Pocket Arena
Pocket Arena is a strategy game inside the game: you recruit Pokémon from a shop, merge three of a kind into a stronger, evolved one, place your team on a board and watch the fight play out on its own. The winner is whoever builds the best team, not whoever has the highest-level Pokémon: everything you use in the arena exists only inside the run.
Where to play
- The Union Room (take the stairs in any Pokemon Center) has arcade machines in its Arcade room. Click one to open Pocket Arena.
- In the Rocket Game Corner, in Celadon City, the Arena Host also opens the game and explains the rules.
The window fills the screen and holds the keyboard and mouse: your trainer stays put while it is open. If you walk away from the machine, the window closes. Your run is saved and you resume where you left off (even after logging out). You cannot open it in the middle of a battle.
On your first Campaign run, a tutorial walks you through each part of the screen. The book in the top bar (How to play) explains the rules at any time and has a Show the tutorial button.
Modes
| Mode | What it is |
|---|---|
| Ranked | Each round you face the recorded team of one of seven other trainers near your rating. The longer you survive, the better you place and the more rating you earn. |
| Campaign | The eight gyms, the Elite Four and the Champion, stop by stop. Lost to a boss? Face it again. Every boss you beat is an arena badge you keep for good. |
You can have one run in progress per mode. Abandon run ends the current one.
The board
- Your half of the arena has 7 columns and 4 rows; the opponent sits on the top half. Your next opponent's team shows there while you plan.
- Below is the bench, with 9 slots. Pokémon on the bench do not fight and do not count for synergies.
- Your level is how many Pokémon you can field. If there is room left when the fight starts, the strongest bench Pokémon step in on their own.
- Drag Pokémon between the board and the bench, or click one and then where it goes.
Shop, gold and level
You start with 100 HP, level 2, 5 gold and one free Pokémon on the board.
- Shop: five offers each round. Click one to buy it. Pricier Pokémon are stronger; hover your level to see the odds of each cost in the shop.
- Reroll (
D): 2 gold, five new offers. - Lock the shop: keeps the offers for the next round.
- Buy XP (
F): 4 gold for 4 XP. You also get 2 free XP every round. The top level is 9. - Sell: drag a Pokémon onto the shop and get back everything it cost.
- Gold per round: 5 gold after every fight, plus interest (+1 per 10 gold held, up to a cap) and a bonus for a streak of wins or losses (in the Campaign, wins only). In Ranked, each win against a player adds +1.
Space starts the fight and Esc closes.
Merging three of a kind
Three copies of the same Pokémon with the same stars become one with a star more, right away, on the bench or the board. A merge evolves the Pokémon: Charmander ★ becomes Charmeleon ★★, which becomes Charizard ★★★. Nine copies make three stars. With a full bench you can still buy the copy that completes a merge. A Pokémon you already hold at three stars leaves the shop.
- Eevee evolves at two stars by the most common type on your board among Water, Fire and Electric: Vaporeon, Flareon or Jolteon.
- Ditto transforms, when the fight starts, into a copy of the opponent's strongest Pokémon.
Each run uses a drawn roster of Kanto Pokémon; the window shows the run's Roster.
Fights
Press Fight! and the Pokémon battle on their own. Each one goes for the nearest enemy and fills its energy by attacking and getting hit. With a full bar, it uses the ability of its role:
| Role | Ability |
|---|---|
| Attacker | Signature Move: a heavy hit that also strikes the target's neighbours |
| Speedster | Quick Strike: dashes next to the weakest enemy and hits hard |
| Defender | Protect: a shield, and it taunts nearby enemies |
| All-rounder | Cleave: hits every enemy next to it |
| Supporter | Heal Pulse: heals the two weakest allies nearby |
Types matter for abilities (Water against Fire, and so on), softer than in the main game. Put sturdy Pokémon in front and hard hitters behind them. Fights that run too long get more and more dangerous until they end.
Synergies
Every different Pokémon on the board counts toward each of its types and its role. Reach the number a synergy asks for and its bonus switches on for the team. Hover a synergy to see every level.
| Synergy | How many | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Normal | 2 / 4 / 6 | more max HP |
| Fire | 2 / 4 / 6 | hits burn |
| Water | 2 / 4 / 6 | regains HP every second |
| Grass | 2 / 4 / 6 | heals part of the damage dealt |
| Electric | 2 / 4 / 6 | chance to paralyze |
| Ice | 2 / 3 | hits slow the target's attacks |
| Fighting | 2 / 4 / 6 | more damage |
| Poison | 2 / 4 / 6 | hits poison |
| Ground | 2 / 4 | more armor |
| Flying | 2 / 4 / 6 | dodges attacks |
| Psychic | 2 / 4 / 6 | stronger abilities |
| Bug | 2 / 4 / 6 | attacks faster |
| Rock | 2 / 4 | takes less damage |
| Ghost | 1 / 2 | ignores part of the armor |
| Dragon | 1 | more HP and more damage |
| Fairy | 2 / 3 | the whole team takes less ability damage |
| Steel | 1 | starts the fight with a shield |
| Defender | 2 / 4 / 6 | more armor |
| Attacker | 2 / 4 / 6 | more damage |
| Speedster | 2 / 4 / 6 | more critical chance |
| All-rounder | 2 / 4 / 6 | heals part of the damage dealt |
| Supporter | 2 / 4 | the whole team starts with energy |
Items
After some rounds you pick one of three items: the main game's held items (Muscle Band, Leftovers, Focus Sash, Quick Claw…) with arena effects. The type boosters, such as Charcoal or Mystic Water, make their holder count as that type for synergies.
- Drag the item from the run's bag onto a Pokémon. Each Pokémon holds one item.
- Right-click a Pokémon to take its item back. A sold or merged Pokémon returns its item.
- Arena items exist only in the run: they do not come from your trainer's bag and do not go to it.
Losing HP and the end of a run
Losing a fight costs HP: a base for the stage, plus some for every enemy left standing (more for enemies with more stars or a higher cost). A draw costs half. At 0 HP the run is over.
Ranked
- Rounds read as stage and round (2-3). Stage 1 is three fights against wild Pokémon; every later stage has eight rounds and ends with a trainer. After each wild or trainer fight, you pick an item. Every other round is against players.
- There is no queue and no timer: plan as long as you like. The team you field in each player round is recorded and shows up in other trainers' runs.
- Your placement is 1 + how many of the seven opponents lasted longer than you. Outlast them all and you win.
- Abandon counts as being eliminated now. A run abandoned before its first player round is cancelled, with no change to your rating.
Campaign
Two wild stops (Route 1 and Route 2) and, for each gym, a trainer and the leader (Brock, Misty, Lt. Surge, Erika, Koga, Sabrina, Blaine, Giovanni); then Lorelei, Bruno, Agatha, Lance and Champion Blue. The leaders, the Elite Four and the Champion field their real team from the game.
- Lost to a boss? You face it again next round. Trainer fights move on win or lose.
- Up to Koga, a loss never leaves you below 10 HP.
- You pick an item after every boss you beat.
Rewards
Pocket Arena pays no money and no items. It gives:
- Rating per season (Ranked): everyone starts at 1000. Places 1 to 4 gain rating, 5 to 8 lose it; beating a lobby stronger than you is worth a little more. Your rating sets your tier: Poké Ball, Great Ball (1100), Ultra Ball (1300) and Master Ball (1500). The window's Ladder shows the season's best.
- Titles: Arena Ace on reaching Ultra Ball, Arena Master on reaching Master Ball, Arena Champion for beating the Champion in the Campaign and Arena Victor for 10 Ranked wins. Titles are yours for good.
- Arena badges: every Campaign boss you beat stays on your record for good.
- Achievements: Arena Debut, Arena Victor, Top Four, Arena Badges, Arena Champion and Star Power.