Pokemon HeartGold and SoulSilver has a couple of new features that sets it apart from the other pokemon games. One of them is the neat PokeWalker accessory that comes packaged with the game. Turn it on and clip it to your belt and it will record your steps. But it does more than just measuring your daily exercise!
Every 20 steps you take gives you a watt. You can trade these watts to search for an item or pokemon in an area. You can also use them to unlock other areas to explore.
You are able to upload a single Pokemon from your game to the PokeWalker via Wi-Fi. However, you do not have to do this in order to generate watts or to get new items and pokemon. Simply select to start a walk and you can explore an area by yourself!
When you are walking with a pokemon, you will sometimes see an exclaimation mark or music note over an area. When that happens, you can push the middle button to claim your item! Each area has a different set of ten different items that you can get. The items are unlocked based on the number of steps you walk that day. In order to unlock everything for a single day, you will need to take about 8000 steps, which is about 30 minutes of walking.
With or without a pokemon, you can also use 3 Watts and use the Dowsing option in the menu to start a minigame. You will be shown six grass piles and you will get two tries to find an item. If the game says that it is near, then try a grass patch that is next to your first guess. If you fail on your second guess then you don't get anything!
When you store a pokemon on your PokeWalker and take it for a walk, each step you take is equal to one experience point. That's right, you can level up your pokemon just by walking! However, it is important to know that you can only level up once per upload. If you want to level up the same pokemon, you will need to put it back into your game and upload to the PokeWalker again.
There is a good reason why it was made this way. When your pokemon levels up in the PokeWalker, it will never learn a new move and will never evolve. Those must be done in the actual game itself. If you missed a move or evolution, no problem. You can just visit the Move Relearner in Blackthorn City and just level up once more in the game to evolve. For tournament players, note that leveling up in the PokeWalker will not boost the EV stat of the pokemon!
You can fight and catch pokemon with the PokeWalker as well! Select the PokeRadar from the menu and, for the cost of 10 Watts, you will play a minigame with four grass patches. Select the one with the "!" above it a few times to engage a pokemon. If you miss or take too long, the pokemon will run away and you will get nothing!
Each time you start a walk, there are three possible pokemon that you can see for each route. The more exclaimation marks there are in the PokeRadar game, the more rare the pokemon. In order to reset the groupings, you will need to upload a new pokemon to your PokeWalker or reupload the same pokemon.
When fighting a pokemon, you can choose to Attack, Evade, or Catch. If you attack and they attack, you will both lose 1 HP. Every pokemon on the PokeWalker has 4 HP, no matter their level. Type weaknesses are not used either. If you attack and they evade, you will lose 1 HP, if you attack and they tried to run, they will lose 2 HP. It is not recommended to Evade unless you want to run from the battle.
If you select the Catch option, a free pokeball will be thrown. If the opponent has 3 HP, you have about a 50% chance of catching them. At 2 HP, it is 75% and at 1 HP it is almost 100%.
It is hard to cheat steps with the PokeWalker. If you try to shake it with your hands, you won't get many steps and might break the accessory. Instead, just clip it to your pants, somewhere between your hip and knee. An easy way to get steps is to tap your feet. If you do actual walking, the PokeWalker usually registers more steps than you take! So get up and get some exercise!
You can also connect your PokeWalker with a friend! You can both get one item from each other each day!
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