite Four.
Mostly, though, it’s just solid experience and useful items.
Hotdog learns Extremespeed during the climb, and by the time I finally leave the cave several team members are already approaching level 50.
No disasters. No close calls.
Exactly what I needed after the rival fight.
Replacing Zak
With Victory Road cleared, attention turns fully towards the Elite Four.
The first problem is replacing Zak.
Initially, I decide to give Quacker a chance. Psyduck evolves into Golduck at level 33 and for a brief moment this looks promising enough.
Then I realise Golduck cannot actually learn Psychic.
Slight issue for a Pokémon I was specifically bringing for Psychic coverage a huge waste of time, my fault I should have checked before.
After a bit more research, I eventually settle on Seacow instead.
Seacow looks absurdly good for the Elite Four:
- Surf
- Psychic
- Thunderbolt
- Ice Beam
Plus Lapras is incredibly bulky, which feels very important this late into the run.
The grinding itself is split mostly between Cycling Road and One Island. I eventually settle on level 58 for the team.
Elite Four level caps are awkward in FireRed. There’s no realistic way to level between fights(without cheats), so capping each individual member separately never really made sense. Instead, I decide to work around Lance’s level 60 Dragonite and stop slightly below that.
Close enough to compete.
Hopefully not close enough to count as overlevelled.
Before entering the League properly, I spend almost all of my remaining money preparing the team.
At the Indigo Plateau I stock up heavily on Full Restores and Full Heals.
At the Game Corner I buy held items and TMs:
- Miracle Seed for Sprout
- Charcoal for Hotdog
- Mystic Water for Calypso
- Thunderbolt
- Two Ice Beams
Finally, with whatever money I still have left, I head to Celadon Department Store and dump the rest into vitamins for the team.
At this point, money no longer has much purpose anyway
Lorelei is first.
Seacow immediately proves why adding him to the team was probably the correct decision. Thunderbolt tears through most of Lorelei’s team comfortably enough, although Jynx becomes unexpectedly annoying thanks to Lovely Kiss and Attract repeatedly slowing everything down.
Eventually I get tired of dealing with it and swap into Hotdog.
Flamethrower solves the problem immediately.
Lorelei’s own Lapras is the only real threat in the fight. Confuse Ray and Body Slam make things awkward very quickly, and for the first time in the Elite Four I’m forced into healing.
Still, after a slightly longer battle than expected, Seacow eventually wins the exchange.
One Elite Four member down.
Going into Bruno, I’m honestly expecting this to be the easiest fight of the entire League.
I lead with Calypso who immediately removes Bruno’s first Onix with Surf.
Hitmonchan follows and goes down without causing any real problems.
Hitmonlee survives slightly longer, landing a fairly heavy Mega Kick before Dydra eventually finishes it off with Drill Peck.
Then Machamp arrives.
At this point Dydra is already weakened, but I still feel fairly confident Fly will finish the fight cleanly enough.
Machamp goes for Cross Chop.
Dydra avoids it.
Fly lands…
…and Machamp survives with a very small amount of health.
Cross Chop lands the following turn.
Dydra goes down.
That was stupid.
Especially because it was completely avoidable. Drill Peck almost certainly would have finished Machamp.
Instead, Dydra — the Pokémon that saved the run against Alakazam (Twice) — is gone.
King comes in afterwards and finishes Machamp with Earthquake before Bruno’s second Onix falls quickly to a Surf from Seacow.
After losing Dydra, the rest of the run becomes far more worrying.
Gengar in particular feels dangerous, and I spend longer than I probably should deciding who to lead with.
Eventually I settle on Seacow due to its moveset.
Thankfully, the first Gengar goes down fairly cleanly after two Psychics.
Golbat disappears to Ice Beam immediately afterwards.
Arbok survives slightly longer than expected. Sludge Bomb does a surprising amount of damage to Seacow before Psychic eventually finishes it off.
Then the second Gengar arrives.
And this is where things become deeply irritating.
I switch into King hoping Shadow Ball can deal with it quickly.
Instead, Gengar lands Hypnosis immediately.
Annoying.
I stay in longer than I should, assuming Gengar probably cannot do enough damage to become a real threat.
That assumption turns out to be completely wrong.
Nightmare starts draining huge chunks of health every turn while King stubbornly refuses to wake up. By the time Gengar lands a critical hit Shadow Ball, Nightmare leaves King sitting on just 9 HP.
Very suddenly, another disaster feels possible.
I swap to Hotdog hoping Bite can stabilise things.
Hypnosis again.
At this point Agatha’s Gengar is less dangerous than it is infuriating.
Calypso comes in next, also carrying Bite, but Gengar immediately starts throwing Sludge Bombs instead. Damage starts piling up very quickly and another Hypnosis lands before I’m finally forced to start using Full Heals and Full Restores just to stop the entire fight collapsing into chaos.
Eventually Bite finally starts landing meaningful damage.
Agatha uses a Full Restore.
Gengar misses Hypnosis for once.
Finally, after what feels like far longer than it should have taken, Surf finishes it off.
Honestly, the remaining Haunter afterwards feels almost insulting.
Compared to Gengar, it hardly registers as a threat.
Still.
Agatha is finally down.
Barely.
After Agatha, Lance honestly feels terrifying.
Lance leads with Gyarados I lead with Seacow again.
Thunderbolt nearly one-shots Gyarados immediately. Lance heals, I set up Psychic on the recovery turn, and the second Thunderbolt finishes it cleanly.
Aerodactyl survives long enough to scare me slightly, but Surf eventually removes it before things become dangerous.
The two Dragonair go down to Ice Beam, although one manages to paralyse Seacow before fainting.
Then Lance’s ace arrives.
Level 60 Dragonite.
I Full Restore Seacow as Dragonite starts throwing Outrage around.
It barely matters.
Ice Beam lands once.
Dragonite disappears instantly.
Honestly, I just sit there for a second staring at the screen.
Seacow proceeds to dismantle the entire rest of Lance’s team single-handedly.
After what happened with Zak last episode, it became very clear that Seacow may have accidentally saved the run.
Before moving into the final battle, I burn through Ethers and an Elixir restoring the team.
One fight remains.
After everything — the grinding, the deaths, the Elite Four — it all comes down to Ink once again.
Somehow he’s reached the Champion battle before me, despite spending most of the game standing in random locations waiting to interrupt whatever I was doing.
I lead with Seacow while Ink opens with Pidgeot.
Aerial Ace barely scratches Lapras, while Thunderbolt immediately puts Pidgeot into dangerous territory.
The following turn Seacow outspeeds and finishes it cleanly.
Ink follows up with Rhydon, which feels like a deeply questionable decision against a Water type.
Surf removes it instantly.
Then comes Exeggutor.
This is where things start becoming slightly less comfortable.
Ice Beam damages it heavily, but Light Screen keeps it alive longer than I’d hoped.
Sleep Powder misses thankfully, although Exeggutor somehow survives the second Ice Beam with barely any health left.
Exeggutor finally gets an attack off with Giga Drain, doing far more damage than I would have liked while recovering a huge amount of health back in return.
At that point I decide Seacow probably shouldn’t risk taking another one.
I swap into Hotdog as Ink heals again.
Flamethrower finally removes Exeggutor for good.
So far, everything is still under control.
Then Ink sends out Gyarados.
This starts feeling far more dangerous than the Route 22 fight.
I swap Calypso in expecting another straightforward answer.
Instead, Thrash starts doing absurd amounts of damage while Dragon Rage guarantees chip every turn.
For the first time in the battle I’m forced into healing a few time just to stabilise things.
After a lot of switching between Seacow and Calypso I finally bring Gyarados down with Ice Beam, but nowhere near as comfortably as I expected.
Ink’s ace is next.
Thankfully, Charizard against Calypso is usually a matchup I’m more than happy to take.
Surf does a huge amount of damage while Fire Blast fails to do enough too much back.
For the first time it feels like the battle is already over.
Then Fire Blast critical hits.
Calypso goes down.
Well that could be a slight issue…
I bring Seacow back in and finish Charizard off with Surf, although not before another critical hit Slash takes a decent bit of health on the way out.
Now the fight suddenly feels back on again.
One Pokémon remains.
Alakazam.
Of course it’s Alakazam.
Expecting Psychic immediately, I use the first turn to heal.
Psychic lands.
Critical hit.
Third crit in a row.
This is starting to feel personal.
Thunderbolt gets some damage off, but Seacow is clearly not surviving much longer unless I spend every turn healing up.
I decide it’s safer to leave him in and let it go down rather than risk switching another Pokémon directly into Psychic.
Seacow falls.
3v1 I have this in the bag.
I send in Hotdog.
Bite brings Alakazam into the red while it sets up Future Sight.
Ink heals, but another Bite drags it straight back down again.
Psychic lands hard, although thankfully Hotdog survives comfortably enough to continue.
Then Future Sight misses completely.
Hotdog already knows what the final move is.
Extremespeed.
No risk of Alakazam outspeeding. No chance for another Psychic.
Extremespeed lands the battle won.
Looking back, I’ve enjoyed putting this whole series together.
I understand that writing a fairly detailed blog posts about a Pokémon Nuzlocke is an incredibly niche hobby, but that’s also part of why I enjoyed doing it.
Designing the signs, making the graphics, writing up the battles and close calls — it made the run feel like something bigger than just sitting indoors staring at a screen for a few weeks with nobody else seeing any of it.
The Nuzlocke itself was great fun, but honestly, building The Artful Nuzlocke around it ended up being just as enjoyable.
I’m not sure what project comes next or even if I will ever do another one but at least I finished this one.
Thank you for reading.
FireRed Nuzlocke complete.
Relive the Journey
ArtfulPlays 
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