Pokémon Red and Blue/Celadon City

'Your local Pokémon Mart is great for quick shopping trips, but if you want to talk about selection, nothing beats the Celadon Department Store. With five floors of everything a shopper could conceivably desire, it's a must-see for Pokémon trainers. Fight the crowds to stock up on supplies and perhaps even solve a few of your ongoing problems.'

The big city
They don't get any bigger than Celadon City. This Pokémon megalopolis is home to the massive Celadon Department Store where you can buy all sorts of enhancements for your Pokémon. Make sure you also check out the far right side of the town. When you walk over, you will see a bunch of trees that lead to a dead end. Go up as far as you can go until you hit a tree. Inside that tree is a PP Up.

You'll also find the Gym (and a Rainbow Badge), and a casino that's home to Team Rocket and their secret Pokémon trafficking operations... And in charge of it all is the shadowy figure of Giovanni, the man who's currently in possession of the Silph Scope you've been looking for.

Celadon Mansion
The large building in the top-center of town (to the left of the Pokémon Center) is Celadon Mansion. The mansion's current tenants are none other than Game Freak, the team that developed Pokémon! The team leader promises a reward if you bring him a completed Pokédex, but you can get your hands on something right now if you sneak in the back and up to the top floor: it's an, the only one in the game. Since you can power it up with the Stones available in the Department Store, it should be a powerful addition to your roster.

Team Rocket Activity
Something fishy is going on in Celadon City, and it's your job to find out what. If you can't put your finger on it at first, start your detective work by grabbing a bite at the local diner and see what turns up. Someone might point you in the right direction. Of the two side-by-side buildings at the bottom of town, the building on the left is the diner. Next door to the diner is a warehouse operation that's shipping over 2000 Pokémon a month, with most of them being used as prizes at the Game Corner slot arcade. Big numbers mean big money, and that has Team Rocket written all over it.

Team Rocket is obviously up to something, and as the dimwit in the warehouse points out, it surely has nothing to do with the hidden switch in the poster in the Game Corner. And as long as you're heading down to the casino to confirm the non-existence of the switch, you might as well do some gambling. Make sure that you get the Coin Case from the gambler in the diner next door.

The Celadon Department Store
This isn't just another lame Poké Mart. The Celadon Department Store sells all sorts of things that can't be purchased anywhere else! Talk to every clerk behind every counter to see their entire selection. You may even receive a free sample!

The 2nd floor sells not just the usual staples, but a variety of Technical Machines as well. Some of the exciting ones are TM 07 (Horn Drill) which can be learned by any horned Pokémon (like Nidorans) and K.O.'s instantly if it hits (which it only does about 30% of the time); TM 37 (Egg Bomb) which can be used by very few Pokémon (Pidgey cannot learn it, unfortunately) but is a powerful regular attack; TM 01 and TM 05 are the very useful normal attacks Mega Punch and Mega Kick (the kick is more powerful, but less accurate), which you'll want for your Jigglypuffs, Clefairys, and anything else that lacks solid firepower; and TM 09 and TM 17 are Take Down (Normal) and Submission (Fighting), powerful attacks that do a portion of their damage back to the user.

Nothing's for sale on the 3rd floor, but the second guy from the right at the counter will give you a free TM 18, containing Fighting-type Counter, which deals damage to an opponent equal to double what they did to you.

The 4th floor sells the Stones you'll need to evolve certain Pokémon. Grab a Thunder, Fire, or Water Stone for Eevee, and pick up a Poké Doll, which will come in handy in Saffron City.

The 5th floor sells ability-enhancers for battles, and a variety of expensive supplements.

Finally, there's the roof. Hit the vending machine and get one of each beverage to give to the little girl wandering around here. Give her the Fresh Water for TM 13 (Ice Beam), the Soda Pop for TM 48 (Rock Slide) and the Lemonade for TM 49 (Tri Attack). Also, fill up your bag with Lemonade! Like the other beverages, these can be used to heal your Pokémon, and Lemonade is the best of the lot, healing 80 points, 30 more than Super Potions, but at half the cost! Stock up and save! Don't forget to buy an extra beverage for the border guards in order to get to Saffron City.

Game Corner
Everything seems legit in the Game Corner, at least at first glance. People are having fun at the slot machines and no one is making trouble, but the tough guy near the back of the room does look suspicious.

The Game Corner offers some hard-to-find Pokémon (and one exclusive one), but at high prices. You need to exchange coins for them, and outside of the few hundred that you can bum from other gamblers or find on the ground, you can only get them by buying them at the rate of 50 coins for 1000, or winning them in slots.

The slots are tricky. The machines do differ, but they go in streaks, changing frequently, so the only way to win is to spend all day putting a few coins into each machine, seeing which ones are "streaking," paying 70% of the time, and hold onto that machine until it runs out (you can usually get 500 or so coins out of them). Other machines retain poor odds (1 in 10 or so) but have frequent high-paying Bars and 7's. So if you get a Bar, stick with it for a while and a Triple-7 is probably ahead. You can redeem your coins next door for TMs and some good Pokémon like, but they're hardly worth the amount of time you'd have to spend on the slots to get them. If you're trying to catch them all, just save up and buy the coins.



Gym Battle 4: Erika


For once, the real action in town is somewhere other than the Gym. You could either go after Erika immediately or wait until after you investigate the Game Corner. No matter which version you're playing, Erika's assembled a nasty team of three high-level Grass-type Pokémon to contend with.

Erika and her Junior Trainers make for one of the easiest Gyms to defeat, since Grass-type Pokémon have so many weaknesses. The weakness to Fire is something Red and Blue players are in a better position to exploit, but everyone can take advantage of the fact that their own Grass-type Pokémon are basically invulnerable to enemy Grass-types. Of course, that goes both ways, so your Pokémon better know some non-Grass techniques to break the stalemate (such as Wrap, Cut or Take Down) or you'll be in for some long matches. Also if you've managed to pick up TM 13, Ice Beam works great.

Another type that's helpful against Grass is Psychic, due to the common secondary Poison-type, and if you don't have any strong Psychic-types, you should take this opportunity to get them some experience before you end up relying on them in the Pokémon Tower. Also due to the Poison-type, most of the Pokémon here can be taken out in one shot with Dig. Be sure to bring some Ethers if you don't want to make repeated return trips to the Pokémon Center to refill the 10 PP.

Victory earns you the Rainbow Badge, which allows you to command Pokémon that are as high as level 50, and TM 21, Mega Drain, a powerful Absorb-like technique that can be learned by all Grass-type Pokémon and a small handful of others, including and.