Topic: Pokemon - ?'s from a noob's father

So my son has Pokemon Soulsilver and is frustrated and I'm not much help as I've never played a Pokemon game. I have some questions and I hope you can help. First of all, is Pokemon basically an RPG? He is currently at the top of a tower in Violet City and is failing against the trainer. Does that mean he isn't leveled up enough? And if you walk around battling wild Pokemon, do all of the Pokemon you are holding gain experience points or simply the Pokemon the is battling? I'll start with those questions and see what arise from any answers I get.

Thanks in advance.

Hi Merg, Pokemon is an RPG, however only the pokemon at the front of the party is the one that gets experience. However, if multiple pokemon face an enemy, by the end of the battle then the experience is split amongst all the surviving participants in the battle.

If your son is losing it likely means that he just needs to spend a little more time levelling up his pokemon, depending on the starter some areas are harder than others (because its like a giant game of scissors paper rock).

Do you keep your starter Pokemon with you for the whole game?

Oh, and he started with Totodile (sp?). Will that make the game harder for him?

Pokémon's an RPG, with a heavy emphasis on elemental type match-up. The most commonly used example is: Water beats Fire, Fire beats Grass, Grass beats Water. Types that are super effective (eg Fire against Grass) will do twice the damage they'd normally do, and moves that are not very effective (Fire vs Water) will do half the damage. It's largely easy to tell what type a Pokémon is by looking at it - plantlike Pokémon are always Grass type, birdlike Pokémon are always Flying type, etc - sol you can use this to work out which Pokémon and which attacks will be most effective in the current situation. It's rare that you'd have to grind levels hugely to progress, often elemental type match-up will see you through even if you're a little underlevelled.

For example, since your son is in Bellsprout Tower, it's likely he's stuck against trainers using Bellsprout, a Grass-type Pokémon. These can be easily defeated using Fire-type or Flying-type attacks - he should be able to capture the Flying-type Pidgey on the route outside Violet City. Also, Grass-type attacks are weak against Flying-types, so it will do little damage.

If he started his journey with Cyndaquil, the Fire-type starter, he should be able to easily defeat them using its Fire-type attacks too (such as Ember). If he started with Totodile, the Water-type, he'd be better off keeping that away from battle - Bellsprout's Grass-type attacks will do twice damage, and Totodile's Water-type attacks will do half. And if he started his journey with Chicorita, the Grass-type starter, they'll basically stalemate each other - Grass is not very effective against Grass, so both sides won't be doing much damage with their Grass-type attacks. Use Chicorita's Normal-type attacks (Tackle) to do standard damage (whilst not receiving much damage from Bellsprout's Grass-type attacks).

Building a team of Pokémon to cover many types is the key to success in Pokémon (there's 17 types in all, but don't worry, type match-up is largely intuitive and advice is offered by many NPCs along the journey). Building and maintaining a full team of six can be difficult, so I'd recommend concentrating on a team of just three if you're new to the series.

Thanks Noblo601 and Raylax. Right now he has 6 Pokemon on the screen so I am assuming, Raylax, you are suggesting he keep that number to 3 at this point. But by doing that can he level up all three of those or will only Totodile level up. And how do you exactly "catch" the Pokemon. And Raylax...does he stay away from Bellsprout Tower for good or just now as he has Totodile.

You can catch wild Pokemon by weakening them, but not defeating them and then using a Poké Ball (or, later in the game, a more effective version like a Great Ball or Ultra Ball). The ball will wobble a few times and hopefully the Pokémon will be caught. If it escapes try weakening it further or just throw another ball - it's all down to probability. Try catching a flying-type Pokemon like Hoothoot (which you can find at night in the routes around Violet City) - this will do a lot better against a grass-type like Bellsprout that his water-type Totodile. Also, only wild Pokémon can be caught, not those used by other trainers.

There's no need to restrict the number of Pokémon in your team to three, but it may be easier to manage less that six at once this early in the game.

To level up Pokémon you have to defeat wild or trainer's Pokémon to gain EXP points. Only Pokémon used in the battle will gain EXP, so if you have a team of three Pokémon but only use two of them, the third one will gain no EXP.

Finally, he'll have to go back to Bellsprout tower before long if he wants to continue with the story. He can't go any further until he reaches the top of the tower and defeats the Elder there. If Totodile keeps getting defeated try using a different type - preferably a flying-type like Hoothoot that I suggested earlier. I'd recommend that whatever you're using is around level 10 by this point. If it isn't level 10 yet, keep training - it won't take too long!

Hope that's covered everything for you, MERG. If there's anything else you or your son wants to know, just ask again.

Thanks NFreak007...that explains a lot.

I believe you have to complete Bellsprout Tower in order to advance the storyline.

Alright, time for a quick Pokémon 101 _{I love doing these~}

Capturing Pokémon
If he already has six Pokémon, then your son is already aware of how to capture Pokémon. It's done by encountering Pokémon in the wild - by walking through tall grass, caves, etc, weakening it (but not defeating it) and then throwing a Poké Ball. If successful, the Pokémon will not escape the ball and it will be captured. You cannot capture Pokémon that belong to another Trainer - the game will reprimand you for being a thief and you'll lose the ball you threw.

Your Party
This is the team of up to six Pokémon that you keep with you, for use in battling. You cannot keep more than six, and you must have at least one. Other Pokémon are sent to the PC for storage (found at any Pokémon Center - the buildings with a red roof). You can't use the Pokémon in your PC unless you put them into your party, so if you've caught something you want to use, you'll have to take it out of the PC first (swapping it for something in your party). You can view your party by pressing the X button (when not in battle) and selecting Party from the menu. The Pokémon in the first position (top left) is the one sent out first in battle. You can switch these around using the Switch command, so if you know what opponents you're likely to face, you can ensure that you send out the right Pokémon for the job.

Gaining Experience
Only Pokémon that take part in battle gain Experience. You can level up weaker Pokémon by putting them in the first position and immediately switching them out when the battle starts (press the PKMN button on the touchscreen). Exp is equally divided for every Pokémon that took part - if you'd usually get 64 Exp, and two Pokémon took part, they'd get 32 Exp each. Pokémon you're trying to level up don't even have to attack in order to gain a share of the Exp, they just have to appear in battle, which is why this technique is a safe way to level up weak members. Totodile is no more special than other members of your party - if it doesn't appear in battle, it won't gain Exp. Also, if a Pokémon is knocked out, it won't gain Exp even if your next Pokémon defeats the opponent Pokémon.
He can have six Pokémon in his party and only train three of them. In fact, this is recommendable - he'll have back-up (albeit weak) if his three 'main' Pokémon are defeated and may be able to use them to scrape a victory.

Learning Moves and Evolution
As your Pokémon level up, they'll learn new attacks. Each Pokémon can only remember up to four attacks at a time, after that they'll have to forget old moves to learn new ones. They can also learn moves through items called TMs (Technical Machines), found scattered around the world, sold by some shops, given by Gym Leaders and so on. Not every Pokémon can learn every TM, and each can only be used once, so be careful of their use. There's also similar HMs (Hidden Machines). These can be used multiple times, and are required to progress through the story. However, HM moves are hard for your Pokémon to forget (you'll have to go to a special Move Deleter late into the adventure to remove HM attacks), so be careful how you use these as well.
Also as your Pokémon becomes stronger, it may go under a process called evolution and change form. Totodile will evolve into Croconaw at Lv18, for example. Evolved Pokémon are considerably stronger than their weaker counterparts, but they learn moves a little slower (in the vast majority of cases, the pay-off is well worth learning moves a little later, it's rarely wise to delay evolution by too much). Some Pokémon evolve multiple times (Croconaw will evolve once again into Feraligatr at Lv30), some do not evolve at all. Level isn't the only way Pokémon will evolve - some require trading, some require exposure to special stones. A Pokémon called Eevee, that your son will likely encounter about halfway through his adventure, can evolve into several varieties depending on how you chose to evolve it.

An online Pokédex such as Serebii.net's is an invaluable resource for learning when your Pokémon will learn moves, how they will evolve, and where to capture them.

Do you store the Pokemon you are not using in the PC? And I assume you buy Poke Balls for catching in a store?

Wow Raylax...thanks.

If you catch a pokemon and you already have 6 in your party, they will be sent to your box automatically. And if you decide you don't want to use some, then yes that's where you store them.

Yep, Pokéballs can be bought from any Poké Mart (blue roof). Also items for healing, and some other useful goods are available (Repels keep weaker wild Pokémon away, Escape Ropes let you warp out of a cave). You gain money by defeating opponent trainers (you don't get money for defeating wild Pokémon though). And yep, the PC keeps Pokémon you're not using. It can hold hundreds of 'em.

Oh also...
You can teach different pokemon different moves, of many types. So you can teach a Water Pokemon a Ground-type move, or an Electric-Type move (depends mostly on the pokemon).
Also, some pokemon have two types! These can go from cool (like an Electric/Water football fish-like pokemon) to very fantasy-like (like a Grass/Flying fruit bearing dinosaur with wings).

Try different combinations and eventually your son will beat all the types with only 6 pokemon!

Or even just 3! This is a very useful fact to keep in mind - the Pokémon's type doesn't completely limit the types of moves it can learn (although you won't get a Grass-type using Fire-type moves). Also, if a move's type matches the user's type (eg, Totodile using Water Gun), the power is 1.5x stronger - it's called the Same Type Attack Bonus (STAB for short).

This sounds like a friggin' complicated game for a beginner!

But each pokemon has a set of moves they can learn, and no pokemon can learn every move. Also, if the attack is the same type as the pokemon using it, they'll get a Same Type Attack Bonus which increases their attack's damage by 50%. So teaching yout Totodile water gun would be more effective than something like Vine Whip (which I don't think the pokemon in question can learn anyway but whatev').

Edit: I type too slow for these other people D:

But yeah, this game is very complicated if you look into it. There are so many things in the game most people who play will never even know.

Well, when i was a kid i knew nothing about all this and i still defeated every trainer in these games :3

You can give any grass type fire moves, its called hidden power.

@MERG this game is as complicated as you want it to be. You can easily beat the game with just knowing about weakness and resistance. Then there is the competitive aspect of the game that gets a little more complicated.

I'm aware of that. But I think suggesting calculating complex formulas and doing a huge amount of grinding/breeding for a Fire-type attack to someone new to the series would be something of a turn-off (heck, it's a turn-off to me and I used to play competitively)

Well, my son won't want things to be too complicated as he gets frustrated easily. Last night we cut his group to three and started exploring / grinding a bit. We ended up in the Ruins of Alph and captured an Unown (I didn't realize there were different Unowns and we should have caught more). We'll do a little more tonight.