This Might Be The Strangest Way To Play Pokemon Crystal
The "Pokémon" games are ones that you can play a variety of different ways. For some, they take the anime's intro song quite seriously, venturing to become "the very best" and battle with other established and distinguished Pokémon trainers that each game has to offer. Other players are collectors whose only goal is to attain as many little magical fur buddies as they possibly can. No matter what your goals are when picking up a "Pokémon" game, it's likely that its gameplay loop can accommodate them, even if their strategy is a bit odd.
Due to the game's intended target audience being younger players — and in turn, being a bit easier to play for many older players — many "Pokémon" fans will enforce their own unique rules for their playthrough. These rules can vary. Maybe you want to use only water Pokemon. Maybe you're not allowed to evolve any of your captured creatures. Maybe you take the "Nuzlocke" route and release your Pokemon when they faint, adding more stakes to your game. But one "Pokémon Crystal" player has created their own rules for their playthrough — or rather adapted them from religious doctrine. That's right; someone has invented a holier way of conquering "Pokémon Crystal," and it is by far one of the strangest ways to play the game that you've ever heard.
How do these Pokemon Crystal rules work?
While perusing through their Discord server, Twitter user @CrungleBungles noticed a bizarre post by another user challenging "Pokémon Crystal" players to use so-called "Christian rules" during their playthrough. These rules are very restricting, inconveniencing to any who adhere to them, and are all based a stereotypical relidious tropes that forbid indulging in any vices or scientific theories such as evolution. The rules include not letting their Pokemon evolve, not using any "Psychic" types of Pokemon or attacks, and avoiding science labs at all costs. The ruleset also discourages players from using "narcotics" such as Rare Candy or HP UP. A few of the rules border on offensive, but CrungleBungles seemed to be having a fun time with what they called "[the] dumbest possible rules applied to ['Pokémon Crystal']."
Even better, it appears that CrungleBungles has beaten the game within this odd framework. The Twitter user followed their original post up with a long series of tweets showing their progress until the completion of their playthrough — and they aren't the only ones to do so, either. As reported by Dexerto, six of CrungleBungles' friends — called the "Six Disciples" — also got through the game using this rule set.