Back in Viridian City, you’ll find Trace waiting for you at the entrance. He’ll tell you about visiting the Pokémon Center to restore your Pokémon’s HP and PP, reminding you that Pokémon Centers are, of course, free.
Feel free to check it out if you’d like. Otherwise, there are a few more points of interest you can check out in Viridian City.
The Poké Mart is now properly accessible and you can visit it to buy or sell items. The stock changes depending on how many Gym Badges you have, so you’ll want to check it out later.
For right now, here’s a look at the items that are available:
| Shop Items | ||
|---|---|---|
 |
Poké Ball (New!) |  100 |
 |
Potion (New!) | 200 |
 |
Antidote (New!) | 200 |
 |
Burn Heal (New!) | 300 |
 |
Ice Heal (New!) | 100 |
 |
Awakening (New!) | 100 |
 |
Paralyze Heal (New!) | 300 |
You should be familiar with Poké Balls and Potions by now, but the other items heal different status ailments that your Pokémon may wind up with. Antidote heals poisoned Pokémon, Burn Heal heals burned Pokémon, Ice Heal heals frozen Pokémon, Awakening wakes up sleeping Pokémon, and Paralyze Heal heals paralyzed Pokémon. Don’t worry about buying most of these, other than maybe one Antidote for good measure. Also consider restocking on Poké Balls, since there are a lot of new Pokémon coming up for you to catch.
There’s a hidden Potion by the bush.
The building to the north of the Pokémon Center is the Trainers’ School, where you can brush up on some of the basics. You can talk to the students in the classroom to learn a few things, plus you can read some of the notebooks on their desks as well as the chalkboard to learn other topics as well. If you’re new to Pokémon games, spending some time here is a good idea.
Past the Trainers’ School to the north are two more buildings. Outside of one of them is a lady who will tell you about taking Pokémon out of their Poké Ball to follow you. She’ll automatically let the one in your second position out of its ball so it will follow you around, but you can choose to do this for any of your Pokémon by pressing +/- while hovering over the Pokémon in the party menu, or by selecting a Pokémon there and choosing the Take out of Poké Ball option. For the most part, this is mostly cosmetic, although you can ride of a few Pokémon for increased movement speed or just a more enjoyable experience. The Pokémon that is out of its Poké Ball will have a yellow star in the top-right corner of its box in the menu — don’t worry about your Pikachu or Eevee, though, as it will always ride along on your shoulder or head, even if it isn’t in your party!
The man inside of the house by the lady will tell you about nicknaming your Pokémon. You can do so by selecting the Change name option in the party menu for a given Pokémon. Unlike older games, you do not have the option to nickname Pokémon as soon as you catch them, so you’ll need to do this manually for each Pokémon you want to nickname.
The building to the east of that one is a Pokémon Gym, although it’s currently closed and, from the sounds of things, has been for awhile. You won’t be able to do anything here for a long time, so don’t worry much about it for now.
You’re intended to go to the north, onwards to Route 2, but there’s an optional route you can check out now to the eastern side of town. Head back to the sign near the middle of town and then go east of that. That path leads over to Route 22, however there’s a very narrow path by the fence you can follow to find a hidden item — a Potion at the left side of the bush at the end of the path.
Pay careful attention to your Pikachu or Eevee’s tail as you’re exploring the Kanto region! While you’re standing still, you may notice it wag its tail slowly or sometimes quite rapidly. The faster it wags its tail, the closer you are to an item — including hidden items, which you can find by pressing A/►/ZL/ZR.
It may sometimes take a little while to find, but there are some useful items you may be able to locate this way that you might not have otherwise spotted.
From here, you can decide whether to check out the optional Route 22, or to proceed to where you’re eventually supposed to go.