Fire Red: Hard Mode

Pokemon games are easy assuming the player has played RPGs before( I got a friend of mine to try pokemon for the first time and she had a lot of trouble with it). Because of this fact, some Pokemon fans do self imposed challenges as they beat the game. One of the most famous examples of this was when someone going by the screen name Nuzlocke made some added rules for his play through of Pokemon Ruby. The rules were that he could only catch the first Pokemon he found on a rout( if he fails to catch it then no Pokemon for him), and if a Pokemon faints then that Pokemon is dead and must be released. Nuzlocke made a webcomic chronicling his adventures. Today we will be looking at his squeal series when he used the same rules for Pokemon Fire Red.



Fire Red: Hard Mode follows Ruby, the protagonist from the previous story. After a horrible defeat at the Hoenn leagues Ruby has now ventured to Kanto under the name Red for a fresh start. You don't actually have to know anything from the previous series to enjoy this one aside from what I just told you. Joining him are his various Pokemon who talk because why not? Seriously through having the Pokemon talk was a really good idea for reasons I'll get into later. The actual story is basically just a retailing of the Pokemon game it's based of up, but with a few twist and turn that may surprise people who've played the games.

  A majority of Hard Mode is actually mostly humor, poking fun at the Pokemon world and its quirks. The jokes can be fairly dark at times, but it does have its more quirky jokes. The humor is also very crud, sometimes needlessly so. It just feels a lot more immature then I can stand.

If you noticed when I was talking about the rules of the challenge I used the word 'dead' to describe when a Pokemon faints. The reason for that is because in the comic they do. When a Pokemon loses a battle it dies right there. That's why it's good that the Pokemon talk. They aren't just random weapons. They become really living creature with personality. That creates an emotional attachment with the audience which in turn makes any death harder to take. While the comic is mostly humor it does have the ability to pull at heart string and be genuinely somber.

The art has a simple design to it which comes from not much art experience, but comparing it to his previous comic the art is much improved and does improve over time. Later on the comic does wonderful fight scenes that truly feel epic all be it fairly short.

These rules have been adopted by the Pokemon community as something called a Nuzlocke Challenge named after the screen name of the original creator. I'll be looking at nothing but Nuzlocke comic until Friday, and sadly they will all be better then this. Despite this being one of the first it's far from the best. With that being said if you are into Pokemon humor or are interested in the Nuzlocke challenge then this comic does have some value to you. You can start here.  See you tomorrow.