The Basics of Pokémon

Capturing Pokémon

The first thing you're going to want to do in Pokémon Diamond or Pearl will be to collect a team of Pokémon to help you overcome any challenges that you might face. Although you start with only a single Pokémon in your team, you can collect any number of Pokémon to join you on your adventures. In order to do so, though, you'll first need to buy Pokeballs at the Pokemart. You can find Pokemarts in any town; they're the red buildings. When you start finding cash (early in the game, you'll mostly obtain it by defeating opposing Pokémon trainers), you can spend your money at the Pokemarts to buy more Pokeballs.

Using Pokeballs

In combat, you can use Pokeballs to attempt to capture new Pokémon. In order to do so, all you need to do is select the Bag option when it's your turn, select Pokeballs, and find an appropriate ball for the occasion.

If you simply use a ball on an enemy right at the beginning of a fight, though, you'll almost never actually manage to capture the Pokémon that you're aiming for. Most enemy Pokémon are too strong to be captured outright; you'll need to weaken them up by knocking down their health or by infecting them with status effects first. Use a Pokémon to attack the enemy until its health is in the yellow or red zone, or infect the enemy with a status effect, like poison or burning, and you'll stand a much greater chance of actually capturing the enemy.

This means that you have to change your attack pattern based on what Pokémon you're using and the Pokémon that you intend to capture. If you're trying to capture a Pokémon that's lower level than the Pokémon in your party, then you have to be careful, since you may want

(Note that the basic Pokeball isn't the only kind of Pokeball in the game. On your adventures, you will unlock or find Pokeballs of various sorts, which when used properly will help increase your chances of capturing rare Pokémon. For instance, the Dark Ball will increase your chances of capturing a Pokémon to four times the normal rate, but only if you use the Dark Ball when you're in a cave or outside while it's nighttime. Check the Pokemarts in all the cities that you come to to find more varieties of Pokeballs, and use them when appropriate.)

When Pokémon Are Captured

When you use a Pokeball and manage to capture a Pokémon, what happens next will depend on whether or not you have a full party of Pokémon. You can have up to six Pokémon in your party at any one time. If you don't have the maximum number of Pokémon, the Pokémon you captured will be added to your party, but it will probably be quite weak, since you just got finished beating it up in order to capture it. (If you capture a Pokémon with a Heal Ball, however, it will be added to your party at full health.) You can return to the Pokémon Center in town to fully heal your Pokémon.

If you already have six Pokémon in your party, any Pokémon that you capture will be added to Someone's PC back in the Pokémon Center. You can, again, access the Pokémon Center in any town in the game. Head back to town, enter the Center, and access the PC via the blue monitor to the right of the nurse that heals your Pokémon. In Someone's PC, you can store Pokémon in a number of boxes (18 boxes, each of which can hold 30 Pokémon) and switch them out between the boxes and your current party. You'll want to periodically switch out Pokémon to train Pokémon of types that you haven't yet been using, to adapt for an upcoming dungeon or gym where you'll face a number of enemies of a specific type, or to use a special ability that one of your Pokémon possesses. While you can get through the game with the same six Pokémon that you collect at the beginning of the game, it'll be useful to periodically switch them out, especially since rarer Pokémon will feature advanced skills and combat abilities.