Why one must always play around the critical hit

As of late, one of my hobbies has been doing hardcore nuzlocke runs of old Pokemon games. The most basic rules of a nuzlocke run are that when a Pokemon faints, you can no longer use it, and that you can only catch the first Pokemon you encounter in each route. Because of this permadeath rule, it is essential to be wary of taking damage from critical hits.

In the older Pokemon games, a critical hit meant that the opponent’s attack did twice the normal damage, regardless of any negative stat changes placed on you or positive stat changes to the opponent throughout the battle. This is scary, because due to the nature of the rules, death is permanent, and a critical hit can quickly and unexpectedly take out one of your Pokemon and mess up your plans.

Because of this, it is necessary to, when possible, play the game as if you are always expecting the opponent’s next attack to be a  critical hit, because critical hits always seem to come at the most inconvenient times. If your Pokemon would die from a critical hit, even if they wouldn’t die from a regular hit, you should decide what you’re going to do to counter this. As you do this, you are sure to have more successful nuzlocke runs.

-Richard Beazer