I'm absolutely shit at it (can't get pass route 6 after a week of trying on hard mode) and it's not that soulful, but I am enamoured with Nuzlomizer. It's a randomizer nuzlocke rom, with only the encounters randomized, but all of the randomized pokemon are fitting; only weak first stages as starters and only you only get access to the very very bad single stages (like Pachurisu) at around route 4. The opponents are also like that, though I'm pretty sure Brock is guaranteed to have at least one Ground type, Misty one Water type, and the Super Nerd at Mt. Moon one Rock type. Nearly every trainer is mandatory too, and it's interesting in the early game to debate as to whether or not you should equip your minimum amount of oran berries yet. It's also limited to just gens 1-4, which makes everything feel more deliberate (though I suspect it's also because the creator wanted following mons but was too lazy to add extras). EVs are also not gained through battling, but there are a limited (as far as I've seen) amount of vitamins you can use to boost them. The soullessness is pretty apparent in the infinite candy and level caps aspect, but I think that generally kinda works. If you're level capped to say 22, you might want to box a pokemon that has an evolution right after that cap and risk a pokemon that'll evolve much much later until you reach the appropriate boss. Evolution levels (the only method) are also changed, so things get pretty interesting. This gives it a very arcadey/roguelite feel. Not sure how I feel about instant healing after battles. Unfortunately, while the infinite candies are helpful for the fast pace intention, they can be annoying. Each trainer is generally a level above the last and since there aren't evs and your total number of pokemon is limited, that makes being right at their level an appropriate challenge in my opinon. But, that's not very consistent.
