As soon as you arrive in Sandgem Town, Professor Rowan’s assistant—Dawn if you’re playing as the boy, or Lucas if you’re playing as the girl (the rest of this page will assume the assistant to be Dawn)—and will guide you into the Pokémon Research Lab. However, your Rival, Barry, will pop out and talk about his experience with the Professor, then run off.
You’ll go inside and get a proper introduction to Professor Rowan. He’ll examine the Pokémon you “borrowed” from him and determine that it’s happy with you, so he’ll officially allow you to keep it and will even give you the opportunity to give it a nickname.
[info title=”Nicknaming Your Pokémon”]Whenever you catch or obtain a Pokémon, you’ll be given the option to give it a nickname. Similar to the name of your player character and the Rival, you can give a nickname to any of your Pokémon, as long as you’re their original Trainer (in other words, you can’t nickname traded Pokémon).
Nicknamed Pokémon can have up to 10 characters in their nickname in this game. Stylistically, you may wish to properly capitalize Pokémon nicknames, although keep in mind that, in this generation, Pokémon species names in battle are all UPPERCASE.[/info]
After a bit more dialogue, Rowan will entrust you with the Pokédex and task you with cataloging all of the Pokémon in the Sinnoh region. The Pokédex is a high-tech encyclopedia for cataloging different information on Pokémon, and you will gather information by even just seeing the Pokémon, although you’ll unlock more information by catching or otherwise obtaining the Pokémon instead.
At the bare minimum, one of your goals for the game should be seeing all 150 Pokémon in the Sinnoh region, as this is necessary for unlocking some very important stuff at the end of the game or after you’ve beaten the game. You don’t need to catch everything. Thankfully, as long as you fight all of the Trainers in the game and do a bit of exploring here and there, you should be able to see all of those Pokémon, especially by following this walkthrough.
The Professor’s assistant, Dawn (or Lucas), will then properly introduce herself (himself) to you, and will also mention that she (he) has the Pokémon that neither you nor Barry chose and that, if you would have picked that one, the two of you would have had the same Pokémon. This is actually a lie, as her (his) Pokémon is based on which one you picked, so if you started over from scratch and picked a different one, she (he) would have a different one as well.
Go outside and then Dawn (or Lucas) will show you to the Pokémon Center (also referred to as Poké Centers in the game)—the building with the red roof on it. These are very important landmarks in towns and cities, as you can go inside and talk to the Nurse at the counter to heal up your Pokémon to full HP and PP, free of charge, and you can also use the PC inside to manage your Pokémon storage, as you can only carry 6 Pokémon with you at a time, while the rest end up in storage.
Next to that is the Poké Mart—the building with the blue roof on it. You can buy and sell items there. The selection of items available changes based on how many Gym Badges you’ve earned, and some shops have a second clerk that sells specialized items. The currency used in the world of Pokémon is [pd], which stands for either “Prize Money” or “Poké Dollars,” depending on who you ask.
[shoptable]
[shopitem n=”Poké Ball” i=”poke-ball” c=200 new=true desc=”Standard catch rate. Used for catching Pokémon.”]
[shopitem n=”Potion” i=”potion” c=300 new=true desc=”Heals 20 HP.”]
[shopitem n=”Antidote” i=”antidote” c=100 new=true desc=”Cures Poison.”]
[shopitem n=”Parlyz Heal” i=”parlyz-heal” c=200 new=true desc=”Cures Paralysis.”]
[/shoptable]
After explaining these two things, Rowan’s assistant will tell you to say goodbye to your mother before you embark on your adventure, and will then wait for you to the north. You won’t be able to proceed until you’ve gone to say goodbye to your mother in Twinleaf Town, so just run over there really quick to do so. You may also want to heal your Pokémon at the Pokémon Center, although you can also safely avoid all of the tall grass on the way back by utilizing the ledges on Route 201 to avoid any encounters, so it’s not necessary.
Twinleaf Town
Go back to your house and talk to your mom. She’ll heal up your Pokémon and you’ll then tell her that you’re going to leave on a journey across the whole region. Despite nearly dying from being attacked by wild level 2 birds just a few minutes ago, and despite her warnings of how dangerous tall grass is, she seems perfectly fine letting you travel the world with the protection of either a small monkey, a little penguin, or a tiny tortoise.
She’ll at least give you the Journal, though, which will keep a log of what you recently did. You can use it from your Bag to see a log of some of your recent actions, and, on top of that, if it’s been awhile since you last played, the Journal entry will be read when you load your save to give you an idea of what you were doing before you took a break.
Barry’s mom will stop by after a little speech from your own mom and she’ll ask if Barry is there. He isn’t, so your mom will volunteer you to be the deliveryboy or deliverygirl and deliver the Parcel to Barry, who has apparently made it to Jubilife City by now. That’s to the north of Sandgem Town, so go ahead and make your way back there.
Sandgem Town
While back at Sandgem Town, you might want to take the opportunity to buy some Poké Balls and maybe a Potion or two. Antidotes and Parlyz Heals (Paralyze Heals) aren’t too important right now.
[info title=”Buy Poké Balls 10 at a Time”]One helpful tip to get a little bit of a bonus is to always make sure you buy ordinary Poké Balls exactly 10 at a time. The reason for this is, if you buy 10 or more, you’ll get a free bonus Premier Ball. The Premier Ball functions exactly like a Poké Ball—it has the same catch rate and everything—the only difference is its look and the fact that you can’t just go buy them in a store.
Later on, you’ll have access to different types of Poké Balls that are more effective than the ordinary kind, but getting an extra one for free at this point in the game is nice, so try to keep that in mind until more types of Poké Balls are available.[/info]
It’s probably a good idea to buy 10 Poké Balls to get that free Premier Ball, and then maybe consider buying one or two Potions for a backup in case things get rough, so you’ll have a chance to heal your Pokémon. Again, you’ll want to try to save these for more dire situations, since they’re quite expensive and you don’t have a reliable way to make money right now.
Before you leave north to Route 202, there’s an easy-to-get item available just to the south of Sandgem Town.
Route 219 (Optional)
The route to the south of Sandgem Town has a nice, small, sandy beach and not much else you can do for the time being. You’ll be able to come back here later in the game, after you have a method of crossing the water, or you can also stop by here once you get a fishing rod to fish for some Pokémon, but for right now, you can pick up the Antidote near the shore, on the west side of the beach. It will heal poison in case one of your Pokémon becomes poisoned, which is good to have as a “just in case.”
Sandgem Town
Now head to the north and you’ll meet up with the Professor’s assistant on Route 202 and learn how to catch Pokémon!