History GuideDangIt / Pokemon

* 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 the original Hoenn games, 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.

* * 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.

* The Olivine Lighthouse in ''VideoGame/PokemonGoldAndSilver'' and the remakes has 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.

* Many Johto Pokémon fall under this in their debut appearance due to being sidelined for the Kanto ones instead. Overall, they are rarely used by Trainers as well as having very low encounter rates and high 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.

* ''X'' and ''Y'' have a fair bit of this. The 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.

* 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 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.

* Related to breeding Regional Forms, there are two Pokémon where the rules regarding them are slightly different:
** White Striped Basculin and Basculegion don't follow the rule regarding Regional Breeding at all and instead its treated like any other form where the parent will always produce offspring that are the same form as them.[[note]]Red Stripes produce more Red Stripes, Blue Stripes produce more Blue Stripes and White Stripes (and Basculegion) produce more White Stripes[[/note]]. This is despite being considered a regional form In-universe and in Pokémon HOME.
** Regular Normal-Type Tauros without an Everstone bred in Paldea will always result in the Combat Breed Paldean Tauros (which is just Fighting-type) and never the Blaze Breed Paldean Tauros (which is Fighting/Fire) or Aqua Breed Paldean Tauros (which is Fighting/Water). The only way to breed these special breeds of Paldean Tauros is if the parent are those breeds themselves.

** Rather than the ''lead'' Pokémon (the one that initiates the start of the encounter) possessing the ability you are using to manipulate encounters, in SOS battles it is the ''active'' lead Pokémon (who is in battle right when the SOS calls are made) that will affect the encounters being generated with abilities like Synchronize, Compound Eyes, Cute Charm, Magnet Pull, and Static.

* One of the most notable cases of an incomplete description is Water Bubble, Dewpider and Araquanid's [[SecretArt signature ability]]. It correctly 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.

* 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 would pair nicely with Inteleon's Hidden Ability, Sniper, that causes critical hits to deal extra damage.

* While one can muddle through by trial and error, Berry growth in Generation IV has driven people to create spreadsheets documenting Berry growth. 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.

* The Boutique located in Lumiose City won't allow you in until you are stylish enough. It's not uncommon for players to ask in forums why customizing your character's looks and wearing the most expensive clothing available at that point does nothing. It's because the NPC doesn't mean that you have to look pretty, rather, you need to get a hidden stat to a certain level before they'll let you in. There are a number of ways to increase this stat around Lumiose, but nothing actually tells you that these things make you more stylish and the dialogue when you get kicked out of the boutique seems to suggest that you basically just need to visit every building in town. On a similar note, a number of other services are unlocked or have their prices reduced as your style rating goes up. That old guy in the stone shop selling Mega Stones for 500,000 Pokédollars? Get your style rating up high enough and it drops to ''10,000''. The Art Museum? ''Gives you the Audio Guide to the gallery's pieces for free'' rather than require a token small payment of 200 Pokédollars. The Hairdresser? She'll eventually treat you as a regular customer, which unlocks a few more options of hair customization (though the girl gets more options than the guy does). Also, some things will increase your style rating more than others, which can be helpful... but knowing which activities give you more style points basically requires the use of a guide.
* The final O-Power, the highly useful Hatching Power, is difficult to find, let alone get. To get it, you need to max out your style and go to Café Introversion, where Mr. Bonding will be if you did everything right.

* ''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 or 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 is needed to open up Ho-oh/Lugia's portal on Sea Mauville. And depending on your version, either one of them are needed to be in your party while soaring to find the Legendary Beasts.
* In ''Omega Ruby'' and ''Alpha Sapphire'', 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 requires 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.
* The Mirage Islands of ''Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire''. They 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 a time 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 in order to fully explore some of the islands, you need both bikes.

* The Festival Plaza in ''Sun & Moon'' 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.
* The Battle Buffet in ''VideoGame/PokemonSunAndMoon'' and ''VideoGame/PokemonUltraSunAndUltraMoon'' challenge 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.

* 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 which means if you want a balanced experience you're railroaded into following the order anyway. Except aside from pointing the player in the direction of the first Gym the game itself doesn't tell you the proper order (Bug, Grass, Electric, Water, Normal, Ghost, Psychic, Ice), and to make matters worse the Ghost and Ice Gyms are practically right next to each other. The same also applies to the Titans and Team Star bases.
* In Tera Raid Battles, if a Pokémon controlled by a human player faints, there is a time penalty equal to that Pokémon's level in seconds. Nowhere does the game explain or visually indicate this except for your Tera Raid timer suddenly dropping after your Pokémon faints--but with a delay of a few seconds ''after'' it faints. As most Pokémon people use for a Tera Raid Battle's highest difficulties would be at Level 100, and those higher difficulties give you 450 seconds, that's a big chunk each time. Due to the delayed nature of the timer deducting seconds, as well as computer-controlled Pokémon NOT having this time penalty, many people come into 5-, 6-, or 7-star Tera Raid Battles with reckless strategies causing their Pokémon to faint a lot, then wonder how they can ever defeat the Pokémon with so little time provided for them. They never know the time penalties ever occurred, let alone that it was their actions causing them.

* 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 where you can just pick a Pokémon yourself if you don't agree with the choice.

* 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 has to follow main series.

** 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 Nintendo and Game Freak 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.
* 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 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.

* 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.

* ''Black 2 & White 2'': The Dropped Item sidequest. You may even miss picking up the key item on your way through the game, not even knowing it was there. 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 on a specific tile'' to trigger a call from them. After that (getting called ten times by Yancy/Curtis), comes the second part of the quest. You have to call them in the above mentioned 15 areas (not on the same tile, just being in the route/town counts this time). Where you can call them is randomized, meaning you have to run/fly around Unova to the designated areas, and their number will disappear after every call (and you need to either wait a day or go to a different area)...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/Dream World ability) for ''any'' 'mon. Good luck trying to figure all of this out without the aid of an online guide.
* There are 5 Berries which restore 1/8 of HP, but confuse Pokémon who hate its taste. This is not as much as problem in Generation III and IV, where the tag options exist (bag description of HGSS outright states the taste), but Generation V? They say "If held by a Pokémon, it restores the user's HP in a pinch, but will cause confusion if it hates the taste.", but ''nowhere'' in the game it is stated which berry has which taste or even what taste ''is'', so unless you've played older games or feel like experimenting... Of course, they're inferior to Sitrus Berries, which restore 1/4 of max HP but with no chance of confusion and they take effect if the Pokémon's HP reaches below half, not below quarter. But the game never tells you ''that'' either. [[BalanceBuff Seemingly to make up for this]], ''VideoGame/PokemonSunAndMoon'' buffed the healing to 1/2.
* Join Avenue in [=B2W2=]: Recommending shops to people walking down the avenue can be tricky. Some requests can be as vague as "I want to go there!" or "Where do you think I want to go?," which is supposed to be customers wanting to visit shops that are run by males or females specifically. The player would have to look up exactly where in order to avoid them leaving out of disappointment. The only one that's safe is "Please take me to a shop you recommend" where any shop is allowed, which is '''not''' the case for the similarly phrased "Take me somewhere! Anywhere!".

* The Boutique located in Lumiose City won't allow you in until you are stylish enough. It's not uncommon for players to ask in forums why customizing your character's looks and wearing the most expensive clothing available at that point, does nothing. It's because the NPC doesn't mean that you have to look pretty, rather, you need to get a hidden stat to a certain level before they'll let you in. There are a number of ways to increase this stat around Lumiose, but nothing actually tells you that these things make you more stylish and the dialogue when you get kicked out of the boutique seems to suggest that you basically just need to visit every building in town. On a similar note, a number of other services are unlocked or have their prices reduced as your style rating goes up. That old guy in the stone shop selling Mega Stones for 500,000 Pokédollars? Get your style rating up high enough and it drops to ''10,000''. The Art Museum? ''Gives you the Audio Guide to the gallery's pieces for free'' rather than require a token small payment of 200 Pokédollars. The Hairdresser? She'll eventually treat you as a regular customer, which unlocks a few more options of hair customization (though the girl gets more options than the guy does). Also, some things will increase your style rating more than others, which can be helpful... but knowing which activities give you more style points basically requires the use of a guide.

* The ''entire move list'' in the first generation of games was a guide dang it, because nowhere in the game did any of those moves get their effects described. So you really had no idea what that new move Charmander just learned actually does, you just knew it's a Fire attack with 15 PP. Is it stronger or weaker than that other Fire attack it just forgot? Who knows?
* One very, very small one, and only for those of us for whom Pokémon was one of our first-ever Role-Playing Games. The games start you off in your room in the upstairs part of your house. Going downstairs is intuitive, but ''nowhere does it say that the little floor mat marks the front door of your house''. 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.
* The infamous switch puzzle in the Vermilion city gym. Finding the first switch is just trial and error, but good luck figuring out the second switch when there are usually ''multiple'' buckets surrounding the first switch. Further muddying matters is that it doesn't matter which switches you've already checked, the second one can be ''any'' bucket adjacent to the first one, including ones you just checked. To make matters worse, the puzzle ''resets'' if you choose wrong and the two switches are ''moved to another location''. It's even worse in the first generation, where [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Vermilion_Gym#Generation_I the puzzle is glitched all to hell]] and has a moderate chance of breaking its own rules -- the second switch has a decent chance of being in the top-left can regardless of where the first was, and in ''Yellow'', the second switch can ''fail to spawn at all'' for a given try.
* Entering Saffron City in the Generation I games and their remakes. The first time the player attempts to enter (from Cerulean City) the only path into the city will be blocked by the security guard, and the player has to go around, and every other guard on every other path to the city says the same thing. The only hint as to how to get in is that the guards mention that they are thirsty before telling the player to wait because the road is closed. Much later in the game, the player can buy drinks, but only at a single vending machine which only exists on the roof of the Celadon Department Store, which a player could easily overlook. Even when the player gets them, 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). It's even worse in the remakes, because instead of getting a drink from the vending machines, the player must instead get a Key Item from an old woman in the Celadon Mansion, when there was nothing important on the ground floor of the Mansion in the originals. This is especially true since this is the ''only'' thing changed in the main story.

* While move effects are now listed in a Pokémon's stat menu, you don't know if a move is good or not until you actually learn it. Obviously, when you replace a decent move for Swift (60 power, Normal-type and ignores accuracy and evasion modifications), this can be frustrating when you deleted a 100% accurate Normal move with 85 or so power.
* The Olivine Lighthouse in ''VideoGame/PokemonGoldAndSilver'' and the remakes. There's one section that involves a blind leap out of one of the lighthouse windows, and without looking it up, it can be frustrating trying to find your way off that floor.
* Due to items only getting single line descriptions, it was sometimes difficult to know exactly what uses certain items had. Held items, in particular, were notorious for having incredibly vague descriptions. The biggest offenders had to be the items ''Stick'', ''Thick Club'', and ''Light Ball''. The former two had descriptions of [[ShopFodder shop fodder]], when in reality they increase Farfetch'd's critical hit ratio and Cubone and Marowak's Attack, respectively. As for the latter item, all its description read was "An odd, electrical orb. (HOLD)" when it actually increases Pikachu's Special Attack. The ''Light Ball'' especially suffered from this since, to know such an item even existed back then, you had to have traded over the starter Pikachu from ''Yellow'' which holds the item by default.
* In order to obtain [=TM09=] (Psych Up), it requires the knowledge of needing to trade an Abra or Kadabra from Gen I over into Gen II, which they hold the TM by default.

* In ''Pokémon Emerald'' some players may end up getting stuck wondering where the new Team Magma hideout is at since it's not that obvious at first glance. After receiving the Magma Emblem at the top of Mt. Pyre, players are supposed to remember back to a lone Magma grunt that they stumbled across on Jagged Pass on the way to Lavaridge Town. When the player returns to the rock wall location of Jagged Pass where the grunt was originally standing, the Magma Emblem will react as a door key, and opens up the entrance to the Team Magma hideout.
* 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 where unless you are taking advantage of it, you will be using scarves to try to keep up or be losing every primary. ''Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire'' aid with this by adding the Contest Star accomplishment and Lisia to hint at the benefit of increasing multiple stats besides your main one, the Rainbow Pokéblocks, and starting Cosplay Pikachu with a good amount in all its stats but still never tells you directly.
* 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 a guide, a player isn't likely to figure this out by accident.

* There's the Generation IV National Dex. It is unlocked by ''seeing'' (not catching) every Pokémon in the Sinnoh Dex (150 in ''Diamond'' and ''Pearl''--seeing Manaphy, the 151st in the Sinnoh Dex, wasn't necessary--and 210 in ''Platinum''), and to help make this easier, they made it so that every non-legendary Pokémon in the Sinnoh Dex could be seen in a trainer battle at some point during the game. Furthermore, to increase the likelihood that you'd have to beat the game (or come up just short) to do so, the only trainer with a [[MagikarpPower Garchomp]], [[SocializationBonus Spiritomb]], or Milotic (and in ''Platinum'', you can add Togekiss to this list) is the Pokémon League Champion. However, they didn't always make it entirely evident where to find some of these. Examples of Pokémon that could easily be missed:
** Wormadam--in the party of a trainer on a part of Route 214 that you might not even end up visiting at all (in between Veilstone City and Lake Valor, since the first time you visit Lake Valor for plot purposes, you'll be coming from Pastoria City), whose gaze can easily be avoided as 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.
** Riolu--in the party of one trainer in an optional, out-of-the-way part of Oreburgh Gate. ''Platinum'' remedied this by giving one to another trainer on Route 217, but given the wide-open nature of that route, it's still no sure thing. And the only way to get one 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.
** Drifloon, which in Diamond and Pearl only appeared in a skippable trainer battle inside Fantina's gym, could be annoying to find as well if you didn't know that one and only one appears in front of the Valley Windworks every Friday. One appears in Amity Square with a Trainer ''and you can talk to it,'' but that doesn't count as viewing it. ''Platinum'' fixes this by giving it to a mandatory trainer on Route 214.
** Palkia (''Diamond'')/Dialga (''Pearl'')/Manaphy (''Platinum''): In the original two, the Pokédex data for the legendary not appearing in your game could be obtained by returning to Celestic Town after Spear Pillar and talking to Cynthia's grandmother. In ''Platinum'', both Dialga and Palkia are seen (and uncatchable) on your initial trip to Spear Pillar, but the expansion of the Sinnoh Dex to 210 means that data for the hidden number 151, Manaphy, must be collected. You can find this data in a similar fashion, but a different place: a book in Mr. Backlot's mansion.
** Rotom (''Platinum'' only, as it only appears after beating the Champion in ''Diamond'' and ''Pearl''). Without the guide letting you know you can only catch it in the Old Chateau at night, and that you need a certain key (which can only be obtained during a limited Wi-Fi event) to unlock its various forms...you'd pretty much have no idea it even exists. Later generations made accessing Rotom's forms easier by not making it a one-time event. It is even an easy-to-find NPC trade in Generation V. If you examine the TV during any other time, it at least hints that there's something special about it... However, it ''is'' kind of vague, and if you didn't already know about Rotom then you'd have little reason to examine the TV in the first place.
* Related to above is the ''Diamond and Pearl'''s iteration of the regional Pokédex. For some reason, some Pokémon that are introduced in Generation IV are not in them, and which are available and which aren't are mostly random (leading to things like Rotom only available after getting the National dex for example). ''Platinum'' thankfully fixes this problem with the regional dex expansion.
* A more mild example. While one can muddle through by trial and error, Berry growth in Generation IV has driven some tropers to create cheat sheets of Berry growth. As silly as a full-blown spreadsheet sounds, the developers got rather enthusiastic with their Berry system. 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.
* Unlocking the extra box wallpapers is probably one of the worst in the series. Players need to 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. The same thing happens in ''[=HeartGold and SoulSilver=]'', this time at Violet City.

* In [[VideoGame/PokemonGoldAndSilver HeartGold and SoulSilver]], there are the Shiny Leaves. You need to collect five leaves on a single mon and have Ethan/Lyra make a crown out of them in order to add a trainer star to your card. 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, ''nowhere'' in the game hints to these leaves until you actually find out, at which point Ethan/Lyra give a little info and then leave the rest to you.
* HGSS also have the Gym Leader rematches. 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). But the absolute worst is Blue. You can scour the world and you'll never find him. To get Blue's number, you have to have his sister massage one of your Pokémon seven times, while said Pokémon is at maximum happiness, then she will give you Blue's number.

* Finding the Seven Sages in ''Black & White'', most of them are in places where you fought [[AnimalWrongsGroup Team Plasma]] in main game but two of them are in out of the way areas that have nothing to do with Team Plasma.