As you proceed into the Ilex Forest, this guy will stop you and basically whine about his boss's Farfetch'd getting away, so being the good person you are have to go catch it for him. It'll be on a bit further, looking at you, then running away whenever you draw close and press A by it. It'll run around in circles around that mini forest, making it impossible for you to really catch it.

How do you catch that Farfetch'd? Well first chase it so it is in the bottom-left corner, by the rock. That's right where you want it. See those sticks? The piles of sticks that make noise when you step on them? Walk across both piles and watch the Farfetch'd listen to the noise, turning which direction it's looking.

When it's down there, step on the bottom set of twigs, the ones directly to the south of the rock it is by, then carefully walk to the right, avoiding that other set of twigs and go in from the other side of the clearing so you'll wind up behind the Farfetch'd. Press A by it when you're behind it and it's facing away and you'll catch it, bringing it back to the dude from earlier.

But this guy can't keep track of those darn Farfetch'd and expects you to go get the other one he lost. It's farther back in the forest. Head east, pick up the Revive along the way, and head for the next Farfetch'd. This patch is very similar and it will seem like the last one you just did, but it's actually a little more interesting due to where the twigs are placed.

To bag this Farfetch'd, lure it to the top-right corner (it won't go in the area where the two twigs are, so don't worry). When it's there, walk over and step on the set of twigs directly to its right. That will cause it to look right. Then walk up into the corner, carefully avoid the northern-most twigs, and then walk up so you're behind it. You've bagged yourself another Farfetch'd, yeah!

Afterwards, you'll be taken back to the guy, his boss will come over and then give you HM01 (Cut), which will let you cut down that shrimpy looking shrub blocking your path to Goldenrod City. It'll actually let you cut down any of those shrimpy looking shrubs. It isn't that great of a move and you can't remove it whenever you want, so I recommend teaching it to something you aren't using on your battle team, like maybe a Rattata or a Bellsprout. You know, that one you caught earlier but never used.

Beyond that bush is the weird shrine thing that serves no purpose right now, unless you have the Pikachu-colored Pichu (Shiny Pichu) from the 12th movie distribution. There's an event that happens here if you have that. It might not be until later in the game, though, but needless to say, don't worry about it right now.

As you continue through the forest, sort of by the lake, there's a little nook into the forest. There's actually an X Attack hiding down there that you might want to pick up.

A little bit further in, you'll see a guy on a ledge that you can't yet reach. You'll get to him in a sec, don't worry. Head north still a bit and you'll see another kimono girl (she's a different one from the one earlier) sitting there, looming and lurking. She can wait, too; go down that path to your right and it'll circle over to that one guy on the ledge.

As you approach him, you'll see him ramming his head into the tree he's by. What the heck! After checking for brain damage, you can show him one of your Pokemon and he'll offer to teach it the move Headbutt. He'll teach you Headbutt as many times as you want.

Not every Pokemon can learn Headbutt, but those who can are able to use it outside of battle on trees to shake wild Pokemon out of them. It's the only way you can find certain Pokemon, like Heracross and Aipom. It's also not that bad of a move at this point in the game, possessing 70 power, making it a pretty solid Physical-based move.

Anyway, go back to the kimono girl and she'll do her dance, and then ask something of you. If you say yes, your Pokemon will walk over to the side and do a few hops. Weird. She'll then leave, leaving you free to continue exploring.

Right by where she was, there's an Ether waiting for you. That's basically all that's left for you in the forest, as you'll find out by walking on ahead until you find nothing more but a building leading you to the next area.

Do yourself a favor, though: in the building between Ilex Forest and Route 34, talk to the lady by the Butterfree at the counter and she'll give you TM12 (Taunt). Not overly useful in-game, but it can come in handy if you want to catch an Abra, which are available really soon in the wild and have a habit of Teleporting away.

Fight the Trainers along the route if you'd like for some extra practice. They've got an interesting assortment of Pokemon for you to fight. There are also some pretty interesting Pokemon in the tall grass, too, like Drowzee and the pain-to-catch Abra. Taunt makes Abra easier to catch, though, by blocking its Teleport attack.

About halfway through the route, you'll run into Lyra and her Marill. She talks to the Daycare Man outside of his house. She leads you into the house with the Daycare Lady, but doesn't want to leave her Pokemon at the Daycare. After some more talk, she gives you her phone number for your Pokegear, then runs off.

You can leave up to two of your Pokemon here in the Daycare. While they're at the Daycare, they'll gain experience points for every step you take, though they'll automatically replace the moves in their roster with newer moves. And, of course, if you leave a compatible male and female Pokemon in the Daycare, you'll wind up with an egg of the mother's species before too long! Go ahead and put some in if you want; otherwise, don't worry about it. It'll be here for you.

As you leave the Daycare, the Daycare Man will come over to you and give you his phone number and his wife's phone number for your Pokegear. I'm assuming he'll let you know when he has a Pokemon Egg that he's holding, and that you can call his wife to find out what levels your Pokemon are at or something.

Go on a bit further and just past the Camper you'll find TM63 (Embargo), a fairly useless move for in-game. It's pretty much worthless. All it does it prevent the opponent from using items, but very rarely do they use them anyway.

Finally you'll reach your destination, Goldenrod City!

Dept. Store 2F (Top Counter)
Poke Ball	$200	Great Ball	$600
Ultra Ball	$1200	Escape Rope	$550
Poke Doll	$1000	Repel	$350
Super Repel	$500	Max Repel	$700
Grass Mail	$50	Flame Mail	$50
Blue Mail	$50	Space Mail	$50
Dept. Store 2F (Bottom Counter)
Potion	$300	Super Potion	$700
Hyper Potion	$1200	Max Potion	$250
Revive	$1500	Antidote	$100
Parlyz Heal	$200	Burn Heal	$250
Ice Heal	$250	Awakening	$250
Full Heal	$600
Dept. Store 3F
X Speed	$350	X Attack	$500
X Defend	$550	Guard Spec.	$700
Dire Hit	$650	X Accuracy	$950
X Special	$650	X Sp. Def	$950
Dept. Store 4F
Protein	$9800	Iron	$9800
Calcium	$9800	Zinc	$9800
Carbos	$9800	HP Up	$9800
Dept. Store 5F
TM70 (Flash)	$1000	TM17 (Protect)	$2000
TM54 (False Swipe)	$2000	TM83 (Natural Gift)	$2000
TM16 (Light Screen)	$2000	TM33 (Reflect)	$2000
TM22 (SolarBeam)	$3000	TM52 (Focus Blast)	$5500
TM38 (Fire Blast)	$5500	TM25 (Thunder)	$5500
TM14 (Blizzard)	$5500	TM15 (Hyper Beam)	$7500

A person in the far left side of the 5th Floor of the Dept. Store will trade you his Machop for your Drowzee. You can catch Drowzee on Route 34 pretty easily and Machop is really helpful against the upcoming Gym, which is solely a Normal-type Gym. It's up to you if you want to make the trade or not, though I'd advise it.

On the 6th Floor of the Dept. Store, there are two people at a desk and they will hold a little raffle. You can talk to the bottom one to pay $300 for a chance to win one of three fabulous prizes: 3rd is a Berry of some sort; 2nd is a Dusk Ball, and 1st is TM42 (Facade). That's pretty nifty. Dusk Balls never hurt, and nor do berries, so go for it if you want.

You can also buy either Fresh Water (first option; $200 and heals 50HP), Soda Pop (second option; $300 and heals 60HP), or Lemonade (third option; $350 and heals 80HP). I definitely recommend picking up a dozen or so Lemonade, because they're cheap, half the price of a Super Potion, and heal 30HP more than that same Super Potion. The only drawback is that you have to buy them one at a time.

If you go into the elevator in the Dept. Store, you can access the basement floor, where there's someone down there with her Machoke. The Machoke will move a crate, the first of which giving you access to an Ultra Ball. Head on over to the west and talk to the girl over there to have another Machoke move a crate, allowing you to reach a Burn Heal. Go back to that same girl and talk to her again to have a third Machoke move a third crate so you can get an Ether.

Heading a few steps north of the Pokemon Center will reveal the Game Corner, which is pretty rad. You can't play there yet, though, because you don't have a Coin Case. You'll get that in the Underground Path. Speaking of which, head past the Game Corner and you'll reach Bill's House — at least his Johto one, where he keeps his family. He's not there, though, but remember this spot because you'll want to come back here later.

Just past Bill's House is one entrance to the Underground Path. You can go ahead and explore it right now, just jump ahead a bit, because I'm covering that in the next section. There's still plenty to do in Goldenrod, so you might want to check that all out first!

Further north of the Game Corner is the Magnet Train Station, which isn't operational at the moment, as well as the Radio Tower (with a Rocket Grunt lurking outside of it!) to the west, and a new addition further west of that: the Global Terminal. It's basically like it was in Platinum, and allows you to go view battles, trades, and stuff like that. Nifty!

You should totally start by checking out the Radio Tower, though, so you can get the Radio Card for your Pokegear. Inside, there are three ladies at the desk. The first one just says hi. The second one is for the Lucky Number Channel, where each week a different ID number is drawn, and she'll scan your PC and party to see if you have a winning match. Then the third one is the one who will give you a quiz in order to get the Radio Card.

Standing to the side is a girl with pink hair. Yep, that's Whitney, the Goldenrod Gym Leader, slacking off. You can't even enter the Gym until you get the Quiz right, so you'd better get to it!

Now, since the Quiz is in Japanese, I'll help give you the answers.

• Question 1: Is there a Pokegear Card for the Town Map? YES!
• Question 2: Can Nidorina be female-only? YES!
• Question 3: Does Kurt make Poke Balls out of Aprikorns? NO! (ApriCorns, not Korns)
• Question 4: Magikarp can't learn any TM moves? YES!
• Question 5: Oak's co-host is Marie? NO! (It's Mary)

These questions are translated and basically the same as they were in Gold and Silver. Just answer Yes, Yes, No, Yes, No and you'll get the Radio Card. After that, Whitney will whine about how she got the third question wrong and will then run off to the Gym. Good girl, get to that Gym, because you want your Badge!

If you go to the 2nd Floor of the Radio Tower and talk to the girl in the bottom-right (Buena) corner, you'll get the Blue Card. You can tune in to the daily question on Buena's channel to get points which can be used to exchange for nifty items.

You can't go any further in the Radio Tower now, so go ahead and leave (assuming you got the Radio Card of course; you NEED to have gotten this or you won't be able to enter the Goldenrod Gym).

Wanna get a Bicycle? You bet you do! So head east of the Radio Tower and kind of go behind the Pokemon Center, ignore the house you see there (nothing really that important; just a lady who judges your lead Pokemon's happiness), and enter the flashy-looking building. Talk to the guy in there and he'll give you a Bicycle. He wants you to help advertise his place, but really it just means you get a free bike. Awesome!

Almost done with the tour of Goldenrod City! Head up to the north, passing the railroad, and then you'll see the Gym and a tent on the other side of it. Well, we know what's in the Gym, so why not check out the tent, right? Inside is the Name Rater, and he just looks a little fancier now. He'll rename your Pokemon just like he's always done, as long as they aren't traded. Handy.

That's pretty much everything you need to see in Goldenrod City. Oh wait! There's still the Underground Path you need to check out! Heal up your Pokemon, and then enter the Underground Path from either the north or south entrance.

As you enter the entrance to the Underground Path, you'll see a little Marill run up from the stairs. Hmmmm, you're probably right... it's gotta be... Yep, it's Lyra, and she's talking about dressing up and stuff like that, so she gives you the Accessory Case so you can dress up your Pokemon a la Platinum style.

Right near the southern side, you'll find the Coin Case just waiting for you there, sort of by two Trainers. With that, you can buy Game Coins at the Game Corner and have a blast with that!

There's also a bunch of different shops and stuff that open up down here depending on what day it is. If it's Friday, for instance, there'll be a salon open where you can give your Pokemon a haircut for $300. Or groom it or something. It raises the Pokemon's happiness, so why not?

One other thing to point out: the secret locked door is now in the southern part of the Underground Path, not the northern part. Something new is in the northern part instead: the Dress-Up place (like in the TV Station in Diamond, Pearl, and Platinum), and there's also a camera booth, which takes a picture of you dressing up as something (like as a Team Rocket member) along with your whole team, all in their I'm-following-you-around sprites. Pretty cool! It then sends the picture to your PC, presumably to be checked by going to (your name)'s PC.

That's about all there is in the Underground Path for the time being. Make your way back to the Pokemon Center, heal up your Pokemon, and get ready to take on your 3rd Gym!

Here we are, in the third Gym, the Goldenrod Gym. Like the days of Gold and Silver, it's shaped like a Clefairy, although the way you get to the Gym Leader has changed quite a bit since then. Now you have to climb onto the outline of the Clefairy and go through doors and stuff to get through. It's not too bad, though. Just remember you need to enter the inner part of the Clefairy outline by going in from the top-right corner.

The Trainers in this Gym all use purely Normal-type Pokemon; a Fighting-type Pokemon will do absolutely excellent here. If any of your Pokemon can learn Focus Blast from the TM in the Dept. Store, that might also aid your chances of success against these plain Pokemon — just beware, because it doesn't have very good accuracy.

After barrelling through the Trainers, you'll finally find Whitney in the back. If your Pokemon aren't fully healed or at least prepared for battle, I highly recommend you go back and heal right now! Whitney can be pretty darn tricky to take down!

Whitney's Clefairy isn't anything too special. It has a few tricks up its sleeve, but it's relatively weak all things considered. Mimic lets Clefairy use the move you last used against it any time it wants in the fight, though you should hopefully be knocking it out in 2 hits anyway, so it shouldn't really matter. It can also use Metronome to use any move at random, which can make or break the fight in a few ways.

That's not the Pokemon you have to be concerned about, though; her real threat is her Miltank. It's at a sturdy level 19 and totally ready to go. It has Stomp and Rollout in its attacking arsenal, with Attract and Milk Drink supporting it. Stomp is very powerful coming from the strong Normal-type cow, plus it has a chance of causing you to flinch. Not good! Rollout is also especially painful if it hits more than 2 times in a row. One of the best things you can do against her Miltank is to lower its accuracy with Smokescreen or even Flash. That will hopefully cause Rollout — which doesn't have awesome accuracy in the first place — to miss before it gets out of control, resetting its power.

Male Pokemon are at a huge disadvantage if Miltank decides to use Attract, turning each of their attacks into a virtual coin flip. The best thing you can do to get out of it is to just switch out for another Pokemon so the effect goes away. Risking that coin flip every turn is often too much risk than what you want to shoot for, so switching is a safer option.

The worst part is that Miltank — like Falkner's Pidgeotto — can restore 50% of its max HP with Milk Drink. It has a good amount of HP and Defense, too, meaning it is a real pain to take out. If you try affect it with a status condition, it will heal it with a Lum Berry (though you may be able to try again next turn after the Lum Berry has been consumed). Plus, Whitney also has a Super Potion she's just dying to use! Talk about a tough fight!

Items like X Attack and X Defend, which can be purchased in the Dept. Store, can really help turn the tide in your fight against her. Use a few of those, throw in a Flash or Smokescreen for good measure (otherwise Rollout will crush you if you are solely trying to set up), and then take her out as quickly as possible. Trading a Drowzee for a Machop is also a smart move, because Machop can hit pretty hard against Miltank, particularly if it gets a buff or two from the X Attack and X Defend. Just watch out for Attract, as most Machop are male!

After beating her, she will cry and won't give you the badge. What a sore loser! Thankfully, as you try leave, Lass Asuka will tell you that she's a crybaby and can't handle losing, so you should talk to her again and try rub it in her face more. Nah, I'm kidding. But you do need to talk to her again to get your badge.

Whitney will now give you the Plain Badge, along with TM45 (Attract). Oh that Attract, that awful Attract. It makes for a nice move to teach some of your Pokemon, but it's useful only against Pokemon of the opposite gender. There seem to be a lot more male Trainers (which means male Pokemon) in the game, so it's better taught to a female Pokemon if you want the most out of it.