Pokémon Gold and Silver/Back to New Bark Town

Beware: an ambush awaits!

Your first battle with your Rival.

New Pokémon

Gold	Silver	Crystal
In Route 29, once you have Pokéballs: Pidgey Rattata Sentret Hoothoot		In Route 29, once you have Pokéballs: Pidgey Rattata Sentret Hoothoot Hoppip

If your Pokémon is wounded, get it healed in Cherrygrove City. When you head towards New Bark Town, you'll be ambushed by a mysterious trainer who got his hands on one of Professor Elm's Pokémon: Totodile if you chose Cyndaquil, Chikorita if you chose Totodile, or Cyndaquil if you chose Chikorita. Since your rival's Pokémon will always have the Type advantage, you'll need a good plan or a high level Pokémon to win (equipped healing items help too).

Be advised: even though your rival's Pokémon has a type advantage, its level is only 5. By this point, your starter Pokémon should have leveled up a few times, which should be advantageous for you.

Bring the egg to Professor Elm

While the police investigate the theft of the Pokémon (and give you a chance to name your Rival), give Professor Elm the Egg. As you leave, his assistant will give you your first Poké Balls. You can now buy them in Cherrygrove City and most other cities as well.

The Bank of Mom is now open

Decorations

Your mom likes buying fun Pokémon stuff for your room, like the Charmander and Snorlax dolls, and you can use them to decorate. When you're in your room, choose Decoration from your PC menu to arrange the objects.

You may want to stop by your home and leave some of your extra cash with Mom. While you're on your journey, your mom will help you save your money if you want her to. This keeps you from losing it when all of your Pokémon faint (the money in your possession is halved, but the money Mom's holding is not). You can even set it up so she'll automatically take a cut every time you earn money from other trainers. You can also bank by phone—just give her a call! Your mom loves to shop, and she will call you when she's purchased something new. Sometimes she buys helpful items, like Potion or Repel, and sometimes she just buys decorations for your room. Your mother can also buy a rare Moon Stone.

What now?

Going into this building will take you to Route 46.

The first step of your quest to become a Master Trainer is conquering the Gym in Violet City and earning the Zephyr Badge. Assemble a party of Pokémon and head back to Route 30, then continue on to Violet City. Detours along the way, like Route #46 and the Dark Cave present great opportunities to catch rare Pokémon.

If you're new to the Pokémon series, a guy on Route 29 will show you how to use Poké Balls. If you're an old pro, just start using the balls you got from Elm's aide, and then head to Cherrygrove City for more. If you chose Cyndaquil, it's not as necessary to capture flying types, because flying Pokémon have an advantage against many of the same types of Pokemon as a fire type Pokémon. Otherwise, you'll want to catch a Hoothoot.

Capturing Pokémon

Whether you're trying to catch all of the Pokémon you see or just the ones that you need, you should always be prepared for an encounter with a rare Pokémon. This means having at least five or six Poké Balls on you at all times, and at least one low-level Pokémon on your team or a Pokémon with the move False Swipe.

That last part is important, since it's incredibly difficult to catch Pokémon when they're at full health. They're a lot easier to catch when they're in the yellow damage zone, and a cinch when they're in the red, but you'll need a weak fighter to take them down to that level or you may accidentally defeat your target as you whittle away at its health. Sleep, Paralysis, and other negative conditions also make catching wild Pokémon easier, but don't use Poison or Burn or they could be defeated. Butterfree and Bellsprout can learn moves that cause these status.

Route 46 - Stopping by is a good idea!

This walkthrough does not cover Route 46 until much later in the game. But there's good reason to visit it early in Crystal — you can now catch a Phanpy here! They're very rare, and only appear in the morning, but are worth the trouble. A Phanpy raised from level 2 will grow up to be an unusually powerful Donphan, the best Ground-type Pokémon in the game!

During the day you can also catch Geodude, Rattata, Spearow, and Jigglypuff there, and unlike Phanpy, they're very easy to find. Jigglypuff appears 5% of the time both day and night, so stick in there to catch one. Its your first opportunity to catch a Pokémon with Sing making other Pokémon captures easier. To get to Route #46, head through the building in the north part of Route #29.

Pokémon Found

Route #33 encounters

	Gold			Silver			Crystal
	Morn	Day	Night	Morn	Day	Night	Morn	Day	Night
Spearow	35%	35%	N/A	35%	35%	N/A	30%	30%	N/A
Jigglypuff	5%	5%	5%	5%	5%	5%	N/A	N/A	N/A
Geodude	40%	40%	45%	40%	40%	45%	50%	50%	50%
Rattata	20%	20%	50%	20%	20%	50%	15%	20%	50%
Phanpy	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	5%	N/A	N/A

#39 Jigglypuff	#74 Geodude
First opportunity to catch Normal type Jigglypuff in the bottom area of Route 46. It will be be level 3-5. It starts with Sing as its first move and will learn defense curl before it gets its first Physical Attack that causes damage at level 9. So it needs to be put in top of the group and switched out rather than attack to get any exp. It has very high HP but is very slow however. Jigglypuff evolves when given a Moon Stone which are pretty hard to come by in Johto It can learn the Defense Curl and Rock type move Rollout combo naturally and also one of Normal type best moves, Double Edge at level 39	First opportunity to catch Rock and Ground type Geodude. In Gen 2 it is very helpful as a tank to get through the early routes of the game and actually is very strong against the early Gyms making it a must catch. It has a good Defense stat and decent Attack stat. Is very slow however and has low HP. It can learn Rock type move Rock Throw now at level 11 and learns great new attacks like Ground type move Magnitude at level 16 and Rock type move Roll at level 31. Does learn some of the suicide moves such as Self Destruct and Explosion at high levels. On top of that it learns the best Ground type move Earthquake! Can learn Strength HM 04 and also Fighting-type move TM 08 Rock Smash which is useful for when in caves.
#231 Phanpy	#21 Spearow
Crystal version only. Pure Ground type Phanpy is reclusive and only comes out in the morning time. Its worth taking the time to catch this Pokémon. Should be noted it does flee from battle quite quickly. Has high HP and is Physical Attack stat dominant. It is not much to brag about at low levels but stick in there and level it up into a Donphan which learns the very powerful Ground type move Earthquake at level 49. Or don't allow it to evolve to learn the powerful Normal type move Double-Edge at level 49. It learns Normal type move Take Down at level 25 then immediately evolves and learns Fury Attack Donphan has very high HP, Attack and Defense. Could very well be one of your best Physical Pokémon to take you to the Elite 4. Has better Attack and stats than Nidoking. Also found on Route 45.	Normal and Flying type Spearow! This is the first opportunity to catch one. They have high Speed stat and a decent Attack stat. It learns Fury Attack at level 13 and then new Dark type move Pursuit at level 25 if you prevent evolution. Has a high level move it can learn called Drill Peck, a Physical move doing 80 Flying type damage with 100% accuracy. It has only 1 evolution into Fearow at level 20, and compared to Pidgey they're a bit rarer, a bit stronger, and a lot cooler. Fearow has high Speed and good Attack stat and will likely be the best candidate for HM 02 Fly They also start off with a bigger advantage than Pidgey versus bug types since they start with Peck, a Flying type move. It will be one of your strongest early Pokémon for a while especially against Bug types in the wild and in the upcoming Gym. It will also be good against Gastly.