What to do next
Early, mid and late game in Horos, and what unlocks what.
In short
- Early: graduate from the Academy, fill your party, take the first gym.
- Mid: the next five gyms, Surf and the rods, training grounds, breeding, trading.
- Late: the last two gyms, the Uxie chain, fossils, the Pokédex and the ranks.
- Nothing wild is locked behind a badge. Each badge opens its district's side quests; the League quests open the gyms.
Early game
Graduate. Four Academy quests teach the loop: catch three Pokemon in the meadow, raise one, learn what a held item is, and beat your classmates for the licence. They are short and they pay. Do them before wandering.
Fill the party. Routes 1, 2 and 3 leave from Terapagossa. Six slots, and the point is six types, not six copies of the same answer. Everything you catch beyond six waits in the PC at any Pokemon Centre.
First gym. Almadía's leader fights three against three at level 20. You pick three Pokemon between level 15 and 20, and you get three attempts a day. Finish the town's League quest first; the leader will not fight you before it.
Mid game
The ladder. Gyms go in order, each leader asking for the badge before, and each has its own fixed format. You pick your team from a window of five levels below the leader's level up to it. A beaten gym stays beaten; there are no rematches. Each badge also opens the side quests of its district, so the region unfolds in the same order.
| Gym | Town | Format | Level | Attempts a day |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Almadía | 3 v 3 | 20 | 3 |
| 2 | Grandchamp | 3 v 3 | 25 | 2 |
| 3 | Fondaco | 4 v 4 | 35 | 1 |
| 4 | Monding | 4 v 4 | 45 | 1 |
| 5 | Irrlicht | 5 v 5 | 55 | 1 |
| 6 | Warmbad | 5 v 5 | 60 | 1 |
| 7 | Herrería | 6 v 6 | 70 | 1 |
| 8 | Neve | 6 v 6 | 80 | 1 |
Irrlicht's leader only fights at night.
Surf and the rods. They are quests, not badges. The Water Test at Almadía's slipway teaches Surf and opens every water route. The Anglers' Society hands out the Old Rod at the Carp Ponds, the Good Rod on Willow Isle and the Super Rod on Isleta, each for a catch or a fish they care about. Surf and Fish are separate hunting methods with their own pools, so a route you have walked dry still has water in it.
Training grounds. Four towns rent fenced grounds with keepers' Pokemon to fight, in level bands. A pass lasts an hour and you may leave and come back within it.
| Tier | Levels | Pass |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 10 to 25 | 42,500 |
| 2 | 25 to 45 | 49,500 |
| 3 | 40 to 60 | 56,500 |
| 4 | 55 to 80 | 63,500 |
The keepers' Pokemon cannot be caught, pay no money and drop no materials. They are there to be beaten for experience and training points, and the pass is priced as what that is worth.
Breeding. Any Pokemon Centre breeds two Pokemon from your party, for a fee. Every Pokemon can produce exactly one Egg in its lifetime, so the choice of pair matters more than the number of attempts. The Breeders' Society in Dehesa has a quest that opens the breeding items.
Other people. Anyone standing in the same place can be offered a trade or challenged. Player battles grant no money or experience, and the damage your team takes stays until you heal. The Players list shows who is online.
Late game
The last gyms want six Pokemon at level 65 to 80. Wild Pokemon outside the training grounds stop at level 25, so past that point the training grounds are where the levels come from, tier 4 for the last two gyms.
The Uxie chain. Irrlicht's leader starts a six-quest chain across the Great Fen, the Peat Cuttings and the High Monastery. It is the one legendary in Horos, and the region's oldest story.
Fossils. Four side quests, one each in Bernstein, the Institute at Monding, the Salt Mine and the Deep Pit, bring back the fossil Pokemon. They are not in the wild anywhere.
The Pokédex. More than 850 species appear in the wild in Horos. The rest come from evolution, breeding, quests and trades, and every species page says which.
Ranks. Two tracks in your Trainer Hub. Popularity counts battles fought, from Newbie to Legend at ten thousand. Reputation is your win rate, from Rookie to Champion at ninety-five percent. Both are on the public leaderboards.
Repeatable work
Once you have done a quest in a town, its people start offering repeatable jobs: small errands that pay a little money and can be done again. They are the steady income between gyms.