As soon as you arrive in Jubilife City, before even walking up the stairs leading into town, go to the little nook to the left, beneath the fences above the stairs, and press A against the wall there to find a hidden Parlyz Heal. It’s not much, but hey, free item. Free is always nice.
Anyway, now that you’ve gotten that, head on up the stairs leading into town and you’ll be greeted by the Professor’s assistant, Dawn (or Lucas), who will check to see how many Pokémon you’ve caught and will either compliment you if you caught a lot or scold you if you didn’t catch that many. You don’t get anything extra either way, so don’t worry too much about it. She’ll (he’ll) mention that Jubilife City is home to the Trainers’ School, which she (he) recommends you visit to get some tips on Pokémon, plus she (he) mentions that Barry went there earlier.
Since you need to find Barry to deliver the Parcel, this is a good place to start your search. However, there’s a lot to do in the city, so don’t get too lost!
Go to the north and you’ll find a Pokémon Center to the right, which you should take the time to visit to heal up your Pokémon.
Although you are free to explore the rest of the city, you should definitely start by visiting the Trainers’ School to the west of the Pokémon Center.
Trainers’ School
Barry is inside, right by the blackboard, and you’ll give him the Parcel after a bit of dialogue. It’s a Town Map inside! In fact, there’s not just one, but two, so being the good friend he is, he’ll give you the second one. The Town Map is a Key Item that can be used from your Bag to see a map of the entire region as well as where you are. Barry will mention that Oreburgh City is where he should be going next and that there’s a Gym there, so he’ll head off.
Before you do the same, there are two Trainers you can fight inside of the Trainers’ School, and there’s a pretty nice reward for beating them. They’re waiting on the right-hand side of the building.
[trainertable title=”Trainers’ School Trainers”]
[trainer c=”School Kid” n=”Harrison” g=”m” p=120]
[tpoke p=abra g=m l=6 m=”hidden-power”]
[/trainer]
[trainer c=”School Kid” n=”Christine” g=”f” p=120]
[tpoke p=abra g=m l=6 m=”hidden-power”]
[/trainer]
[/trainertable]
These two Trainers each have an Abra with the move Hidden Power, which has varying damage and power depending on the individual Pokémon using it. It can actually hit pretty hard, since Abra has very high Sp. Atk, so watch out! It’s also a very fast Pokémon, so expect it to go first.
After you’ve beaten both of them, talk to the boy and he’ll give you TM10 Hidden Power. Technical Machines—TMs for short—are single-use items (at least prior to Generation V) that teach a Pokémon the move contained within, provided it is compatible. Not every Pokémon can learn every TM, so keep that in mind! That being said, just about every Pokémon can learn Hidden Power, and, in case the battle wasn’t clear, it’s a Special-based move that has varying power and type depending on the individual Pokémon using it. It’s complicated to know for sure what type it will be and how much power it has, so you might want to save your game before teaching it to a Pokémon and then trying it out in a few battles to see how it performs.
Should you happen to catch an Abra on Route 203 to the east, this is a perfect move to teach Abra, as it doesn’t learn any damaging moves naturally until it evolves at level 16, so that will give it the ability to fight in battle without having to baby it.
Anyway, that’s all for the Trainers’ School.
Pokétch and Campaign Clowns
If you try to head to the west of the Trainers’ School, you’ll be stopped. The building past there is the GTS or Global Trade Station and it’s where you can trade with other players all over the world in an online bazaar, where you can ask for rare, Legendary Pokémon for your Bidoof you can look at and wish to yourself that the Nintendo Wi-Fi servers didn’t ever shut down. Yeah, unfortunately it’s not really useful in modern times (provided you don’t get sneaky), but it’s still a neat relic of the past. Regardless, you can’t even check it out right now even if you wanted to—you have to get a Gym Badge first.
Head to the north and you’ll be stopped by a man who is upset at you for not having a Pokétch, which is short for Pokémon Watch and actually predated the Apple Watch by about 9 years, just so you know. Apparently this guy is the creator and he makes people track down three clowns hiding in Jubilife City as part of a weird campaign. …yeah, times were different back then. The good news is that he will give you a free Pokétch for finding them all, and as you’ve no doubt learned by now, free stuff is good. (You also have to do this in order to progress, as the eastern exit to Route 203 is blocked off until you’ve gotten the Pokétch.)
Before doing too much exploring in the city, track these dang clowns down first. Here are their locations:
- One clown is directly behind the Pokémon Center, literally a few steps to the north and a few steps to the east of the Pokétch guy. Very easy to find.
- The next clown is to the north and then to the west, in front of a large building with a flashing electronic billboard.
- The final clown is further west of that building, walking around outside of a building with two doors.
Not only do you have to track down these campaign clowns, but you also have to answer their dang questions! What do you mean no one told you there’d be a quiz? Well there’s a quiz, there, you’ve been told. The good news is, if you don’t mind cheating, that the answer to all of their questions is just “Yes.” The better news is, even if you do mind cheating, if you answer incorrectly—e.g., “No”—then you get to try again, so do yourself a favor and just answer “Yes” to everything. They’re very basic questions anyway.
You’ll get Coupon 1, Coupon 2, and Coupon 3 from answering these clowns’ questions. After you’ve gotten all of the Coupons, go back to the Pokétch guy standing in the middle of the road between the Trainers’ School and Pokémon Center and he’ll give you a Pokétch of your very own as a reward. It even has apps, and this was released before the iPhone or even Android!
[info title=”The Pokétch and Starting Apps”]The Pokétch is a nifty feature that takes up the bottom screen of the Nintendo DS while you’re outside of the battle and has a few different modes, known as apps, available. You can also get more apps throughout the game, usually by talking to NPCs, and these unlock additional functionality.
By default, it starts with a digital clock on the bottom screen, which is kind of useful if you want to keep track of time (it uses the time set in your Nintendo DS system), but you can tap the red button to toggle between them. Here are the apps your Pokétch starts with:
- Digital Watch: Shows the time, as described above. Only uses the 24-hour format (no a.m./p.m.). You can hold in on the screen to illuminate it.
- Calculator: A fully functioning calculator that can actually support 10 digits.
- Pedometer: Keeps track of how many steps you’ve taken, up to 99,999 steps before looping back to 0. Very handy for hatching eggs or for raising friendship.
- Pokémon List: Shows all of your Pokémon in your party and their health bars, whether they are holding an item or not, and will show just their silhouette if they are affected by a status condition.
There are many more apps to collect than just these. Unfortunately, to cycle between them, you have to press the red button repeatedly as there is no way to scroll backwards—that ability wasn’t added until Pokémon Platinum.[/info]
Exploring the Rest of Jubilife
Now that you’ve gotten your Pokétch, you are actually free to leave to the east onto Route 203. Be warned, though, as you’ll have a battle against Barry when you leave, so make sure you’re healed up! However, there’s still a lot to do beforehand, so if you’re interested in some bonus stuff, stick around and keep reading, otherwise scroll down to the bottom.
The Poké Mart, north of the Pokémon Center, doesn’t sell anything new in its main shop just yet, but there’s a second clerk available on the left that sells two new items.
[shoptable title=”Right-hand Clerk”]
[shopitem n=”Poké Ball” i=”poke-ball” c=200 desc=”Standard catch rate. Used for catching Pokémon.”]
[shopitem n=”Potion” i=”potion” c=300 desc=”Heals 20 HP.”]
[shopitem n=”Antidote” i=”antidote” c=100 desc=”Cures Poison.”]
[shopitem n=”Parlyz Heal” i=”parlyz-heal” c=200 desc=”Cures Paralysis.”]
[/shoptable]
[shoptable title=”Left-hand Clerk”]
[shopitem i=”air-mail” n=”Air Mail” c=50 new=true desc=”Write a message to another Trainer. Not useful.”]
[shopitem i=”heal-ball” n=”Heal Ball” c=300 new=true desc=”Same catch rate as a Poké Ball. Heals the caught Pokémon if it is added to your party.”]
[/shoptable]
Both of the new items are really bad, so don’t bother buying them. Any “Mail” item is just used while trading with other players to leave them some sort of message, but chances are, if you’re playing this past the year 2020, this is unlikely to ever be something you’ll deal with. Heal Balls are just more expensive Poké Balls and their effect isn’t even useful because Pokémon get fully healed when they go into the PC anyway, so it only helps if you use it to catch something while you don’t have a full team of 6 Pokémon, which is pretty much only for the first hour or two of the game, if even that long, and… you can just go to the Pokémon Center to heal anyway.
Going back outside, there’s a person with green hair near the water fountain to the west that will ask if you’d like to join a group. Again, this is more for playing with friends or other players and unlikely to do much now, but you can give your Group a name and theoretically other players playing in your area could join that Group. You can mix records in the Union Room with nearby players to have certain experiences synchronized. Again, unlikely to be useful nowadays, but hopefully this at least sheds some light on what this “group” thing is all about.
The Pokétch Company
In the northwest side of the city, where one of the campaign clowns was (the building with the two doors), is the Pokétch Company building. There’s really not much to do here just yet, but it’s a good idea to know where this place is.
You can talk to the interviewer on the first floor and she’ll interview you, asking what you like about your favorite Pokétch app. This interview may appear on the TVs in the game if you check them, although you are restricted to what you can answer from only a list of pre-approved words, categorized by different categories.
The president of the company, the guy that gave you the Pokétch, is also on the first floor and he’ll tell you to come back after you’ve gotten a Gym Badge and he should have a new app ready by then. Be sure to do that—don’t worry, you’ll be back this way after getting the first Gym Badge anyway. Other than that, there’s really nothing exciting in the building.
Get Yourself A Fishing Rod
Even further west of the Pokétch Company is the gateway to Route 218. Inside of that gateway, be sure to talk to the fisherman in the red cap and answer Yes to his question. He’ll give you the Old Rod as a gift, which is a Key Item that you can use to fish for Pokémon in the water.
In order to fish, you need to use that item—a good idea is to Register the item by choosing the Register option when selecting it, which means you can quickly use it by pressing the Y button. After you’ve cast your rod, you’ll need to press the A button when you get a bite, and you’ll know you’ve gotten a bite when a [ ! ] appears over your head. Press it too quick and you’ll get nothing; press it too slow and the Pokémon will have gotten away. It’s not too bad, don’t worry.
Unfortunately there aren’t a lot of exciting Pokémon to catch with the Old Rod—for most of the early routes and areas, you’re only going to fish up a rather worthless Pokémon, Magikarp, that only knows the equally worthless Splash until level 15, when it at least gets Tackle. It evolves into Gyarados at level 20, though, and Gyarados is a very strong Pokémon, but there’s really no point in training a Magikarp now, especially since it will be useless for the foreseeable future. Once your Pokémon get around that level, you might want to baby a Magikarp, but it’s just an uphill battle to do it now.
If you really want that Magikarp, though, exit the gateway onto Route 218 and fish for one on the dock. There’s nothing else interesting over there, though.
Jubilife Condominiums
The tall apartment building north of the Poké Mart in the center part of town is known as the Jubilife Condominiums. The most important thing to do inside of it is to talk to the blonde girl on the first floor. She’ll say that your Pokémon is quite adorable. Thanks! She’ll also give you the Quick Claw, which is a held item that occasionally allows the wearer to strike before the foe, even if it would normally be slower. This is a very useful item, especially for slower Pokémon, and it’s a great idea to put that on any Pokémon you’re training up for now or, after your team is more established and you have more held items to choose from, put it on any of your slower Pokémon. It activates about 11% of the time, which seems low, but it’ll activate more often than you’d think it would.
There’s nothing else useful in the building, other than a guy upstairs that completely agrees with Heal Balls being pretty useless.
Route 204 (Optional)
It’s completely optional at this point, but, that being said, is totally an option. To the north is Route 204, which you can access to get a few items and Pokémon early. There are some Trainers up there as well. You won’t be able to proceed too far until after you’ve gotten your first Gym Badge in Oreburgh City, but it’s still somewhere you can pick up the Pokémon Budew, which can help in the upcoming Gym Leader battle if you started with Chimchar and don’t feel like leveling it up to level 14.
[link to Route 204]
Onwards to Route 203
Phew, that is definitely quite a lot to Jubilife City, so hopefully you managed to get everything you wanted.
To the east of Jubilife City is Route 203, your next destination. You’ll have to fight against Barry almost as soon as you arrive on Route 203, though, so make sure your Pokémon are healed up before proceeding.
[link to Route 203]