The goal of every mainline Pokémon game is the same: to go from an unknown, newbie trainer to the Pokémon League Champion. While you do this, you are also encouraged to catch as many Pokémon as you can, to fill in your Pokédex.

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Two things every trainer needs: A Pokémon and a Pokédex.

To achieve your goals, you’ll need to get places. Good thing your character–the Pokémon trainer–is quite nimble and can walk, run or bike across Unova without rest. You’re also surprisingly charismatic and can easily strike up conversations with the locales, to receive advice or even freebies.

Still, it’s dangerous to go alone, especially when wild Pokémon and battle-thirsty trainers await in every corner. Before you can leave your home town, you’ll be given one of three starter Pokémon of your choice to begin your grand Pokémon adventure.

Once you have a Pokémon under your belt, you can begin to create a name for yourself. Now you can battle and capture other wild Pokémon or clash with other trainers. Unova, you’d better watch out!

Pokémon Battles¶

We’ll discuss the actual battles in depth later as they’re integral to the games, but to actually initiate a battle you have to do one of two things.

To begin a wild Pokémon battle, you need to run around tall grass or other locations where Pokémon might live. Doing so will randomly trigger a battle with a random Pokémon found in the habitat. Encountering wild Pokémon is important because only wild Pokémon can be caught.

If you want to battle with a Pokémon trainer , you can either speak to them or walk into their line of sight. For the latter, if the trainer is willing to fight, an exclamation mark will appear over their head and they will walk up to you. You can avoid battling some trainers, but some cannot be avoided, so watch out.

Keeping Your Pokémon Healthy¶

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It doesn’t matter how you do it, just be sure to heal your Pokémon every now and again.

Participating in Pokémon battles will likely reduce your Pokémon’s HP and PP. HP (Health Points) reflect your Pokémon’s stamina–once it reaches 0, your Pokémon will faint and become unable to battle.

PP (Power Points) are the number of times a Pokémon can use a particular move. Each move has its own maximum PP value; typically the stronger the move, the less PP it has.

You can restore HP and PP by using items such as Potions or Ether , which you can buy from Poke Marts or find on the floor, or for free by visiting the nurse at the front of the Pokémon Centre.