I FINALLY FRICKIN' FINISHED A NUZLOCKE
This took me so many tries I'm surprised my IRL deathless run managed to outlast it.
Here's the squad that finally did it!
Blue Bossa the Altaria was used sporadically throughout the run, coming in especially handy during Juan's gym, Maxie, and Aqua Hideout. Blue Bossa ultimately edged out a Flygon for a place on the Elite Four team because I wanted the better defensive typing against the champion. Though useless in the Glacia fight, he was great in all the other ones, getting some lucky paralysis hits on Drake's scarier pokemon. She also single-handedly won the Champion fight by setting up dragon dance against Wallace's Whiscash, then, after getting a lucky OHKO on his terrifying Milotic, sealed the deal with a perish song on the champ's last pokemon before switching out. Blue Bossa, though a late bloomer, certainly was a boss!
Peebs the Crobat, in spite of the headache caused by grinding friendship for its evolution, was a key part of the team for several terrifying fights from Winona onwards. Because the Zubat line is PBG's favorite pokemon, I named it after my childhood's favorite Youtuber! I never really capitalized on Peebs' offensive capabilities, but his tremendous bulk and speed both came in handy, and he won me the fight against Phoebe by standing up to the Dusclops that would have otherwise swept us.
The oldest member of the Elite Four squad, I caught Petanque shortly before the first gym, and though she remained in the box for quite some time, she came up huge in the lategame and became a key offensive member of my team. Aerial Ace saved me more times than I can remember, and Petanque managed to bravely brute force through more than one otherwise run-ending opponent, most notably Juan's Kingdra. After the Phoebe fight went awry, I decided to sack Petanque for the sake of wearing down the last Dusclops. Petanque had other plans, though, as she dodged the rock move and finished off the rest of the team. She proceeded to be a minor player the rest of the way, but landed the run's final blow against Ludicolo, who didn't survive the three turns of Perish Song.
I love Ninetails, and this one had a really good nature- Unfortunately, the lategame isn't very kind to fire types, with Juan's water-type gym backed on to an Elite Four and Champion in which there are a great deal of really strong water and ground types. However, due to an unfortunate other death, Flambé wound up on my team as well. My plan was for him to Sunny Day and Flamethrower through Glacia, but that didn't really end up happening. He landed a few key hits in Phoebe's fight and lived through Walrein's Surf to set up Sunny Day, but I ultimately sacked him there both to get the Overheat off and to get a safe switch into the only member of the team who could possibly scratch Walrein. He also missed the Overheat, but god love him he's trying.
Trike was our second-oldest E4 member, joining just before Wattson's gym. After being in the team but not actually being deployed in the Wattson fight, he sat in the box doing nothing for the next five gyms, making it onto the final team for basically two reasons: Glacia's Walrein and Wallace's Gyarados. His Nature was a bit unfortunate (-SpA, +Spe), but he had enough juice to do exactly what I asked him to. The entire run actually did end up coming down to him landing a Thunder against Wallace's Wailord, since I couldn't risk him dying to Blizzard. He landed that, easily eliminated Gyarados, and passed off the baton to Blue Bossa, who took care of the rest.
All praise Quaggles the Whiscash, what a champ. Carried me through the entire game after Tate and Liza, and even managed to be useful there by baiting some Solar Beams. I initially brought her along just because she's a silly little guy with a goofy smile, but as it turns out... Well, Whiscash good! I hadn't really realized just how different Competitive and actual Pokemon are until she came along.
(I also wanted to sweep with Dragon Dance, which Whiscash can learn for some reason, but it turns out to be only through breeding)
Regardless, Quaggles was an absolute sponge for damage, and could equally dish out serious damage with Surf or Earthquake. Quaggles' typing is incredible for the Elite Four because there are so few grass types, meaning that Quaggles could always switch in safely against anything. Not seen here in Quaggles' moveset Blizzard, which she dropped after Drake, because apparently this goofy fish can learn Fissure, which was basically my backup plan if Trike missed the Thunder. Quaggles carried me through Juan by sweeping through the first half of the gym then stalling away all of Kingdra's Aurora Beams, allowing me to safely bring in Petanque. She then breezed through the first E4 member, tanked about half of the second, dealt with most of the third, and then won the entire game against Drake via Blizzard. She hit every single attack she needed to, slaying Shelgon, Altaria, Flygon and Salamence. I had no other good answer to any of them, but Quaggles took everything they threw at her and dished it back in full. She then got to relax as Trike, Bossa, and Petanque sorted out the Champion.
All hail Quaggles! All hail Quaggles!
Casualties were surprisingly minimal! Taco Brell the Breloom was an absolute champ through the earlygame, but regretfully died while placing down a leech seed on Flannery's Torkoal because I couldn't find any other way to kill it. Spleen the Swellow subsequently died because Torkoal paralyzed four different pokemon with four consecutive Body Slams.
The remaining three casualties were Laurence the Bellossom, who slayed my dad's Slaking, How Lewd the Tentacruel who was a staple of the team right to his very end, and Thelonious the Castform, who was very useful but met a regretfully early grave. All three perished in the Tate and Liza fight.
Of all these deaths, Thelonious' was probably the most impactful; something to control the weather throughout the Elite Four would have been really nice. The task was instead left to Flambe, who would have ended up in heaven as well if he had not been able to walk off being killed thanks to the valor of his teammates. I wish I could have saved Breloom not only because it's really good and probably would have made the Elite Four team, but also because Wattson without it is terrifying, and Breloom deserved a pension after that one.
The most avoidable death was probably Laurence's, since I forgot to give him any damaging moves before tossing him in to the Tate and Liza fight. He was supposed to kill the Xatu, but it's hard to do that with Stun Powder.
Finally, honorable mentions! Dog. the Mightyena was our first encounter, and was on the team pretty much the whole game! Intimidate is quite nice, so even though Crunch's damage was lacking, he still was pretty nifty, particularly for neutralizing Norman's Slaking.
Ziggy Stardust the Zigzagoon, much like all Zigzagoon, impressed with damage output with STAB Headbutt, and saw use late into the game. She never participated in any major gym battles, but stood alongside us for a lot of Strength push puzzles and defeated Maxie's Crobat.
I used Vursle the Flygon only once, but could have made the E4 team. I ultimately chose Blue Bossa over him because of the latter's better defensive stats and Quaggles already being able to sweep with Earthquake.
I always try to avoid using Gyarados because of how crazy powerful it is, but because I'm sick of losing to Winona, I made an exception and allowed this one onto the team. With literally a perfect nature and insane stats, this Gyarados was named after Diablo the Cheater. After safely defeating Winona's Altaria, Diablo returned to his interdimensional sex simulator (powered by a fucking necromancer), and used that game on a daily basis for the rest of the run as he stayed in the box.
Tropius is not a good pokemon. Or so I thought. I caught Ataulfo the Tropius shortly before Winona, and she actually was tremendous both for Tate and Liza and for Juan, the former taking advantage of Chlorophyll and the latter of the grass typing. I was astonished at how she somehow couldn't one-shot Lunatone or Solrock in spite of Solar Beam being super-effective, but the damage she output was still unmatched.
Moonshine the Dustox for being really darn nifty in the earlygame. Never left the bench after Norman's gym, but played a big role in it and the non-Flannery gyms preceding it.
Herbie Hancock the Kecleon, because the song Chameleon is good. I never actually used Kecleon, though. I considered it for the E4 thanks to its big special bulk, but decided that there were better candidates.
Chunk the Lairon who appeared once in the entire playthrough- Tanking Slaking every other turn while Dog. intimidated it down. I only bring this up because I really like Lairon, what a cute little guy.
My dear starter, Pok-Pok. I almost always name my Torchic "Pollo Power", but I switched things up this time. Being a starter, it was nice in the earlygame, but its only real contributions were in Wattson's gym, where it took out the terrifying Magneton, and Norman's gym, where it kicked Norman's three weaker normal types/ Having finally finished Emerald... Zoinks, this thing really does have pretty much the worst possible typing for it. It's not very helpful for either of the first two gyms (though it could suffice), does well in the third, can't do much in the fourth, does well in the fifth, then is weak to the sixth, seventh and eighth gyms, not to mention most of the Elite Four, where it matches well against the already nonthreatening dark types and does poorly against the ghost, ice, dragon, and water types behind it. Maybe it'd be good for the ice fight were it not for the fact that this game has no ice types, so they just made it a water-type fight with hail and two glalie in-between the water types.
F for Pok-Pok, who never even got to evolve.
Cradily, who I chose over the immensely superior Armaldo because I decided I wanted to be out-of-the-box and use Cradily's great defense to back its pretty decent offense. Plus, I think it's really cool, and kinda cute in its own way too.
Unfortunately, I just couldn't figure out how to make it work. It barely resists anything at all and equally has a terrible offensive moveset that can't be readily offset by TMs because there just really doesn't seem to be any good bug or rock-type TMs available.
To my knowledge, Lupin's stories were the first to feature Herlock Sholmes! Leblanc tried to have Sherlock Holmes and Lupin clash in a 1906 publication, but after Doyle's (Sherlock Holmes' author) legal objection, Leblanc simply changed it to Herlock Sholmes, who would become a recurring character in the series. About a century later, Ace Attorney would reuse this wonderfully cheeky move!