Alright, so you’ve got Pokémon Scarlet and/or Violet, and you’re making your way through Paldea. But this game can be a little hands-off when it comes to tutorials. In one way, that’s great — you get to discover things for yourself — but it can also leave you feeling a little bit lost.
Fear not, intrepid trainer! We’ve catalogued 30 things that we think everyone should know about the game, from interesting facts and easter eggs to useful information that will save you time and energy.
Let’s go!
30 Things You Might Have Missed In Pokémon Scarlet & Violet
1. School can be rewarding
Don’t skip class! You can learn valuable things. No, really! We’re not just saying that because we love homework. If you complete classes and take tests, you can receive actual rewards — like Tera Shards and Pokémon — as well as getting introduced to the game’s mechanics, like how Tera Types work, and how to calculate attack bonuses for super-effective type matches.
Talk to the woman at the front desk of the Academy to take classes.
2. A fun little salt reference
If you know your chemistry, you might have picked up on this already — but Nacli, the rock salt Pokémon, is a reference to NaCl, the chemical compound for salt! Yay, learning!
3. Cinematography 101
Are you bothered by the camera work in this game? Feeling a little claustrophobic? Zoom out by clicking the R stick, and click it again to zoom back in.
4. Cha Cha Slide
If you are running around and you press B to sneak, your character will transition from sprinting to sneaking with a cool little slide. It’s honestly one of the best animations in the game.
5. Breeding is DIY now
No more day cares. No more old people looking after your Pokémon. No more running back and forth trying to hatch an egg — okay, never mind, that still exists, but breeding is now done entirely on your own, and eggs will maaaagically appear in your picnic basket if you do it right.
We have a separate guide if you want to know how babies are made:
6. Nicknames are for nerds
You can turn off the choice to name your Pokémon altogether, if you’re the kind of person who doesn’t ever give their Pokémon names. This setting can be found in the Options menu, under “Give Nicknames”.
Turning this setting off will save you a fair amount of time even if you’re someone who likes to name Pokémon — if you’re grinding, shiny hunting, EV training and so on, it’s best to have it off.
7. Hats off
You can take off that stupid school hat, even if it’s not obvious.
Press left on the D-Pad to open up the outfit menu, go over to the hats, and press X to take it off. You can also do this with socks, gloves, and glasses.
8. BLJ FTW
That’s short for “backwards long jump for the win”, which is to say, you can sort of sequence break in this game by using Miraidon or Koraidon to backwards jump up hills and mountains.
Just position your bike-mon facing away from the hill and jump while moving the bike backwards, and keep repeating until you get to the top. Just be warned that sequence breaking will put you up against monsters WAY stronger than you… but you can always just run in, grab the higher-level items and TMs, and bug out!
9. Pokédex rewards
This one’s important! Make sure to go into your Pokédex every now and again by pressing the minus button, then go into the Pokédex itself and press X to earn rewards for the number of Pokémon you’ve caught so far. These rewards include rare evolution stones!
10. Nods to Red and Blue
Alfornada has Gen 1 Pokémon sprites in mosaic form on the floor and walls of the battle arena, as a neat little nod to the games that started it all.
11. What’s in a name
If you’ve lost interest in your Pokémon’s nickname, you can change it without even having to go to the Name Rater! Here’s a guide:
12. Lock that map down
Open up the map with Y and click in the stick, and you’ll lock it to North — it will no longer rotate!
13. Back it up
There’s a secret backup save that you can access at any time, if things go really wrong or the game crashes. Here’s a guide on how to load it up:
14. Papa Pokémon
It turns out that Pokémon like to hang out in the overworld in groups. You’ll see flocks of bird Pokémon and herds of deer Pokémon, and you’ll think, yes, that makes sense.
But have you noticed that sometimes those flocks and herds contain a much bigger parent? We’ve seen Yungooses being looked after by Gumshoos, Hoppips being shepherded by Skiploom,
15. Picnics > Potions
Don’t waste your precious potions and revives — just throw a picnic! Making a sandwich will heal and revive all your Pokémon. And it only costs as much as a sandwich!
That’s the first half down. How many of those had you not noticed? Flip over to the second page for 15 more tidbits…