| 1 | %%Please do not pothole or link to the GuideDangIt page. We know what trope this page is about. |
| 2 | |
| 3 | The Pokémon games have more than their fair share of {{Guide Dang It}}s. ''VideoGame/PokemonStadium2'' provided information in-game for Generations I & II that couldn't be found elsewhere in those games, providing an exclusive guide to the games... in a different game. This is [[TropesAreTools by design]] as the Link Cable inspired an idea of people working to share and figure out the mysteries of the world together, fostering a sense of community in lieu of a purely single-player experience. Ever since the days of [[MemeticMutation looking for Mew under the truck]], the very legacy of these games was built off playground rumors, with kids cooperating to find out what works and what doesn't. |
| 4 | |
| 5 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 6 | |
| 7 | [[folder:Obtaining Pokémon]] |
| 8 | !!!Generation I |
| 9 | [[AC:''Red, Blue'' and ''Yellow'']] |
| 10 | * Mew. This is a unique example, as ''only one person on the development team was even aware the monster was put into the game at all'' until weeks after the game hit stores. Also, it was rumors of its existence, plus the GoodBadBugs (which bordered on UrbanLegendOfZelda in terms of execution) that allowed players to get Mew, that actually helped the first Pokémon games quickly go from a poorly-selling JRPG to one of the biggest pop culture phenomenons of the late 1990s. (The only legitimate way to get Mew was through special events, but Mewtwo, a normal legendary made available after beating the main storyline, implied there had to be a "mew one.") Of course, it also paved the way for the rest of these Guide Dang Its... |
| 11 | * In ''Yellow'', Psyduck/Golduck is only obtainable by surfing on an early game route you normally wouldn't revisit. In addition, the player never comes across a Trainer using a Psyduck, and Golduck is only used by one optional Trainer all the way in Victory Road. As a result, the player may lack the Pokédex info to know about Psyduck/Golduck's game location until possibly very late in the game. |
| 12 | * There's a few catchable Pokémon that will come up as "Not Available" in the Pokédex due to being either found only via fishing or in [[BonusDungeon Cerulean Cave]] (for whatever reason) - the most obvious example of this is Horsea/Seadra. |
| 13 | |
| 14 | !!!Generation II |
| 15 | [[AC:''Gold, Silver'' and ''Crystal'']] |
| 16 | * Many Johto Pokémon are a pain to find in their debut appearance due to being sidelined for the Kanto ones instead. Overall, they are rarely used by Trainers, have very low encounter rates, and have a tendency to flee from battles; compounded by the fact that some of them can only be found by methods not recorded in the Pokédex, while some others are simply found in obscure or end-game locations. |
| 17 | * Some Pokémon such as Dunsparce, Yanma, and Chansey only have a 1% encounter rate in one part of the game and no Trainers in game use them, meaning the player can't find their location through Pokédex information. The closest thing you get to a hint for Chansey is the in-game trade for Aerodactyl where a woman searching the grass of a Kanto Route that Chansey's catchable on is willing to trade for it. However, it's pretty easy to not put it together that the game is hinting that she's been stuck searching for wild Chansey on the Route. In addition, some Trainers added to the Pokégear may occasionally inform the player of the existence of these Pokémon (with a temporary raise in encounter rate) but without these calls from the Trainers, the player may not be aware of their existence save for some missing Pokédex entries. The phone call to increase Dunsparce's encounter rate is particularly odd as compared to the calls for Qwilfish, Yanma, and Remoraid being on the routes that they're found on, the call for Dunsparce is nowhere near its Dark Cave spawn location. |
| 18 | * Not quite as bad but still a chore to locate are Pokémon such as Smeargle, Misdreavus, and Skarmory, which all have encounter rates 10% or lower, only appear in out-of-the-way locations, aren't used by Trainers, and may sometimes only appear at certain times of the day. |
| 19 | * Some people may not know that it's actually possible to catch Ho-Oh in ''Pokémon Crystal''. To do so, the player needs to capture the three Legendary Beasts, Suicune, Raikou, and Entei in order to open the entrance to the upper floors of the Tin Tower where Ho-oh resides. While Suicune can be easily obtained in the bottom floor of the Tin Tower, the player needs to track down Raikou and Entei as they roam across Johto and capture both of them, though the player may not be aware that they are capturable until they appear in battle. The player isn't told beforehand that catching the three Legendary Beasts will cause Ho-Oh to appear. It just sort of gets told to the player the moment they capture all of the Legendary Beasts. |
| 20 | * Lugia is nowhere near as bad as Ho-Oh in ''Pokémon Crystal'', but it can still be something easily glossed over as it requires the player to randomly talk to a seemingly unimportant NPC deep into the Kanto post-game. An old man that's just hanging out to the right of Pewter City's Pokémart will provide the player the Silver Wing to get Lugia to appear in the Whirl Islands. |
| 21 | * Certain Pokémon like Heracross and Pineco can only be found by headbutting trees....but they have to be very specific trees which look exactly like every other tree, dozens of which appear all over the place. And that's far from the worst part. Which trees are considered "special" changes depending on your Trainer ID and there's literally no way to figure this out in game. You'll either have to methodically check every tree you come across, or need some online help for this one. |
| 22 | * Similar to Gen I, Pokémon that only appear from fishing don't appear in the Pokédex. Thus, it might take a while to find all the Pokémon that can only be found through fishing. Corsola and Staryu have the added annoyance of only appearing during certain times of the day; Corsola being morning and day while Staryu can only be fished up during the night. |
| 23 | * Lapras has no encounter location, but is instead a single Pokémon that can only be found on a specific day. The location that a single Lapras will appear is on Fridays swimming around a pond within the deepest section of Union Cave, which the ladder entrance to this area is very easy to miss as it's tucked away in the bottom left corner of Union Cave's top floor beyond a patch of water that you need Surf for. The hint you're given about Lapras appearing is also very easy to miss as it's one of the rare times where talking to a Trainer after battle will provide helpful information. If you talk to the Pokémaniac on the first floor after defeating him, he will mention that roars can be heard from deep within the cave every Friday. |
| 24 | * ''Pokémon Crystal'' made it possible to catch some late-game Johto Pokémon on earlier routes by moving Phanpy to Route 46 and Teddiursa to the Violet City side of Dark Cave. However, it is very easy to never realize that this change exists. Not only are these areas completely skippable, you would have to be ''really'' lucky to stumble across this as they only have a 5% chance of appearing, and they're limited to just showing up in the morning. Plus, no trainers early on use Phanpy and Teddiursa to know about their new early route ''Crystal'' locations. If that wasn't already tough enough, they both have an egregious '''50%''' chance of running away, which is supposed to mean that they need to be caught using the Fast Ball. However, given that the Fast Ball is broken this generation, you basically have to chuck regular balls at them hoping that you win the coin flip to get another try. |
| 25 | |
| 26 | !!!Generation III |
| 27 | [[AC:''Ruby, Sapphire'' and ''Emerald'']] |
| 28 | * Feebas can only be caught by fishing on 6 unmarked water tiles (out of 436 total) on Route 119. They're randomized for every player, so you can't just look up their locations. Nothing in the game hints at this--all other Pokémon appear in any tile on the route specified in the Pokédex. Inexplicably, the tiles re-randomize whenever you give a new catchphrase to a man in Dewford Town, a location NOWHERE NEAR the route Feebas appears on; knowing this is of little use, however, since setting a specific catchphrase will not put the tiles in specific locations. Even if you're on one of the special tiles, you only have a 50% chance of reeling in a Feebas, so there's a good chance of missing it unless you fish in each tile two or three times. The Generation VI remakes removed this completely, as Feebas can now be found on any tile with any of the fishing rods. But it also comes with its own difficulty, as written below in the Gen IV entry. |
| 29 | * The three legendary golems. Each golem occupies its own inconspicuous cave; these caves are scattered throughout Hoenn. However, to even get into the caves, they need to be unlocked by using Dive in a ''tiny'' patch of deep water on a route at the end of some very fast currents; simply getting to the spot is a result of either trial and error or pure chance. Once you Dive and get into the cavern, you'll need to [[ReadTheFreakingManual open the instruction manual]] to translate some visual Braille puzzles, of which completing will cause all of the caves to open. Then you have to FIND the now-open caves, two of which are in places you can mostly ignore for the entire game, and complete an additional Braille puzzle for each to encounter each golem. |
| 30 | * Bagon in Generation III, especially in ''Ruby and Sapphire''. It is found in the deepest room in Meteor Falls, an area of the game you most likely forgot about after going through it (unless you're playing Emerald in which case you return there to fight Steven.) Oh, and don't forget to bring a Pokémon with Surf and Waterfall, since they are both needed to progress to the other parts of the area. By the way, this new section of Meteor Falls has Trainers in it before you can even reach the room. You can find a Dragon Fang in the small, mostly water-filled room where Bagon is, but other than that, there is no other indications that there is anything special in this room. Bagon has a 25% chance of appearing on the ground section of this area with the added possibility of encountering one beyond Level 30 (the level in which it evolves to Shelgon), but it is well worth it since Bagon evolves into the pseudo-legendary Salamence. |
| 31 | * So there's a hole in your Hoenn Dex at No. 151. Turns out it is Chimecho. Chimecho isn't used by any Trainers in ''Ruby and Sapphire'', so you can't see its habitat in your Pokédex. It can only be encountered in one place, the top of Mt. Pyre, which the player will probably only visit when they need to progress the story. And even when the player is in the area, the grass is out of the way. And even if the player goes to the grass, the chance of encountering a Chimecho is only 2%. So you've got a very rare non-legendary who no one in the game uses or seems to know about hiding in a very out-of-the-way area with no hints that it's there. And it's only good for completion purposes, as its stats are horrendous. |
| 32 | * Another such Pokémon is Snorunt. In a similar vein to Chimecho, no Trainer in-game uses one and it's only rarely found in the out-of-the-way Shoal Cave, in a specific room that only opens up during certain times that correlate to low tide. To make matters worse, if the internal battery of your Game Boy Advance has run dry[[note]]Clock-based events will no longer occur.[[/note]], and it occurred during a period of high tide, Snorunt essentially becomes PermanentlyMissableContent, rendering you unable to see it in your Pokédex unless you trade. |
| 33 | * It's very easy to miss that Jigglypuff exists in Hoenn. This is due to its only location being in the grass of Route 115, which is not only a completely optional route that the player doesn't have to travel through, but the only grass on the route is at an out-of-the-way area that can only be accessed by surfing up from the west beach to what's basically a hidden area northwest of Route 115's Meteor Falls entrance. The kicker is that there's no trainers in the game that use a Jigglypuff, which means that you'll be lacking the Pokédex info to know that Jigglypuff's catchable somewhere on Route 115. The ''Omega Ruby'' and ''Alpha Sapphire'' remakes are only slightly better in this regard in that there's a new Fairy Tale Girl trainer added to Mt. Pyre who uses a Jigglypuff, which provides an opportunity to get the Pokédex info. |
| 34 | |
| 35 | !!!Generation IV |
| 36 | [[AC:''Diamond'', ''Pearl'' and ''Platinum'']] |
| 37 | * See Feebas' entry in Generation III above? Generation IV is much harder in this regard - [[ThatOneSidequest the amount of tiles has been reduced from six to four, Feebas's appearance rate on the tile is lower, and unlike in Hoenn, the tiles change automatically each day.]] |
| 38 | * [[Mystical108 Spiritomb]]. The part about putting the Odd Keystone into the Ruined Tower is intuitive enough, as examining the latter suggests that something could be put in there and hints at what it is, but the other requirement involves interacting with other players in the Underground at least 32 times. There is one Trainer on a nearby route who gives you a hint when you talk to him after beating him, though. The person who gives you your first Odd Keystone does give you some hints on what to do with it... Although he's fairly vague, and ''nowhere'' does the game specify exactly how many people you're supposed to talk to while in the Underground. ''Brilliant Diamond'' and ''Shining Pearl'' combines this with LastLousyPoint by changing the requirement to 32 ''[=NPCs=]'' scattered all across the Grand Underground. |
| 39 | * Catching a Gible. Pokédex says it's in Wayward Cave, the cave accessed by cutting down some trees by the Bicycle Path and wandering past the grass there? After a couple hours of wandering (and helping Mira out), you'll probably figure out that there's no Gible there. Now go look for an alternate entrance to the cave, one which ''[[BehindTheBlack is blocked from view by the Bicycle Path running above you]]''. You need a Pokémon with Strength and Flash to reach the basement where Gible can be found. ''Platinum'' doesn't have the boulder, however, allowing the player to catch Gible (''and'' get the TM for Earthquake) much earlier than before. |
| 40 | * After acquiring the Poké Radar in Generations IV and VI, you can find coveted [[PaletteSwap shiny Pokémon]] by using the latter. The actual method, called "chaining", would take at least ten pages or so to explain, so here's the simple version: if you KO or catch a Pokémon in a Radar encounter, the Radar will continue to trigger Pokémon; by traveling to the correct patch of shaking grass [[note]]identifying this is what takes ten pages[[/note]] without any extra encounters, you can find that species again, and the Radar will continue to trigger encounters with the same species of Pokémon this way (making this also a useful trick for Effort Value training, which requires headhunting certain species of Pokémon). None of this is mentioned beyond "sometimes if you use the Poke Radar, differently-colored Pokémon appear". Even then you can still be screwed by the RNG. |
| 41 | * Munchlax, the baby Snorlax, and the only means of getting Snorlax in ''[=DPPt=]'' without trading. It can only be found in [[ScrappyMechanic Honey Trees]], which involves slathering honey on trees, waiting at least 6 hours for a Pokémon to appear (and not more than 24 hours, or the Pokémon will disappear) and then checking the tree, but Munchlax only appears in 4 of the 21 Honey trees and even then, only has a ''1%'' chance of appearing. The Honey trees are spread across the region and are different for each player. Since the game gives you no hints about which Honey trees contain Munchlax until you encounter one, it becomes a long grind to travel to all of the Honey trees, check which Pokémon will appear, and re-apply Honey. To make matters worse, re-applying honey to a tree after encountering a different Pokémon results in a 90% chance to select a Pokémon from that same group, now making a Munchlax encounter a '''0.1%''' chance. Because the process can take ''months'', it's typically faster to transfer/trade in a Snorlax from ''[=FRLG=]''/''[=HGSS=]'' and breed it with a Full Incense to produce Munchlax. Fortunately, ''Brilliant Diamond'' and ''Shining Pearl'' make things much easier with the Grand Underground, where you can encounter Munchlax as an overworld encounter. |
| 42 | * Dialga and Palkia in ''Platinum''. First, you must find the Adamant and Lustrous Orbs, located in an out-of-the-way cavern in Mt. Coronet that is unlikely to be discovered by most players. Then, you must travel to the Spear Pillar. Players of ''Diamond'' and ''Pearl'' know that there is no post-story reason to return to the Spear Pillar, except to play the Azure Flute which is unobtainable without cheating. Sure, people might want to go to the Spear Pillar just to see if the portal to the Distortion World is still there, but it's not likely that they'd find the orbs first. Cynthia's grandmother does hint that the orbs can summon their respective dragons, at least, but that still doesn't tell you where the orbs are. |
| 43 | * During the era of the Nintendo DS, there's the dual-slot mechanic, which makes it possible to catch some additional Pokémon in ''Diamond'', ''Pearl'' and ''Platinum'' around the Sinnoh region depending on what Gen III Pokémon game is in the DS' Game Boy Advance slot. However, there's nothing in-game to inform you of what these dual-slot Pokémon are, and where they will appear. One example is that any Gen III Pokémon game in the slot makes it possible to catch wild Gengar in the Old Chateau. However, not only does nothing in the game inform you of this, you have to be standing in the one specific Old Chateau room that has the wall portrait with glowing eyes, and they're rare to appear (4% in ''Diamond'' and ''Pearl'', 8% in ''Platinum''). |
| 44 | |
| 45 | [[AC:''[=HeartGold=]'' and ''[=SoulSilver=]'']] |
| 46 | * There is a Guide Dang It with the Johto Safari Zone itself. When the Warden tells you about objects, he doesn't really mention that you simply have to press "A" in the Safari Zone to place the objects. Thankfully, it's a mild example, but easy to miss if you didn't already know. |
| 47 | * A few Pokémon of the third and fourth generations can be found hiding in trees. Now, there are a handful of specimens that are found in very specific trees (and every single tree in the game can be headbutted, so we're talking about thousands of trees). One example: Taillow is found at Cherrygrove, the first city you visit in the game, after a pool of water and over a pile of rocks that can be only climbed after you beat all the 16 Gyms. There are four trees, and you need to headbutt the lower left tree. Even then you can still fight other Pokémon or yield nothing at all even after dozens of tries. |
| 48 | * Tracking down Suicune can be this if you didn't bother with it outside of Mt. Mortar (the one place where you need Cut to enter) ''after'' reaching Vermilion City. In ''Crystal'', the only obligatory Suicune encounter is to the north of Cianwood City before it moves to the Tin/Bell Tower after you obtain Clear Bell following the dissolution of Team Rocket. Here, it is compulsory to encounter it outside of Mt. Mortar so that it will appear just when you leave the Vermilion Harbor, leading to another chase sequence around Kanto before it finally resides on top of the hill at the end of Route 25. |
| 49 | * To get a Rayquaza in Gen IV without transfer, it is necessary to bring Groudon and Kyogre. That's easy enough to guess. The unexpected part is that you cannot use Groudon and Kyogre transferred from Gen III games. One of them has to be your own, caught in ''[=HeartGold/SoulSilver=]'', and the other has to be the one someone else caught also in ''[=SoulSilver/HeartGold=]'', and traded to you. And the games don't tell you this. So it's not uncommon for people to ask in online forums why their own Groudon/Kyogre transferred from the previous generation does not work. This also means Rayquaza can become [[PermanentlyMissableContent unobtainable]] if you traded away your Groudon/Kyogre to random person via GTS before knowing this. |
| 50 | |
| 51 | !!!Generation V |
| 52 | [[AC:''Black'' and ''White'']] |
| 53 | * In order to encounter Landorus you need both Tornadus and Thundurus in your party. However, make sure not to forget to bring your own Tornadus/Thundurus, because if the one available on the game you want to catch Landorus on is not yours, then you won't be able to get Landorus. Nowhere is this mentioned, and it can render Landorus [[PermanentlyMissableContent unobtainable]]. And this is an even worse case than the Rayquaza mentioned above, as with Rayquaza you at least can still get its entry by transferring from Gen III, if you can transfer. You absolutely cannot do that with Landorus, as it is a Pokémon debuting in Gen V. |
| 54 | * Getting Larvesta, which can only be obtained by either breeding a Volcarona (single one per game, in an area you'll have to visit at least twice for plot, so not as bad) or getting an egg from a Trainer at the far end of an otherwise optional, dead-end route. No Trainers use it in battle, and it's part of the Regional dex. Fortunately unlike in Gen IV, the National Dex is opened by beating the Champion instead. In sequels at least, Volcarona is treated like stationary legends - if not caught, it respawns upon Hall of Fame. |
| 55 | * If you're playing ''White'', the first one, and you don't personally know anybody else to trade with, you're going to have a lot of trouble registering Vullaby and Mandibuzz in your dex. This evolutionary line is exclusive to ''Black'' and ''Black 2'', and there are no in-game encounters with either of them to register them as "seen" in the Pokédex. Since at that point, you were only allowed to trade for seen Pokémon over the GTS, your only options were to get lucky over GTS Negotiations or schedule a meeting online with someone willing to trade for you (both of which cannot be done anymore as Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection has been discontinued). ''Black'' has it easier because Cynthia has Braviary on her team, allowing you to request for that over the GTS, and ''Black and White 2'' allow you to see both evolutionary lines in both games. |
| 56 | |
| 57 | [[AC:''Black 2'' and ''White 2'']] |
| 58 | * You can get Regirock after deciphering an odd but fairly easy puzzle. You may think that you need to solve a puzzle of similar means to find the other two, but no. Registeel is in ''Black 2'' and Regice is in ''White 2''. You need to go to the title screen to your Unova Link settings, manually change the location of the Rock Chamber to either the Ice Chamber or Steel Chamber, and then go capture the mon. Then, you need to trade over the correct key using the Unova Link settings and two DS systems to get the other mon you don't have. MUCH easier than all that malarkey in Gen III, but nothing in the game mentions anything about Unova Link, besides the whole flashback thing. |
| 59 | * Uxie, Mesprit and Azelf. When you enter the Cave of Being after beating the game (which itself is difficult to find, considering one has to surf along an early-game river to reach an off beaten path, much like Sinnoh's Fuego Ironworks), the three Pokémon will fly off so you can catch them. The problem is, you have no idea where they are, and they turn invisible until you reveal them. Bianca will show up at your house to hint at their locations (and even straight up tell you Azelf is on Route 23; surprisingly nice of her if you consider the other examples on this page), and they only reveal themselves after you stand in ONE very specific spot in the entire overworld. They will not be there prior to your arrival like other legendaries. The most frustrating of these to find is Azelf, who appears in a completely random spot on Route 23; at least Uxie and Mesprit appear in front of the Nacrene museum and in front of the stairs on Celestial Tower's roof respectively, so if you try to access either location you'll run into them eventually (although guessing they're waiting invisibly for you to find them there is still a long stretch). Bianca (who happens to be visiting your house after triggering the event) clues about where to find the Pokémon are a little roundabout though, such as talking about them being near what they embody (Azelf is Willpower, so near Victory Road, Uxie is Knowledge so Nacrene museum, and Mesprit is Emotion, so the Celestial Tower roof). However, knowing that Bianca tells you these things is a Guide Dang It in itself (or if you happen to speak to her after rematching the Elite Four). |
| 60 | * Getting the rare Pokémon that only appear within the Hidden Grottos can be very annoying and time consuming. You're not provided any info to go on as to what rares appear within specific Grottos, and the chances of them appearing are astronomical as it relies on a 5% chance of refreshing the Grotto every 256 steps, and whatever percentage chance it takes for the rare Pokémon to appear within the Grotto compared to all the other Pokémon and items that can pop up within the Grottos. In addition, if you're not interested in obtaining Pokémon that have their Hidden Ability, only 7 out of the 20 Hidden Grottos in the game actually matter when it comes to searching for rare Pokémon as the other 13 will always just contain Pokémon you can catch elsewhere. Other than most being post-game, it's not all that obvious that the only Grottos that actually matter are Route 2 (Nidoran♂, Nidoran♀, and Granbull), both from Route 3 (Manectric, Pachirisu, Venonat, Lombre, and Bibarel), Route 18 (Chatot), both from Pinwheel Forest (Hariyama, Medicham, Bagon, Butterfree (''White 2''), Beedrill (''Black 2''), Murkrow, and Breloom) and Lostlorn Forest (Pinsir or Heracross, which are exclusive to ''White 2'' and ''Black 2'' respectively outside this Grotto). |
| 61 | ** The hardest one to get straight out is the Pinsir/Heracross version exclusive within the Lostlorn Forest Hidden Grotto as on top of the mentioned 5% chance movement reset, it's only a '''0.75%''' chance for the object in said Grotto to appear as the needed Pinsir or Heracross. |
| 62 | ** Some are only marginally better where it's only a 1% chance for Granbull, Lombre, and Murkrow to appear as the refreshed object within their respective Hidden Grottos. And Hariyama/Medicham are an odd variant of version exclusives where the chance they appear will be at 15% in one game, but only at 1% in the other. |
| 63 | |
| 64 | !!!Generation VI |
| 65 | [[AC:''X'' and ''Y'']] |
| 66 | * The Kalos regional Dex is ''massive'', containing a whopping 454 Pokémon. What this means is that nearly every route has at least one rare Pokémon that only shows up there. This is slightly alleviated with the trainers in Battle Chateau who use rare Pokémon so at least you get their dex entries to know where they are located in the game. |
| 67 | * There are also some Pokémon that are only available via the new Horde Encounters. Some of these can reasonably be worked out, as they evolve into other Pokémon you can find on the area, like Bellsprout on Route 14 (or you could just breed their evolution). Others, not as much -- and Arceus help you if it's one of the aforementioned Pokémon that only show up on one route on top of that. |
| 68 | ** One noteworthy Horde Encounter is the Seviper and Zangoose variant as it's the only way for the player to catch the version-exclusive Pokémon from the other game. Depending on whether the player has ''X'' or ''Y'', four will appear of the one that's exclusive to the player's current game while the fifth Pokémon will end up being the version-exclusive from the second game. The catch is that given the Seviper vs. Zangoose rivalry in the lore, the four Pokémon will gang up on the one, so it's literally impossible to defeat all four one-by-one in an attempt to save the one Pokémon that's getting ganged up on before it faints. The method to save the one getting ganged up on is to use a multi-target attack that can hit all four of the attackers at once, but even then, said multi-target attack has to still be weak enough to not knock out the Seviper or Zangoose that's being ganged up on. |
| 69 | * Rotom can be found in garbage bins at the Lost Hotel, but only on Tuesdays. Rotom cannot be "seen" in the Kalos Pokédex without catching one (meaning you can't consult the in-game Pokédex as to where they are), and there is no guarantee that any of the garbage bins would contain Rotom. While some of the garbage bins wiggle, hinting that you should check them, the ones that stay still may have Rotom in them too. On all other days of the week, they contain Garbodor. |
| 70 | ** A similar case happens with Banette, which can only be found on Thursdays in the garbage bins of Pokémon Village. Like Rotom, Banette can't be "seen" in the Kalos Pokédex to know about their location. |
| 71 | |
| 72 | [[AC:''Omega Ruby'' and ''Alpha Sapphire'']] |
| 73 | * There's a locked room in the Sea Mauville that tells you you're being watched when you enter, and reading through some files mentions the Odd Keystone (an item related to Spiritomb). You can encounter a Spiritomb by opening and closing your bag after reading the document about the Old Keystone, but the game never gives a hint about taking that course of action. |
| 74 | * If you thought that the legendary golems were hard enough to find, ''Omega Ruby'' and ''Alpha Sapphire'' bring the trump card with Regigigas. After you get all three Regis, you need to go back to the Island Cave (the cave on Route 105 where you caught Regice) during daytime, nickname the Regice and have it hold an icy item (eg. Castelia Cone or Never-Melt Ice). ''Then'' you can battle Regigigas. Oh, and they have to be golems you caught ''in that game.'' No fair cheating bringing in transferred or Mystery Gift Regis. |
| 75 | * Finding most of the legendary Pokémon originating from the Johto, Sinnoh and Unova games requires fulfilling certain conditions that are never specified. Some require you to Soar around with a specific Pokémon in your party before their Mirage Spot appears. Some of these are logical, like needing both Reshiram and Zekrom to find Kyurem. On the other hand, finding Tornadus or Thundurus requires you to Soar around with a ''Castform'' in your party. Yes, it's related to weather, but it only makes sense in retrospect, and it's unlikely you'll just have it in your party anyways. Some require you to have one or three Pokémon with certain qualities to find- you'll probably find Uxie, Azelf, and Mesprit without even knowing what triggered it (have three Pokémon with maximum Happiness in your party) and Cobalion, Terrakion, and Virizion will likely be the same (have three Pokémon with maximum Effort Values in your party), but finding Reshiram or Zekrom (have a level 100 Pokémon in your party) probably won't happen by accident. |
| 76 | ** And then there's the thing with the encounter itself, particularly in the case of the trios. Each trio have their own Mirage Spot, with each member sharing the same Mirage Spot [[note]](as in, Raikou, Entei, and Suicune all can be found in Trackless Forest, while Cobalion, Terrakion, and Virizion all can be found in Pathless Plain, and Mesprit, Uxie, and Azelf all can be found in Nameless Cavern[[/note]], but the thing is, each trio member rotates their appearance, and nothing in the game tells you this, not to mention this is the only instance ''in the entire series'' where a trio of stationary legendaries in one same location naturally rotates their appearance, so someone who finally discover the island, encounter one member of the trio, and reload save to bring a Synchronizer or catcher Pokémon, may gets freaked out when another member of the trio shows up instead, just because he/she comes into the Mirage Spot island again after it already rolled into the next rotation. And oh, each of the trio has ''different'' rotation method, which is naturally, also not mentioned in the game. |
| 77 | ** For Raikou, Entei, and Suicune, which one shows up is determined by the current time, separated by 20 minutes each in every one hour. |
| 78 | ** For Cobalion, Terrakion, and Virizion, which one shows up depends on what day is it - Cobalion on Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday, Terrakion on Tuesday and Saturday, Virizion on Monday and Thursday. |
| 79 | ** For Mesprit, Uxie, and Azelf, which one shows up is also determined by the current time, but separated by certain hours within one day. The kicker here, is that they are '''not''' equal separation at all. Mesprit appears from 4:00 AM to 7:59 PM, Uxie from 8:00 PM to 8:59 PM, and Azelf from 9:00 PM to 3:59 AM. |
| 80 | |
| 81 | !!!Generation VII |
| 82 | [[AC:''Sun'' and ''Moon'']] |
| 83 | * A new kind of wild battle introduced in ''Sun'' and ''Moon'' is the SOS battle. This is where a wild Pokémon may call for an ally to aid it battle against your Pokémon. Usually it'll call another of its kind (either the same form or an evolved relative), but a few Pokémon will call in a different species. Sometimes it'll be a Pokémon that can only be encountered in this fashion. For example, if you want to catch a Sableye, you'll need to get into a battle with a Carbink and wait for it to call in one. |
| 84 | * Of particular mention are 'Weather SOS' encounter tables - in certain regions of the Alolan Islands like the Lush Jungle, for example, the kinds of Pokémon that can be summoned by wild encounters will change when it's raining (or hailing, or sandstorming, or so on). This is the only way to encounter certain Pokémon, like Goomy. Out of all of them, one that's the most aggravating to find is Castform. It can be found in all kinds of weather, but it only shows up ''1 percent'' of the time [[note]]unless you caused a different weather effect in an area where it doesn't usually occur, like a Sandstorm in Lush Jungle.[[/note]]. |
| 85 | * Getting [[CollectionSidequest all 100 Zygarde Cells and Cores]] to get a Zygarde with Power Construct is [[ThatOneSidequest so convoluted]] that it [[https://www.reddit.com/r/pokemon/comments/5fha3h/an_annoying_little_bug_that_disregards_the/ generated several]] [[https://www.reddit.com/r/pokemon/comments/5f4dpc/spoilers_99100_zygarde_cells_lake_of_the/ reports that]] [[http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/187276-pokemon-sun/74600542 a glitch]] [[https://www.tapatalk.com/topic/27398-gbatemp-net/450025-last-pok%C3%A9mon-sm-zygarde-cell could render]] [[https://gbatemp.net/threads/pokemon-sun-and-moon-99-zygarde-cell-bug.449765/ the quest]] UnintentionallyUnwinnable; it's hard to tell whether or not this glitch actually exists or if it's the product of a player not realizing that he or she didn't pick up an easy Cell elsewhere. Getting the Cores is easy once you know where they are - there are only five of them, and they appear in your house and the homes of the Kahunas - but collecting the 95 Cells is a different story. There's no in-game indication of how many Cells are left on an island or where they are, meaning you have to visit ''every single location '''listed in walkthroughs'''''[[note]]and you can easily overlook areas[[/note]], and some only appear at a certain time of day, meaning you have to scour all four islands and Aether Paradise twice. |
| 86 | * A large number of fishing-exclusive Pokémon in ''Sun and Moon'' (that is, most aside from [[ComMons Magikarp and Wishiwashi]]) have ridiculously low encounter rates... with one exception. Exactly one fishing spot on the entire route will bubble, and fishing while the spot is bubbling will increase your chance of encountering the rare Pokémon. So what is the condition for bubbling? Well, it bubbles by default, but as soon as you successfully fish anything from the spot, the bubbles will disappear and the fishing hole will act identically to any other. You can also move too quickly past the fishing hole to accomplish the same effect. The only way to reset the bubbles is to leave the area and come back (quick for Seafolk village, rather long for Brooklet Hill) or reset the game itself. And on top of that, knowing which rare encounter is present in which route is dependent on finding a trainer who uses the Pokémon in the first place and consulting the Pokédex. |
| 87 | * Mareanie is a pretty annoying Pokémon to catch. It's found in two routes in the game and only by fishing, which by itself, isn't too bad. The issue comes in that you can't directly fish a Mareanie; you first have to fish a Corsola, which has a 5% encounter rate. From there, the player then has to hope that it will call upon a Mareanie through the SOS mechanic, which has a 1% or 5% chance of occurring depending on which location you're fishing.[[note]]If you got your Corsola from a bubbling spot, then that chance increases to 20%. But that still leaves your overall encounter rate at 1%.[[/note]] Yes, it's a great example of deliberate GameplayAndStoryIntegration[[note]]-- the game establishes at many points that Mareanie hunt Corsola, so it makes sense that it would come if it hears one crying in panic --[[/note]], but it's still time-consuming and can take a few hours to accomplish. |
| 88 | * Surfing encounters are even worse as there is no way to increase the rare encounter rates at all unlike the bubbles on fishing spots, not helped by the reduced encounter rate while surfing. For example, Lapras is so scarce that it is easier to get one from Poké Pelago than running around the Poni Coast, which says something considering Poké Pelago is not even the easiest way to get a specific Pokémon. So most players just transfer a Lapras from previous games instead. |
| 89 | * After completing ''Sun'' and ''Moon'', some players may notice that there's an empty slot in the Rotom Pokédex (#165) between Marowak and Magby. That's because this unknown Pokémon happens to be Kangaskhan, who has a rare 1% encounter rate, or has to be called upon by Cubone through the SOS Battle mechanic, at Wela Volcano Park. Players can easily pass over this due to the rarity of getting Kangaskhan to appear, and no trainer before the postgame is ever battled against who owns a Kangaskhan for the player to learn about its Wela Volcano Park location [[labelnote:Explanation]]The only trainer with a Kangaskhan in the game is the Developer himself, [=GameFREAK's=] own Morimoto[[/labelnote]]. The closest hint the game provides is that because Kangaskhan is sandwiched between Marowak and Magby in the Rotom dex, an educated guess can be made that the missing Pokémon will most likely appear along with Cubone and Magby at Wela Volcano Park. This was addressed for ''Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon'', as a new Preschooler trainer on Route 7 (the area right after Wela Volcano Park) battles with a Kangaskhan. |
| 90 | * Despite being Trade Evolution Pokémon, it's possible in ''Sun'' and ''Moon'' to catch Gengar and Politoed in the wild. Unfortunately, both are extremely rare encounters that only have a 1% chance of appearing through the SOS Battle mechanic. |
| 91 | ** Compared to Gengar, Politoed is even worse, because the Pokémon will only appear during the night ''while'' it's raining. If that wasn't bad enough, the only area that the player can find Politoed, the 3rd island's Malie Garden, doesn't even have natural rain pouring down. The player has to constantly use Rain Dance or the Drizzle ability to keep the rain going while trying to initiate SOS Battles to get Politoed to appear in the rain. The feeling of wasting a SOS Battle appearance during that one turn where it happens to not be raining due to the Rain Dance / Drizzle effect wearing off will always be there. |
| 92 | ** ''Ultra Sun'' and ''Ultra Moon'' decided to add even ''more'' Trade Evolution Pokémon that can only be found through the SOS battle mechanic with Slowking, Huntail and Gorebyss. Like before, they all have the 1% encounter rates, and Huntail and Gorebyss can only be found during the night and day respectively. |
| 93 | * The SOS Battle mechanic allows you to obtain a ''Salamence'' on ''route 3'' at ''level 10''. However, it is also a 1% encounter rate when called in by a Bagon... Which is a 1% encounter rate itself. |
| 94 | * Obtaining Porygon may look simple at first glance since you just need to speak to an NPC within Route 15's Aether House, and they provide you the Pokémon. Unfortunately, it's only possible to initiate the NPC conversation of obtaining Porygon ''after'' the player has become the Alola Champion. As a result, this can be easily forgotten about after the player finishes the game. ''Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon'' makes you wait even further by having to complete the "Episode RR" post-game content first. |
| 95 | * Catching Larvesta in the Lush Jungle can be a bit of a challenge in ''Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon''. It may seem like common sense at first to check the jungle's tall grass, but in actuality, the only area Larvesta appears at is within the small cave area after the Strength boulder, which means that you can't actually get Larvesta until you receive "Machamp Shove" from Hapu's grandmother on the 4th island. For added difficulty, Larvesta only has a rare 1% encounter rate with no additional methods to make that percentage go up any higher; meaning that you could be spending up to an hour-plus until one finally appears amongst all the Golbats, Salandits and Dugtrios. |
| 96 | * When using the Ultra Warp Ride to try to find legendaries in ''Ultra Sun'' and ''Ultra Moon'', getting the warp hole for Guzzlord is easily the most difficult. The white-colored warp holes for the Ultra Beast encounters are already rare to come across during the Ultra Warp Ride, but to get to Guzzlord's world, you need to hope that the white warp holes that appear are at the level of Rarity 3 or Rarity 4. And even then, the Rarity 3 warp holes only have a slight chance of taking the player to Guzzlord's world while the Rarity 4 warp hole that has the best chance to reach Guzzlord's world has the lowest chance of appearing amongst ALL the different warp hole variants. |
| 97 | * Something that's very easy to gloss over for ''Ultra Sun'' and ''Ultra Moon'' is that it ''is'' possible in-game to obtain the fossil Pokémon that are exclusive to the opposing game. The method to do so however is very time consuming as it requires the player to go into Poké Pelago, and continuously send Pokémon off on "Rare-Treasure Hunting" trips in the hopes that one of the random items that gets brought back after a certain amount of hours turns out to be a new fossil. Finding 1 new fossil could already end up taking days to drop due to being the rarest random items that could be brought back, but there's up to 5 fossil exclusives that the player could possibly find. |
| 98 | |
| 99 | !!!Generation VIII |
| 100 | [[AC:''Sword'' and ''Shield'']] |
| 101 | * Dhelmise is a rough one to find in ''Sword'' and ''Shield''. It's already quite rare to find on Galar's Route 9 being a 1% encounter, or hoping that it pops up during active weather, but what makes it worse is that it's impossible to get the Pokédex entry since no trainer throughout the game ever uses a Dhelmise. The only hint you ever get that the Pokémon even exists in the game is when you're partnered with a NPC trainer during a Max Raid battle who uses a Dhelmise. And even then, you're ''still'' not provided the Pokédex entry. |
| 102 | * The version exclusives, Turtonator (''Sword'') and Drampa (''Shield''). Both are entirely weather-dependent where they will only spawn in the Lake of Outrage if there's sunlight for Turtonator or a thunderstorm for Drampa. For added difficulty, neither are Overworld Pokémon, so players need to grind random encounters from the rustling grass to finally get Turtonator or Drampa to appear, which could end up going for awhile as it turns out that they only have a 2% encounter rate. ''Sword'' players get an extra kick in the balls when it turns out that the Turtonator they're trying to catch has [[SuicideAttack Explosion]], which will kill the Turtonator and cause the player to reset their search. ''Shield'' players get shafted a different way, though: like Dhelmise above, no trainer in the game uses a Drampa (not even Max Raid AI partners like with Dhelmise), but one does use a Turtonator. The end result is that without looking up the Pokédex for Galar, ''Shield'' players will be left with Turtonator, a Pokémon whose Habitat data simply says "Habitat Unknown", and an empty slot above it. |
| 103 | * The Crown Tundra expansion features two in the same location - both Spiritomb and Keldeo can be caught at Ballimere Lake, but the steps to do so aren't laid out anywhere. While Spiritomb's conditions are at least somewhat familiar if you remember the rigmarole of getting it in Generation IV (as noted above), and the game does hint at what you need to do in the correct place (even if it doesn't tell you the precise number of people to talk to), it still requires being able to connect to Nintendo Switch Online, so people who can't (or just don't want to pay for the service) are left hoping a friend will trade one. On the flip side, while a player can fulfill all of the conditions for the Keldeo encounter without going online, actually figuring out all of the steps (one of which is to make curry at the right location with Virizion, Terrakion, and Cobalion all in your party, something few would think to do without prompting) is basically impossible to figure out from what the game tells you. What's more, no NPC uses either, so you get no Pokédex hints as to where they might be otherwise (and Keldeo doesn't have an entry in the game even when you ''do'' get one). |
| 104 | [[AC:''Legends: Arceus'']] |
| 105 | * The sidequest "The Sea's Legend" to catch Manaphy & Phione offers nothing but a cryptic description and no guidance. The story referenced can only be found in the Canalave Library of ''[[VideoGame/PokemonDiamondAndPearl Pokémon Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl]]'', making it impossible to solve without the use of another game entirely or a guide. And you're going to want to use a guide since not only is it stated nowhere that you need to recreate the legend ''to the letter'', but one of the Pokémon you need to do so is locked behind another GuideDangIt, as detailed in the Evolving Pokémon folder. |
| 106 | |
| 107 | !!!Generation IX |
| 108 | [[AC:''Scarlet'' and ''Violet'']] |
| 109 | * The PhlebotinumMuncher Titan Pokémon can be caught immediately after defeating them the first time, but they're hidden around the areas you met them and the player has no reason to believe they'd be seen again to begin with. To make matters worse, Bombirdier has its Hidden Ability which is a Rock-type version of Dhelmise's Steelworker and [[spoiler:[[ParadoxPerson Paradox Donphan]]]] Great Tusk/Iron Treads is a DiscOneNuke that normally can't be caught until the postgame, making them very easy to miss out on getting early. |
| 110 | * Those ominous black stakes you've been seeing across Paldea? Hope you've been pulling them out, because you need to get rid of them for a chance at [[spoiler:the Treasures of Ruin, four Pokémon that were given to a ruler as treasures only to wreak havoc on the land soon after]]. |
| 111 | * [[spoiler: Remember the duplicate Koraidon[=/=]Miraidon that you face in the PostFinalBoss sequence? If you go back to the bottom of Area Zero, you have a chance to catch it with other chances available to you after a while if you knock it out on accident. As useful as this is, almost ''nothing'' hints towards this.]] |
| 112 | * ''The Indigo Disk'' DLC contains Minior, which in and of itself is not difficult to find. But if you're looking for a particular color, there are particular spots in which Miniors of that specific color spawn. The game doesn't tell you about this, and the spawns for the Indigo and Violet cores are particularly devious.[[note]]Both being in one particular cave each, Indigo's in the Coastal Biome and Violet's in the Polar Biome.[[/note]] And even then, the chances are ''raised'', not ''guaranteed''; you could be in the Green Core's spawn area, and get a Red Core to spawn. |
| 113 | * Also in ''The Indigo Disk'' are all 24 of the Grass, Fire, and Water base form starters from Generations I through VIII, though only after doing sidequests. Most of them can be found wandering about in open areas and will approach the player character with curiosity if they come near, so you can just stumble across them through normal traveling as long as you're in the right biome. However, a few can be fairly difficult to find: |
| 114 | ** Torchic can only be found in one tiny cave in the Polar Biome, whose entrance is halfway up the biome's big mountain and, due to its topography, can't be seen unless you're right in front of it. No trainers use Torchic, so you can't look up its location by consulting the Pokédex, and even then, the Pokédex's habitat map doesn't distinguish between the cave and the mountainside directly above. Torchic is also not a guaranteed spawn within that cave, so you might have entered that cave in the past, saw nothing there you hadn't already caught, and moved on. |
| 115 | ** Similarly, Cyndaquil spawns in a different cave in the Polar Biome. What makes it difficult to find is the small size of the cavern itself, and just how many Pokémon spawn both in the cave and outside that clog up its already low spawn rate. |
| 116 | * ''The Indigo Disk'' adds a single Meloetta to the game. To get it to spawn you have to find a specific bush in the Coastal Biome (just to the East of the Outdoor Classroom in the mountain). Once you've reached this location you have to spin clockwise on the spot for 10 seconds, then immediately open the camera app and switch the filter to "Sepia". The Meloetta will appear when you pan the camera around and will spawn next to you when you close the camera. While the other parts are hinted about in-game, the closest thing to a hint about using the sepia filter comes from the dialogue for the Relic Song event of ''Black and White'' and their sequels. |
| 117 | [[/folder]] |
| 118 | |
| 119 | [[folder:Evolving Pokémon]] |
| 120 | |
| 121 | * Any Pokémon evolution that does not involve leveling up is a Guide Dang It since the second generation, what with things like certain stat values, time of day, gender, or even location affecting Pokémon evolutions. It can even be two of those at once, like Galarian Yamask needing it to be at low HP as you passed a certain location in the game that does not even look like it can be an evolution location. |
| 122 | |
| 123 | [[AC: Eeveelutions]] |
| 124 | |
| 125 | * Eevee is a Pokémon with the primary gimmick of having more than three evolutions, each with their own method. None of them are hinted at and many of them have overlapping requirements. |
| 126 | ** Evolving Eevee into Vaporeon, Flareon or Jolteon involves using a Water / Fire / Thunder Stone respectively on Eevee. This may not be intuitive due to the rarity of evolving Pokémon outside of their respective types. |
| 127 | ** Generation II introduces Espeon and Umbreon, gained by getting Eevee to max happiness followed by leveling it up. However you also have to level up Eevee in the day to get Espeon while it will evolve into Umbreon at night. |
| 128 | ** Generation IV introduces Leafeon and Glaceon, who evolve by being leveled up in an area with a Moss Rock and Icy Rock respectively, until Generation VIII where they require a Leaf or Ice Stone instead. The method involving level up near the rocks take precedent over other evolutions which can be frustrating to find out if you were expecting a different Pokémon. Adding to the confusion, during this time, ''[=HeartGold=]'' and ''[=SoulSilver=]'' were the lone pair of games where you could not obtain either evolution due to neither rock existing, forcing you to trade from ''[=DPPt=]''; this is also true for Magnezone and Probopass. |
| 129 | ** Generation VI introduced yet another evolution for Eevee, the Fairy-type Sylveon, which is obtain by leveling up an Eevee with Level 2 Affection (from Pokémon-Amie in VI and Pokémon Refresh in VII) while knowing a Fairy-type move. The Affection requirement is changed to high friendship in Generation VIII. Like Leafeon and Glaceon, the Sylveon evolution takes priority over Espeon and Umbreon, which throws another wrench in a player's plans for a specific evolution since Eevee naturally learns a Fairy-type move at an early level. |
| 130 | |
| 131 | [[AC: Generation II]] |
| 132 | |
| 133 | * Baby Pokémon might count as this: you can only find some Pokémon by breeding their parents. This then requires a [[GenderEqualsBreed female evolution of the baby]]. Which Pokémon are only obtainable therein isn't really explained. To add insult to injury, in the case of any baby introduced from Generation III onwards [[note]]except Riolu and Toxel[[/note]] this also requires the parent to be holding a certain type of incense. Thankfully, at least using a Ditto will also work for breeding when you only have a male. |
| 134 | * Certain Pokémon only evolve if traded while holding a certain item, or if leveled up holding a certain item. These items usually aren't labeled as influencing evolution, and some of them have a beneficial effect, so one might never realize they have a second use. |
| 135 | * Tyrogue will evolve into one of three Pokémon based on whether its Attack and Defense are higher than each other or equal. Strangely, all three evolutions have similar stats and are all offensively-based. |
| 136 | |
| 137 | [[AC: Generation III]] |
| 138 | |
| 139 | * Milotic in Generations III and IV can be evolved from a Feebas, a Pokémon with its own reputation for being obscure to catch (see above), with a maxed Beauty stat that comes from the Pokémon Contests introduced in these generations. Raising its Beauty stat can be done by feeding it with blue [=PokéBlocks=] (in Generation III) or Poffins (in Generation IV). Creating specific Beauty-based food to feed Feebas can be tricky to figure out and when all is said and done, Pokémon in this generation have a maximum amount of blocks or Poffins that they can eat before they're permanently unable to eat anymore. This makes it possible to have a Feebas that can't evolve into a Milotic, especially if it has a dislike of Beauty-based food. Later generations would greatly simplify the process of obtaining Milotic by introducing the Prism Scale, which evolves Feebas when it holds it while traded, as an alternate evolution method, though the Gen III remakes reuse the old method. |
| 140 | * [[OneHitPointWonder Shedinja]] cannot be found in the wild and despite appearing in the Pokédex after Nincada and Ninjask and obviously being from the same evolution line, doesn't evolve from anything. To get it, the player must raise a Nincada to Level 20 and let it evolve with at least one empty slot in their party and (in Generation IV and later) at least one standard red-and-white Poké Ball with them. Having the Poké Ball is pretty likely already, but most players go around with a full party for the entire game as soon as they are able to do so. |
| 141 | |
| 142 | [[AC: Generation IV]] |
| 143 | |
| 144 | * As of Generation IV, some Pokémon only evolve if they know a specific move when they level up. Some of them make sense - Mime Jr. and Bonsly need to learn Mimic to evolve, and they are known for mimicking things. Yanma, Piloswine and Tangela need to learn Ancient Power to evolve, and as their evolutions have prehistoric basis, that makes sense. Evolving Lickitung into Lickilicky makes no sense whatsoever, as it needs to know ''Rollout'' to evolve, and that has absolutely nothing to do with any of the evolutionary line's abilities. But with Piloswine, it's worse than that; the only way it can learn Ancient Power to begin with is via the Move Relearner. |
| 145 | * Magneton and Nosepass only evolve if leveled up in Mt. Coronet, which apparently exudes a magnetic field that affects the two magnet-based Pokémon. Unfortunately, ''nowhere in the game is it mentioned that Mt. Coronet is magnetic''! An NPC in ''Platinum'' tells the player that certain Pokémon evolve when leveled up at Mt. Coronet, but they never hint as to which Pokémon or that Mt. Coronet is magnetic. In ''Legends: Arceus'', Professor Laventon just spells it out for the player, Nosepass can naturally be found there, and the level-up condition was removed, meaning that there's a good chance for the player to figure it out. |
| 146 | * Then there's Mantyke, which has another unique evolution method... you have to evolve it by ''leveling it up with a Remoraid in your party''. Although the evolutionary line is blatantly associated with Remoraid, it's still a stretch because Slowpoke doesn't require Shellder in the party to evolve and [[{{Irony}} Remoraid hasn't been attached to Mantine since Generation IV]]. |
| 147 | |
| 148 | [[AC: Generation V]] |
| 149 | |
| 150 | * Karrablast and Shelmet. The two have some kind of relation in vaguely-worded Pokédex entries. Evolving them turns out to be more confusing. Not only do you have to trade them to evolve (which is a guide dang it in itself), but you ''specifically have to trade one for the other'' to evolve each. No other Pokémon evolve this way. |
| 151 | * On the other hand, ''Black 2 and White 2'' did its best to avert this to newcomers. You can ask Prof. Juniper via Xtransceiver how any Pokémon in your party can evolve (if possible), and when she doesn't outright tell you every possible way to evolve it (she even explains ''every single method at once'' for Eevee), she at least gives you a clear hint (for example, if you show her either Karrablast or Shelmet, she will tell you they evolve only when traded with a certain Pokémon, leaving you to connect the dots). However, you're still on your own to figure out anything after Generation V, which brings the question of why didn't Game Freak bring a similar feature back in the subsequent games... |
| 152 | * In ''Black 2 and White 2,'' getting Chansey is surprisingly kind of difficult. ''Black 2'' especially. In the post-game, the player is given an egg at the east gate of Nacrene City that will hatch into a Happiny. However, there's no simple way to get the Oval Stone that evolves it since the only way to get one in both games is to hope that one is randomly looted from a cave dust-cloud encounter. ''White 2'' at least has a second option of grinding through the entire White Treehollow post-game content until the final item store in White Forest is unlocked that will allow the player to purchase an Oval Stone. However, since Black City's shop items are different, ''Black 2'' players can't purchase Oval Stones unless they know a ''White 2'' player that can trade over the key to switch between Black City and White Forest. |
| 153 | |
| 154 | [[AC: Generation VI]] |
| 155 | |
| 156 | * In order to fully evolve Sliggoo into Goodra, you have to reach level 50. Sounds simple, except it has to be ''raining in the overworld'' for it to evolve. The only hints we get are that Route 14 (the first time you encounter Goomy) is raining often and an Advance Tip at Route 17 that indicates one Pokémon evolves in the rain but never states which or it must be raining in the overworld. There's also the fact that Sliggoo can learn Rain Dance by leveling up, but that still isn't helpful, given that the rain created with this move won't appear in the overworld. |
| 157 | * Inkay to Malamar needs to reach level 30 ''and requires the system to be upside down upon level up''. The only hint is Inkay's preference for reversing. This method carried over to ''Sword and Shield'' & ''Scarlet and Violet'' on the Nintendo Switch, meaning players won't be able to evolve Inkay at all if they only play a non-Lite Switch in docked mode, as opposed to handheld or on a Switch Lite. |
| 158 | * To evolve Pancham into Pangoro, it needs to reach level 32 while a Dark-type is in the party with them. While it isn't a big one, it's annoying to those who don't like overlapping types in their party and expected Pancham to naturally evolve without any additions. |
| 159 | * Finding the post-game Mega Stones in ''X and Y'' is more complicated than necessary. First, the player must go to the Battle Maison and defeat a trainer at least once so the rival will appear at Kiloude City. After defeating the rival, the rival will inform the player that Sycamore is at Anistar City. After the player talks to Sycamore, the Mega Ring is upgraded and now the player can find all the remaining Mega Stones. The kicker? The player can only obtain these Mega Stones from 8 PM to 9 PM. Not only that, most of the Mega Stone's location makes no sense. Such as Mawilite is located at an area that most players have little to no reason to go back. ''Omega Ruby'' and ''Alpha Sapphire'' fixes the time issue in that Mega Stones can be found at any time of day before the end of the game, although only a few of them will be available from the beginning - the rest turn up after you calm down Primal Kyogre/Groudon and complete Episode Delta. Even then some of them can be found in counter-intuitive places, just like in ''X and Y''. |
| 160 | |
| 161 | [[AC: Generation VII]] |
| 162 | |
| 163 | * Many of the new Pokémon evolve using methods detailed in the sections of previous generations. But a completely new requirement is now involves ''which version of the game you have''. Rockruff evolves at level 25 into Lycanroc, but what kind of Lycanroc you get depends on the version you're playing. You can only get Midday Lycanroc evolving Rockruff in ''Sun'' while doing the same in ''Moon'' will reveal Midnight Lycanroc.[[note]]''Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon'' also added Dusk Lycanroc, which can only be obtained by evolving an [[TemporaryOnlineContent event-exclusive Rockruff with the Own Tempo ability,]] then leveling it up between the fairly small timeframe of 5PM and 6PM, but thankfully this is explained in its Wonder Card and you can't accidentally evolve it into other forms. Unfortunately, ''Scarlet and Violet'' have a wild Own Tempo Rockruff which doesn't have this explained anywhere.[[/note]] Fortunately they can be encountered in the Vast Poni Canyon grass regardless of version. [[spoiler: This kind of restriction also applies to what Legendary Pokémon Cosmog [[MagikarpPower will eventually become]]]]. |
| 164 | * A few of the Alolan variants require different methods of evolution from their regular counterparts. Both kinds of Rattata evolve at level 20, but Alolan Rattata also need it to be nighttime to evolve. Cubone will only evolve beyond level 28 at nighttime and refuse to do so at any other time unlike other games. Alolan Meowth and Alolan Sandshrew don't evolve by leveling like their regular counterparts but instead evolve via happiness and an evolution stone respectively. And just to be annoying, some of them (such as Alolan Diglett and Exeggute evolving into Alolan Exeggutor) evolve the same way as normal. |
| 165 | ** Want the regular variants of Raichu, Marowak and Exeggutor? In ''Sun and Moon'', getting them is impossible as they'll automatically evolve into their Alolan variants. ''Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon'' changes this by allowing you to travel outside of Alola and evolve them there. Specifically, you need to travel into Ultra Space, which doesn't count as "Alola". |
| 166 | * Magnetic-based evolutions in this generation. One would think that the power plant at the Blush Mountain would serve as the method to perform this kind of evolution, but it was actually located at the Vast Poni Canyon, which is filled with mostly Rock-types and has no connection to electricity or magnetism at all. What's worse is that Vast Poni Canyon is a late-game area, meaning you have to wait for a long time to evolve your Magneton, Nosepass and Charjabug. |
| 167 | ** Good news for ''Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon'' players. They changed the magnetic based evolution location so it actually is the power station on Blush Mountain (though Vast Poni Canyon still also works). The bad news is, since the game gives an extremely missable hint and all the other location based evolutions are in the same place [[DamnYouMuscleMemory players of the original version probably will not think of that.]] |
| 168 | ** Similarly, Crabrawler can only evolve into Crabominable by leveling it up at Mount Lanakila... which is the final area of the story. Putting aside that Crabrawler simply isn't really equipped to go through the entire game unevolved, the player never sees a Crabominable until the very end of the game [[spoiler: where it's used by one of the Elite Four members]], so unless they knew about it beforehand they likely would have no reason to guess Crabrawler's evolved form would be part Ice-type at all, much less that it would require such an extra step in evolving it. |
| 169 | *** ''Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon'' changes it so that you can access just the very beginning part of Mount Lanakila as soon as you arrived at Tapu Village, allowing you to evolve Crabrawler earlier, but as with the change for magnetic-based evolutions, since nothing in the game tell you this, players can easily miss this. And this gets changed entirely in ''Scarlet and Violet'' (Crabrawler is entirely PutOnABus for the generation in between). Like the other location-based evolutions, Crabrawler uses an evolution stone now (Ice Stone in this case.) |
| 170 | * Evolving Sneasel can be a bit difficult in ''Sun and Moon'', because there's no way to easily obtain the Razor Claw evolution item in the game apart from hoping to get one off of the wild Jangmo-o line in Vast Poni Canyon. And even then, not only do Jangmo-o only have a low 5% encounter rate, it's only a 5% chance that a Jangmo-o, or a SOS Battle Hakamo-o, will actually be holding a Razor Claw. The final Kommo-o stage has a 50% chance of holding a Razor Claw, but the player still has to rely on the SOS Battle mechanic to get it to appear. This has led a lot of players to have a Butterfree in the first slot of the party while hunting for Jangmo-o since Butterfree's ability, Compound Eyes, increases the chance of the Razor Claw appearing. |
| 171 | ** This is rectified in ''Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon'' where a scientist by the patch of grass in front of Route 15's Aether House will provide the player a Razor Claw. |
| 172 | ** Although it's not available in the main game in either ''Sun and Moon'' or the ''Ultra'' versions, evolving Gligar into Gliscor is almost as much of a pain as Sneasel. Much like Sneasel, it can only evolve by leveling up at night while holding a Razor Fang, which in both releases can only be found 5% of the time on wild Bruxish. While Bruxish is more common overall than Jangmo-o, it can only be found by fishing in certain areas and if you either find something that isn't a Bruxish or find a Bruxish that isn't holding the item, you have to leave the area and come back for a reasonable chance of finding another Bruxish. |
| 173 | * Evolving Poipole in ''Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon'' requires the Pokémon to level-up ''while'' knowing Dragon Pulse, which is a move that Poipole doesn't have when you first receive one at level 40. Unfortunately, Dragon Pulse is a level 1 starter move that has to be relearned from the Move Reminder, who you can't meet until reaching the final Pokémon Center on Mount Lanakila. The game never hints at you requiring Dragon Pulse to evolve, so it's very easy to end up skipping over this, and level-up Poipole to a high level until ''finally'' catching on that some other component is required for Poipole's evolution. |
| 174 | |
| 175 | [[AC:Generation VIII]] |
| 176 | |
| 177 | * ''Sword and Shield'' have some that require quite a bit of lateral thinking to evolve. |
| 178 | ** Sirfetch'd, the evolution of Galarian Farfetch'd, has a particularly diabolical example, as Farfetch'd will only evolve if it manages to land ''three critical hits in a single battle''. Not only is this never hinted at in the main game (it only makes a bit of sense in retrospect, as Sirfetch'd is mentioned in its Pokédex entry as being the result of a Farfetch'd surviving many intense battles), but given the nature of critical hits as a random and largely unpredictable boost, evolving it is something of a LuckBasedMission even with the use of items or moves to boost the rate of crits. Using False Swipe to prevent the opponent from fainting isn't an option -- while Kantonian Farfetch'd (which can't evolve) can learn False Swipe via TM, even in Generation VIII, Galarian Farfetch'd and Sirfetch'd can't. |
| 179 | ** In order to evolve Milcery into Alcremie, the player is required to spin the joystick on the Joycon until the player begins pirouetting in place, making sure that the Milcery in the player's party is holding a Sweet item. This could arguably qualify in itself, since the spinning mechanic is never directly alluded to in the game; however, the mechanic ''does'' make a fair amount of thematic sense (Alcremie is made of cream, so the player is essentially churning Milcery into Alcremie), and the Sweet items specifically allude to a connection with Milcery and Alcremie. The ''really'' tricky part, however, is that the flavor of the resulting Alcremie (i.e. what form it takes upon evolving) depends on three separate factors: the direction the player spins (clockwise or counterclockwise), the amount of time they spin for (more or less than 5 seconds), and the in-game time (day or night). Not only is this part much less intuitive, but the details are once again never mentioned in-game, leaving it up to the player to figure it out.\ |
| 180 | There's also a Guide Dang It ''within this Guide Dang It'' in order to unlock the special Rainbow Swirl Alcremie form. The method for unlocking it is so obtuse that for a while the fandom actually thought it was [[LuckBasedMission random chance]] until the solution was stumbled upon. In order to unlock Rainbow Swirl Alcremie, you have to make sure your Switch's clock is set to 7 PM, go to an area of the game where the sky is at dusk, and spin either clockwise ''or'' counterclockwise for at least 10 seconds. |
| 181 | ** Evolving Galarian Yamask into new Pokémon Runerigus is quite possibly the most obtuse evolution method ever devised. In order to do it, you have to have your Galarian Yamask take at least 49 damage [[note]]49 is considered an unlucky number in Japan due to sounding like a term for death[[/note]] from attacks without fainting or healing it, then walk under a specific stone archway in the Dusty Bowl with it in your party. Nothing in-game indicates any of this, so you probably won't figure out how to do it without a guide. |
| 182 | ** In the ''[[PalmtreePanic Isle of Armor]]'' you can unlock the ability to give compatible Pokèmon Gigantamax factors, how do you do this you ask? Try getting three Max Mushrooms which seems simple enough, however while the first time around you get that required number for free every other time you have to complete three Max Raid dens in the area (some of which are [[ThatOneBoss pretty tricky]]) and have to try finding a Max Mushroom in one of four dense areas on the map after that. Doing this repeatedly [[ThatOneSidequest feels like an absolute chore]] especially if you're trying to complete the Pokèdex or give your team some extra boosts. |
| 183 | * ''[[VideoGame/PokemonLegendsArceus Legends: Arceus]]'' is not exempt from this either. |
| 184 | ** Evolving Ursaring into Ursaluna requires an item called a Peat Block, which can be found either by riding Ursaluna and praying to the RandomNumberGod or by finishing a late game sidequest. You spend hours riding Ursaluna and digging up junk or you spend hours trying to get to the point where you can get that sidequest, you finally get your hands on a Peat Block... and you can't use it. That's because you need to use it ''at night'' '''''under a full moon'''''. No other evolutionary item works under these tight restrictions. |
| 185 | ** Wyrdeer and Overqwil both fall under the same umbrella of their base forms, Stantler and Hisuian Qwilfish, needing to use their [[SecretArt signature move]] in either the fast but weak Agile Style or the slow but powerful Strong Style. For Stantler, you need to use Psyshield Bash in the Agile Style, whereas for Hisuian Qwilfish, you need to use Barb Barrage in the Strong Style. Both need to be done '''''twenty times over.''''' Oh, and Psyshield Bash only has 90% accuracy, and ''misses don't count''. |
| 186 | *** For ''Scarlet and Violet'', Stantler is available in the wild but are unable to learn Psyshield Bash by leveling up. It will not help you anyway because it specifically cannot evolve into Wyrdeer in those games, even if Stantler knows the move. This issue does not exist for Hisuian Qwilfish where its method has been changed so that it'll evolve if it knows Barb Barrage. |
| 187 | ** White-Stripe Basculin has a similar issue to Galarian Yamask. In order to evolve Basculin into Basculegion, it needs to take a certain amount of damage without fainting. The thing is, this damage needs to be ''recoil'' damage. 294 points of it to be exact. [[NotMakingThisUpDisclaimer Yes, you read that right.]] Fortunately, it learns Double-Edge and Wave Crash, both of which cause recoil damage. |
| 188 | ** Voltorb joins Sandshrew, Slowpoke, and Darumaka in the "didn't need an item to evolve but now it does" club with its Hisuian form. In order to evolve Hisuian Voltorb into Hisuian Electrode, you need a Leaf Stone. While it does require some lateral thinking, it doesn't require too much since it and Eevee are the only Pokémon that evolve this way. |
| 189 | |
| 190 | [[AC:Generation IX]] |
| 191 | * Annihilape follows from Wyrdeer and Overqwil: to get it, you must have a Primeape use the new move Rage Fist twenty times and then level up. Since there's no Strong or Agile Style mechanic in these games, you're at least spared that trouble. Also, misses count. |
| 192 | * Pawmo, Bramblin, and Rellor will only evolve if they walk enough steps in Let's Go mode and then gain a level. While the series has intermittently used the "Pokémon following the player" mechanic as a gimmick, it had never actually been particularly ''important'' before. |
| 193 | * Finizen will only evolve if it reaches level 38 while playing co-op in the Union Circle. Nothing in the game hints at this, and even the game data only states the level it evolves at, not any other factors. |
| 194 | * Occasionally, a group of similar Pokémon will all spawn at once, sometimes with one outlier in the middle (usually the evolution of the others). This actually turns out to be important if you want to evolve your Bisharp to Kingambit: you must have it defeat three Leader's Crest-bearing Bisharp, then level up. Such Bisharp are guaranteed to be those that spawn in surrounded by Pawniard. |
| 195 | * Gholdengo, the evolution of Gimmighoul, is a beastly special attacker that can net you loads of cash with its signature move, Make It Rain, and can tank targeted status moves no problem with its ability Good as Gold. How do you get it? You level up a Gimmighoul in your party while you have '''''999 GIMMIGHOUL COINS'''''. Yes, in order to get the 1,000th milestone Pokémon on your team, you need to have the maximum number of an item on your person. Thankfully, the Gimmighoul you find at the watchtowers across Paldea likely give anywhere between 10 to 50 coins, with the really lucky players getting 777 which is way more than the one or two or two hundred you'll get from Roaming Form Gimmighoul, but it's still going to be a grind. |
| 196 | * ''Scarlet and Violet'' adds a twist where Pokémon are unable to evolve into certain species due to the fact that their evolution methods require items or methods that are unavailable to the player in these games. The affected Pokémon are Scyther unable to evolve into Kleavor, Ursaring being unable to evolve into Ursaluna, Stantler being unable to evolve into Wyrdeer and until ''The Indigo Disk'' DLC, Hisuian Qwilfish being unable to evolve into Overqwil. With the DLC the player is able to catch wild Kleavor in the Terarium and are able to obtain a special form of Ursaluna in Kitakami. Wyrdeer is seemingly missing though and you'll need to evolve Stantler in ''Pokemon Legends: Arceus'' to get one. |
| 197 | * ''The Teal Mask'' introduces a new evolution for Applin named Dipplin. Similar to Flapple and Appletun, you need to acquire a special apple, the Syrupy Apple, and use it on your Applin to evolve it. So where in Kitakami do you find the apple? Somewhere in the Apple Hills, home to a large apple orchard? The Festival of Masks, since there's stands for similar candied fruits? Nope; it's being sold in a stall in the Mossfell Confluence, an area that you're not required to go to for plot progression, and the stall is out-of-the-way enough that you're liable to miss it entirely. |
| 198 | * When you evolve Applin into Dipplin, you're not done yet--''The Indigo Disk'' allows you to evolve Dipplin further, into Hydrapple. The only hint of its existence is that [[spoiler:Kieran has one on his team as his final Pokémon]]. Dipplin evolves by knowing the move Dragon Cheer and leveling up, a move it can't learn through level-up and must be taught via TM. You are virtually guaranteed to get this TM, however; it's the reward for defeating Drayton, and there is an esoteric hint in that Applin Juice is required to synthesize more of this TM. |
| 199 | * While catching Pecharunt in ''Mochi Mayhem'' is fairly straightforward, activating the epilogue is not, as the game gives no hint that you have to go to Kitakami and examine the "decoration" at Peachy's with the Mythical Pecha Berry (given via Mystery Gift) in your Bag in order to get Arven's call which starts the epilogue. |
| 200 | [[/folder]] |
| 201 | |
| 202 | [[folder:General Game Mechanics]] |
| 203 | The mainline Pokémon game titles have several shared mechanics that are typically left unexplained to the player, or are only given the bare minimum amount of explanation in game. Some of this can be chalked up to the fact that half the fun of playing Pokémon comes in trying out different species on your team and experimenting, but generally, a lot of player frustration can be saved by consulting an external source. |
| 204 | |
| 205 | [[AC: Overworld Exploration]] |
| 206 | |
| 207 | * Invisible items have been scattered around the overworld since Gen I. Some of them are on conspicuously odd bits of terrain, but others are in completely random places, and there's no way to know anything is there unless you stand facing that exact square and press A, or use the Itemfinder. Getting the Itemfinder is often a Guide Dang It in and of itself. For example, in Generation I, you have to talk to a specific assistant of Oak--not in his lab in the first town, but in a gate between routes on the other side of Kanto--after catching at least 30 Pokémon. Oak will mention this only if you happen to talk to him when you've caught between 30 and 39 Pokémon. Any other amount triggers a different message, and even then, he doesn't tell you where the assistant is. |
| 208 | * Speaking of the Itemfinder, in its original incarnation in Generations I and II, it only indicated the presence of a hidden item, but did not drop hints as to where exactly it was. Thankfully, later incarnations of the Itemfinder/Dowsing Machine make it more user-friendly by letting it indicate which direction the hidden item was. |
| 209 | * Although a good chunk of [=TMs=] are this, the worst of them all is Energy Ball in Generation VI. In ''X and Y'', it's found in Route 20. Said Route has paths that usually lead to areas the player wouldn't expect and you need Cut in order to get that TM. In ''Omega Ruby'' and ''Alpha Sapphire'', you require ''both'' bikes, which is already a huge Guide Dang It in itself, and it's found in the Safari Zone, also well off the beaten path. It doesn't exactly help Energy Ball is actually a very useful move, either. |
| 210 | |
| 211 | [[AC: Pokémon Battles]] |
| 212 | |
| 213 | * Physical versus Special moves in the first three generations. The average player would assume that battle animations are enough of a tell and could get through the game off the misconception that, say, Hyper Beam is clearly a special attack. But it isn't, and ''nowhere'' in the first ''three generations'' of Pokémon games is it explained that a move being physical or special is dependent wholly on its typing (e.g., the aforementioned Hyper Beam, despite obviously making no physical contact, is considered physical just like every other Normal type move), much less which types were which. This information does get listed in Earl's Academy in ''Pokémon Stadium 2'', but it's fair to assume not that many people delved too deeply into what was a pretty minor part of a spin-off game, something which similarly goes to the Help Menu in FR/LG while in battle, as described below. Generation IV uncoupled physical/special from move types and added icons to each move to clearly indicate which of the two it was, so it's no longer an issue. |
| 214 | * Though you've probably heard of physical moves vs. special moves, if you haven't done any internet research, you may not know about [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Contact contact.]] It's a separate mechanic that ''mostly'' correlates with that concept--most physical moves make contact, most special moves do not--with some exceptions like Earthquake, which is physical but does not make contact. The game mentions contact in the description of abilities like Flame Body that are triggered by it, but it does not tell you what "contact" means, nor does it point out any of the moves that don't follow the pattern. |
| 215 | * The entire Pokémon series is pretty much one giant guide dang it, but one huge one is the whole ElementalRockPaperScissors: |
| 216 | ** The game does explain about super-effective and not very effective hits, and it gives some tips before Gyms, but you don't see a chart anywhere detailing the full list of what resists and what's weak to what. Some can be intuited, like Fire against Grass or Bug, Water against Fire, or Electric against Flying or Water, or Ground against Electric, but quite a lot of them make you scratch your head. Dragon weak to Ice?[[note]]which can be mildly intuited by the fact that dragons are reptiles, and reptiles are cold-blooded and thus can't survive cold temperatures.[[/note]] Rock weak to Ground?[[note]]because of erosion, maybe?[[/note]] Poison weak to Psychic?[[note]]probably MindOverMatter, or using the mind to create antidotes, which is definitely not obvious[[/note]] Dark weak to Bug?[[note]]more obvious in Japan, where insects are considered heroic and [[DarkIsEvil the "Dark" type is called the "Evil" type]][[/note]] Fighting weak to Fairy?[[note]]MindOverMatter again?[[/note]] You can only find this out through trial and error, which can take a while. Luckily, you can get a type-matcher app in the Generation IV games which helps, and the Generation I remakes had a type-matcher guide if you left the L-Button=Help option on - and the type guide is only available in battle, anyway which adds a new layer of guide dang it. Well, nowhere except the original Generation I instruction book, anyway--although it wasn't very clear that "Bad" was supposed to mean "no effect" in that chart. And of course, it didn't cover Steel, Dark and Fairy, or any type-matchups that were changed for Generation II & VI. What's more, the type matchups in Generation I were glitched so that while according to the manual, Ghost was supposed to be super-effective against Psychic, it was in fact completely ineffective.[[note]]Even if Ghost was properly programmed to be super-effective versus Psychic-types, the only two Ghost-type attacks in Gen I were Night Shade (a Fixed Damage attack equal to the attacker's level that doesn't take strengths or weaknesses into account) and Lick, a very weak attack that wouldn't do much damage even against something weak to it.[[/note]] Which rendered the already powerful Psychic-type a GameBreaker, since it had no weaknesses outside of Bug, a type with few useful Pokémon or moves at the time. Good luck figuring out why your manual was lying to you. |
| 217 | ** Gen VII and onward help this somewhat by giving pointers to what kind of attacks are effective to use against the opposing Pokémon. Sure, it serves more as a reminder since you need to have battled or caught the Pokémon to get the pointers to show up, but it's useful. There are caveats though as these don't take abilities into account (for example, Earthquake will be listed as "Super Effective" against Weezing despite the fact that Weezing's Levitate Ability will make it immune to the move). |
| 218 | * What about Trainers and their Pokémon's movepools, during Trainer Battles? In Gen I and Gen II, the majority of their movepools are level-up moves, which means that at the very least, you've got a pretty good idea what type their Pokémon's moves are most likely to be. Only Gym Leaders would use TM moves. Fast forward to Gen VI, and now it seems like they'll source their Pokémon's moves from anything, including [=TMs=] and Egg Moves. [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard (Sometimes even from cheating.)]] And there's absolutely no telling what abilities their Pokémon will have too without consulting a guide, creating another avenue to screw up your strategies. And this is not just for Gym Leaders, but regular trainers too--starting in ''The Indigo Disk'', even the regular trainers will be pulling Hidden Abilities. And this is just the main series. The Orre games are happy to give out TM and Egg moves to random mooks. |
| 219 | |
| 220 | [[AC: Pokémon Moves]] |
| 221 | |
| 222 | * Pokémon have a variety of methods of learning moves and it's not always clear what a Pokémon's entire moveset consists of. Elemental and body-based connections are typically the most intuitive. For example, Pikachu, an Electric-type mouse Pokémon with an oversized tail, learns Thunderbolt and Iron Tail. However, it's also capable of learning Grass Knot, a Grass-type move that is usually depicted as the user manipulating grass with their mind to trip their opponent, which is something Pikachu are never shown capable of doing. Generation VI does make it easier by selecting Item on any Pokémon in the party, and switching over to the TM tab can show which TM moves are incompatible with that Pokémon. |
| 223 | * Many moves have vague in-game descriptions that do not explain their effects completely. For example, Sacred Fire is a Fire-type SignatureMove only learned by two legendary Pokémon, and in all generations, its description states something to the effect of 'it may Burn the target'. Flamethrower, a move of similar power that's learned by a wider range of Pokémon, also has the same effect in its description. None of the mainline games mentions that Sacred Fire has a 50% chance to burn where other Fire moves like Flamethrower only have a 10% chance. Only ''Stadium 2'' lists the exact chance. |
| 224 | ** One of the vaguest moves is [[NinjaLog Substitute]]. Later generations only state that the move 'serves as the user's decoy'. While a player can reason that most moves will simply hit the substitute and leave the Pokémon behind it unharmed, it's not clear on many properties of Substitute, including the fact that many status effect moves will miss, Sound-based moved can pierce through Substitute, etc. |
| 225 | * Many moves are learned by Pokémon at a lower level than you can actually acquire them legitimately meaning without a guide you may be unaware that your mon can even learn the move. This means the moves require a visit to the move relearner to obtain. A pretty bad case for this is Alolan Marowak (Ghost/Fire) who can only learn one useful Ghost type move named "Shadow Bone" (it can learn Shadow Ball via TM, which in itself is obtained fairly late in the game, but its stats don't complement it) but learns it one level before Cubone can evolve. The move relearner in gen VII is right before the league so your Marowak will be stuck with no ghost moves for most of the game and only be able to get one good one right before the end. |
| 226 | * If a Pokémon uses a move that shares its typing, it gains a 1.5x increase in power, a phenomenon known as same-type attack bonus, or STAB. The Ability Adaptability works by boosting the increase from 1.5x to 2x. While it's existed since Gen I, save for the spinoffs ''Stadium 2'' and ''Pokémon XD'', it's either not mentioned (Like in the Johto and Hoenn games), or obscure enough that it's easily passed over. |
| 227 | |
| 228 | [[AC: Pokémon Stats]] |
| 229 | |
| 230 | * Wonder why two or more of the same Pokémon will have different stats at the same level? That has to do with Individual Values ([=IVs=]). The existence of these stats are only vaguely alluded to in-game outside of a stats judge, and fully understanding the process and its various formulas by oneself without hacking and digging deep into the game files is likely an impossible task. Knowing these stats and understanding them is essential for breeding Pokémon for competitive battling. In fact, this is specifically an Internet Guide Dang It, as even Nintendo's official guides include only vague information on [=IVs=]. Generation VII would eventually make IV checking easier for the player, making it an unlockable function on the PC so one doesn't have to hunt down a specific NPC. |
| 231 | * Effort Values (officially called Base Stats) also counted as this. After defeating a Pokémon, the Pokémon will add 1 to 3 [=EVs=] to a particular stat, that usually the highest stat of the defeated Pokémon (for example, a Geodude would give you 1 Defense EV). You can also gain and lose [=EVs=] by using certain items. Gaining a certain amount will raise that stat depending on the Pokémon's level. Pokémon can have a maximum 252 [=EVs=] in a single stat and 510 [=EVs=] in total. However, prior to Generation VI introducing a straight-forward minigame known as Super Training for player to better manage this, the system was barely mentioned despite being just as important to competitive play as the above mentioned [=IVs=]. |
| 232 | * Generation III introduced Natures. One might think nature is just some FlavorText that doesn't affect anything at all, but most of them will raise a particular stat by 10% in exchange for lowering another stat by the same amount.[[note]]Serious, Bashful, Hardy, Docile and Quirky are the sole exceptions, as they ostensibly raise and lower the same stat.[[/note]] From ''[=HeartGold and SoulSilver=]'' onwards, there's a red text for stats that increase and blue text for stats that decrease, but some might think it's the opposite. From Generation VI onwards, the box system does have a search system that not only allows the player to search for a specific Nature of a Pokémon, but also details which stats are increased or decreased by Nature. |
| 233 | * Generation IV introduced Characteristic, which varies for each Pokémon, including the same species. Some might think it's merely FlavorText, but Characteristic actually vaguely indicates one of the stats contain the highest Individual Value. |
| 234 | |
| 235 | [[AC: Breeding (Gen. II onwards)]] |
| 236 | |
| 237 | * The ins and outs of breeding for movesets is a guide dang it all on its own. Breeding can result in babies that know moves from their parents, which results in expanded move pools for most Pokémon. However, which moves can be inherited aren't told anywhere in the game. Some of them can be inferred (it's easy to figure out that you can breed Thunderbolt onto any Pokémon who can learn it via TM), some of them aren't that surprising (Mud Shot can be learned by an awful lot - but throwing mud around isn't the most mind-blowing technique), but some are positively mind-boggling (Aron, a Rock/Steel type that weighs over a hundred pounds and eventually evolves into something weighing nearly 800 pounds, can inherit a move called Aerial Ace, a Flying-type swallow-inspired move). Additionally, it's more likely than not that you'll discover that Pokémon whose parents both know any level-up moves will also know said level-up moves upon hatching (for example, Magikarp being born knowing Tackle and/or Flail) ''completely by accident''. Valuable for Pokémon with wildly divergent movelists upon level-up (like Seedot) or anyone looking to breed for TournamentPlay (which sometimes imposes level restrictions, preventing you from acquiring moves via LevelGrinding). |
| 238 | ** And while it might occur to some people that if a move can be bred into one species, it could then be bred into another, the extent of chain breeding moves might not be so apparent. Some Pokémon can only learn certain moves if you go through multiple steps to get it. For example, say you're battling a friend who uses a Mamoswine (Ground/Ice), and you try to take advantage of its Water weakness, only to have your Water type one-shotted by a move you didn't know existed: Freeze-Dry (an Ice-type move that has the special bonus of being super-effective against water). You might wonder when Mamoswine learns such a counter-intuitive move. Well it had to be bred from a Delibird. How did Delibird learn it? It was bred from a Lapras. Which in turn was bred from Aurorus, the ONLY Pokémon in a useful Egg Group that can learn the move naturally. This specific chain is one of the only ways the move gets passed on (the other is breeding Swinub with Smeargle, if you can get Smeargle to [[PowerCopying Sketch]] the move). An extreme example of chain-breeding, but sometimes the move you want takes more work than you'd think to put in, or wouldn't know could even be learned by your mon, so good luck without a guide. Even worse is chain-breeding Wide Guard onto Honedge, who used to require at least ''five different Pokémon, two of which are starters'', and Smeargle can't help here. [[note]]Mantine/Tirtouga/Carracosta/Alomomola to Mudkip to Turtwig to Paras to Dwebble to Honedge[[/note]]. Thankfully this was changed when Probopass (who can breed with Honedge directly) was given Wide Guard as a level up move. |
| 239 | * Possibly Ditto's role as the [[HotSkittyOnWailordAction universal breeder]]. The only hint is that the only move it knows lets it transform into other Pokémon. Also, nowhere in the game hints that non-legendary [[NoBiologicalSex Genderless Pokémon]], which normally can't breed with anything, ''can'' produce eggs when bred with Ditto. Or that the only things that Ditto can't breed with are its own species and the aforementioned legendary Pokémon. Although even that analysis isn't quite true. On the one hand, there's Manaphy and its pseudo-baby form[[note]]Unlike every other baby Pokémon, Phione can never evolve into Manaphy[[/note]], the two legendaries that can breed ''at all''. On the other, there's the baby-stage Pokémon, which ([[ChildrenAreInnocent rather]] [[AbsurdlyYouthfulMother thankfully]]) are unable to. Unown, likely due to how unique they are. And, for some reason, Nidorina and Nidoqueen, whose flavor text entries [[GameplayAndStorySegregation explicitly mention them taking care of their young]]. Other Pokémon that are also incapable of breeding include Cosplay Pikachu from ''Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire'' and Ash's Greninja which is available from the ''Pokémon Sun and Moon'' demo. |
| 240 | * Egg groups, which indicate what Pokémon species can breed with one another. Like elemental types, a Pokémon can have up to two egg groups, but they're quite independent from types: two Pokémon can share a type, yet belong to different egg groups; conversely, two Pokémon can be in the same egg group(s) while having no type in common. Despite its importance in breeding and passing down egg moves, they are not visible to the player and nobody in-game mentions its existence. The full list of egg groups can be found in ''Stadium 2'', but obviously only covers the first two generations. It can usually be inferred that Pokémon of similar body shape can breed with each other (for example, its easy to see that Houndoom and Manectric can breed with each other since they are both based on dogs). However, the game does throw a few curve balls here and there, such as Magmar being in the Human-like egg group despite resembling a dinosaur, and the humanoid Gardevoir being in the Amorphous egg group, the same egg group as Pokémon like Muk, Chandelure, Jellicent, and Stunfisk. |
| 241 | * There are a few items that affect how breeding work, though the item descriptions never state their effect regarding breeding at all: |
| 242 | ** Starting in Emerald, Everstone has an additional effect when a Pokémon holds it and is put in a Day Care, the nature of the holder will be passed down to its child (50% chance of passing down its nature to its child prior to ''Black 2 and White 2''). Said item prevents the holder from evolving and has barely anything to do with nature. |
| 243 | ** Starting from Generation VII, you need to give the parent of a particular regional form an Everstone if you want to pass down their form to their children.[[note]]For example, in Alola and Galar, breeding out a Kantonian Meowth or Kantonian Persian.[[/note]] If you didn't do so, the Pokémon will be born with the region's form.[[note]]For instance, if you don't give the parent Meowth or Persian an Everstone, then in Alola, the resulting offspring Meowth would be born as the Dark-type Alolan Meowth, while in Galar, the Meowth would be the Steel-type Galarian Meowth. This also works in the opposite direction where if the parent was a regional Meowth (either Alolan or Galarian) or its evolutions (Alolan Persian or Perrserker) outside its region (such as Paldea) and not given an Everstone, the resulting offspring will be the regular Normal-type Meowth. [[/note]] |
| 244 | *** Scarlet and Violet's DLC areas are the first time that the player character can really visit and breed Pokémon outside of the region the game takes place in. This complicates breeding regional forms due to the fact that one of these places doesn't follow regional form breeding despite having them around in the wild. Blueberry Academy features the Terarium, an artificial facility which houses four distinct biomes filled with Pokémon, including a number from other regions, such as Alolan Vulpix, Alolan Sandshrew, Alolan Grimer, Alolan Diglett, Alolan Geodude, Galarian Slowpoke, Hisuian Qwilfish and both forms of Exeggutor (regular and Alolan). However, due to being an artificial environment and located in Unova, which doesn't have its own regional forms, breeding these forms without an Everstone within the Terarium itself would result in the regular forms of these Pokémon. |
| 245 | ** From Generation VI onward, Destiny Knot has an additional effect when a Pokémon holds it and is put in a Day Care, five of the parents Individual Values will be passed down to its child. Additionally, the Power Bracer, Weight, Lens, Anklet, Band, and Belt will guarantee that their specific IV will be inherited by the child if a parent holds it from ''[=HeartGold and SoulSilver=]'' onwards... |
| 246 | * There are two Pokemon with Regional Forms that don't follow the standard rules for breeding them down: |
| 247 | ** White-Striped Basculin and its evolution Basculegion aren't internally classified as regional forms, meaning they're treated like any other form and always produce White-Striped offspring. Due to contradictory evidence regarding their status as a potential regional form in-universe and in other official media, whether or not this is an error is unclear. |
| 248 | ** Breeding Kantonian Tauros in Paldea will always result in the single-typed Combat Breed of Paldean Tauros and never produce the dual-typed Blaze and Aqua Breeds. The only way to breed these special breeds of Paldean Tauros is if the parent are those breeds themselves. |
| 249 | |
| 250 | [[AC: Pokémon Abilities (Gen. III onwards)]] |
| 251 | * Some Pokémon Abilities have overworld effects, many of which are not stated in the Ability's description, if they are in the first slot of your party. For example, Compound Eyes, an ability with limited distribution, only states that it boosts the accuracy of the Pokémon's moves. None of the games also inform you that it boosts the odds that the Pokémon will have a held item if it can hold one. |
| 252 | * The SOS battle mechanics are further affected by Abilities in Generation VII in ways that are not directly explained or made clear: |
| 253 | ** Intimidate, Pressure and Unnerve increases the rate that a Pokémon will call for help, which can seem counter-intuitive as none of the abilities share an overworld effect and they seem to indicate that they would cause a Pokémon to flee instead. |
| 254 | ** Instead of the Pokémon that initiates the encounter being the one whose ability affects how SOS-called Pokémon are generated (using abilities like Synchronize, Compound Eyes, Cute Charm, and Magnet Pull), it's the Pokémon that's currently battling when the call is made instead. |
| 255 | * One of the abilities of the HM Cut was not heavily discussed in guides or in normal in-game conversations - up until ''Emerald'', players could use Cut to mow down tall grass, removing the space where wild encounters could happen until it grew back, and in ''Emerald'', Hyper Cutter would improve Cut's ability to mow down tall grass by increasing the affected radius. |
| 256 | * The in-game description of the Dewpider line's [[SecretArt signature ability]] Water Bubble mentions that the user takes halved damage from Fire-type moves as well as being immune to getting burned, but it omits the biggest draw of the ability: the fact that all Water-type moves used by the Pokémon deal twice the damage they'd deal normally. |
| 257 | |
| 258 | [[AC: Miscellaneous]] |
| 259 | * Starting in Gen III, you can get stars to appear on your trainer card based on your performance in the game. Beating the Elite Four and Champion, seeing and catching all regional Pokémon, completing the National Dex, etc., all seem fairly logical. However, even ''then'' some of them don't make sense, such as the Shiny Leaves from ''[=HeartGold and SoulSilver=]''. Every time you get a star, your card changes color as well. Starting in Gen V, the stars don't show up anymore but the card still changes color, with no indication of what rank each color is other than when you first start. You could easily rank the card up twice in a row without realizing it and never see one of the colors, or have it maxed out but not know it without outside help. They also changed it from 5 ranks in Gen III to 6 in Gen IV, then down to 4 in Gen VI. Thankfully, the changes are purely cosmetic and it doesn't affect the game itself apart from getting special dialogue from nurses in Pokémon Centers. |
| 260 | * Inteleon's SignatureMove, Snipe Shot, is described in-game as always hitting the intended target, even if it would normally be redirected, like with the move Follow Me or the Ability Storm Drain. The description does not state, however, that it has an increased chance of a critical hit, which pairs nicely with Inteleon's Hidden Ability, Sniper, that causes critical hits to deal extra damage. |
| 261 | |
| 262 | [[/folder]] |
| 263 | |
| 264 | [[folder:Specific Generation Mechanics]] |
| 265 | |
| 266 | [[AC: Generation I]] |
| 267 | * The effects and strength of moves aren't described anywhere in-game, rendering the act of teaching new moves to Pokémon a crapshoot without outside resources due to only having the move's name and base PP to work with. Is the new Fire attack with 15 PP that Charmander just learned stronger or weaker than that other Fire attack it just forgot? Who knows? |
| 268 | * The games start you off in your room in the upper floor of your house. Going downstairs is intuitive, but nothing indicates that the little floor mat is where you exit the house, resulting in many children getting stuck on the second screen of gameplay. It's even somewhat {{Lampshaded}} in the help function for the Generation I remakes -- one of the topics you can look up reads something like: "I can't get out of the house! Help!" Later generations added arrow markers at the edge of rooms to indicate places you could walk out from, and then progressed to making players hit the 'A' button to open doors to leave rooms. |
| 269 | * The Vermillion city gym puzzle consists of finding a pair of switches hidden in trash cans to access the Gym Leader, with the player being told the second switch is next to the first one. This sounds reasonable enough, except there's always multiple cans next to the first switch and the second switch doesn't spawn until you find the first one, meaning it can be in a can you just checked and found nothing in. Furthermore, choosing wrong resets the puzzle and relocates the switches to other cans. To make matters worse, the spawn behavior of the second switch is [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Vermilion_Gym#Generation_I affected by glitches in the first generation]] -- in ''Red'' and ''Blue'' the second switch has the potential to be in the top-left can regardless of where the first one was, and in ''Yellow'' there are two positions for the first switch that result in the second switch either being in the top-left can, getting randomly placed anywhere except for the leftmost column of cans, or ''failing to spawn at all''. Tellingly, the puzzle isn't even activated in the second generation and is greatly simplified in the ''[[VideoGame/PokemonLetsGoPikachuAndLetsGoEevee Let's Go]]'' games, only having two possible solutions and not switching between them if the puzzle is reset. |
| 270 | |
| 271 | |
| 272 | * Entering Saffron City in the Generation I games and their remakes. Regardless of which way the player attempts to enter from, the security guards will block the way and force them to go around the city. The only hint as to how to get in is that the guards mention that they're thirsty before saying the road is closed. While the player can buy drinks later in the game, this is easy to overlook because it can only be done at a vending machine on the roof of the Celadon Department Store. Even when the player gets a drink, nothing in the game says that they can now enter Saffron, and so the player might well avoid the city until they can do nothing else. This means that a first-timer could wind up fighting Blaine (the seventh Gym Leader) before Sabrina (the sixth). The remakes add a further twist to this because instead of buying a drink from the vending machines, the player must instead get a Key Item from an old woman on the first floor of the Celadon Mansion, which didn't have anything of interest in the original games aside from an Eevee on the top floor. As this is the ''only'' alteration to the main story, this can trip experienced players up. |
| 273 | |
| 274 | [[AC: Generation II]] |
| 275 | |
| 276 | * While move effects are now listed in a Pokémon's stat menu, they aren't listed while you're teaching the move. This can be frustrating when you've unwittingly replaced a decent move for the likes of Swift (60 power, Normal-type and ignores accuracy and evasion modifications). |
| 277 | * Due to items only getting single line descriptions, it's sometimes difficult to know exactly what uses certain items have, with the descriptions of held items in particular often being completely wrong or not explaining their in-battle effects. The Stick and Thick Club are described as if they're low-value ShopFodder when in reality they increase Farfetch'd's critical hit ratio and Cubone and Marowak's Attack, respectively. Meanwhile, the Light Ball's description in its entirely just says "An odd, electrical orb. (HOLD)" when it actually increases Pikachu's Special Attack; the only hint of a connection between the two is how it's obtained[[note]]transfer up the starer Pikachu from ''Yellow''[[/note]], which is in and of itself an esoteric process and still doesn't explain what it does. |
| 278 | * Some items can only be obtained if a Pokémon from the first generation is transferred up, as the process gives them species-specific held items by default. The TM for Psych Up is obtained by trading in an Abra or Kadabra, while the Light Ball requires transferring the starer Pikachu from ''Yellow''; all other Pikachu will only have a Berry. |
| 279 | * Obtaining the Exp. Share is really easy to miss since the game never hints at what to do with the Red Scale. You're almost certain to have forgotten about Mr. Pokémon after the opening Mystery Egg FetchQuest, and the thought to go back to him to trade in the Red Scale for the Exp. Share is quite random since the game never forces you to go back to his house. It doesn't help that his house is at an out-of-the-way location on Route 30. |
| 280 | |
| 281 | [[AC: Generation III]] |
| 282 | |
| 283 | * Purifying Shadow Lugia in ''VideoGame/PokemonXDGaleOfDarkness''. It's said multiple times throughout the game that it cannot be purified, and you're led to believe they're right; using it in battle, giving it Scents, even putting it in the Purify Chamber does absolutely nothing to drop its Heart Gauge. Well, to purify it, you need all nine sets of the Purify Chamber to be at full tempo, and then you need to put Lugia into any of the sets. This instantly drops the gauge to zero, giving you the ability to purify Lugia. Now, if just putting Lugia into the Chamber regularly doesn't do anything, ''how the hell'' would you know to have ''nine perfect sets'' going at the same time? What makes this worse is the fact that the Purification Chamber itself is otherwise fairly intuitive. Having sets at max tempo does help you purify more quickly, so if you've been using the Chamber much it's likely that you already have at least a few sets at max tempo. Still, ''nothing at all'' in the game hints that you need ''all'' sets at max tempo to purify Lugia. However, once you get all the sets to max tempo, the game tells you that Lugia reacts to it, giving you a hint to put it in the chamber. Getting max tempo is still a hassle though. |
| 284 | * In ''Pokémon Emerald'' some players may get stuck wondering where the new Team Magma hideout is, as in this game Team Aqua owns the Lilycove base whose occupation varied depending on version in ''Ruby'' and ''Sapphire''. After receiving the Magma Emblem at the top of Mt. Pyre, players are supposed to recall a lone Magma grunt that they stumbled across on Jagged Pass on the way to Lavaridge Town. When the player returns to the spot where the grunt was originally standing, the Magma Emblem will react as a door key, and open up the entrance to the Team Magma hideout. |
| 285 | * It's pretty obvious for Contests that you have to increase the primary condition for it (increasing Beauty for a Beauty contest for example) to do well in the primary judging. It's far less obvious that each contest also has "secondary" conditions that will also increase how well you do in the primary judging if you raise them. This really begins to show in Master Rank in the original games and when Lisia starts competing in the remakes, as you'll start losing every primary round unless you're using scarves to try and keep up. ''Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire'' aid with this by having multiple hints about the benefits of increasing multiple stats besides your main one, like Lisia talking about contest conditions in the plural, Rainbow Pokéblocks increasing all five conditions at once, and the Cosplay Pikachu starting off with all its contest stats raised equally, but still never tells you directly. |
| 286 | * In ''[=FireRed=]'' and ''[=LeafGreen=]'', the Itemfinder has an undocumented behavior unique to this pair of games. There are a handful of items that can only be obtained by standing on the ''exact'' spot that the item is on, then using the Itemfinder at that spot to obtain it. The Itemfinder itself won't actually point you in the direction of these hidden items, so without a guide, a player isn't likely to figure this out by accident. |
| 287 | * The way Gym Leader rematches work in ''Emerald'' is so convoluted, nobody really knew the specifics until the game's code was studied closely. The game has three counters that, after the player becomes Champion, go down when player enters a wild battle, a Trainer battle, or a Battle Frontier battle. Once a counter reaches 0, the game has a ''chance'' to make one of the Gym Leaders eligible for rematches (and even then, the rematches are gimped until the player finishes the New Mauville sidequest). |
| 288 | |
| 289 | [[AC: Generation IV]] |
| 290 | !!!''Diamond, Pearl, and Platinum'' |
| 291 | * The Generation IV National Dex is the only one in the series that's unlocked by seeing (not catching) all of the Pokémon in the regional Pokédex instead of completing the main story. To make this task easier, every non-legendary Pokémon in the Sinnoh Dex is on the team of at least one NPC trainer, and beating the game to get the National Dex is instead enforced by a few rare Pokémon only being on the team of the Pokémon League Champion. However, it's not always entirely evident ''where'' to find some of these Pokémon. Examples of Pokémon that could easily be missed: |
| 292 | ** Wormadam is in the party of a trainer on a part of Route 214 that you might not even end up visiting at all (while the route leads to the story-relevant Lake Valor from Veilstone City, you approach the lake from Pastoria City the first time it's visited for plot purposes), and fighting the trainer isn't mandatory because she isn't facing the main path. ''Platinum'' makes this a bit better by changing the gym order, thus making the route mandatory; however the trainer is still optional. |
| 293 | ** Riolu is in the party of one trainer in an optional, out-of-the-way part of Oreburgh Gate, which has no real reason to be revisited after you get the first gym badge. ''Platinum'' adds a second Riolu to a trainer on Route 217, but given the wide-open nature of that route, encountering that trainer still isn't guaranteed. The only way to get a Riolu for yourself is to go through a sidequest in an optional area while keeping a slot in your party open (which also means no catching Pokémon while you're there) and then hatching an egg. |
| 294 | ** Drifloon is only present on the team of a skippable trainer inside Fantina's gym in ''Diamond'' and ''Pearl'' and is annoying to catch because it only appears as a static encounter in front of the Valley Windworks every Friday. While one appears in the overworld in Amity Square and can be interacted with, this doesn't count as viewing it. ''Platinum'' fixes this by giving it to a mandatory trainer on Route 214. |
| 295 | ** The Pokédex data for the opposite box legendary to your game in ''Diamond'' and ''Pearl'' (Palkia in ''Diamond'', Dialga in ''Pearl'') is obtained by returning to Celestic Town after Spear Pillar and talking to Cynthia's grandmother, which isn't intuitive due to a lack of other reasons to go there after the plot moves on from it; in Platinum, both of them are seen (and uncatchable) on your initial trip to Spear Pillar. |
| 296 | ** ''Platinum'' makes getting data on the mythical Manaphy a requirement for the National Dex; it was optional in ''Diamond'' and ''Pearl'' due to being listed after all the required Pokémon there, but Platinum adding more Pokémon to the Sinnoh Dex meant that keeping it that way would produce a conspicuous gap in the Pokédex. You can find this data in a similar fashion to Dialga and Palkia in the originals, but a different place: a book in Mr. Backlot's mansion. |
| 297 | ** Rotom is added to the Sinnoh Dex in ''Platinum'', as it's a postgame-only Pokémon in ''Diamond'' and ''Pearl''. The only in-game allusion to its location is that examining the TV in the Old Chateau during the day hints there's something special about it, which doesn't indicate that checking again at night will produce a different result and start a Rotom encounter. Furthermore, the game doesn't say anything about how a certain key (which can only be obtained during a limited Wi-Fi event) is needed to unlock its various forms. Later generations made dealing with Rotom easier by making it a regular wild encounter and not locking access to its forms behind a limited-time event. |
| 298 | * While Generation IV introduced a lot of new evolutions for older Pokémon, the majority of them are absent from ''Diamond and Pearl'''s iteration of the regional Pokédex because their previous forms aren't in the wild before the postgame, with the five that ''are'' included[[note]]Roserade, Ambipom, Mismagius, Honchkrow, and Weavile[[/note]] being seemingly random. Additionally, Rotom is only obtainable after getting the National Dex despite neither being a legendary nor having any relation to an older Pokémon. ''Platinum'' thankfully fixes this problem with the regional dex expansion, though the placement of these evolutions and Rotom in the National Dex is still squeezed between the end of the other regular Pokémon and the legendaries instead of being dispersed in roughly the order in which they're found. |
| 299 | * While one can muddle through by trial and error, growing Berries in Generation IV has driven people to create spreadsheets to organize the process. As silly as this sounds, this is done because this generation added additional complications to growing Berries that weren't present in the previous generation. Each Berry plant has a total growth time between 8 and 96 hours and a moisture rate (between 4 and 35) that is deducted from the soil moisture count each hour. This count is set to 100 at planting and reset to 100 whenever the plant is watered; the final yield of the plant decreases by one berry for every hour the plant spends at zero moisture. Thus, each plant has to be watered with a certain easily calculated frequency to ensure maximum yield. To keep things from being too simple, the dev team added Mulches to either reduce the water requirement while increasing growth time, or decrease growth time in exchange for more frequent watering. With this twist, Berry plants now have three different growth times, and three different minimum watering frequencies. |
| 300 | * Unlocking the extra box wallpapers is probably the worst it's ever been in the series. Players need to tell specific phrases that are likely to be nonsensical to a producer at Jubilife's TV station. These phrases are based on the selected language as well as the player's name and trainer ID. Nowhere in the game hints at these extra box wallpapers and an online calculator is pretty much the only way to discover the correct phrases. ''[=HeartGold and SoulSilver=]''also has this feature, this time at Violet City. Other games with extra box wallpapers have them unlock automatically after clearing a major story events, usually by entering the Hall of Fame for the first time, and the mechanic was done away with entirely in Generation VII. |
| 301 | |
| 302 | !!!''[=HeartGold and SoulSilver=]'' |
| 303 | |
| 304 | * The Olivine Lighthouse in the remakes is now redesigned to have a section that involves a blind leap out of one of the lighthouse windows. Without looking it up, it can be frustrating trying to find your way off that floor. |
| 305 | * One of the stars for your Trainer Card in these games is unlocked by collecting five Shiny Leaves on a single Pokémon and have Ethan/Lyra make a crown out of them. Seems simple enough, but the routes your 'mon can obtain said leaves is dependent on their nature, so expect to comb ''both'' Kanto and Johto's grassy regions and interact with your 'mon to see if a reaction occurs. To make it worse, the game doesn't hint at the existence of these leaves until you actually find one, at which point Ethan/Lyra gives a bit of information and then leaves the rest to you. |
| 306 | * You can rematch any Gym Leader in the game, with a souped-up team...if you have their phone numbers. Talking to them in their Gyms won't get you the number. For most of them, you have to find them outside their Gyms, and then they'll give them to you. Most of them have either a tiny window of time in which they're available (Jasmine, Lt. Surge), while others appear well off the beaten path or in places you aren't likely to revisit (Morty, Bugsy). Blue's number, however, is received by having his sister massage one of your Pokémon seven times while said Pokémon is at maximum happiness, after which she'll give you his number. |
| 307 | |
| 308 | [[AC: Generation V]] |
| 309 | |
| 310 | * Transferring your Generation II remake Celebi and/or Beast Trio to get your Zorua/Zoroark. And even if you know to do that, you need to use the Relocator if you want to transfer them before getting the National Dex, and finding it within the maze of buildings that is Castelia City isn't the easiest task. |
| 311 | * Finding the Seven Sages in ''Black & White'' is obnoxious because while most of them are in places where you fought [[AnimalWrongsGroup Team Plasma]] during the main story, two of them are in out of the way areas that aren't even accessible before the credits roll. |
| 312 | * ''Black 2 & White 2'' have the Dropped Item sidequest. For starters, it's easy to miss picking up the item that starts the sidequest in the first place because it's tucked away in a flowerbed. The item in question is a Xtransceiver that belongs to a person named Yancy (if you chose the male Trainer) or Curtis (if you chose the female Trainer). You have to scour the main hexagon of Unova for ''15 specific areas and stand in a specific tile'' to trigger a call from them. After getting called ten times by Yancy/Curtis, progressing further in the quest involves calling them repeatedly. This is done by returning to the above mentioned 15 areas (though thankfully you don't have stand on the specific spot this time) to find out where it's even possible to call them, with it being impossible to call them from the same area multiple times in a row... and it takes a total of '''50''' phone calls to get your ultimate reward: unlimited daily trades in which Yancy/Curtis will trade a Lv. 50 'mon (with its Hidden ability) for ''any'' 'mon. Good luck trying to figure all of this out without the aid of an online guide. |
| 313 | * There are 5 Berries which restore 1/8 of a Pokémon's HP, but confuse Pokémon who hate its taste. This isn't a problem in Generation III and IV, where the tag options exist (bag description of HGSS outright states the taste), but Generation V doesn't list the tastes of berries or even explain what taste ''is'', so unless you've played older games or feel like experimenting... Of course, they're inferior to Sitrus Berries, which restore more HP, have no possibility of inducing confusion, and activate sooner. But the game never tells you ''that'' either. [[BalanceBuff Seemingly to make up for this]], ''VideoGame/PokemonSunAndMoon'' buffed the healing of these Berries to 1/2. |
| 314 | * Recommending shops to people walking down Join Avenue in [=B2W2=] can be tricky. While many requests have the customer hint at what they want to do (even if some aren't very specific), there are multiple phrases uttered by customers who want to visit shops that are run by males or females specifically. Most of these phrases are ''incredibly'' open-ended and vague, such as "I want to go there!" or "Where do you think I want to go?," and give no indication the customer is referring to shopkeepers of a specific gender. Adding to the confusion, the similarly worded "Please take me to a shop you recommend" request is ''not'' one of these phrases, but instead a freebie where the customer can be directed to any shop. |
| 315 | * The Abyssal Ruins are home to the plates required to change Arceus' form, as well as some very rare and expensive ShopFodder. To get there, you have to use Dive and then navigate a complex maze system, your only hints being some cryptic coded messages[[note]]easier to decipher in the sequels since they are translated into Roman letters, which you can just read backwards[[/note]] on purple pillars. You also need Flash and Strength for the third and fourth floors, respectively. There's nothing indicating that you need to get to the center within a certain number of steps, meaning players may get to the center and not realize they can't proceed. Also, you can't be in the ruins for more than 500 steps or a torrent of water will force you above water, meaning you can't get all the items in one go, and you have to ignore nearly all items in order to make it to the center. The few [=NPCs=] who discuss the Abyssal Ruins with you never give any hints on how to navigate the maze, other than mentioning what you can find in the ruins. |
| 316 | |
| 317 | [[AC: Generation VI]] |
| 318 | |
| 319 | !!!''X and Y'' |
| 320 | |
| 321 | * The hidden style stat that's used in Lumiose City is very poorly explained, both in terms of how it's increased and how it benefits the player. |
| 322 | ** The first time the player encounters this function is likely to be when they're not allowed inside Boutique Couture until they're stylish enough. Not only does this interaction not indicate what style even is, leading to players assuming it refers to their character's outfit and getting frustrated when wearing expensive clothes doesn't help, but it also implies that visiting every building in town will somehow increase one's stylishness. While exploring Lumisose further will likely cause one's style points to increase through engaging with what the city has to offer, just wandering around won't do anything by itself. |
| 323 | ** Various services in Lumiose are either unlocked or have their prices reduced as your style rating goes up. The Mega Stones being sold for 500,000 Pokédollars become more steeply discounted the higher your style gets, eventually dropping to a mere ''10,000''. The hair salon and Furfrou groomers will give you access to more cuts. Even the audio guide at the museum will be given to you for free instead of requiring a token small payment of 200 Pokédollars if you're sufficiently stylish. Also, doing some actions will increase your style rating more than others, which can be helpful... but knowing which activities give you more style points or the perks of engaging with this at all basically requires the use of a guide. |
| 324 | * The final O-Power, the highly useful Hatching Power, is difficult to find, let alone get. To get it, you need to have a very high style stat and go to Café Introversion, where Mr. Bonding will be if you did everything right. |
| 325 | * Getting to the Pokémon Village. You need to head west into a roughly t-shaped part of the forest, [[AlienGeometries go back the way you came which now leads somewhere completely different]], then turn around again to enter a part of the forest that looks similar (but not identical to) the first t-shaped area. Now you are free to head west to the Pokémon Village. |
| 326 | |
| 327 | !!!''Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire'' |
| 328 | |
| 329 | * ''Omega Ruby'' and ''Alpha Sapphire'' takes this to a whole new level in the underwater areas. The original games at least had "invisible" items be marked by a noticeable bulge on the seabed, but in the remakes the items are completely invisible. You are unable to use the Dowsing Machine while underwater, which means that you are forced to trawl every inch of the seabed in case you miss an item which may not even be there in the first place! Some of these are easy to find, since they're in otherwise completely empty areas, or in rather conspicuous gaps in the middle of the seaweed, but how is anyone supposed to know that there's a Pixie Plate in the middle of ''nowhere''?! There's even a necessary PixelHunt for the Scanner in the submerged part of Sea Mauville, as giving it to Captain Stern nets you the Clear/Tidal Bells, which are needed to open up Ho-oh/Lugia's portal on Sea Mauville, which are needed to be in your party while soaring to find the Legendary Beasts. |
| 330 | * Unlike the original games, it's possible to obtain both types of bicycle at once. Not only does this save a lot of time, it means you can fully traverse the Safari Zone and a few of the mirage islands, which require both bikes. How do you do this? Just talk to three completely random people who are all off the beaten path (one of them is found in the Battle Resort, which you can't access until after the Delta Episode) and then go talk to Rydel. ''Nowhere'' is any of this mentioned. Even the fact that you can obtain both bikes at all is never brought up even by Rydel himself! Your only hints is that there are areas that blatantly ''need'' both bikes to get to, and the people you need to talk to disappear after they comment on your bike as if they're just part of a quest, but that still does nothing for figuring out how to do it. |
| 331 | * The Mirage Islands open up once you've gotten the Eon Flute after calming Groudon or Kyogre. However, which island(s) you can access is random and they change daily. More of them can be accessed at once when you streetpass other players, but usually you'll only have access to one of them at a time. Many of these islands also house rare species of Pokémon that cannot be obtained anywhere else in the Gen VI games (not even in the Friend Safari Zones of ''X and Y''). Many islands also have rare items, including [=TMs=]. One of the islands even has a Cresselia, but unlike other islands that have legendaries, this one also appears and disappears at random. Also, some islands require both bikes in order to be fully explored. |
| 332 | |
| 333 | [[AC: Generation VII]] |
| 334 | |
| 335 | * The Festival Plaza in ''VideoGame/PokemonSunAndMoon'' and ''VideoGame/PokemonUltraSunAndUltraMoon'' carries on the tradition of vague stall requests. One of their request lines is basically a request for you to take a wild guess, and several of their 'Guess What I Want' quizzes require foreknowledge of their player trivia that you could obtain from their Guest Information in the subscreen lists, but you need to actively look for this information ''beforehand''. The only mercy is that there are several easier opportunities to earn FC, from simply outperforming them in Record Battles, participating in Festivals, and earning small amounts of FC with every Link Trade, Wonder Trade, or Global Trade you make. |
| 336 | * The Battle Buffet challenges you to complete as many battles as possible in 10 turns. Though every NPC trainer carries only 1 Pokémon, some of them have Pokémon with moves and abilities designed to hinder your ability to knock them out quickly. Some trainers for example have Pokémon with the ability Sturdy, which prevents them being knocked out in one turn under normal circumstances. |
| 337 | |
| 338 | [[AC: Generation IX]] |
| 339 | |
| 340 | * For some inexplicable reason, ''VideoGame/PokemonScarletAndViolet'' removed the [[AntiFrustrationFeatures feature of shinies having sparkles around them]] in the overworld. To make matters worse, many of the Paldea {{mons}} like Tandemaus have shiny forms visually almost identical to their normal ones. However, this is mitigated by the fact that your Pokémon will [[AntiFrustrationFeatures actively refuse to fight shinies on your behalf]] in the auto-battle feature in Let's Go mode, giving players a tool to suss them out. |
| 341 | * In contrast to previous games, the player is free to challenge the Gyms in any order they wish as they explore the open-world. However, despite the fact that Gym Leaders [[FridgeLogic canonically have multiple teams to match with each challenger's skill level]], there's no level scaling. Having a balanced experience with Gyms thus railroads you into following the intended order, except the game doesn't tell the player what this order is[[note]]Bug, Grass, Electric, Water, Normal, Ghost, Psychic, Ice[[/note]] beyond pointing out the first Gym's location. Furthermore, the placement of the Gyms on the map makes it difficult to figure out the intended order for oneself; the Ghost and Ice Gyms are practically next to each other, but the level curve places the Psychic gym between them and it's in the opposite corner of the region. |
| 342 | * Like the Gyms, the Titan Pokémon and the Team Star bases have an implied (but not explicitly stated) intended order due to lacking level scaling. While this isn't much of an issue with the Titans because the game tells you where to find the first one, you aren't told where to start with the Team Star bases. This often leads to people challenging Mela's base first due to its proximity to the first Titan and the second Gym, even though she's actually the second Team Star boss and her levels indicate she should be fought after the third Gym, [[ThatOneBoss and finding it to be unexpectedly difficult]]. |
| 343 | * If a Pokémon controlled by a human player faints in a Tera Raid Battle, a penalty equal to the Pokémon's level in seconds is applied to the raid timer. Nowhere does the game explain or visually indicate this except for your Tera Raid timer suddenly dropping when your Pokémon faints... following a delay of a few seconds, making it difficult to form an association between Pokémon fainting and losing time, and learning this via watching other raid participants is impossible in singleplayer because AI-controlled Pokémon do NOT incur the penalty when they faint. This, combined with harder raids only providing 450 seconds total to defeat the boss and Level 100 Pokémon commonly being used to fight them, results in many people entering 5+ star Tera Raid Battles with reckless strategies that make their Pokémon faint a lot and rapidly run down the clock, then wonder how they're supposed to win due to lack of adequate time without realizing they're the source of the problem. |
| 344 | [[/folder]] |
| 345 | |
| 346 | [[folder:Mystery Dungeon]] |
| 347 | [[VideoGame/PokemonMysteryDungeon Mystery Dungeon]] is a dungeon crawler rather than an RPG. This means the series has its own share of moments. |
| 348 | |
| 349 | [[AC: Multiple games]] |
| 350 | |
| 351 | * First off, finding out which dungeons spawn what items. Some dungeons even add or remove items as you progress through floors. |
| 352 | * ''Rescue Team'' and ''Explorers'' assign you to be a certain Pokémon depending on your answers in the quiz. Each question awards hidden points that are used to calculate your result, on top of being dependent on the chosen gender. [[labelnote:Note]]While few Pokémon are outright gender-exclusive, most simply change the Nature result you need for it.[[/labelnote]] Even if you know this beforehand, there's no guarantee that you will get as set of questions that'll allow you to choose the Pokémon you want. This problem is fixed in ''Super'' and the remake of ''Rescue Team'' where you can just pick a Pokémon yourself if you don't agree with the choice. |
| 353 | * In the older games, the moves Screech, Memento, Charm and Aurora Beam do not affect stat stages like other stat-changing moves, but instead apply a direct multiplier to your stats. |
| 354 | * Before ''Explorers of Sky'', there was no in-game indicator at all of how accurate or powerful a move is, and neither of these values have to correspond with what they are in the main series. |
| 355 | * Certain moves (such as room-clearing moves) can hit inside walls, even if the user cannot phase through walls, making those Ghost-type infected dungeons that much easier. |
| 356 | |
| 357 | [[AC: Red and Blue Rescue Team]] |
| 358 | |
| 359 | * All evolutionary items are found only in certain dungeons, either as a random or a scripted item. The worst offenders are Link Cables, which appear in place of the scripted items you've already got, and the few evolutionary items that you can get only if Wish Cave generated a shop on one of the ''12 specific''[[labelnote:Which ones?]]13, 26, 33, 41, 49, 59, 65, 71, 78, 83, 88 and 93. Have fun.[[/labelnote]] floors. [[ShaggyDogStory With only the last two guaranteeing that the shop will have an evolution item.]] |
| 360 | * To recruit Pokémon, you need Friend Areas. However, the game never tells you that certain legendaries' FA are given to you ''by'' recruiting their residents.[[labelnote:Which ones?]]Legendary birds, Lugia, Celebi, weather trio and Deoxys[[/labelnote]] |
| 361 | * In the original game, Pokémon found in the first dungeon--Tiny Woods--cannot be recruited for your team. The only thing telling you this if you bother checking the recruitment screen; evidently the developers got enough complaints from frustrated gamers who went through the dungeon over and over again trying to recruit team members that they had to fix it for the ''DX'' Switch remake. |
| 362 | * The existence of buried items is mentioned in-game exactly once - if you talk to Lombre when Buried Relic is the current topic. However, the game never mentions other dungeons have buried items - for some items this is the only way to obtain them. The best way to find buried items is to dig a long corridor in seemingly unused portion of the map (if you walk in the naturally generated corridors, you might sometimes see that map left a big chunk without any rooms or corridors). and then run back through that corridor. This is because if you suddenly stop in a corridor for no apparent reason, it means there's a buried item near you. In ''DX'', you can wear X-Ray Specs to find buried items in addition to revealing the other regular items on the map. |
| 363 | * Unlike other legendaries, Mew will spawn as a random Pokémon, either at the beginning of a floor or in a Monster House (with a particularly low spawn rate). If you fail to recruit it, you can try your luck at later floors. Even the guidebook's not really helpful on this. |
| 364 | |
| 365 | [[AC: Explorers]] |
| 366 | |
| 367 | * Unlike ''Red and Blue Rescue Team'', later dungeons are filled with various species of Pokémon (with forms like Shellos or Burmy counting as separate species). However, the game will pick only 14 each time, with the unpicked spawn rate rolling over to whichever picked Pokémon is next in the internal list. Most of the time this mechanic does not matter, but there are certain species that are incredibly hard to recruit unless one exploits this in their favor. |
| 368 | * The type-wide exclusive items. The existence of exclusive items is relatively common knowledge, perhaps with some luck you got your way to a 3-star item for a Pokémon you are using (or in Sky it was the only item for that species so you just swapped for it at Croagunk's). If you play for long enough, you probably have seen the ones behind locked chambers, such as the ones for legendary Pokémon or the type-wide Silk. However, unlike the legendary items, the Silk items are 1-star, meaning there are better type-wide items. So, where you do start to get better ones? ...With completing random missions, and hoping you get the other one. Missions that are ranked at least 5-star might award them if the reward is stated to be ??? - this can award an exclusive item. If the client/outlaw species does not have a 1-star item, it will instead award the Dust item for one of its types, which you can trade together with Silk for the Gem... and then you have to repeat that for the 3-star Globe, and then if you want to be completionist, get the previous items again (which means getting Dust two more times ''just for that specific type out of all 17''). |
| 369 | [[AC: Rescue Team DX]] |
| 370 | * Riolu and Lucario, being the only completely new Pokémon, have a very special way to recruit them. Once you obtain the Lucario Statue at Ultra Rank, they can spawn in the Mystery Houses in specific post-game dungeons, and only there. |
| 371 | [[/folder]] |
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