u/EinarTobias

The rules are quite simple: I'm not allowed to KO wild Pokémon for exp.
This was my first attempt at recording a run, and, well...

Full rules:
Hardcore nuzlocke rules.
No Exp from other sources than trainer battles (no rematches) and rare candies (not hacked in or via pickup).
Level caps for each gym leader (and Lance’s Dragonite, though no Pokémon of mine has yet gotten close to it)
Dupes clause.
In-game trades are legal.
If you get a Chansey with a lucky egg, that’s legal.

I might be the best to ever do it. In Fire red, specifically.

I have now completed two more races towards fully completing my Super Hardcore Nuzlocke gauntlet of Pokémon Fire red (see full rules below).

Hypno is so ass, but was still very important. He had a Jolly nature, so he could set up and sweep Agatha. Then Cloyster took down Lance, before Scyther found the opening Against Champion Barf to set up an Agility and 3 SDs.
At this point I have to do teams of 4 with 2 sacrificial lambs, although this time, they all survived. That hasn’t happened before. Never getting crit in the E4 really helped.

As my list of potential Pokémon grows ever thinner, one of the main issues becomes not overleveling, and not wasting too much exp in the early game. I am also running very low on Pokémon that I can sacrifice for tempo, and up until Surge I doubt I’ll have a team of six anymore.

For my next run, I really hope I get a Machop past Surge, a Voltorb with a good nature, Exeggutor, and either Golduck or Seel, depending on natures. I think both should be fairly guaranteed, depending on routing.

On to run 8!

Full rules:

Standard hardcore nuzlocke rules.
No Exp from other sources than trainer battles (no rematches) and rare candies (not hacked in or via pickup).
Any Pokémon on a winning team must be retired permanently, and its entire species is banned for all future runs.
Level caps for each gym leader (and Lance’s Dragonite, though no Pokémon of mine has yet gotten close to it)
Dupes clause.
Safari game clause: You get 1 Safari run to catch anything you want, but you can only choose one of them (this is the only way “unlock” all the safari encounters, otherwise it would be too unlikely that you’d ever get to use most of them).
The dupes clause does NOT protect you from retired Pokémon! If your first legal encounter is a retired Pokémon, catch it and box it, and move on to the next route.
You have to make a nice box called “Retired” and use the Beach background for all your retired Pokémon.
In-game trades are legal.
If you get a Chansey with a lucky egg, that’s legal.

Introducing: the Super Hardcore FireRed Gauntlet!
This is how I’ve been playing the game recently: after every run, I have to retire the six Pokémon that beat the League, even if they fainted while doing so. Being “retired” means that they cannot be used for anything other than HM slave, and only if I don’t have any other options.

But that’s not all.
I also play with the rule that I can only get exp from two sources:
Exp from trainer battles (no rematches!).
Rare candies found without using pickup.

This results in runs where every decision matters. Sure, the first runs with stacked teams were not too hard, but even then Exp was scarce, and you always end up under-leveled when you get to the Indigo Plateau.

These are all the rules I play with:

• Standard hardcore nuzlocke rules.
• No Exp from other sources than trainer battles (no rematches) and rare candies (not hacked on pickup).
• Any Pokémon on a winning team must be retired permanently.
• Level caps for each gym leader and Lance’s Dragonite.
• Dupes clause.
• Safari game clause: You get 1 Safari run to catch anything you want, but you can only choose one of them (this is the only way “unlock” all the safari encounters, otherwise it would be too unlikely that you’d ever get to use most of them).
• The dupes clause does NOT protect you from retired Pokémon! If your first legal encounter is a retired Pokémon, catch it and box it.
• You have to make a nice box called “Retired” and use the Beach background for all your retired Pokémon.
• In-game trades are legal.
• If you get a Chansey with a lucky egg, that’s legal.

With all three starters banned, Mankey is needed pretty much every time to beat Brock, Beedrill to deal with Misty, and Diglett to get past  Lt. Surge. The start of the game is always the hardest, and usually requires sacrifices to get through.

For my last two runs I’ve been using teams of 4 Pokémon instead of 5. The sixth team member is usually just something I caught and bring as a sacrifice to reset tempo. Who it will be this time I haven’t decided. I’m about to fight my rival for the last time before Victory Road, and then, it’s E4 time. My Adamant Kangaskhan is monster, while my Aerodactyl keeps disappointing me. Golem is great, while Porygon is Porygon.

After this run, there will be 33 more Evo lines to choose from. I'm really curious to see how far I can take it.
(btw there’s a ton of failed attempts in between each successful one, and no run has had more than 3 survivors)