I got an update about the PokeWalk now! I have a few screenshots available and a few photos as well to help us through. I have some screenshots and photos as well, though excuse the quality of my photos.
First of all, to access the PokeWalk with your Pokémon Heart Gold / Soul Silver game, you go to the main menu after starting up the game and you choose the third option down. ("Continue," "New Game," "PokeWalk", ect.) This will start-up the option for accessing your PokeWalk.
You are only given one option to start with if you have a Pokémon in your PC, and that is to send a Pokémon to the PokeWalk. You are then taken to your PC Box and you choose which Pokémon to send to the PokeWalk. Since I only have one Pokémon in my PC right now, let's just send my Togepi.
After choosing your Pokémon, you then choose which course you want to take. Depending on the course you choose, you will run into different prizes and Pokémon that you can obtain within your PokeWalk, then later able to import it back into your copy of Heart Gold or Soul Silver. And, for now, I've chosen the special event course which is called the Yellow Forest. This place has nothing but Pikachu in it, but you may run into a rare Flying Pikachu while here, so why not give it a shot?
When you're finally ready to import your Pokémon, you have to hold the PokeWalk directly at the
game. It uses special infrared and thus does not communicate to the DS via wireless! It communicates directly with the game cartridge itself with this infrared, so pointing it at the game is a must! If you hold it next to one another, the communication will fail, so be sure you remember that!
Now, Togepi is inside the PokeWalk! As you might expect, it counts how many steps you take and the Pokémon inside will follow along.
This is the main menu. Going from left to right, these are the options you can access.
- Wild Battle
- Gifts
- DS Communications
- Trainer Card
- Inventory
- Options
You may also notice in the corner where it has a "2 w" there. These are what I call "Walker Points." After so many steps you take, your PokeWalk will award you with these walker points. You get 1 Walker Point for roughly every 20 steps it counts. To my knowledge, they are used in two different ways; a chance to battle a wild Pokémon, or a chance to obtain an item. I'll explain in the bellow detailing the options I listed above.
Wild Battle:This makes use of the Walker Points. A very important thing to point out is this... remember years ago those old Digimon Digivice toys that you would clip to your belt line and run around with? It counted your steps too and you'd battle Digimon in it after so many steps. However, it was kinda annoying because if you brought it to school or something, it'd beep randomly when you encountered something and if you didn't fight it right away, your Digimon would pretty much be killed.
Wild Battle is different. You don't just run into wild Pokémon here as it is an option now that costs 10 Walker Points. This makes it easy to take the PokeWalk to work, school, or anywhere else with you since it will not beep randomly, making so you won't have to stop and drop whatever you're doing. Anyway...
When you choose this option, you're taken to a screen with 4 batches of grass. When you see a "!" appear, use the Right Arrow button and choose it, then press the Middle Button. Sometimes you may have to repeat this step over, but do it right and you'll start a random battle with Pokémon. If you choose the wrong batch of grass or take too long, the Pokémon will flee.
Once in battle, you are given three options to choose from- Attack, Dodge, and PokeBall. The three buttons on the PokeWalk choose which choice you take.
LEFT BUTTON = ATTACK
RIGHT BUTTON = DODGE
MIDDLE BUTTON = POKEBALL
If you attack, you may damage the wild Pokémon. But if they dodge, your attack will miss and they will perform a counter attack automatically. If you dodge and the enemy Pokémon attacks, you will dodge and perform a counter attack. But if you both dodge, the wild Pokémon may end up fleeing. But sometimes if you attack, you may do a critical hit and take more health away. Health for both Pokémon are represent by 4 bars. When you have 1 bar left on the Wild Pokémon, push the Middle Button to throw a PokeBall. If you do things right, you may capture the Pokémon. This captured Pokémon will then be later transferable to your Pokémon game. And on the main screen, you'll see a PokeBall icon that symbolizes that you caught a Pokémon.
Gifts:Gifts also use the Walker Points. For the sum of 3 Walker Points, you are taken to a screen with six patches of grass on it. However, you may choose only two grass patches and only one patch of grass holds the gift. Choose carefully because if you don't choose right, you won't get the gift.
DS Communications:Pretty self explanatory. If you want to send the Pokémon from your PokeWalk back to your game, or if you just want to withdraw the goodies you obtained on your PokeWalk journey, this is the option you choose. Exactly what you choose to take is optional on the DS screen.
Trainer Card:Naturally, this gives the basic info of the trainer who owns the Pokémon in the PokeWalk and such. This also has other details like overall steps you've taken, attempts at wild Battles, Gifts, and so on. But I don't know 100% for sure what it says since I can't read Japanese. However, it is pretty safe to say this isn't a major option you'll be using.
Inventory:This details to you the stuff you've obtained so far on your PokeWalk journey. This includes items obtained and wild Pokémon captured. Everything you see here is what you are able to transfer back to your Pokémon game.
Options:You are given two options in this screen; Sound and Brightness. Sound lets you choose three volumes; Silent, Soft, and Loud. The brightness let's you choose how dark or light things appear on the screen, letting you able to see the screen better in certain lighting conditions. The screen doesn't glow though, so keep that in mind.
Other things to point out is that your Pokémon on the PokeWalk may sometimes reward you with bonuses. These sometimes include items it has picked up on its own or bonus Walker Points that you can use. On top of that, any obtained Pokémon or Items you get are automatically sent to your PC or Item Bag respectivly when you transfer them to your Pokémon game.
Oh, and lastly, shaking the PokeWalker doesn't really do anything. It worked on the Digimon toys, but not here. It will only record a very, very soft vibration that mimics that of real walking... though I have discovered setting it ontop of a window fan works very well. XP
