PTD 2 Walkthrough: 1 vs 1 Mode: Levels 1, 2 & 3

Level 1

Level one is as simple as deploying your first Pokémon, making sure their primary attack is active and watching the action unfold; you may want to use the secondary/defensive attack for a bit of practice and to get a feel for switching between your attacks. Caterpie’s secondary attack at this early stage is ‘String Shot’ which, true to the world of Pokémon, decreases the speed of your attacker. As I said, using it at this stage would be purely for practice, since you can beat Oak’s three birds with your primary attack alone. String shot becomes quite handy in future battles because it literally ties up your opponent, ensuring that you are able to fire off more attacks than them and therefore swinging the odds in your favour. It is unlikely that you will perish in this first round, so marvel at the defeated Professor (or look at the picture of him below if you wish to rub it in and confirm his inferiority) and prepare to move on to Veridian Forest for round two of this increasingly-difficult Pokémon extravaganza by returning to the main menu to beef up your supplies with the 20 coins you won for your recent victory. Fig.1 shows the result of the battle while Fig. 2 is an example of the mild humour which is scattered throughout the game.

Figure 1

Figure 2

Level 2

You may be nothing short of delighted when you realise you can now purchase a shiny new Ratatta to take into your next battle with you. As soon as I was able, I purchased this handy rodent in order to strengthen my team for the next battle, which is more challenging than the first. You also have the option to buy Oran Berries or Potion for replenishing your Pokémon’s health during battle, or a Rare Candy which will increase the level of your Pokémon by one. Most supplies at this stage are merely superfluous and a waste of money, but feel free to splash your remaining cash on anything you wish; I’ll hold onto my fictional currency and amass a fortune for future use if you don’t mind. I recommend in the strongest of ways that you part with five of your Poképounds and purchase Rare Candy 1 (again, this is all about the long game, and it will become obvious when you reach the first gym in Pewter City).. Add your newly-purchased rodent to your ‘current team’ and begin the next round.

Your opponent here is a bug catcher/trainer and will therefore have bug-type Pokémon in his arsenal. His inability to not wear such distinctive clothing and therefore hide his profession/likely choice of Pokémon will be his downfall in this case; unleash your Caterpie (or your first/weakest Pokémon if you chose to ignore my advice) to start with in order to deal as much damage as possible whilst keeping the rodent up your sleeve safe from harm. Use your Rare Candy to level up your Caterpie, and it should be easily enough to finish off his Weedle and also his Metapod that he then deploys. Metapod usually only uses his Harden move and therefore will simply become harder to kill whilst rarely actually attacking you. Continue attacking with Caterpie, who should still have some life left in him at this stage; Metapod will soon bite the dust and only one Pokémon stands between you and victory.

Figure 3: Bug Catcher

Sadly, this last Pokémon is Beedrill, which will easily finish off your Caterpie before you can make a dent in his health. Once Caterpie bites the dust (he fought valiantly and should have his wide, not-so-little head held high), send out Rattata. It is important here that you make Rattata use his tail whip attack for a brief moment as soon as you deploy him and then make him use Quick Attack instead of his regular Tackle ability; using Tackle alone here will not be enough to defeat Beedrill before he has the chance to hack away at your health dramatically. Quick Attack will make short work of your opponent and result in your triumphant victory over your gentleman challenger. Congratulations: you have now beaten Level two!

Level 3

After the moderately hard graft involved in level 2, there are now two freshly-squeezed and unlocked Pokémon for you to choose from: you must make a selection between Pidgey and Spearow. Now, this is a more appealing choice than the ones you were offered at the beginning and Spearow just about manages to have the edge on Pidgey in my opinion because, in all honesty, Pidgey looks like an overly-tame house bird whereas Spearow looks like he has seen many a battle and is notorious in the avian community for being a straight-up winner. However, since my funds also allowed it, I bought Pidgey just to make up the numbers in my team (what can I say; I’m a man of extreme spontaneity).

Figure 4: Avian Upgrade

You may wish to purchase some potions here if you like to err on the side of caution, since it is a possibility that the next battle will lead to some mild to moderate fainting of your Pokémon. As a minimum, your team here should consist of Caterpie and two Rattatas. Purchase Rare Candy 2 as well, since we are making some solid monetary investment in Caterpie which will pay off later on.  Buy a potion if you like to feel secure in the knowledge that you have it up your sleeve in the event of any unforeseen eventualities in the battle. Whether you choose to be cautious or not, enter the entire of your Pokémon collection into your team (you’re going to need them) and proceed to level three.

After a little wandering around and mildly comical references to the original game, you all of a sudden begin to experience what looks like some sort of nostalgic hallucination in black and white. Fans of the original game will recognise this to be the original Gameboy artwork and will recognise that they are about to enter into a battle against Ash Catch’em, Pokémon’s original poster boy from times when GameBoys were king and the GameBoy Colour was a console that dazzled all who came into contact with it. With everything now in black and white, and with Pikachu standing before you, you’re in for your next battle and this time, it isn’t going to be as easy as the light summer’s breeze that was your previous battle.

Figure 5: A Glitch in the (Poke)matrix

Ok, I may have jumped the gun when I saw Pikachu, since you don’t actually get to fight him first, but he is definitely in the line-up so be prepared for a tough one. Ash’s debut Pokémon looks to be a Caterpie who is at a relatively adolescent level 6, so  be prepared to take some damage since (providing you haven’t yet used any Rare Candy) the Pokémon you have bought come in level 5 as standard.

 At this stage, I sent out Caterpie to scout out the area and in all honesty, just to wear Ash’s first Pokémon down a little. If I hadn’t used any of the Rare Candy medicines, my poor Caterpie would quickly bite the dust here. Since we are thinking about the future however, use your Rare Candy 2 on Caterpie. After an overly-dramatic sequence that is so refreshingly familiar to the Pokémon fan in all of us,  Caterpie evolves spectacularly into Metapod and learns ‘Harden’ in the process, which is an incredibly useful move that will toughen up your Metapod and allow him to last much longer in battle.  With your shiny new Metapod, cycle through each of your moves, being sure to include the often-overlooked ‘Harden’ every time until you have hardened at least six times, then focus on your attacking moves.

After Ash’s Caterpie is no more, you must then face Pidgeot, Ash’s second choice of Pokémon. At this point, recall your Metapod and send out Rattata to face him. I found that alternating between performing tail whip and quick made him easier to beat, but it was by no means a whitewash; I say this mainly because my Rattata fainted at this stage. Of course, you can use another Rattata here and continue with the same attacking process. Use your other Pokémon if you purchased them previously, but sticking with the selection of Pokémon I have, I selected Pidgey. Using sand attack makes Pidgeoto fairly inaccurate with his attacks, reducing the frequency of the damage you take: I found this to be the deciding factor with this particular battle. After using tackle a few times, Pidgeoto does the honourable thing and faints, leaving Ash’s star specimen: Pikachu.

In contrast to my initial belief, I found Pikachu to be relatively easy to defeat. Even though electric Pokémon are super-effective against flying types, my use of sand attack appeared to diminish Pikachu’s ability to attack with sufficient accuracy to beat me. After a few tackles, the battle should be over.

[A little side note: You can also win this battle by having extra Pokémon on your team, such as having some additional Rattatas in order to send out at the end against Pikachu. You will be more likely to win this way through sheer force of numbers. Using the previously-mentioned Potion can help your chances as well as you can revive Pokémon and re-enter them into battle. Just make sure you keep a minimum of one alive in the meantime, otherwise the battle ends and your Potion purchase would have been to no avail.]

Much congratulation is in order; you beat level 3 and defeated the mighty Ash Catch’em! Y our reward for doing this (as if you need more than the congratulations I just gave you) is unlocking the next set of Pokémon for you to add to your ever-growing collection. Now available are Nidoran of both genders, and an additional Pikachu thrown in for good measure! As with Pidgey and Spearow, the cost of your new Pokémon is ten Poképounds or whichever currency is being used in the world of Pokemon nowadays.

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