The hardest Pokémon to find - My Top 10

[ToDie]

Hey everyone,

 

after way more than 100 hours play time, I finally finished my E18-Pokédex. I always loved to think about possible locations, unfinished side quest, and all subtle hints the game gives me to find every Pokémon without help. The satisfaction after finding a Pokémon you were searching for hours is just great.

In the end, I did not 100% succeed but it was quite close and I am still happy with my performance. Here are the top 10 Pokémon that made me struggle the most (obviously contains SPOILERS):

 

10. Shuckle:

Well, that is a rather strange beginning, since you can look up Shuckle in the Pokédex and it is rather easy to find then. Easy, IF you are not totally blind and only see the blinking spot in the scrapyard and miss the spot at the academy. Until today, I failed to encounter a Shuckle in the scrapyard, in particular since I could not find a smashable rock there. Maybe these rocks are only available during the train puzzle? Anyway, I had to look up Shuckle and was really mad at myself.

 

9. Deino:

Another miss I am unhappy about. Although I checked all places in Reborn several times, I forgot about Luna´s gym. Thus, I did not even get my third dark material.

 

8. Chespin:

I figured out that I sometimes have to play in the morning to get all Pokémon. Usually, I play in the evening or at night, so I spend my few morning sessions to check all routes and even caves in order to complete my mission. However, I never had the urge to go down to the seventh street in the morning. Unfortunate, but it´s okay!

 

7. Natu:

Natu is obviously super easy if you catch a Xatu during your journey through Citae Astrae. I saw no reason to do that and was suddenly missing two birds, which I did not expect to be a problem. The sad story is that the totem in the jungle indeed caught my attention. I had one or two ill-fated dolls left, so I went to the merchant to buy another 30 dolls to make sure to get all encounters at the totem. After like 20 encounters, I was positive that there are only three Pokémon, which are for sure neither Natu not Xatu, so I went on and finally looked them up. Needless to say that I was quite sad.

 

6. Magnezone:

Nosepass was rather easy but where to evolve my Magneton? LCCC? Tanzan mountain? Julia´s gym? Devon Corp? Fake Devon Corp? Shade´s gym? Somewhere deeper in Tanzan mountain? Somewhere around Titania´s gym (quite desperate but it´s steel....)? The Fennekin room? Any mountain, somewhere? Byxbysion (because Byxbysion)? Ahhh, after checking like every place in Reborn that could made any sense, I was sure that I got the solution: Level up in a specific field. Electric field? No! Factory field? No! Short circuit field? Are you kidding? Well, I finally looked it up. I have been there but in the wrong room... but yeah, makes sense. I kinda agree. Could have found that.

 

5. Gastly:

I had everything but couldn´t put the pieces together: Same strange shack in the mountains that almost cries: "I have a secret!" And a TV report that tells me exactly what to do. Gastly is put on place 5 since it never came to my mind to interact with a non-solid tile. I felt super stupid.

 

4. Gible:

Big ooouf! How to approach this thing? From left, from right, from above (haha), from below, walking, running, using the bike, mashing the A-button, pressing the A-button at the correct time, not pressing any button at all, even pause buffering... nothing worked. I even killed all Garchomp statues, hoping to change something. Frustrated, I left the cave and came back some days later. Again, attempt after attempt failed and I left again. Much later, I searched for Sigilyph. I could not find it near the entrance, so I went to the back, fell down a hole and suddenly had a Gible in my pocket. This makes Gible the only Pokémon on this list which I stumbled into found on my own. Like in the case of Gastly, I lacked imagination: The game appears to be two-dimension but this does not mean that there is no third dimension. Fun fact: I never encountered Sigilyph in the cave.

 

3. Bounsweet:

Wow, I have to show the Glameow from the second beauty shop to the girl in the first beauty shop? Of course there is some rivalry between them but I don´t think, that I would ever have found the solution on my own. Is there any more specific hint in the game, which I have missed? Also, it is quite tough that you are not supposed to evolve the Glameow before obtaining Bounsweet, otherwise there is no chance to get it without trading(?).

 

2. Lapras:

I really, really wanted to find this thing. Citrine, Celestine and Ametrine were my first guesses. So I checked every path and every diving spot twice - without success. My next guess was somewhere around Route 4 but there were not many places for a Lapras to hide. Suddenly Amaria´s gym came to my mind and I was quite confident that Lapras might be somewhere in the underwater labyrinth. It took me almost 30 minutes to make sure that I have checked every single passage. At least, the music was great. Next, Serra´s gym. I mean, it makes not much sense but ice is ice, so I shattered every single mirror before conceding defeat... for now! Talking about shattering mirrors: Back to mirage tower and the water spot in the inside (btw probably the most fantastic place in the game). It was unlikely that Lapras chilled alongside Phione but I had to convince myself. Again, I had the correct intuition that Citrine/Celestine/Ametrine had to be the correct place so I checked everything again, making sure not to miss any underwater cave but finally I had to give up and looked in the solution.

Well, I know the Lapras from GSK and HGSS but I did not come to the conclusion that Reborn might use the same mechanic. Is there any hint in the game or any NPC who mentions something like this? Further, the Lapras place is so far out of the way that you don´t run into it by accident, let´s say, when you decide to go the Ametrine by bike again. So I guess it is okay not to find Lapras without help.

 

1. Beldum:

Yes, the game gives you a hint. At some point in time, you have to wonder why the Pokémon in Aya´s gym appear. It might only be a joke, since Lana always complains about the gym stuff and suddenly appearing Pokémon in the living room make it even more funny. But there is too much going on to not be a side quest, so I searched for the trainers of the Pokémon. At this point, I had explored almost everything in the game, so I was not very confident - for a good reason. However, I failed to see that this might be a hint to faint while riding a Tauros. And, to be honest, I think that this is too hard without further hints. The main reason is that Pokémon games never have a good explanation what happens after fainting. I get crushed by a giant dragon near a volcano and suddenly I am back on a scrapyard? Okay, apparently the player ran away and saved his Pokémon, that´s fine for me. On the other hand, I faint to a hiker on Route 4 and suddenly I am back at the academy because this was the last center I visited? This makes no sense but still it is fine for me, since this is the known game mechanic and it is my mistake to die, so no reason to blame the game. (Things like this become worse when we start discussing about the consequences of losing to Team Meteor, or Victory/Arclight in Devon Corp, but this is another story.)

What I want to say is that there is no reason to assume that fainting might solve a riddle. It is just super out of the box, which makes it a cool and funny riddle, but I don´t feel bad that I needed some help here.

 

Honorable mentions, which took way too much time: Scyther (had the correct idea, but was very unlucky), Shinx (cause I´m stupid), Whismur (missed the first and gave Loudred away without breeding first, stupid again), Charmander (super cool (haha), was very happy that I did something stupid), Nincada (idk, took me ages), Feebas (was afraid that there are only like six fishing spots in the whole mountain), Bagon (took me five visits to notice that the IS a path).

 

So, in the end, I failed to get 10 Pokémon plus evolutions (had to trade Whismur), which is quite okay for me. What were the Pokémon you struggled the most with?

 

PS: I rarely write long texts in English. If there are any crucial mistakes or very bad phrasing, I would appreciate a PM with corrections

 

[SilverAngelus]

1 hour ago, ToDie said:

1. Beldum:

Yes, the game gives you a hint. At some point in time, you have to wonder why the Pokémon in Aya´s gym appear. It might only be a joke, since Lana always complains about the gym stuff and suddenly appearing Pokémon in the living room make it even more funny. But there is too much going on to not be a side quest, so I searched for the trainers of the Pokémon. At this point, I had explored almost everything in the game, so I was not very confident - for a good reason. However, I failed to see that this might be a hint to faint while riding a Tauros. And, to be honest, I think that this is too hard without further hints. The main reason is that Pokémon games never have a good explanation what happens after fainting. I get crushed by a giant dragon near a volcano and suddenly I am back on a scrapyard? Okay, apparently the player ran away and saved his Pokémon, that´s fine for me. On the other hand, I faint to a hiker on Route 4 and suddenly I am back at the academy because this was the last center I visited? This makes no sense but still it is fine for me, since this is the known game mechanic and it is my mistake to die, so no reason to blame the game. (Things like this become worse when we start discussing about the consequences of losing to Team Meteor, or Victory/Arclight in Devon Corp, but this is another story.)

What I want to say is that there is no reason to assume that fainting might solve a riddle. It is just super out of the box, which makes it a cool and funny riddle, but I don´t feel bad that I needed some help here.

 

I agree that Beldum may be the hardest Pokemon to find in Reborn so far. But I should tell you that the method to obtain Beldum wasn't actually intended in the game. Rather, it was a method discovered on its own somehow, and Ame decided to keep that method. ( @Alistair I believe you told me this once, would you please fact check this? Also hi  )

Also I think Mew used to be in the earlier versions, but that was probably just a glitch.

[Rendolf]

Personally I feel like Mimikyu should be on this list since it doesn't show a location in the dex, the area you go to find it is hard to gain access to, and the place inside there where you get it is a secret I can't imagine someone guessing by themselves easily as well as containing a super dark maze. Also were you really able to complete your dex in just 100+ hours? It took me over 230 to finish it even using web resources.

[ToDie]

8 hours ago, Rendolf said:

Personally I feel like Mimikyu should be on this list since it doesn't show a location in the dex, the area you go to find it is hard to gain access to, and the place inside there where you get it is a secret I can't imagine someone guessing by themselves easily as well as containing a super dark maze. Also were you really able to complete your dex in just 100+ hours? It took me over 230 to finish it even using web resources.

Yes, Mimikyu also was a hard one. I thought that I had finished everything around Mirage Tower by getting Phione and Honedge. However, at some point, I returned to this place to check everything another time. Once I found the basement, I found Mimikyu rather quickly (you can use Flash down there). But I feel bad about all the broken glass in the first floor now

There are some other tough Pokémon where I got lucky, so they are not on my list (I am thinking about Piplup... I was lucky that I had the correct idea at the correct moment). On the other hand, I don´t think that anyone would put Shuckle on his list

100+ hours are in fact 160 hours. This was my second run, so I already knew how to finish the E18-story and had an idea how to approach the battles. Also, I used the speed up pretty often.

[Des Teto]

Reading your post reminded me the old time where I played a game without Internet or any kind of tips/walkthrough, when any new discoveries felt real. I will try to apply your motto when I finally decide myself to play Rejuvenation and Desolation (or any other games).

 

The Lapras one made me chuckle. You sure need to have played Gen2 to get this one.

 

Otherwise, did you have trouble completing the Torchic side quest? I've never found clues about this one. It's not at the Beldum level but still ^^

[ToDie]

2 hours ago, Des Teto said:

Otherwise, did you have trouble completing the Torchic side quest? I've never found clues about this one. It's not at the Beldum level but still ^^

Wow, I totally forgot about Torchic. This was a super hard one that should belong to my list. But I was happy with the amount of hints the game gave me: I knew there was something in Charlotte´s gym and it was very likely that the answer was about the big segment of ground panels. On the other hand, there was a super strange basement in Agate with absolutely nothing inside. I spend quite some time in this basement trying to figure out what to do there. It took me many visits (I always hoped that something changed) to notice that the floor was not a regular pattern. However, it took again much more time to figure out the connection between the two places. Super satisfying!

As you mentioned, the game gives no hint about the connection between these places. I wonder if there is a story-based reason why the code for Caroline´s room is written in some basement in Agate.

[Kenneth]

Natu on the Jungle Totem, you say?

 

It requires:

 

a Night time.

b Clear weather

c To NOT carry an Ill fated doll on you; not a single one!

d It to be seen in the overworld screen, sitting atop the totem; it isn't fought like the other 3 pokemon

 

In Citae d' Astrea, there are wild Natus too, beside Xatus.

 

Gastly is what tortured me, beyond belief. I missed the "you should interract with cable" part and was struggling pointlessly, trying to find it there. I even thought that i momentarily, accidentally encountered it, didn't notice it run away and it vanished, or something! Had to receive a tip from a forum member, before i was ultimately able to claim my own!

 

Gible is hard, but not like the rest... It only needs some precision and/or luck

 

Beldum is big OOF! Hands down. It even requires you to black out and lose a battle, because at more recent game versions, glitching the game with moves like teleport didn't work, while riding that Tauros. And a bigger oof, than in earlier versions too! Since it now requires you to progress much further into the game, before you can have a go at capturing it!

 

Tynamo is another lousy stinker, at least for me. Its 1st form is limited timed event (before restoration, i think?), the second form isn't in the wild (i think?) and the 3d form has a lousy 1% encounter chance, in diving spot grasses beneath Azurine lake (i think?).

[wcv]

Scyther. I am not a patient person by nature in games (ironic since IRL my patience has been described as borderline infinite), so having to keep encountering Pokemon until one finally showed up was terrible. Also Shroomish.