The Definitive Guide to a Renegade Platinum Nuzlocke

Written by Reddit user u/Tempest200

PART ONE: INTRODUCTION

So, you want to Nuzlocke Renegade Platinum, do you? Before you begin the Nuzlocke, here’s a few tips before you start.

1. Don’t. 

I’m being completely serious here. Renegade Platinum as a game, is VERY DIFFICULT to Nuzlocke. If you genuinely think that you will successfully Nuzlocke Renegade Platinum completely blind, you have another thing coming. I cannot tell you guys how many times on the r/nuzlocke subreddit I’ve seen people posting about how they lost their Renegade Platinum Nuzlockes before even reaching Solaceon Town. And there are many good reasons for this. Namely, Renegade Platinum can be seen as less of a Pokémon game, and more of a Pokémon boss-rush that spans the entirety of the Sinnoh region, with you having to prepare and create custom teams just to be able to beat those individual bosses. All gym leaders have six Pokémon. Your rivals Dawn and Barry have genuinely good, well rounded teams. And you’ll have to fight additional boss trainers that WEREN’T in the original Pokémon Platinum. Oh, and did I mention that all of them are using relatively competitive movesets, and competitive level items on EVERY Pokémon they have. Cynthia’s entire champion team in this game, might as well have been copy-pasted directly from Pokémon Showdown.

What I’m really trying to say here, is that Renegade Platinum Nuzlockes are NO JOKE. If you’ve just started playing Nuzlockes, I would heavily avoid this game. But, if you think you’re good enough, continue reading this guide.

Now, if the above paragraph hasn’t put you off Nuzlocking this game, here’s some actual tips on how to successfully do a Nuzlocke run of this game.

1. Use resources other than this guide. Mine will not be perfect, or maybe you will just prefer someone else’s style. In which case, I highly suggest watching Ding Dong Games’s series on Renegade Platinum, it’s very informative, and helped quite a bit with my own Nuzlocke attempts at this game. Also, attached below is the Google Docs folder regarding all the important info on Renegade Platinum. Wild Encounters, Trainer Pokémon, Pokémon Changes, you name it. It is there. Use this. I couldn’t have completed my own Nuzlocke without it. https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1oaSXo2rraREJh7e0-odkCUc_N_c2PMPb

2. Many Pokémon have changed in Renegade Platinum. All Pokémon’s movesets have been updated to Ultra Sun/Moon, as well as a few custom changes to movesets and huge stat boosts for certain mons. You can also catch all Pokémon up to Generation Four in this game, including all DLC mythicals like Mew, Manaphy and Celebi.

3. In addition to stat boosts and moveset changes, nearly all Pokémon now have two abilities that is pure chance as to which one you get. Sometimes which ability you get doesn’t matter, sometimes certain Pokémon are entirely defined by which of those two abilities you get (I’m looking at you, Speed Boost Blaziken, and Huge Power Azumarill), and it can be frustrating when you lose out on great mons due to a coin-flip.

4. A lot of people I find on r/nuzlocke like to get a team of six Pokémon in a Nuzlocke, and stick with those six until one or more of them dies. You should not do this in Renegade Platinum. In fact, the game’s difficulty actively discourages you from doing so. You need to be training up Pokémon that are good and use them in battles where they’ll be needed. And on top of that, be prepared to sack them when they’re no longer useful.

These tips are more generally applicable, let us now get into the specifics of a Renegade Platinum Run.

PART TWO: THE EARLY GAME (UP TO SOLACEON TOWN)

Below are my early game tips.

1: Which starter you choose at the beginning, doesn’t really matter too much: The only things that your starter impacts are which starter Pokémon your rivals use throughout the game. You get the other Sinnoh starters for free in this game in Sandgem Town, specifically in Rowan’s Lab. For this reason, I chose Chimchar as my starter, as one, it’s got the best alternate ability (Iron Fist) of the Sinnoh starters. Two, I didn’t want to fight Infernape later in the game, as it is a very hard Pokémon to switch into.  

2: Use Eevee: You get Eevee as a gift from your mom in-game, and you can evolve it into any of its evolutions before the first gym. You might think you can evolve it into any form you like. But there is only one correct Eeveelution to use in Renegade Platinum: Umbreon. Two reasons for this. First, because Fantima is the hardest gym in the game, and you’ll have very limited access to Dark-types beforehand, let alone bulky Dark-types with access to healing. This leads into the second reason, which is a bit more important for Hardmode Nuzlockes (Nuzlockes without the use of potions/ X items in battle and using Battle Mode Set). If you want to earn extra big brain points, wait to evolve your Eevee with the Moon Stone until Level 22, where it learns Wish, a god-tier move in Hardmode Nuzlockes, and then learns Crunch as an Umbreon at 25. While some might be tempted to get a Vaporeon for better Wish passing capabilities, you’ll have no issue getting bulky Water-types in this game. In fact, this guide will highly recommend you use a certain bulky Water-type coming up.

3: Get yourself Leftovers: Once you reach Floraroma Town, you’ll get access to Honey, and the Honey Trees. Buy LOTS of Honey. At the Honey Tree at the door to the Valley Windworks, there is a 10% chance for you to encounter a Munchlax. All wild Munchlax have Leftovers equipped on them. Makes them a pain in the neck to catch.  But if you use Thief (gotten from behind the Eterna Galactic Building) or if you’re even more clever, Covet on Eevee, you can farm Leftovers: a.k.a, The greatest held item in all of Pokémon. GET SIX OF THESE. Doubly important for Hardmode players.

4: The Gym Leaders in this game are hard: But they don’t need to be. Here’s a guide on how to beat the first three gym leaders 6-0 with only 1 Pokémon. I chose Pokémon that all players are guaranteed to get, as all listed are gift Pokémon.

Roark: Marshtomp crushes Roark. One with good SpAtk IVs or Nature, with Water Pulse TM and Mud Shot taught to it, with an Expert Belt equipped, will annihilate him. Be careful of Cranidos though, chances are it’ll outspeed, and hit hard. Use other Grass or Water starters as backup.

Gardenia: In Eterna City, you’ll find the Fossil Club that give you all the Fossils. Travel all the way back to Oreburgh City to revive one of them. You might be thinking it’s Aerodactyl, and while yes, it is certainly good, there’s actually one better for the Grass gym: Anorith. Give this Anorith the following moves. Substitute (TM, Haunted Mansion), Fury Cutter, Rock Polish (TM, Mt Coronet), Aerial Ace (TM, Floraroma Town). Give it the SilverPowder. You lead Anorith against her Bellossom, and immediately Substitute. Bellossom will continually use Stun Spore. We are going to abuse this AI weakness. Once behind the Substitute, use Rock Polish to outspeed Gardenia’s entire team, and then spam Fury Cutter until it has reached its max power of 160, and sweep her entire team. Aerial Ace is there just in case you miss with Fury Cutter and need to kill something quick.

Fantima: For this one, we’ll take advantage of Drayano’s type changing of certain Pokémon. Namely, the Totodile line. You’ll need a Feraligatr, obtained as a Totodile from Floraroma Town’s Pokémon Center. Evolve it into a Feraligatr, which is now a Water/Dark-type in this game. At Level 30, it learns Agility. Keep this move. Give it Swords Dance (TM, Route 208), Aqua Tail (Level Up), and Crunch (Level Up) as well, and give it Leftovers. Regular mode Nuzlockers lead Feraligatr against Fantima, use one Agility, and two Swords Dances, and sweep her entire team (potions as well if necessary). For Hardmode, lead with a Pokémon with Yawn (I recommend Vigoroth), then double out into Feraligatr the turn it goes to sleep. Now her Drifblim is asleep, follow same procedure as above and sweep.     

5: Pickup is OP early game: Before fighting the second gym, you have likely already encountered 3 Pokémon with Pickup as their ability: Munchlax, Aipom, and Zigzagoon. If you get any of these Pokémon, these are the most valuable Pokémon you own. I’m not kidding. If you level these Pokémon up to Level 21, every battle you win, wild and trainer, with them in your party has a 10% chance for them to pick up an item. Most of the time, they’ll give you Full Heals and Potions. But there’s a 10% for that Pickup item to be an Ultra Ball, an item you cannot access until Veilstone City. Ultra Balls are going to be the only way you’re realistically gonna be able to catch static encounter Pokémon like Rotom, Beedrill, Munchlax, Tangela, Gengar and Gabite early game with any kind of consistency. Normally, all of these Pokémon have a 11.9% chance to be caught with a Poke Ball at full health, Ultra Balls make it much more likely you’ll succeed in capturing these powerful Pokémon early game. Though, I will admit this may not be possible for certain Nuzlocke runs, and by no means is it make or break. Pickup though does greatly improve the early game, which is why I included it. 

6: Catch a Feebas: Once you reach Mt Coronet for the first time, you need to Repel immediately. Then travel down to the basement floor north inside Mt Coronet, where you will find a pool of water. If you use the Old Rod in that patch of water, you have a 100% chance to catch a Feebas. This is THE ONLY PLACE in Renegade Platinum to catch the Milotic line. Not only that, the item used to evolve Feebas is down in the basement floor as well, so you can evolve it immediately. Milotic was the undisputed MVP of my successful Renegade Platinum Hardmode run. As a Water/Fairy type in Renegade Platinum, this thing is insanely tough, has a huge number of resistances, and many of its weaknesses aren’t that common in Sinnoh. This thing took on so many foes, beat so many bosses, stared down legendaries, and personally 1v1’d Cynthia’s own Milotic and Garchomp (twice) and lived to tell the tale. With access to Scald, Surf, Moonblast, Ice Beam, Recover, Hypnosis, Haze, Rain Dance and Toxic, and ridiculous bulk, this thing is way too good for any prospective Nuzlocker to pass up. 

7: Shinies are great: In Renegade Platinum, the shiny chance has been significantly reduced to 1/512, which isn’t insane, but it’s very possible to find quite a few shinies during your playthrough. I’m not going to actively argue against Shiny Hunting for extra encounters, but this game is brutal, so I won’t condemn it either.   

8: Critical hits SUCK: Generation Four is the last generation in which critical hits deal double damage. Every generation since has 1.5 increased damage crits. Critical hits are going to kill the overwhelming majority of your Pokémon in this game. If a move deals 1/3 of a Pokémon’s health, IT IS NOT SAFE. Crits happen at any time, and they’ll punish you when you least expect it. 70% of my Pokémon deaths in my successful Nuzlocke were due to crits. Bulk and Leftovers matters in this game, because they are the only things that will save you from crits. Whether you’re using potions in battle or not, you can’t use Potions if a Pokémon gets OHKO’d by a crit. Always be mindful that crits can and will happen to your Pokémon. Sometimes you will have no choice but to risk a crit, but that’s the game we play. No one ever said Renegade Platinum was easy…

9: Avoid Double Battles if you can: There will be multiple opportunities for you to have Double Battles in Renegade Platinum. Try to avoid them. This is namely due to the fact that your Pokémon are a lot less safe in Double Battles than they are in singles, as two Pokémon can focus down one. There are many scripted Double Battles in this game, and they are some of the toughest fights around. Also don’t rely on your friendly AI’s to help all that much either. They’re alright, but not fantastic. Though, when in those fights, make sure you focus on removing the Pokémon of a singular enemy player, cuz they are going to do the same to you. Nothing feels worse as a Nuzlocke player, when the opponents have killed your partner’s mons, and you’re in a 2v1 scenario with no backup.

10: Aaron is a THREAT: Remember what I said earlier about Drayano adding new boss battles that weren’t in the regular Platinum game? This is one of them. The Elite 4 Member Aaron challenges you right before entering Heartholme City. This match is HARD. To win, you’ll wanna utilise at least one of the following Pokémon: Rotom-Fan, Bastiodon, or Speed Boost Combusken. You’ll wanna fight Aaron the same way you fought Gardenia: take advantage of Aaron’s passive Dustox lead. I used Substitute/Charge Beam/Air Slash Rotom-Fan to beat him, using Sub to avoid Toxic, use Charge Beam to raise SpAtk, and sweep with Air Slash. BEWARE DRAPION. This thing is fast and has Scope Lens. Together with Night Slash and Cross Poison, with Sniper, and this thing will OHKO any Pokémon with a crit. Prepare for this fight heavily.

11: Sleep is Broken in Generation Four: Generation Four probably contains the most insanely strong sleep mechanics in the series, in that no one turn wake ups are possible. Sleep is broken in this generation and sleep moves, in particular Yawn with Protect is really good. Use it if you have Pokémon that can.

PART 3: THE MID-GAME (SOLACEON TOWN TO SNOWPOINT CITY)

1: Make good use of the Training NPC in Solaceon Town: There’s a very good reason I consider the Mid-Game Solaceon Town and beyond. Not only have you gotten lots of good Pokémon by now, gotten access to Bulk Up, Swords Dance and Calm Mind TMs, but you now have access to the single greatest NPC in all of Renegade Platinum: The Training NPC. With this NPC, you can train any Pokémon against teams of 6 Chanseys/Blisseys with Toxic Orbs and Healing Wish as their only move. This thing REVOLUTIONISES the Nuzlocke experience of this game. Now any Pokémon can be caught up level wise to your main team in a matter of minutes. What would normally take hours of risky grinding in fields to level up your Pokémon, can now be done safely and quickly with the Levelling trainer. Not only that, the Levelling trainer can also train EVs, and gives you the EV training braces, whilst someone in the Day Care sells the EV removing Berries. Essentially, you’re capable of custom EV training your Pokémon with ease. Make good use of this. I don’t advocate for full EV training your Pokémon immediately, but eventually you should, it’ll make things much easier. Unless a Pokémon actively doesn’t work with them, HP EV’s are the best generally, and then branch out into either defences, attacks, or speed.

2: Beware Barry and Dawn: They’ve finally managed to get themselves some very powerful teams together, and ones that are considerably harder to fight than Gym Leaders, as they don’t limit themselves to one type. Be very careful with these boss fights, learn their teams, and plan accordingly. You will get destroyed if you don’t. 

3: Get a Snorlax: At this point, you’ve probably found enough Honey Trees that you’ve probably obtained a Munchlax now. With access to Solaceon Town, and the happiness increasing berries, you can easily get a Snorlax. This thing is a MONSTER in Renegade Platinum. Initially it’s probably not going to be super crazy, but once you reach Pastoria City, and thus the Move Relearner and Move Tutors, this thing can relearn the new move Drayano gave it in this game: Slack Off. With Slack Off and Leftovers equipped, Snorlax becomes a nigh immortal Pokémon god of laziness that sponges most attacks not named Close Combat, Superpower and Focus Punch and will nearly punch through the entire game singlehandedly. Together with Milotic, these Pokémon can wall and outlast pretty much anything. Unfortunately, my own Snorlax did die in my successful run, but it died in Victory Road, to a series of very unfortunate events involving Focus Blast. But mark my words, this thing is one of the main keys, along with Milotic to winning this Nuzlocke.  

4. Get a Slaking: This is less important for regular players of the game, more relevant for Hardmode runs of the game, as Slaking is far stronger in the more brutal style of Nuzlockes. See, while my Snorlax was unfortunately killed before the end of the game, that gave me the chance to learn the power of another Normal type Pokémon: Slaking. If you give this thing max attack EVs and a Choice Band, this thing basically kills anything with STAB Strength/Return in one hit. Together with Milotic and Umbreon, these three Pokémon murdered the entirety of Round Two Elite 4 singlehandedly, with Battle Mode Set, no X items, and no Potions in battle (because the other three team members died to Aaron). If that’s not a resounding endorsement of those three Pokémon, I don’t know what is.

5: Beware Castle Valet Darach: Oh look, yet another tough as nails boss fight that wasn’t in the original Platinum game. This one is right before the 6^th gym, and before Barry’s fight in Canalave City, located in the Pal Park. This dude’s team is very tough to beat, since he’s rocking Pseudo-legendaries, and an Entei to boot. How I managed to beat him, was abusing the AI once again. Lead with a Ghost type with Focus Sash, use Will-o-Wisp on Gallade, and then switch in a sweeping Pokémon of your choice, I recommend Gyarados or Altaria, both with EQ. This boss is tough, prepare for it.

6: Be prepared to abuse the Duplicate Clause to get excellent encounters: The Duplicate Clause, or where you can only catch one Pokémon of that particular family for a Nuzlocke run, and running into another one allows you to get a new encounter, can be very much abused for excellent encounters. For example, Route 210 (North) has a possibility of getting three Pokémon whilst fishing: Poliwag, Horsea, and Dratini. I already had a Poliwag, and I knew that next route, I had a high chance of capturing a Horsea. So I repelled the entirety of Route 210 (North), went down to Route 219, 220, 221, caught a Horsea there, backtracked to Route 210 (North), and caught myself a Dratini guaranteed. That turned out to be a fantastic decision, as Dragonite became one of my best Pokémon.

7: Poliwrath is a GOD. I’m actually serious. Watch Ding Dong Games’s Renegade Platinum videos, and he’ll explain the power of this mon in the middle-game. It trivialises the 5^th, 6^th and 7^th gyms with the right moveset. 

8: You’re capable of obtaining quite a few Mythicals at this point: At this point in time, you’re capable of catching quite a few of the Mythicals in the game. I didn’t use any in my own playthrough, namely because I didn’t need them and I kinda wanted an additional challenge. But feel fully free to use them yourself. I’m completely down to use Legendaries, so long as they aren’t Uber tier, and have a Base Stat Total of 600 or less. The Google Doc can tell you how to get all of them.

9: You can buy Focus Sashes in Veilstone’s Gambling Corner. Use them wisely: Focus Sashes in Nuzlockes are amazing, particularly for Pokémon that are very weak defensively like Gengar and Alakazam. Highly recommend you buy a few and use them on Pokémon that need them. They’re very expensive, but you’re earning tonnes of money off of the Solaceon Town Level farmer. 

Part 4: THE LATE-GAME (SNOWPOINT TO END OF GAME)

1: Prepare for Team Galactic’s endgame: I consider Renegade Platinum’s endgame to be when you defeat the 7^th gym, and you’re forced to go into Team Galactic’s Headquarters. Honestly, they’re not too difficult. A good team will beat the grunts, A Rock/Steel type like Probopass or Bastiodon with potions or taught Rest/Sleep Talk will annihilate Cyrus’s team with Rock and Ground moves, and Saturn’s team gets bodied by Feraligatr with Brick Break, which trivialises his Screen setting Bronzong lead, and leaves it as pure set-up bait.

2: Mt Coronet’s Climax is Hard. This consists of three separate boss fights, the 12v12 double battle vs Mars and Saturn, the Dialga/Palkia double fight (added from original Platinum), and final Cyrus fight. Cyrus, I feel, is the easiest of the three, he only adds Gyarados to his team, though it is very dangerous. 12v12 fight is very difficult, I managed to suffer no casualties on that one, though be prepared to. This fight is hard, and something I can’t really help with regarding making specific teams. My advice is to focus Mars in particular, he’s got more threatening Pokémon than Jupiter. If you can remove all the Pokémon of one of them, it makes your job much easier. However, they both lead with Crobat, so get a fast Electric type to fry them both Turn 1. With Dialga and Palkia, the key is that they’re all 0IVs and EVs, which means they’ll be slow and weak. Use powerful Wallbreakers with strong super-effective STAB attacks to one shot them both before they can move. I used Medicham and Flygon to kill them both in one hit each, but feel free to use others.

3: Victory Road is Very Hard: All the trainers have heaps of strong Pokémon, as well as two boss fights with Dawn and Marley. Be very careful not to bleed too many strong Pokémon here, it’ll make the Pokémon League even harder. I lost about 2 Pokémon in my successful run, but in previous attempts I’ve lost far more. Also, feel free to backtrack to Eterna City once Dawn’s beaten to kickstart the Shaymin quest if you want it.

4: Pokémon League is SUPER HARD: Well, in Hardmode anyway. What makes Renegade Platinum’s Elite 4 and Champion so difficult to beat, is their teams are randomised between 4 separate teams they can use. So, I’ll give general tips for beating them all.

-Gyarados/Feraligatr is really good here. Water types will be hard for the Elite 4 to take on and are very capable of taking down the Elite 4 with sweeps. 

-Shuckle is good to use: it’s a good bulky Pokémon with Encore to allow other Pokémon to set-up sweep.

-Milotic is a given, it is the most powerful Pokémon you’ll own, together with Snorlax.

-Any of the Rotom forms do great in the Elite 4 as well. I recommend using Rotom-Heat.

-Flygon also does very well, since its stats got buffed to Pseudo-legendary status, and becomes a better version of Hydreigon.

-Aaron is deceptively hard to beat. Bug types are very strong offensively, and many typings that work well against Bug fold against the other Elite 4 members. Be very careful of Scizor and Drapion. Also, Armaldo is scary.

-Both Bertha and Flint make use of weather setter abilities. This is why you bring Milotic, teach it Rain Dance, and override them immediately. You’ll be very happy you did. Beware Bertha’s Arena Trap Choice Band Dugtrio and Mamoswine, as well as Flint’s Loppuny and Magmortar.

-Lucian uses Screens leads. Kill the screens lead immediately before it gets the chance. Deal with everything else later.

-Cynthia is easily the hardest of all. Depending on what her team is, you need to be careful to make sure she doesn’t shut down your whole team. Her opening Pokémon are relatively passive, so potentially try to sweep Cynthia if Spiritomb or Milotic aren’t doing anything crazy. Beware Lucario and Garchomp in particular, they’ll annihilate you in one hit, maybe two. Conserve Milotic for this fight, it’ll be very useful, particularly if you teach it Toxic right before the match to beat the mirror match.

And congratulations! You should have completed the main game of Pokémon Renegade Platinum! Feel free to play the post-game if you want and rematch the Elite 4. The Google Doc should tell you everything you need to know about the unofficial gyms, the Heatran quest, capturing the Legendaries, and preparing you for the Battle Café, and the Elite 4 rematch. Hope the guide was useful!

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Written by Reddit user u/Tempest200