Pokémon Black and White/Striaton City and The Dreamyard

Striaton City
As soon as you enter Striaton City turn left. If you carry on walking straight you will find a Poké Ball. Inside you will find a Great Ball. To get another, walk back to the first house you saw when you set foot Striaton City that is on your right. Talk to the young man in this house and he will give you a Great Ball. If you go to the Gym, there will be a man outside. He tells you that you can not enter the Gym yet, so walk away. Next to the Pokémon Center is the Trainers' School. Before you go there go to the North East of Striaton City. You are about to enter The Dreamyard

The Dreamyard
In The Dreamyard are two trainers, Lass Eri and Youngster Joey. Use these two to train up your Pokémon. Another thing to do while you are here is obtain a new Pokémon. There is a lady after Youngster Joey who will give you a new Pokémon dependent on the Pokémon you stared with. If you chose Snivy at the start then the lady will give you a Panpour, if you chose Tepig at the start then the lady will give you a Pansage and if you chose Oshawott at the start then the lady will give you a Pansear. There is more to do here but right now return to Striaton City.

Striaton City - Part 2
Now you have been to The Dreamyard, you can enter the Trainers' School. While this can be done before you go to The Dreamyard, it is highly recommended you go after The Dreamyard, as at the board at the back of the room is Cheren. Talk to him and battle him.

RIVAL: Cheren

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This battle will be easy with your elemental monkey at hand. Once you have defeated him you may visit the Gym. outside the gym there will be another man, this time with green hair and a waistcoat on. He is one of the Gym leaders, Cilan.

Striaton Gym
As soon as you enter the Gym, the dude that was blocking it earlier will come over to you and introduce himself as Clyde. You know, he's that usual "Yo, champ in the making" guy. Anyway, to prep you for the fight, he gives you some Fresh Water, which heals 50 HP when you use it. That very well may come in handy in your fight, because the Gym Leader is pretty tough.

This gym's puzzle is really easy to solve. There's a curtain with a color and a symbol on it that clearly represents an elemental type. Beneath the curtain are three buttons you can step on: one for Fire, one for Water, and one for Grass. It shouldn't take a genius to figure out which is which. In order to drop the curtain, you need to step on the button that beats the type on the curtain.

That's the easy part. The tough part is dealing with the rather strong Waiter and Waitress inside; Waiter Maxwell uses a fierce Lillipup L11 which hits pretty hard, while Waitress Tia uses a Patrat L10 and a Purrloin L10. Beware the Patrat, because it has Bide, which will cause it to wait two turns before attacking you for double the damage you did to it during that time! The best thing to do if it looks like it's getting angry or whatever is to just use moves like Growl, Tail Whip, and Leer, then attack when it is not saving strength. You can also switch to a not-as-often-used Pokemon to take the hit if you accidentally hit it.

After beating them and getting through the easy puzzle (which, granted, is technically harder than any of the other generations first gyms...), you'll be ready to take on the Gym Leader. Before you do, go back to the Pokemon Center to heal up your Pokemon, then save your game when you get near the Gym Leader.

What is most surprising, this Gym doesn't have just one Gym Leader... it has three! Only one of them will battle you, though, and it's based off of your starting Pokemon. If your starting Pokemon was Snivy, you'll have to fight against the fiery Chili; if your starter was Tepig, you're going up against the cool Cress; and if your starting Pokemon was Oshawott, you're gonna have to take on the green Cilan, the one you meet outside the gym, before you went inside.

Gym Leader: Chili (only if Snivy was selected)

Gym Leader: Cress (only if you selected Tepig)

Gym Leader: Cilan (only if you selected Oshawott)

Each one of the trio's Pokemon have the move Work Up, which raises that Pokemon's Attack and Sp. Atk by one stage, increasing their potential to do damage by a lot. You do not want them to use that move too many times. If you have it available, you should counter with Growl right away, especially against Lillipup and Pansage (Cilan's green monkey), as they only have Physical-based attacks.

Cilan's Pansage, Chili's Pansear, and Cress' Panpour are all quite a bit tougher. One cool thing you may notice is that the music changes when the Gym Leader sends out their last Pokemon, making the fight even more dramatic! Thankfully, none of the monkeys have a lot of defenses, so as long as you hit hard and hit often, you should be good.

One of the best ways to take on Cilan, Chili, or Cress is to use the elemental monkey you picked up in the Dreamyard earlier. It will be resistant to the Gym Leader's monkey's only damaging attack, and while theirs can use Work Up to raise its Attack and Sp. Atk, you'll still be hitting for Super Effective damage with your own attack. It won't do a ton of damage unless you train your monkey, and it is hard to do that at this point in the game unless you're fighting a lot of Audino, but it should still be enough to take their monkey out without too much hassle.

After beating Cilan, Chili, or Cress, the trio of Gym Leaders will relinquish the Trio Badge as a symbol of your victory against them, which will enable traded Pokemon up to Level 20 obey you. They'll also give you TM83 (Work Up), which — as you probably saw — raises the user's Attack and Sp. Atk by one stage!

Just keep in mind that, if you teach a Pokemon a TM move, it will have only as much remaining PP as the move it was replacing had. You can't just use TMs to freely restore PP, sorry!

Congratulations! You just showed these Gym Leaders how to win at their own game! Now head out of the Gym and back to Striaton City.

Striaton City-Part 3
As soon as you exit the Gym, you'll be approached by a rather odd character named Fennel. She has something that Prof. Juniper wanted to give you, so she takes you back to her house and then takes you upstairs... There's some weird contraption hooked up to a bed there. Yes, this sounds rather peculiar, but all becomes well when she gives you HM01 (Cut), which teaches your Pokémon Cut. Now that you have the Trio Badge, you can use it outside of battle, too. Woohoo!

Anyway, she tells you some stuff about being college friends with Prof. Juniper and asks you to find some Dream Mist for her in the Dreamyard. Hmm, odd. Anyway, she'll then just sort of leave you up there. Talk to the other girl in the room and she'll introduce herself as Amanita. She's a lot like the Bill, Lanette, and Bebe of the older generations. She puts her name on the box menu now, so it'll be "Amanita's PC" now rather than just Someone's. She also tells you about the new Battle Box feature, which can be used to store your team of Pokémon in for quick and easy access to battle, for battles from the menu screen (before hitting Continue) and probably some other battles.

So now that we have the HM for Cut and the badge it goes with, where should we go with our newfound powers? Well, on the northern part of Route 2, there's a shrub you can cut that leads you to a Super Potion and a Great Ball. That's kinda cool. But where you really want to check out is the Dreamyard. Yeah, you know you totally saw that shrub blocking your path earlier, so go heal your Pokémon and check it out, Trainer!

Oh, also, while you're healing your Pokémon, you might want to take a peek at the Poké Mart items available. They're now selling Great Balls, Super Potions, Escape Ropes, status healing items, and Repels.

Dreamyard-Part 2
Go ahead and cut down that shrub now that you're able to. As soon as you do, Bianca will come over and be amazed at the ruined place, but also have a suspicious feeling. After walking a little further, you'll hear something, and then walking even further will reveal one of those Munna things that Fennel was talking about earlier.

Things seem alright, but then two Team Plasma Grunts show up and want to take the Munna. They even kick it! Now it's time for you to kick some Team Plasma behind for your first time! One of them will start off by taking you on, showing a really cool Team Plasma intro scene. Gotta love that, as well as the epic music!

The first Plasma grunt has a Patrat L10 while the second one has a Purrloin L10. Neither are too tough, but the Patrat can hit for a good chunk of damage.

Once you've beaten them, they'll continue to harass the Munna. All of a sudden, though, Ghetsis shows up! And then... well, then another Ghetsis shows up...? Then he does some teleport thing and appears as one in front of the Munna, saying they should never harm Pokemon. That's enough to scare the socks off of those lowly Plasma goons, because they go running! Oddly enough, Ghetsis just disappears afterwards.

Now the Munna's parent — a Musharna — appears and goes near the Munna. It turns out it was just a dream! Fennel appears a few seconds later, saying what the Pokémon is. The two Pokémon leave, but leave behind the Dream Mist Fennel was looking for. She takes it and then says she'll be waiting for you back in her house. However, before you leave, there's a patch of grass that could use your attention, as well as some other stuff to explore.

Did that grass just shake?! '''One new feature introduced to Pokemon Black and White is the mysterious "rustling grass patches," which you'll be able to encounter on any route with tall grass on it after you've earned the Trio Badge. If you hear a rustling, like you're walking through grass when you're not, stop moving! Then, look around at all of the nearby patches of grass. Are any of them shaking suspiciously? If so, you're going to want to head directly to that shaking patch, because there's a rare Pokemon in there!'''

Early on, this is usually the healing Pokemon, Audino, which is fortunate because you gain a lot of EXP if you knock it out (and you can catch it if you want, too), but later on, you can find some pretty cool stuff in those rustling patches.

It is always good to have a couple of Repels on hand just in case you see a rustling patch, because if you get into a battle between here and there, you'll lose the rustling patch!

'''Oh yeah, and in different terrains, like caves and water, it'll be different, so just be on the lookout for them! Inside of caves, you'll see a little dust cloud swirling around (referred to as "dust cloud"), while in the water, you'll see a little blue circle signifying a ripple near the surface (referred to as "rippling water").'''

'''If you want to encounter some rustling grass, the best way to do so is to run up and down directly outside of the tall grass. Right along the border of it. Keep doing that, preferably with your volume up, and you should see some grass shake within a minute or two at the most. If you're not seeing it shake and have tried for several minutes, perhaps leave the area and come back later.'''

There's a Poké Ball to the left of where the Team Plasma fight was, inside one of the patches of grass. A Parlyz Heal can be found over by the window on the right side of the building's remains. Climb the stairs and walk over to the southwest to pick up a Potion. And if you go to the eastern side upstairs, you can get yourself a Repel.

Well, that's about all there is to see here. Move along, folks, move along.

Actually, after doing all of this, you'll want to go back to Fennel's house in Striaton City. Talk to her and she'll be all excited, then will give you the awesomely cool C-Gear, which can be used to do various things.

Basically, this C-Gear kinda shows you some stuff for battling players and lets you hook up to places right away. Amanita also gives you the Pal Pad afterwards, allowing you to exchange Friend Codes with other players and deal with them over the internet. Yeah, you can battle and trade with your friends online now!

The C-Gear does have its uses, though, don't get me wrong. But if you're not looking to quickly interact with other players through all of its uses and you're just a casual player for now, you should press that little Power Off button in the bottom-right corner of the DS touch screen. It will help conserve your DS's battery life much more than if you had it on.

When you Continue your game from now on, a screen will pop up asking you Yes or No. It'll just be asking if you want to start the game with the DS wireless functions on, allowing the C Gear to interact with other nearby players and also receive updates if you're connected to Wi-Fi. It warns you that you shouldn't enable this on airplanes, in hospitals, or in other places where wireless transmissions are restricted. Hit Yes when continuing your game to proceed with it on or hit No and then Yes again (just confirming it) and you'll start with the C-Gear turned off. Again, this can help save battery life leaving it off if you have no interest in connecting with friends.

For now, you're probably itching to do more exploring, so off to the west of Striaton City you go! Once in the gardens, head north onto Route 3!