D/P Pokemon Contests

Pokemon Contests were first introduced in Ruby and Sapphire, where the different ranks were scattered throughout several towns. In Emerald, all the ranks were located in Lilycove City. With Diamond and Pearl, though, comes a new map, so we must find a new city for our Contests. The home of Contests for D/P is Hearthome City, which is just passed the Berry Master's house after exiting Mt. Coronet.

Inside the great contest hall just north of the city, are three desks and several photoboards. The desks are for signing up to participate in a Contest and winners of pokemon Contests will have their pokemon's picture placed on the photoboard, much like in Ruby and Sapphire. The desk to the left deals with mulitplayer and WIFI Contests. The desk in the middle is the ordinary Contest against CPU trainers, while the desk on the right lets you practice at any of the three parts to a Contest.

While they are two rounds in Ruby and Sapphire Contests, Diamond and Pearl Contests have three: Appearance, Dancing, and Acting.

For appearance, you will need to decorate your pokemon using acessories to match a certain theme which differs in every Contest. The audience will judge your pokemon's appearance. Poffins, the D/P equivalent to Pokeblocks, will increase the hearts received in this judging if the pokemon is placed in the correct Contest.

In Dancing, each Pokemon gets a turn in performing dance steps. The others will perform the same moves at the same time as backup dancers. In the Normal rank, dancers perform three dance steps. Other ranks may have more. At the end of the dancing, the game will tell who is in the lead.

Acting is the almost the same as the second round of Ruby and Sapphire. There are three judges, however, and you can't make an opponent nervous. At the same time of picking a move, you pick a judge too. If you are the only one to pick that judge, then you get three extra hearts. If two pick the same, then two hearts are awarded and so on. If all four pokemon pick the same judge, no one gets any hearts, but I've heard that there are some moves that require all four pokes to choose one judge. Lastly, each judge has a bar of 5 Voltage Containers to fill. When you use a Cool move in a Cool Contest, the judge you pick gets a Voltage point. However, if a pokemon uses, for example, a Smart move in a Cool Contest, the Voltage decreases by one point. When the bar is filled with all five Voltage points, the pokemon that used the last move gains more hearts. Some judges give more hearts than others.

Poffins, mentioned earlier, increase a pokemon's coolness, beauty, etc. In Hearthome City, there is a house where you can make Poffins by yourself or via Wireless/WIFI. Drop a berry into the pot and stir the batter until it hardens . There are Dry, Spicy, Bitter, Sweet, and Sour Poffins, and there are also mixtures of Poffins. For example, Spicy-Dry. Spicy Poffins are red and increase coolness. Dry ones are blue and are for Beauty. Bitter is green and Smart. Sweet is pink and Cute, and Sour are yellow and Tough. Poffins have different levels; some will raise a pokemon's Contest stats more than others. Poffins are also necessary to evolving Feebas into Milotic. A pokemon can only eat 12 Poffins and all Level 9 Poffins won't get the 170 beauty points Feebas needs to evolve.

And lastly, acessories can be found in Veilstone's Massage Corner, in the Florama Flora Shop, and the park above Hearthome City. Several people across Sinnoh may give you acessories as well. Acessories are more useful in some themes and aren't very useful in others.

Credit To Belle Morte For this article

Back To Main Article