Pokémon Scarlet And Violet: 4 Things You Should Be Doing That The Game Doesn't Tell You About
"Pokémon Scarlet and Violet" drags you through a slow but specific tutorial for even its most basic functions. Still, it somehow leaves many helpful hints unsaid. Beginners might not realize how to use meal powers, how to EV train, or how to evolve Pokémon through new methods. There's some generic advice that should be helpful for all players, though, no matter their skill set or what they hope to achieve in the game. That includes tips on using the Pokédex, making sandwiches, unlocking fast travel points, and quality-of-life improvements. You might also want to read through a list of the most and least powerful Pokémon in "Scarlet" and "Violet," so you know which of the new Pokémon to capture on sight and which ones to let wander.
Here are four things you should be doing in "Pokémon Scarlet and Violet" that it doesn't tell you.
Claim Pokédex rewards
It might be difficult to find the Pokédex at first, but it soon becomes a helpful tool once you do. Press Y to open the Map, and then X to open the menu with the Pokédex. Then, select the top-most icon to browse your full catalog of entries. At the bottom left of this page should be a tiny trophy icon with a prompt to press X again. Pressing X opens the trophy icon and rewards you for the total number of "volumes" unlocked in your Pokédex. Volumes are the Paldean Pokédex's version of entries, which unlock whenever you catch a new Pokémon.
Rewards for catching new Pokémon include Poké Balls, Exp. Candies, Stardust, and evolution stones. They pop up every 10 volumes, so revisit the Pokédex every time you think you've caught enough to earn the next reward. All the rewards are valuable in their own way, but the evolution stones are the hardest to find. Catching new Pokémon for these rewards is one of the easiest ways to find a Fire Stone, Thunder Stone, Water Stone, Dusk Stone, Shiny Stone, and others. Even so, evolving Pokémon with these stones will raise the volume count even higher!
Visit the sandwich shop and your mom
Meal powers matter in "Pokémon Scarlet and Violet." The sandwich-making feature makes it so that players and their Pokémon can gain special abilities from the meals they consume during picnics. Unfortunately, you can't experiment until you find a recipe like in "Harvest Moon." You have to learn them straight from the pros themselves.
The sandwich shop in Mesagoza, right underneath the Mesagoza (West) Pokémon Center, is the sandwich hotspot of the region. As seen in YouTuber ConCon's video, a man in a white shirt offers to teach the player new recipes. In fact, he presents them to you in an orderly catalog where you can see the ingredients for each sandwich and their effects. He will regularly think up new recipes, so it's worth revisiting after jumping forward in the plot. PerfectParadox's sandwich guide also confirms that he will also notice if you have Herba Mystica on you and think up "Master-level" recipes later in the game.
You should also revisit your house in Cabo Poco. As per IGN, your mom teaches you four recipes after you play through the game's prologue. And, anyway, you probably don't visit your mom enough. Might as well stop by to learn how to make your own food!
Unlock all the watchtowers and lighthouses
Pokémon Centers are easy in comparison to the watchtowers and lighthouses. These two types of buildings can also be found between Pokémon Centers on your map, which especially help in the areas where these centers are sparse. Basically, they act as extra teleportation points so that you don't need to trek between distant Pokémon Centers.
Watchtowers and lighthouses don't serve any particular purpose as Pokémon Centers do, but they do spawn rare Pokémon called Gimmighoul in their chest forms. Fighting these Gimmighoul or capturing them can net a significant number of Gimmighoul coins compared to their normal forms, which is why they're especially important for players set on evolving their Gimmighoul into Gholdengo.
They aren't as obvious to hunt down as the gas station-like centers, though. You need to keep an eye out for them while exploring because they don't pop up as red squares on your map. Once you've found a watchtower or lighthouse, they appear as a blue dot with a wing icon on your map. Capture at least one of the Gimmighouls for your Pokédex or battle them for their valuable coins!
Turn off unnecessary features
"Pokémon Scarlet and Violet" tries its best to help players with new features, but some of them get in the way. For example, autosave can spoil an important encounter by saving just after you make a mistake. Who wants to be stuck in the aftermath of killing a Shiny Pokémon? If you switch it to manual, you can choose your save points carefully.
Other features like manual boxing and nicknaming are less dire but still annoying to do with every Pokémon you catch in the wild. You can go as far as turning off move learning, which means that the game won't interrupt you to ask if you want your Pokémon to learn a new move. When Pokémon can remember moves whenever they want, it's not difficult to simply look at their summaries and replace moves as needed.
Thankfully, you can adjust all these options from the same place. Press X to open the Main Menu and select Options from there. Every option from "Skip Move Learning" to "Autosave" should be under that tab. Toggle between the options until you're satisfied with the results. Other options you might want to play with include adjusting the text speed, sound effects, and "Help Functions," which teleports you back to where you came from when you accidentally fall from too tall a height.