Introduction
When you first launch the game, you’ll be prompted to choose which language to play in, what your character looks like, and also the name you’ll give to your character. Go ahead and choose these things to your liking, but understand that, once you choose, you won’t be able to change any of these settings unless you delete your save file and start over.
As you start your game, you’ll be introduced to the Galar region by a fancy man in a suit named Rose. He releases a Cufant, a new Pokémon, to show you an example of what a Pokémon is. After some more discussion and elaboration of the Pokemon world, he introduces you to the Galar region’s greatest Pokémon Trainer, the undefeated Champion: Leon. It’s also his exhibition match.
After a few taunting words, you see the power that Leon unleashes by Dynamaxing his Charizard into a fearsome form.
The scene then cuts away to the logo of the game before taking you to your home in the peaceful countryside.
Postwick
You’re just minding your business watching the exhibition match on your phone when you hear the doorbell. It’s your friend Hop, who walks in with a Wooloo. He’s also Champion Leon’s younger brother.
After a bit more discussion, you’ll be free to move by using the control stick to get off of the couch. Walk all the way to the right until you reach your room, past the kitchen. Press A near your dad’s old bag (if you’re a boy) or your mom’s old bag (if you’re a girl) and hat to put them on.
Once you’ve grabbed that bag, you’ll have an Adventure Guide note pop up and tell you about opening up the menu with the X button. Right now, there aren’t many options, but you can save your game by selecting Save from there — keep in mind that the game does auto-save by default, but this can be turned off in the Options if you’d rather save manually. You can also check your Town Map from here.
Go ahead and exit the house and you’ll see Hop waving for you. After a bit of discussion and watching Wooloo, Hop will head down the way to his house to wait for Leon — or Lee as Hop refers to his older brother as.
Keep following the path until you see two Wooloo. They’re blocking your path — well, sort of, as it’s actually the boy on the fence that tells you to go to Hop’s house — so keep right until you reach Hop’s house, which is the big fancy house.
Go inside, talk to Hop and his mum for a bit, then go back outside and head back to where the Wooloo were blocking your path earlier. Hop will tell you to stay away from the tall grass since wild Pokémon could attack you, but he has a Wooloo so he’ll be fine.
Up ahead is the first route of the game — Route 1! There’s honestly nothing on the route for you to do other than just walk north to Wedgehurst, so just proceed to make your way there next.
Wedgehurst
As you arrive in Wedgehurst, you’ll see a crowd of people around to witness Leon returning from his exhibition match. He’ll say a few things to the crowd before he notices Hop and then comes over to say hello. He then draws his attention to you and introduces himself.
You’ll then all return back to Hop and Leon’s home back in Postwick. At that point, Leon will present both you and Hop three Pokémon choices: the starter Pokémon of the Galar region.
There’s the Grass-type monkey, Grookey; the Fire-type rabbit, Scorbunny; and the Water-type lizard, Sobble. You’ll see the three play and interact with each other in a very cute manner before bringing the choice back to you as to which you want to choose.
You can save your game after watching the cutscene and before picking your starter in case you’d like to reset for a particular nature or gender. Keep in mind that the starter Pokémon cannot be Shiny, so if you make a habit of resetting for Shiny Starter Pokémon, you’ll be unable to do so (ones that are bred later on in the game can still be Shiny, though, don’t worry!).
Hop will pick whichever starter Pokémon yours is effective against, so if you pick Grookey, he will pick Sobble; if you pick Scorbunny, he will pick Grookey; and if you pick Sobble, he will pick Scorbunny. The remaining Pokémon will be taken by Leon for some extra training.
You’ll then have a wonderful time cooking out and having some food. The next day, you’ll have some more discussion with Leon and Hop and will be encouraged to have a battle with Hop.
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You don’t have many options, so just use Pound or Tackle against Wooloo. Wooloo shouldn’t do too much damage to you. Three or so hits should be enough to take it out and that should give your Pokémon enough EXP to gain a level, increasing its stats and giving it a new move.
He’ll then send out his new Pokémon, which depends on the Pokémon you chose. Use your new move, which is super-effective against it — if you do, he’ll remark that you already know about type advantages. Two hits should be enough to take down whatever Pokémon he uses.
That should give you enough EXP to reach level 7 by the end of the fight, too.
After the fight is over, Leon will heal your Pokémon and ask you to be Hop’s rival to push him to become stronger. You’ll then be tasked with getting a Pokédex so you can start your Gym Challenge journey.
Once you’ve finished up the additional dialogue, head back to your house to talk to your mum. On the way, you’ll hear a loud crash! Turns out the gate the Wooloo was rolling into earlier has been opened and the Wooloo is nowhere to be seen.
You’ll then need to enter Slumbering Weald, a place that was supposedly off-limits. Uh-oh!