pokewalker PokéWalker Guide

[Guested]

With the US release of HGSS just around the corner, I thought I'd put together a guide using what I've learned from my own PokeWalker. Some of the other guides on other sites are missing some information. However, I suggest you use those sites if you'd like lists of each Course and what Pokemon and items are there (and their step requirements).

All interaction with the Walker is handled through a menu of the main menu screen (outside of the main game, where you select your game or Mystery Gift, migration, etc).

Once you enter this menu, you can choose a Pokemon to send out to the Walker, as well as a course to walk. There are 27 courses to choose from (8 before the National Dex, 12 unlockable after getting the National Dex, and 7 special courses). Each course has its own selection of 6 Pokemon to catch and 10 different items you can obtain. Normal courses are unlocked by accumulating Watts (detailed later); "Beyond the Sea" is unlocked by completing a trade with someone whose game region is different than yours over the GTS; "Edge of the Night Sky" is unlocked by trading over either a Nintendo Zone Jirachi (Japan) or a Gamestop Jirachi (US) to your HGSS game; "Yellow Forest," "Event," "Shopping," and "Champ Road" have all been released by Mystery Gift in some form in Japan; "Amity Field" has not yet been released but will most likely be through Mystery Gift. These course names could possibly change after the US localization is released (and I'm pretty sure "Amity Field" will change... the Japanese word for this is often associated with day-care or kindergarten, so it will most likely be something like that).

Once your selections have been made, your Pokemon is sent out to your Walker via the infrared ports on the Walker and your game cartridge. Then, your outing has begun! Start walking!

As you walk, the PokeWalker keeps track of each step you take. It will keep a record each day of how many steps you took (over the past week), as well as the total number over the lifetime of its use. Walking a certain number of steps will build up Watts which you can use to play the Poke Radar or Dowsing Machine games or keep them in order to put towards unlocking new courses.

Each course's Pokemon are broken down into three groups: A, B, and C. There are two Pokemon in each group, and one from each group will be available to catch per outing (determined randomly). Group C is able to be caught straight from the start of each day, but groups B and A each have their own number of steps that must be walked that day before appearing (determined by the route... it can be as low as 500, or as high as 10,000). Each route has three Pokemon Types that are advantageous to this route and will reduce the number of required steps by 25%.

Playing Poke Radar costs you 10 Watts each time, and you must search patches of grass for the Pokemon by following the pattern of "!" marks.

"!" once will be a Pokemon from group C

"!" twice could be a Pokemon from group C or B

"!!" could be from group B or A

"!!!" will definitely be a Pokemon from group A

After finding the Pokemon, it will appear and a battle will start. Each Pokemon has four bars of health, and a normal attack will do one bar of damage, while critical hits do two. Apart from the "Attack" command, you can also "Dodge" or throw a Pokeball. As usual, Pokeballs have a better chance of catching the opponent Pokemon if its health is lower. The wild Pokemon may also dodge or run from time to time. If you lose the battle, you will lose 10 additional Watts. If you capture the Pokemon, it will be stored on your Walker until you finish your outing and connect with the HGSS game again. You can capture a maximum of three Pokemon per outing.

Dowsing Machine costs 3 Watts to play each time. You are given two chances to find an item hidden among 6 patches of grass. If you guess incorrectly the first time, it will give you a clue as to whether the item is nearby or far. As with the Pokemon, some items are available from the start, and some are only available after a certain amount of steps have been walked that day. You can have up to three items in your inventory before you have to send them back to your HGSS game.

If you have already obtained 3 items or 3 Pokemon during a certain outing, but you obtain one more, you are given the option of swapping it out for one you are currently holding.

You can also use the PokeWalker to communicate with someone else's Walker. Communicating between the two via IR gives each person a random item (from the opposite person's current Course). You can only do this with the same person once per day. These items are stored separately from the Dowsing Machine items, and you may hold up to 10 of these before transferring back. If you communicate with more than 10 people during one outing, you'll get 99 Watts from the 11th person (and so on) instead of an item. In addition, after communicating with someone sending the items back to your HGSS cart, that person's current party (as of their last transmission with the Walker) will be sent to your Trainer Dojo in Veridian City. You can battle them here similar to the way it was in GSC (and also RSE with record mixing Secret Bases), and more than one player can be stored in the Dojo at a time (up to 11).

There are also options to change the sound level and contrast, look at your Report (displays Trainer name, current Course and current time of day), and check what is currently in your inventory.

When you are done with your outing, you can send back your original Pokemon (who will probably have gained 1 level), the Pokemon you caught, the items you obtained, and any Watts that you did not use on minigames will be tallied on your HGSS game and put towards unlocking new courses. Your HGSS game will also show you a record of what happened during your outing and keep track of your total number of steps.

The PokeWalker is a great way to catch rare Pokemon, obtain rare items like the Yellow Flute, TMs, evolution items (or common items, for free, essentially), give your Pokemon a level boost, or just kill time when you want to play a little minigame.

If you have any questions or you think I've left something out, please let me know.

Edited February 13, 2010 by Guested

[nathanmcnutt]

I see in your signature you have a blue Pokewalker. Do they come in a random color or are the US ones going to look like a pokeball?

[Guested]

It's a normal PokeWalker, but you can buy a rubber-like case thing for them now. There are two... a red one with Ho-oh on it and a blue one with Lugia on it. Mine's the blue one, as you can see.

http://www.pokemon.co.jp/special/hgss/news/17.html

I'm not using that cheap strap, though.

[nathanmcnutt]

Cool. Thank you for the help

[Zowayix]

Has the PID<->IV correlation and hex values, etc. of PokéWalker Pokemon been found out yet?

For example, if I had a Pikachu caught in, say, Viridian Forest, what should I change besides moves and level to make it a legal Yellow Forest Pikachu?

(Also, can PokéWalker Pokemon be any nature? Can they be shiny and/or have 31 IVs in all stats?)

[Guested]

Has the PID<->IV correlation and hex values, etc. of PokéWalker Pokemon been found out yet?

No

(Also, can PokéWalker Pokemon be any nature?

As far as I've seen, yes.

Can they be shiny and/or have 31 IVs in all stats?)

Unknown yet.

[Poryhack]

Great guide! Honestly did not know much of that until now.

Just a couple questions: Counting pokemon sent from HG/SS and ones caught on the walker, a maximum of 4 can be stored? Also, where can you select pokemon from when sending them to the walker? Boxes? Party?

Although I doubt you'd know this one, have you seen anything that would indicate the full PKM file is sent to the pokewalker, as opposed to just the important bits and pieces?

[OmegaDonut]

If you do not have a Pokemon on your Pokewalker, but you still have a course loaded, a random Pokemon MAY appear. A random Pikachu appeared on my Pokewalker some days after I retrieved my Pokemon from Yellow Forest, and I could battle other Pikachu with it. I guess it thought I was lonely.

I've gotten two different sets of IVs with the same PID. There is no PID<->IV correlation, but all PIDs from the Pokewalker will be in the form D5FFFF?? (where ?? is a random 16-bit number). This also makes it very possible to RNG for an ID\SID that results in shiny Pokewalker Pokemon (1-in-32 chance with a correct PID). I haven't actually tested this yet, though.

[pokemonrulz]

Do they sell the pokéwalker without HGSS in Japan? If yes, would they do that also in the USA and Europe?

[Poryhack]

They don't yet, but they may at some point down the road.

[pokemonrulz]

Ok, thank you.

[Guested]

Great guide! Honestly did not know much of that until now.

Just a couple questions: Counting pokemon sent from HG/SS and ones caught on the walker, a maximum of 4 can be stored? Also, where can you select pokemon from when sending them to the walker? Boxes? Party?

Although I doubt you'd know this one, have you seen anything that would indicate the full PKM file is sent to the pokewalker, as opposed to just the important bits and pieces?

Oh yeah, I didn't mention that. It's only from your boxes. Meaning that you can only use the PokeWalker once you have at least one Pokemon in your box.

And yes, that makes it a total of 4 Pokemon on the Walker. What OmegaDonut said is correct, if you don't have a Pokemon loaded, one from the course may randomly join you.

The whole data of the pkm file is NOT sent to the PokeWalker. You cannot check any data about the Pokemon on the Walker other than the Name and Species. There is a key command (similar to the erasing file command) that will return your Pokemon back to your HGSS game if, say, you lost your PokeWalker. I'll get out my manual and post this later, but I'm sure it will be in the English manuals as well. This means the Pokemon you send out is still stored on the HGSS cart somewhere. This also leads me to believe that the Pokemon you catch are not fully generated until you send them back to HGSS.

There is also a key command to reset a PokeWalker, if you want to change the game it is associated with.

[Poryhack]

Alright, interesting stuff. I'm considering getting one of those USB save adapters (unless there's a better alternative) so I can fiddle around with the pokewalker after the US release. Looks like there's lots to big figured out.

[Lucario]

Too bad i can't have a pokewalker as i don't buy the games. Unless they sell it individually that would be neat.

[pokemonrulz]

Do you have unlimited pokéballs in the pokewalker?

[Guested]

Too bad i can't have a pokewalker as i don't buy the games. Unless they sell it individually that would be neat.

You would need to have the retail game anyway, because it communicates with the PokeWalker via an infrared port built into the game cartridge... which I already said.

Do you have unlimited pokéballs in the pokewalker?

Yes. But if a capture fails once, the Pokemon flees.

[pokemonrulz]

Yes. But if a capture fails once, the Pokemon flees.

Ok, thanks

[Sarutan]

Soo is there anything special about pokemon captured in pokewalker cousres ?

[Relyte]

Soo is there anything special about pokemon captured in pokewalker cousres ?

They generally are not found in the game itself, if at all, and they often have special moves.

[tkdtju]

Interesting question I know it was said previously that not all the info of a pkmn is sent to the pokewalker but what if a pokemon is loaded into the pokewalker and the game save is erased what happens to that loaded pkmn? (Reason I ask is because if that pkmn could be moved to a new save that could be a glitch to get 2 starters right from the get go

Also I noticed that there was a mention that a pokewalker could change the game it is associated with, could that mean you could have say 2 or more pokewalkers associated with one game?

[Guested]

Interesting question I know it was said previously that not all the info of a pkmn is sent to the pokewalker but what if a pokemon is loaded into the pokewalker and the game save is erased what happens to that loaded pkmn? (Reason I ask is because if that pkmn could be moved to a new save that could be a glitch to get 2 starters right from the get go

Pretty sure this is not possible.

Also I noticed that there was a mention that a pokewalker could change the game it is associated with, could that mean you could have say 2 or more pokewalkers associated with one game?

Pretty sure this is not possible also.

In both cases, resetting the Walker to associate with another game save would erase everything on the Walker.

[Phrixus]

I've been wondering about level gaining through the Walker...

Are the levels gained by your pokemon in the Walker the equivalent of, say, levels gained by rare candy and such? (aka. No EV gain.)

Do steps actually equal experience or does the experience your pokemon already earned in-game stay the same despite gaining a level through the Walker?

Also, am I correct in assuming that any evolutions or move learning take place after you transfer your pokemon back to the game cart?

[Guested]

I've been wondering about level gaining through the Walker...

Are the levels gained by your pokemon in the Walker the equivalent of, say, levels gained by rare candy and such? (aka. No EV gain.)

Do steps actually equal experience or does the experience your pokemon already earned in-game stay the same despite gaining a level through the Walker?

Also, am I correct in assuming that any evolutions or move learning take place after you transfer your pokemon back to the game cart?

You should have read what I wrote.

You gain ONE level per outing. No more, no less.

There are no EVs.

It's basically like the Day Care. Pokemon will not evolve, and I'm pretty sure new moves randomly overwrite another one.

[Phrixus]

Yeah, I read that it's one level per outing. Probably should have rephrased that question.

I was just wondering about the specifics of what caused the leveling:

whether steps equal experience points or if it was just a certain amount of watts equal a level gain.

I was just curious as to how careful I'd have to be with the pokemon I send to the walker. (Don't want to accidently overwrite a move or lose an evolution related move or something like that.)

Also, I read (either in this thread or the other one) that if you choose a course but don't send a pokemon to the walker, a random pokemon may "join" you on your outing? Could you tell us the details of that?

Specifically, does this pokemon actually become yours or is it just a stand-in for the day/outing until you transfer one of your own?

Thanks for this thread, by the way. Most sites don't go into this much detail on the Walker.

[codemonkey85]

Great job on the guide Guested!

Are you 100% certain that the full 136 bytes of Pokémon data are not copied to the 'Walker? How would we even know without examining the memory architecture of the device? (Which I wish we could do. )

You gain ONE level per outing. No more, no less.

Well, you can gain less... your Pokémon will not necessarily level up during its tenure in the Pokéwalker. You have to accumulate enough steps first. FYI, I am 90% sure it's one step to one EXP (until it caps of course).

By the way, are you sure a Pokémon can learn level-up moves in the 'Walker at all? I think the level-up happens after the Pokémon is transferred back to the game cart.

Edited March 4, 2010 by codemonkey85