New Game + 4) Pokémon Y (2013)
The Challenge: Complete the game using a group of Pokémon that represent the classes in the original Final Fantasy.
Having played the game not only at launch, but numerous times since doing a variety of different challenge runs, I felt as though I needed something new, something fresh for this go around. As the final forms of the starters are directly based on various RPG archetypes, and as I have a love of the Final Fantasy franchise, I decided that a marriage of the two would work nicely. As you can only have six Pokémon in your party, and the original Final Fantasy game gives the option of six distinct classes, I set about crafting my team, trying to incorporate Pokémon I've either never used, or haven't used in a long time. The team I ended up with was not only fun to use, but was divided into three sets of two that had pretty nice progression markers between them, making it feel as though I slowly grew my team.
The first big decision was choosing which starter to go with. All three would fit the theme, so I went with Fennekin as I'd never really used one in a playthrough before. I usually choose Chespin, with Froakie a distant second. As my Fennekin was a girl, I named her after Lulu from Final Fantasy X. The combination of Fire and Psychic made her a powerful glass cannon, and there were few major battles where she didn't see play. The first gym of the region is a Bug gym, and while Lulu alone likely could have swept, I ended up adding another member to the party that made the gym even more trivial.
For the role of a Fighter, I wanted a Pokémon that either had or was a weapon, and as I've always loved them and wanted an excuse to use one, Farfetch'd seemed a natural choice. I caught a female, naming her after Paine from Final Fantasy X-2. What drew me to Farfetch'd the most was the fact that it has a special item that only works for them. Called a stick, it's meant to represent the leek they carry around, and is a completely useless item for most Pokémon. When held by a Farfetch'd, however, it greatly increases their critical hit chance. Coupled with moves that also have a high crit chance, such as Night Slash and the STAB move Slash, she all but carried the team early on and remained a reliable team member all throughout. The same cannot be said for...
The role of the Red Msge was a tough one to fill. A Red Mage is typically the second best at everything while being the best at nothing. I wanted a Pokémon that could attack with either Special or Physical moves, while also having some utility. I also wanted them to be red, because it seemed like another dumb restriction. Ledian certainly seemed like a choice, and he certainly proved to be. I named him Ingus, which is the default name of one of your party members in the DS remake of Final Fantasy III. As excited as I was to use a something like Ledian, it ultimately proved to be exceedingly fitting, as Red Mages tend to fall off around mid game. Ingus struggled at every turn, with poor damage output an the fragility one would expect of a ladybug. The most useful he became was learning Silver Wind, which has a chance to boost every stat one stage, and Baton Pass, which allows you to switch to another Pokémon while keeping any stat changes. While this did prove fun and useful a few times, it was far from a reliable strategy.
Rounding out my team as I went into the second gym was an Audio I named after Rosa from Final Fantasy IV. I admit to having low expectations for Rosa starting out, but considering every other member of my team was weak to Rock, the type of the second gym, I found myself in the tricky situation of needing to fully rely on her. Luckily with the combination of the move Attract, which causes the enemy to become infatuated with the user if they're of the opposite gender, I developed a really, really dumb plan. Infatuation is one of the worse effects in the game. It kind of acts like paralysis in that it's a literal coin flip each turn to see if you can even attack. Unlike Paralysis, it cannot be cured, and unlike Confusion, it doesn't go away on its own. I combined this with the move Return, a Normal type attack that does more damage the more the user likes its trainer. As a Normal type, Rosa took the already high base attack power that Return can have and multiplied by 1.5 for STAB. The final piece of the puzzle was Thunder Wave, which causes the aforementioned Paralysis. As such, I was able to Paralyze and Infatuate the gym leader's Pokémon, giving them two coin flips to power through each turn while I spammed Return. It was a long, stupid battle but Rosa won the day. She'd go on to be my second most useful member on the team, often acting as a pivot between party members.
Next, I caught a female Sableye who I named after Rikku from Final Fantasy X and X-2. Originally the only Pokémon to have zero weaknesses, as Ghost and Dark compliment each other well, that status has since changed. The addition of Fairy type, which has no interaction with ghost while being Super Effective against Dark, means she had one, albeit major, weakness. As Fairy was introduced in this game, Fairy Pokémon and moves are everywhere. Still, Rikku proved to be a fun little gremlin that could also served as an excellent pivot or lead.
Last, but certainly not least, was a Throh I named after Amarant from Final Fantasy IX. Black Belts in Final Fantasy are good at one thing and one thing alone, which is throwing hands. Amarant proved to be very effective in hitting things really, really hard. In addition, he was fairly bulky, and as Fighting only has a few weaknesses, tanked more than his fair share of attacks. When I say Amarant was my MVP for the run, I cannot stress how far and above he carried this team. When Lysandre came out, with his stupid contraption and ugly hair, Amarant demolished his Mega Gyarados. When I had to fight the Elite Four, and Wikstrom stood before me with his team of sturdy Steel types, Amarant cleared them out without breaking a sweat. When I fought the Champion, who uses both of the fossil Pokémon, Amarant re-extincted their lines.
While the teams was far from perfect, I had a ton of fun with this playthrough. While Kalos is usually a pretty easy region to conquer, the limitations made for some interesting challenges. I got to use an entire team of Pokémon I'd otherwise overlook, and got to try some fun strategies I wouldn't otherwise have used. I also had a ton of fun going through the PokéDex and crafting the team with these limitations. Trying to find ways to justify a certain Pokémon as a specific class was an exciting thought experiment that, honestly, I'll likely try again in the future.
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