[encountertable]
Make sure you’re ready for a fight before heading onto Route 203, because as soon as you arrive, you’ll have a fight against your Rival, Barry, and he’s eager to see how his Pokémon are faring!
[trainertable title=”Rival Battle”]
[trainer c=”PKMN Trainer” n=”Barry” p=900]
[tpoke p=starly l=7 g=m]
[tpoke p=chimchar l=9 g=m condition=”If you chose Turtwig”]
[tpoke p=piplup l=9 g=m condition=”If you chose Chimchar”]
[tpoke p=turtwig l=9 g=m condition=”If you chose Piplup”]
[/trainer]
[/trainertable]
He’ll lead with his Starly, which likes to use Growl to lower your Attack. You may want to combat that by using stat lowering moves of your own and then switching to a Pokémon that can finish the job, effectively wasting the Starly’s attempts at weakening your attacks. Watch out, though, as his starter Pokémon—which entirely depends on which starter Pokémon you chose—will be super effective against yours, so you’ll likely need to either heal up with a Potion or get some assistance from another of your Pokémon.
After beating him, he’ll run off to the east and mention it’s the last time he’ll lose. Clearly he’s wrong, because you’re going to battle him again in the future, but that’s fine, neither of you need to worry about that right now. Before continuing, you might want to go back to the Jubilife City Pokémon Center to heal up your Pokémon, although thankfully that’s likely the toughest fight on this route.
[info title=”To Catch an Abra”]One of the newly-available Pokémon you can find on the route is the Pokémon Abra. Abra evolves into the very strong Kadabra and then, if you’re able to trade it, once more into Alakazam. Even if you can’t trade it, Kadabra is great, but Abra on the other hand has a few problems—notably, catching the darn thing in the first place, and then actually training it up.
See, Abra knows just one move until it evolves, and that move is Teleport, which causes it to instantly run away from the battle when it uses it, and Abra is fast, though not that its Speed really matters because even if you weakened it, it would just use Teleport anyway. If you see a wild Abra, your best bet is to just toss a Poké Ball and hope you get lucky. Seriously.
However, if you started with Chimchar, one of the moves it learns by leveling up that it should have around this point is the move Taunt, which prevents the foe from using Status Moves for the next several turns. At this point in the game (in fact, honestly, all throughout the main story of the game), it’s not really that good or useful, and you’re fine removing it later on for better moves, but this is an incredible move to use against Abra. Chimchar is fast enough that it should be able to outspeed Abra without much trouble and use Taunt, which will then prevent it from escaping, giving you a chance to lower its HP with Scratch or Ember (Taunt doesn’t last forever, though, so ideally just hit it once) and then have hopefully a few attempts to catch it.
If you’ve managed to actually catch yourself an Abra, you’ll find it’s a pain to train up due to it only knowing the move Teleport—which is at least somewhat handy for quickly getting back to the most recent Pokémon Center you visited if you use it in the overworld. Abra is probably the best Pokémon to teach your new TM10 Hidden Power to, since Abra has excellent Special Attack and Hidden Power, regardless of its type, is a Special-based move. It might take a little bit of sleuthing to determine which type Hidden Power it is, since it can be any type except for Normal, but any type is fine since it still gives Abra a good attacking option until it evolves into Kadabra at level 16 and learns Confusion.[/info]
[trainertable]
[trainer c=”Youngster” n=”Michael” p=80]
[tpoke p=bidoof l=5 g=m]
[tpoke p=zubat l=5 g=m]
[/trainer]
[trainer c=”Youngster” n=”Dallas” p=112]
[tpoke p=kricketot l=7 g=m]
[/trainer]
[trainer c=”Lass” n=”Kaitlin” p=64]
[tpoke p=bidoof l=4 g=f]
[tpoke p=budew l=4 g=f]
[tpoke p=starly l=4 g=f]
[/trainer]
[trainer c=”Youngster” n=”Sebastian” p=112]
[tpoke p=machop l=7 g=m]
[/trainer]
[trainer c=”Lass” n=”Madeline” p=80]
[tpoke p=starly l=5 g=f]
[tpoke p=bidoof l=5 g=f]
[/trainer]
[/trainertable]
Right near the start of the route is a path leading north. The left side of the path has some tall grass while the right side of the path has Youngster Michael to fight. Take either path and then keep going east to grab a Poké Ball by the ledge, which you can then jump down to continue along your path.
Keep going east and you can take either the north or south path, with the south path having a bit less tall grass to wade through but Youngster Dallas to fight. His Kricketot has no direct attacking moves, but does have Growl to lower your Attack and, more threatening, the move Bide, which tracks the damage it receives for the next two turns and then unleashes an attack dealing double that amount of damage at the start of the third turn. It’s a good idea to lower its Defense with Leer or Tail Whip for several turns, especially once it starts using Bide.
Continue east, up the steps, although if you want to avoid Lass Kaitlin, make sure you’re not in the middle of the road. None of her Pokémon are too tough, though, so it’s a good chance for some of your weaker Pokémon to get a bit of EXP. Immediately after her is Youngster Sebastian, who is definitely much harder with his Machop. It likes to use Leer to lower your Defense and then hit with Low Kick, a Fighting-type move that does more damage to heavier Pokémon, although thankfully most of your Pokémon at this point should be quite light.
To the north of him is the entrance to the Oreburgh Gate, which is your next destination. However, before entering, you may want to first fight against Lass Madeline to the west and grab a Repel past the large patch of grass just past her and down the stairs. You can use that outside of battle to keep lower-level Pokémon from attacking you, so long as your lead Pokémon is at a higher level than the wild Pokémon, although it only lasts for a measly 100 steps.
Alright, whenever you’re ready, head on back to the Oreburgh Gate.
[link to Oreburgh Gate]