10 Things You Should Know Before Getting Started with Pokemon Scarlet and Violet

Pokemon scarlet and violet is the first mainline open world game in the series, bringing tons of new features and loads of the good magic from Pokémon Legends: Arceus while maintaining the original formula that makes Pokémon games so fun.

As you master Paldea’s many challenges—the tough trainers of Victory Road, the massive Pokémon of Path of Legends, and the antagonistic faction of Starfall Street—explore the gigantic world alongside your legendary Pokémon, Koraidon or Miraidon. There’s a lot to do in the game, but we’re here to help.

Below we list some tips that we wish we knew at the beginning of the game.

Lock your card to keep it from spinning by using the right stick

The card inside Pokemon scarlet and violet is absolutely stuffed with symbols. Press the R Stick to lock the large map, although unfortunately (as far as we know) there’s no way to lock the mini-map.

Making sure the map always has North up will help navigate Paldea—and it will make you less dizzy, too.

You cannot jump, but your mount can

You conquer Koraidon or Miraidon (in scarlet and violet respectively) very early, and the legendary Pokémon offer a great boon: unlike previous mainline Pokémon games, you can actually use your mount to jump up cliffs and ledges.

If you see items on a cliff, try jumping up to reach them. Of course, you won’t be able to reach every ledge you see – you’ll need to feed your mount some special sandwiches (featuring Herba Mystica, obtained by defeating Titan Pokémon) in order to jump to some of the higher locations.

Catch everything (duh) and claim rewards for it

Of course, you should try to catch every new Pokemon you see, but make sure to claim rewards like Exp along the way. Candies or specialized Pokéballs in the Pokédex for that. You can do this by pressing X while on the Pokédex book screen. The more unique Pokémon you catch, the more rewards you get.

Image: Game Freak, The Pokémon Company/Nintendo via Polygon

Take classes at school to get easy rewards

It’s easy to rush to Paldea right away, but if you revisit your school and take some courses (by talking to the receptionist at the front desk), you’ll be rewarded. You get EXP candies of different sizes by completing the midterm and final exams in each subject.

Check the levels of wild Pokémon when you come to a new area

Before you dive into Trainer and Gym battles, test the waters around you a little. The gyms and areas are not shown in order, so you might stumble into a level 50 area while you’re still level 20! We recommend fighting a wild Pokemon to see what the level range is, since you can just run away from the fight if you’re overleveled.

Fight every trainer you see

If you’ve followed the tip above and everything seems safe, be sure to talk to and fight every trainer you see. Trainers who want to battle will have speech bubbles overhead and their Poké Balls will occasionally sparkle.

Defeating trainers is important for keeping your Pokémon at the right level, but there are also characters in suits near Pokémon Hubs that will reward you for battling all the trainers in the area. They tell you how many trainers to beat when you talk to them.

Image: Game Freak, The Pokémon Company/Nintendo via Polygon

Keep your Pokémon away in Let’s Go mode

What’s new in this game is that you can knock your Pokemon out of their ball with the R button and they’ll automatically fight nearby Pokemon. If your Pokemon have a type advantage, they’ll finish up quickly, whereas they’ll fight automatically. If they don’t, they will be damaged. They will even retreat to you out of fear as the battle heads south.

These battles offer free EXP and crafting items! Pokemon running around with you will even pick up items off the ground, making exploring much easier.

Some Pokémon, like Pawmo (Pawmi’s Evolution), must go through a certain number of steps in order to evolve.

Many tools are accessible through menus instead of NPCs

NPCs like the Name Rater and Move Tutor are a thing of the past. Just like in Pokémon Legends: Arceusyou can rename your Pokémon and teach them old moves, all from their summary screens.

The latter is crucial, as leveling via auto-battles skips the move-learning process, requiring you to manually open the Pokemon’s summary page to teach them the move.

Climb these towers when you see them for more fast travel points

When you see a large stone tower with a ladder, climb it. These watchtowers act as fast travel points that you can fly back to.

Also, chest-form Gimmighoul – a Ghost-type Pokemon – usually waits at the top of these towers. You can catch or defeat these for 50 Gimmighoul coins, which you will want a lot of (to evolve Gimmighoul).

Image: Game Freak, The Pokémon Company/Nintendo via Polygon

You can enter buildings with floor mats, but not those without

All buildings with floor mats in front are shops. If the building does not have a doormat, it is not a real building, just decoration. (Please don’t waste your time entering each store like we did.)