Minus

Given my love for Ampharos, I have to admit that a little part of me died inside when he suggested using Mareep for fodder. But hey, on the positive side, at least he doesn't have to worry about Pulse Camerupt killing him next episode!

While there are still a few obstacles to be dealt with between now and then (Aster/Eclipse and Taka, which can be on the challenging side if unprepared), I'm looking forward to that Garchomp battle as well - it's one of my favorite things to see people react to when they're playing the game blind. But, while I still hold some hope that maybe nobody has spoiled it for him yet, the people in the comments section really seem to love to blab about it. If he got spoiled on the Victoria fight this time, it seems almost impossible that he didn't see comments talking about the Solaris fight. Which would really suck, but oh well - that's comments sections for ya. At any rate, the Garchomp fight will probably go one of two ways - he could either cancel the Nuzlocke right then and there (which, in all honesty, would probably just be because he isn't enjoying it much anymore anyway) or he'll make a clause and keep pushing. I kinda hope it's the latter, since I really want to see how he fares against Aya (it's between her, Shelly, and Titania as fights that gave me the roughest time my first time playing), but we'll see how things unfold from here. While he makes his share of questionable decisions at times, I still hope that he has fun with the game, and I hope that he continues with it once the Nuzlocke ends, whenever that may be.

And so endeth the Kiki thunderdome - the Kikiest Kiki has been Kikied. But no seriously I thought a potionless Victoria fight would have done a lot more damage than it actually did. Huh. Hooray for AI mishaps I guess?

For once, I genuinely have no idea whether he's talking about the gym leader or the Mightyena. Both seem equally likely at this point.

I was about to say... unless he restocked lemonades off camera while he was training his Smoochum (which I kind of doubt). Heck, ignoring Kiki, he's locked into the Victoria fight now. If he didn't restock beforehand, he's not going to get another chance to until he beats Victoria right?

I do think that it's a balancing thing and aiming for some sort of difficulty curve to try to make earlier game bosses a bit more manageable, yeah. As for the fight, I'd posted earlier that I thought that he would get through Shade and Kiki, so he's gotten halfway there so far. However, I'd also hoped that he would take more care, read the field effect readouts, and use an electric type, which definitely did not happen. But he seemed to manage with his lemonade hoard so . At any rate, I still think he's got a shot at Kiki, but her team is very hard hitting and I don't think he'd win without a few casualties. And thanks to Strength, the old strategy of Stockpile + Belly + Lemonades probably isn't going to be viable. If he does make it through, realistically, I think he'll either stop after getting wiped by the Garchomp, or he'll invoke the B.S. clause to retcon the deaths from that battle (which I think would be reasonable) and most likely officially lose the locke against Aya.

Kinda hoping he blacks out soon too and just continues with it as a normal playthrough. Reading comprehension slips aside, dude seems like he'd just have a more enjoyable time that way. I was also not expecting the Beartic fight so soon. Thankfully nothing a Swalot with stockpile (and, well, a fridge full of lemonades) couldn't deal with. Man though, there were a lot of cases in all of these fights where a stray critical hit would have pretty much spelled game over. His glossing over Mareep once again hurt just a little bit inside. I did also find it pretty adorable that, for a split second, he thought that egg would have a Dratini in it.

If he plays his cards right, I feel like he has it in him to make it to the Garchomp encounter at least. I feel like Shade and Kiki aren't too menacing compared to Shelly (though the fact that he is now Blaziken-less will up the difficulty significantly). He really does need to pay attention to those field notes in the future though. Had he looked at those and listened to Ame's advice, he might have realized that fire would not be a good strategy. He made the same mistake earlier with Corey, where he could have used a Gust to take out the field. Apart from that, I think Mareep would be a really good choice of 'mon to train up in Tiki's absence, particularly with the field advantage it would give him in Shade's gym. Maybe that would be worth relaying to him?