Pokémon Legends: Arceus adds a whole new level of complexity when it comes to completing the Pokédex. In classic Pokémon games, Pokédex completion was/will be based purely on whether or not you have caught a certain Pokémon. Rather than a full and detailed study of Pokémon, main series game Pokédexes are just ecological surveys of what’s currently in a given region.
Arceus is not so forgiving. If you want to complete your Pokédex this time around, you actually need to put in some leg work; but don’t worry, we have your back with tips and tricks on maxing out your Dex in record time.
Meet that Pokémon!
As with previous Pokémon games, you still need to encounter a Pokémon in order to get it in your Pokédex — case in point, I didn’t get the Pokédex page for Kleavor, the first Pokémon Noble you fight, until I evolved it, because I didn’t actually battle Kleavor. Whether this was intentional or a bug, I’m not sure, but it was something I noted when playing through the game.
Learn about that Pokémon!
The next thing you’ll notice is that each Pokemon has a research level, with the Pokémon greyed out on the right-hand scroll bar until you show the Professor the page for the first time.
From there on out, your mission is to get each Pokémon to Research Level 10, which gives you the full Pokédex entry for the monster. Each Pokémon has different requirements, however, which makes fully completing the Dex a bit more of an interesting challenge. To see what you need to do for each one, simply flip the Pokédex page over and have a look — a list of Reseach Tasks will be laid out for you.
Tick these off and you’ll unlock information, from its weight and height ranges and preferred foods (Level 3), to the items they drop (Level 5) and eventually the full Pokédex entry for the mon (Level 10).
Doing the legwork
While you may not get the Research Levels tallied until you’ve caught a Pokémon, you do start ticking off tasks from the moment you first encounter it, which makes it perfectly possible (and sometimes likely) that you’ll complete a Dex entry as you catch it. This is particularly handy during the more drawn-out Legendary encounters.
Research Tasks include, for the most part, catching/beating a Pokémon a certain number of times, seeing it do specific moves a set number of times, or feeding it food. This is the bulk of where your research is likely to come from, and is often what you’re going to focus on. Kleavor, for example, needs you to see it use Stone Axe, X-Scissor, strong style moves and agile style moves, so attacking a wild Pokémon with a strong-style Stone Axe will count towards both research tasks.
Fortunately, unlike other games, you can set a Pokémon’s moves at will outside of battle, which means no more relying on move tutors to remember moves that have been long since forgotten.
However, this also means that your Pokémon won’t automatically learn new moves. Instead, when you reach the right level, your Pokémon “gets the idea for a new move”. If you don’t have the right move for the research just yet, keep an eye on its level and check back on the move pool when you see the above message.
Another thing that almost always counts is evolving the Pokémon, so when you’re at Research Level 9, you can easily bump it up to the next stage. Unlike other games, you can evolve Pokémon at will outside of battle once you unlock the requirements, which means no more mashing B to stop your Charmander from evolving, for example.
Last but not least, there are side missions involving certain Pokémon — the first of these you’ll encounter is Bidoof. Completing these side missions is not only fun, but counts towards your Pokédex completion — if you see an entry at the bottom of the page, such as “Investigated the Bidoof that bother the village”, that’s a hint towards some easy research.
What’s up with the time–space distortions?
Anyone who knows Sinnoh will know about Time and Space. As you play through Arceus, you’ll come across time–space distortions, which are both announced when they come and go, and are clearly visible in-game and on the map.
If your team is healthy and you have a good stock of Revives/Pokéballs, be sure to head over, because that’s where you get the rare stuff, including the starter Pokémon and some forms that you won’t find anywhere else — Sneasel being a great example of this!
You can also grab rare items from these rifts, including evolution stones, Nuggets and most commonly, the coloured shards that fans will remember from the main series games.
Pro tips:
- Check the Pokédex to see what moves you need to use, and then set them
- Double up your efficiency by using strong/agile style with these moves
- Finish your side missions
- If you want to feed Pokémon, check their Dex entry to see what berries they like
- Check out the distortions for rare Pokemon and items, but be aware that the stuff in there is generally a high level
