PokéManiac Welcomes You to SplashAttack.net With A Challenge!

Welcome to SplashAttack.net everyone!  You can call me PokéManiac. I’ve been playing Pokémon since Gen 1 and as the name implies, I am more of a casual player and collector. That being said, casual gameplay offers numerous challenge styles: Nuzlocke (of varying degrees), the Avatar challenge, and the Conservelocke or Fundamentalism challenge.  But, those can wait - we’re discussing something completely different here.

For the focus of this post, I will be discussing the Avatar, or Clan challenge. This challenge divides the different Pokémon types into the four elemental nations from the popular television show Avatar: The Last Airbender, as seen on Nickelodeon (before it started to suck). The rules are simple: pick a nation and only use Pokémon whose typing aligns with your nation.

If a Pokémon evolves out of your nation, you can no longer use it. On the other hand if it will eventually evolve and gain a typing in your nation, it can be used under the premise that you plan on evolving it. Normal Pokémon can be used by all the nations, barring a second typing (Pidgey can only be used by the Air Nation because of its Normal/Flying typing). In Gen 6 games, the Fairy type has been added to the Air Nation and Bug Pokémon have been introduced as playable by all the nations. If your nation of choice doesn’t have a starter that falls into its types you are allowed to choose whatever starter you like on the premise that as soon as possible it will be stored in the PC.

To get a feel for this, I restarted Pokémon Y and chose the Fire Nation because. Dark, Dragon, and Electric are my three favorite types. Due to Froakie’s potential Water/Dark typing as Greninja, I had the option of picking Froakie or Fennekin. Froakie was my starter in X so I switched things up and went with Fennekin. Early on the choice of the Fire Nation made this an insanely easy play through. The issues began to come up a little farther in when I realized I had three Fire types - Fennekin, Charmander, Litleo - and only one Electric type, Pikachu. The appearance of Pancham and Scraggy on Route 5 alleviated the imbalance. Braixen was replaced with Snorlax, and eventually a Bagon and a more balanced Electric type will be substituted into the team.

Overall, playing through as the Fire Nation hasn’t been overly difficult…yet. I’m sure playing as the other nations completely changes the experience. Before that happens, I look forward to finishing my Fire Nation challenge before playing through other challenges and challenge styles (including the Christian/Conservalocke challenge) through other generations, and to continue writing for the SplashAttack community. Until next time, and the next challenge…

- PokéManiac