Pokémon Emerald Wurmple Only Challenge Part I - Meet 1337wurm
This is a post from my archives. Originally Posted on Medium.
When I was a kid I did a very silly Pokémon Sapphire challenge — complete the game using only a Zigzagoon. It sounds difficult but honestly, it wasn't really. Zigzagoon has a surprisingly wide movepool and decent attacking stats, so, with a little overleveling, the Elite Four fell with relative ease. So I got to thinking, what would be the hardest solo Pokémon to complete the game with?
If you thought of Magikarp, you're probably right. Since it only learns Splash, Tackle and Flail in Generation 3, you'd have to exhaust all your PP to hit Ghost-types at all. That sounds incredibly tedious so instead, I settled on the second-hardest Pokémon to solo Sapphire with — Wurmple. When I've told people I did this, I am inevitably asked: how? So now, I'm going to do it again, but document it! And to add a bit of spice I'm doing it in Emerald instead, and with a couple of extra rules.
The Rules
Just how is this going to work, you (the imaginary reader I just invented) ask? Well, I'm glad you asked!
- Only a single Wurmple may be used in battle for the entire game.
- A second Pokémon may be brought for compulsory double battles (like Mossdeep Gym), however it may only waste its turn by attacking Wurmple - no affecting the enemy Pokémon in any way!
- Other Pokémon may be caught as HM friends but may not be used to fight.
- If Wurmple faints I can just reload and try again — this isn't a Nuzlocke (I'm not trying to lose all my sanity here!)
- There is a level cap of 2x the level of the next Gym leader's highest level Pokémon - this is to prevent silly things like leveling up to 100 before Roxanne. I may have to lift this rule for Gym 7 but I'm hoping it's doable. I'll be trying to keep far under this for most Gyms.
And that's it! Pretty straightforward — anything not mentioned, such as items in battle and held items, is allowed! So, without further ado, let's get into the game and meet our friend who will be attempting this challenge.
My first decision is my starter. Whilst I can't use my starter, it does determine which Pokémon my rival gets, and for that reason the best option is Mudkip. This will give my rival a Treecko, which is weak to Poison Sting and does not carry any Super-Effective moves against Wurmple. My Rival will have a Fire-type, but it'll never evolve beyond a Slugma which makes him much easier to deal with. With that done, I can catch the heroine of the run — and here she is!
She has a Careful nature (+Sp Def, -Sp Atk) which is ideal. Wurmple only learns Poison Sting and Tackle as offensive moves, both of which are physical in Generation 3, and therefore the Special Attack stat is completely useless. Why +Special Defense? We're going to be abusing the hell out of X-items in this run, meaning we can sure up our Defense at any time. But X Special Defends don't exist in Generation 3, so having a positive Special Defense nature is going to make dealing with anything on the special side much easier. As you can imagine, we're not going to be oneshotting very much, so the Special Defense is more useful than going for an Adamant nature for more Attack.
I check out the rest of her IVs in PKHeX and this is more than good enough — a 31 Defense IV is fantastic and though the 0 Speed IV looks bad, we're not going to relying on outspeeding our opponent very much anyway. Truly, she is the most 1337 of all wurms.
The Early Game
Our brave little Wurm needs to level a little before we can fight any trainers so we beat up some level 2 'Mons until we reach level 5, where we learn Poison Sting.
We now have our moveset for the entire rest of the run! That's right, there's no Bug Bite in Generation 3, it's Tackle, String Shot, Poison Sting, and that's it.
At level 6, I decide we're ready to take on the world and we face Youngster Calvin's level 5 Poochyena. Like the absolute champ she is, 1337wurm crits on the first turn and we destroy him.
At level 7 we experience the first of many, many times we'll see this:
I have to hit B every single time. I will inevitably forget to do this at one point and lose a load of progress. Speaking of which…
I miss three Tackles in a row against this Taillow and 1337wurm is pecked to death. Save after almost every fight in this challenge. Believe me. There's no rule that I have to fight every trainer so skipping ones that have Super-Effective moves or are just irritating to deal with is always a good plan. Money is somewhat important in this run so I'd always recommend reloading if you do die.
A quick note here: Wurmple's two offensive moves are Tackle (35 Power, 95 Accuracy) and Poison Sting (15 Power, 100 Accuracy, 30% chance to poison). So against Pokémon weak to Poison, Poison Sting is actually still less power than Tackle, but since it has 100 accuracy and has the bonus chance of poisoning I tend to go with it. Against neutral hits though I mostly just spam Tackle, unless my Attack has been lowered a lot with Growl — in this case trying to get the poison status off is usually best.
We continue through Petalburg Woods and meet this NPC who gives us the Bullet Seed TM. Unfortunately this, like every other TM, is useless, as Wurmple cannot learn a single TM or HM.
This fight with the twins is a double battle, but since I only have one Pokémon the game kindly lets me skip it. All battles against "double" trainers like this can be skipped in this way, but double battles against what would usually be two single trainers will just battle you one after the other.
At the Trainer's School I pick up a Quick Claw which is an early hold item that we can use until I get something better. After clearing out the trainers north of Rustboro for some EXP, we're ready for Roxanne!
Between Roxanne and a Hard Place
Watch the video first if you don't want to be spoiled on my Super Secret Strats!
You might think that Roxanne would be difficult, what with Bug being weak to Rock, but we have a secret weapon. Well, two secret weapons: X Defends and Not Getting Crit. Rock Throw doesn't 2HKO so I can easily set up six X Defends on her Geodude and poison her entire team down. For some reason Nosepass doesn't use Rock-type moves and prefers to endlessly Harden and Tackle, but I'm not complaining! Somehow I flawlessly execute Not Getting Crit on my first attempt! Next time: we're off to Brawly and beyond!