Official Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver Help Thread

[Zoruagible]

I have a lvl 16 zubat, lvl 18 pidgeotto, lvl 15 togepi, lvl 17 nidorano, lvl 17 flaafy, and lvl 21 croconaw. What should I get and what should I get rid of?

I suggest replacing either Zubat or Pidgeotto.

[DGadson92]

Need a Celebi, Mew and a embedded tower Kyogre someone please help me pm if you can !

[the ash man83]

Try asking in these threads next time:

Celebi: http://www.serebiiforums.com/showthr...809-251-Celebi

Mew: http://www.serebiiforums.com/showthr...258735-151-Mew

Kyogre: http://www.serebiiforums.com/showthr...914-382-Kyogre

[RK91]

I'm experiencing technical difficulties and I was wondering if anyone can help me. I'll start from the beginning. I got a bootleg copy of HG off ebay or amazon for about $10 back when it first came out (Please keep reading). It worked fine, but would freeze up randomly and I couldn't use the GTS. A year later (almost 3 years ago) I decided to pony up 40 bucks and go buy SS, and see if I could trade over the well bred Pokes onto the SoulSilver. I transferred over my Pokemon and everything was fine for years. I played on and off, never got B&W, but still enjoyed firing up SS every once in a while.
A few months ago I discovered PokeGen, and I started using that to obtain nearly flawless dittos and other breeding stock (please keep reading). You have to reset your DNS server (which I don't understand) in order to download pokemon to your box. The last time I tried to do this, (to download a female electrabuzz), I couldn't connect. This didn't bother me much.
Now, whenever I get to the title screen (the screen after the lugia) the game gives me an error. It reads "connection error, please press A to return to the title screen". I press A and it soft resets. I can't even start a new game.
If anyone has experienced this error please help me.

[varanus_komodoensis]

I'm experiencing technical difficulties and I was wondering if anyone can help me. I'll start from the beginning. I got a bootleg copy of HG off ebay or amazon for about $10 back when it first came out (Please keep reading). It worked fine, but would freeze up randomly and I couldn't use the GTS. A year later (almost 3 years ago) I decided to pony up 40 bucks and go buy SS, and see if I could trade over the well bred Pokes onto the SoulSilver. I transferred over my Pokemon and everything was fine for years. I played on and off, never got B&W, but still enjoyed firing up SS every once in a while.
A few months ago I discovered PokeGen, and I started using that to obtain nearly flawless dittos and other breeding stock (please keep reading). You have to reset your DNS server (which I don't understand) in order to download pokemon to your box. The last time I tried to do this, (to download a female electrabuzz), I couldn't connect. This didn't bother me much.
Now, whenever I get to the title screen (the screen after the lugia) the game gives me an error. It reads "connection error, please press A to return to the title screen". I press A and it soft resets. I can't even start a new game.
If anyone has experienced this error please help me.

I have never heard of this problem on Soul Silver before, but I did some research on it. Your error should say ""A communication error has occurred. You will be returned to the title screen. Please press the A Button".

There isn't a whole lot out there on this, but it seems to be a 4th-Gen exclusive error. Before HGSS came out in Europe, Serebii actually had a small post on it in March 2010, which said this:

"In The Games Department
Pokémon HeartGold & SoulSilver
For those of you in Dutch speaking countries such as the Netherlands, Nintendo of Europe have stated that the release of HGSS has been postponed due to a major bug being found in the game that prevents saves being detected. According to Nintendo, the other language options work fine and are still on track for release today, but keep your eye out just in case. There are no details as to when the bug will be fixed"

Since you bought your cartridge secondhand, it is possible that perhaps whoever owned it before you was from an English-speaking European country, or bought it from one. Or perhaps the English versions of the game are released in all English-speaking countries at the same time? Someone might have more information on how releases work than I do. The majority of the people who have this error seem to be from the Netherlands for some reason.

I highly doubt that your obtaining of illegal/hacked Pokemon has anything to do with this error, but I suppose anything is possible. I've never heard of save-file corruption happening because of PokeGen unless you do something you're not supposed to, like turning off in the middle of a save or using an AR incorrectly.

As for a fix, there aren't very many. I found three possible outcomes to this problem.

1. Some people who have this error say that their game file was permanently corrupted, and they were never able to boot again. In this case, there's nothing you can do. This happens sometimes if the contacts misalign WHILE the game is saving, and you can't recover anything if this happens.

2. Some people say that this problem resolved itself on its own. If you take your cartridge out of your console and put it in another, sometimes it will boot. If you gently wipe off the contacts (not with anything liquid, of course!) sometimes it will boot. If you take the cartridge out and put it back in, sometimes it will boot.

3. Finally, I found one person who said that sometimes this error occurs when the contacts on the cartridge and the contacts in the console are misaligned. You can CAREFULLY try the "paper trick", in which you insert a small, folded piece of paper in between the label side (NOT the contact side) of the cartridge and the case of the DS. This will press the cartridge against the DS better if the contacts are misaligned. Doing this shouldn't damage the DS or the cartridge, but be careful anyway.

[RK91]

Thaks, Varanus. I actually bought the SoulSilver new from a gamestop in NY, so I doubt that's the problem. I'll try putting the cartrage in a 3ds (I normally play on a DS lite), but other then that I think it's shot. This happened the same week my cat died, so it seems like I'm loosing all my pets. (Of course, I'm more upset about the cat, but still)

*EDIT*: It's working again. I don't think it's the game, but the DS I'm playing it on. Paper trick helped.

[Squirtle12]

Is it alright to give my croconaw surf? I don't have anyone else that can learn surf. I think nidoking can but I don't have any moonstones

[varanus_komodoensis]

Is it alright to give my croconaw surf? I don't have anyone else that can learn surf. I think nidoking can but I don't have any moonstones

Surf is a pretty bad move for Crocanaw/Feraligatr, because that family has high Attack and low Special Attack, and Surf is a Special move. You should save that moveslot for Waterfall and teach Surf to something else. If you need an HM slave, Sentret and Furret can learn Surf.

[brody199]

hi everyone i have just recently started playing pokemon again and i was wondering if anyone could trade me a celebi?? As this is my faovorite pokemon and would be much apreciated just ask for my friend code

[the ash man83]

You would be better off asking in this thread, which is the Trade Forum thread for Celebi.

[gopackgo555]

So i am wondering If I bought a bootleg copy of Heart Gold on Amazon.....

-came in proper case but color seemed a bit faded, no pokewalker included
-screen goes black but music keeps playing when I try the voltorb card game
-cartridge is dark grey like all other DS games and not see through. I heard that a HG/SS cartridge is a black and that it is see through when held up to the light.

here is a comparison with super mario bros

[varanus_komodoensis]

So i am wondering If I bought a bootleg copy of Heart Gold on Amazon.....

-came in proper case but color seemed a bit faded, no pokewalker included
-screen goes black but music keeps playing when I try the voltorb card game
-cartridge is dark grey like all other DS games and not see through. I heard that a HG/SS cartridge is a black and that it is see through when held up to the light.

here is a comparison with super mario bros

I do think that your game is mostly likely a fake. All HG/SS cartridges are black - there are no gray ones. I have a legit SS that I'm looking at right now and it's not see-through, like R/S/E, so that's not something to look for.

Other than the game cartridge being a different color, fake DS games CANNOT connect to Wifi at all - even when your DS settings are correct. So if you can connect to Wifi with other games, try it with your HG (don't change any settings, of course). If it can't connect, it's a fake.

Another thing to look for is sticker placement on the cartridge itself. Many fakes will have cockeyed stickers, or stickers that aren't perfectly placed in the inset. Nintendo always has its stickers on straight, with a little bit of the inset showing on each side. Sticker placement isn't always wrong on fakes, though.

One of the biggest indicators of a fake is on the back of the cartridge. Flip your cartridge over so you can see the metal contacts. Right above these metal contacts there is a green background. This is called the PCB board. There should be some WHITE letters and numbers on that green background. If these letters are not white, then you have a fake cartridge. I don't know if all fakes have non-white lettering, but some of them do.

Finally, one of the biggest things to look at when you're trying to determine if a cartridge is fake is where it came from. If you bought it on eBay (or Amazon, like you said), it's likely fake, and it's almost guaranteed to be fake if it was shipped from Hong Kong or anywhere in China, Malaysia, or the Philippines. NEVER buy a DS game from one of these countries. Cartridges from Japan are almost always legit, of course.

There are other things that your cartridge doesn't have that are indicators of fakes, such as a "made in China/Hong Kong" sticker, the wrong image on the background of the sticker, and the wrong image/text/color/wrapping around the box or cartridge case. If any hologram or shiny/sparkly/reflective background is missing from the box OR the cartridge or both, it is DEFINITELY fake. If the box is fatter than normal or the wrong color (the right color is black for most Pokemon DS games, I believe), it is fake. If any words are misspelled on the box, it is fake. These are just things to look for in the future.

For the most part, if you are buying a secondhand DS game, very few fakes show up in Gamestops or other used game stores, but you should always check the cartridge just in case, because fakes have been known to slip into secondhand stores. Because you can look at these cartridges in the store, it's safe to buy secondhand from them.

Issues that you will have with your game are that it will not connect to anything online or on Wifi, and many fake games will stop functioning after the clock hits a certain amount of play time. Fake Pokemon games are notorious for resetting themselves after you beat the Elite Four, so you lose everything. There will also be other glitches, like the Voltorb thing you mentioned, and things like the Masuda Method probably won't work correctly. But they won't hurt your DS if you want to mess around with them.

[gopackgo555]

I know this is a Japanese version in the youtube link, while mine is a US version, but I heard all copies do this when held up to light so that's what I meant.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBuFKotIVuI

It is certainly the same color as my other DS games but the one thing that is throwing me off here is that wi-fi works. As you said wifi should not work with fake copies. I actually bought another HG about a month ago and the same issues occurred. After getting the 4th badge the game was unplayable because every time I started the game up it would just have a blackscreen with music playing. I'm worried that this might be the same case. In both cases I tried the game corner on 2 separate ds lites and it didn't work on either one. I went by gamestop today to try and compare my cartridge with theirs but the two gamestops near my house were out of HG/SS.

[varanus_komodoensis]

I know this is a Japanese version in the youtube link, while mine is a US version, but I heard all copies do this when held up to light so that's what I meant.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBuFKotIVuI

It is certainly the same color as my other DS games but the one thing that is throwing me off here is that wi-fi works. As you said wifi should not work with fake copies. I actually bought another HG about a month ago and the same issues occurred. After getting the 4th badge the game was unplayable because every time I started the game up it would just have a blackscreen with music playing. I'm worried that this might be the same case. In both cases I tried the game corner on 2 separate ds lites and it didn't work on either one.

Well all HG/SS games are a black cartridge, not a gray one, which is the main thing that makes me think your game is fake. That's weird that the Wifi works.

I see what you mean now by holding up the cartridge to the light. My SS version does that - it has something to do with the infrared that connects it to the Pokewalker. All HG/SS cartridges do that. That's another red flag to me that says that your game is fake. If it doesn't have that infrared translucence, I imagine that it won't be able to connect to the Pokewalker, but since you don't have one, you can't test it. You could try to connect your HG via infrared to another Pokemon cartridge and see if that works (like try to trade or battle or something with another Gen IV game). If it won't connect, it's fake.

Like I said before, fake cartridges are known to corrupt in the middle of the game on their save files, like you have described. They don't all corrupt at the same time, though - it depends on how many hours the cartridge has been used. Since you bought it used, you don't know when that will be. You said you bought this on Amazon. I'm willing to bet that whoever was selling it had a real case lying around and put the fake cartridge in it to make it look more legitimate, but I'm just speculating there.

Look at the back of your cartridge and see if the numbers on the PCB board are white. Also check to see if the sticker is on the way I described. Finally, look at the seller on Amazon and see where they're shipping from. If it's Hong Kong, China, Malaysia, or the Philippines, your cartridge is fake. Of course, the seller could also have accidentally bought a fake cartridge and is now trying to sell it out of the US, and pawned it off on you in a real case.

The moral of this story is never buy used DS games online.

[gopackgo555]

just found heartgold at another gamestop near me and it is clearly a different color from the one I bought on Amazon. Hopefully the guy on amazon can give me my money back.

final question, the heartgold I bought at Gamestop has every legendary pokemon at level 100 and shiny, including those found in this game (Luigia, legendary dogs) but he only has 1 badge. Since he used some sort of action replay to get them does that mean I will still encounter these pokemon naturally in the story or will they be gone. I would like to start here because he picked totodile like i did and he already has 1 badge so I don't have to start all over for a 3rd time in 1 month. At the same time all the legendaries are cool to look at especially those event ones that i would never catch even though I will never use them. But in terms of those associated with the game I just want to have the option to catch them myself if I choose to so i'm afraid that him porting them in through action replay would remove them from the story

[varanus_komodoensis]

just found heartgold at another gamestop near me and it is clearly a different color from the one I bought on Amazon. Hopefully the guy on amazon can give me my money back.

final question, the heartgold I bought at Gamestop has every legendary pokemon at level 100 and shiny, including those found in this game (Luigia, legendary dogs) but he only has 1 badge. Since he used some sort of action replay to get them does that mean I will still encounter these pokemon naturally in the story or will they be gone. I would like to start here because he picked totodile like i did and he already has 1 badge so I don't have to start all over for a 3rd time in 1 month. At the same time all the legendaries are cool to look at especially those event ones that i would never catch even though I will never use them. But in terms of those associated with the game I just want to have the option to catch them myself if I choose to so i'm afraid that him porting them in through action replay would remove them from the story

The only way that it is possible to have those shinies this early is either if he cheated and used an AR/Gameshark, or if he got them legitimately and traded them over. It would be possible for them to be legitimate if he traded them from another Gen IV game to HeartGold. You only have to have gotten Poke Balls and be able to catch Pokemon (you don't have to have any badges) to trade between HeartGold to another Gen IV game.

Check to see if those shinies are legitimate. See where they were caught and in what region, what kind of ball they are in, what the description of their location says, what moves they have, etc. If you need help determining their legitimacy, go to the Hack Check Thread and follow the directions in the first post for help.

Now, even if these shinies are fake and they were AR'd, they will NOT be removed from the story. The game will continue as usual and you will be able to catch all of your own legendaries like you normally would. So don't delete those shinies until you know if they're real or not! And if they are real, don't delete them - you inherited a gold mine. If they're real and you don't want them, you can give them to me or any shiny hunter and I'm sure they'd be glad to take them off your hands

[gopackgo555]

yah they were all caught at level 100 on route 30-33 with a master ball so definitely hacked in. I suppose I'll just start this game over for fear that the previous hacks might glitch my game out at some point in time

[LightPokemon]

help please cant figure out the gym leader phone numbers. They're not showing up where they're supposed to.

[varanus_komodoensis]

help please cant figure out the gym leader phone numbers. They're not showing up where they're supposed to.

Have you defeated the Elite Four yet? I'm pretty sure you can't get them until you're the Champion. Otherwise, you should be able to get the phone numbers by following the directions on this page.

[LightPokemon]

Have you defeated the Elite Four yet? I'm pretty sure you can't get them until you're the Champion. Otherwise, you should be able to get the phone numbers by following the directions on this page.

Only the first Elite Four, not the second.

Wait... I didn't see this part: Time Away From Gym Any Day 12:00-16:00

Are the "most afternoons" like, random? Not every afternoon? This is more of a pain than it's worth.

[Roy9]

So, I beat HG today and wanted to get all the starters and went to Oak's Lab after beating Red, picked Bulbasaur. I also wanted Torchic, but Steven Stone isn't in the Silph Co. office. Things I already tried:

Beat Red
Rematched the E4
Visited Pokefan club
Visited Pewter museum
Visited Mr. Pokemon
Caught Kyogre
Visited Oak's lab

So why doesn't Steven appear?

EDIT:
Forgot about the Copycat, now I have Torchic!

[LightPokemon]

^^^ It would have helped to know THAT before I replayed Sapphire and FireRed twice. Actually I think it still helps because I don't think I have Charmander yet.

Um... this question is only partially related to HG/SS, but the Victreebel in question is in that game.

Why is it so freaking hard to figure out the Hidden Power in the calculator? I know it's Ice from the guy in Celadon, but it's not worth getting if the power isn't at least 60.

It's like "error does not compute" when I my put my level 55 Brave Victreebel's speed stat, but that is the right stat! Does it not take into consideration Carbos and items like that?

[Bloopars]

Hey guys! I need someone to help me, I need to trade over my scyther and onyx so i can get me a steelix and so if anyone can help me id appreciate it

My FC is 2108 9882 3315

[Zoruagible]

Hey guys! I need someone to help me, I need to trade over my scyther and onyx so i can get me a steelix and so if anyone can help me id appreciate it

My FC is 2108 9882 3315

http://www.serebiiforums.com/forumdi...54-Trade-Forum
Try here. You'll find help easier there.

[Shepard]

When do the IVs for the roaming legendaries become determined?