Pal Park Question

[Dark Sage]

Now, you may be asking what on Earth am I doing asking a question about the Pal Park on this forum?

Well, you see, it turns out that a Pokemon cannot be moved to D/P if it knows an HM.

I have several Pokemon in my Ruby and Sapphire games that I want to transfer, but many of them know HMs. Now, it's been a while since I played R/S. Can someone tell me where the Move Deleter is in these games?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

- DS

[Number1ChanseyFan]

The Move Deleter in R/S/E is in a house in the northern part of Lilycove City, to the right of the big Department Store.

[Dark Sage]

Boy, that was fast...

THANK YOU! (Writes that down in notebook.)

[Mega Horny]

On that note, is there a way I can get an exclusive hm move on one of my D/P pokemon? For example, I had a Ludicolo with Rain Dance, Leech Seed, Toxic and Dive. Dive was important to its strategy because it could stall for a turn while toxic and leech seed sap away. Is there anyway I can have it relearn dive in D/P?

[Negrek]

Nope. I don't know that dive counts as an HM move when being transferred to D/P, though, because it's not a D/P HM. I think you might be able to get that ludicolo through the Park as is.

[Jeff]

The thing is though, I think that the reason that pokemon with HMs can't be transferred is so you don't get stuck. If you save your Gen3 game standing on an island somewhere and you migrate your last surfer from your party, and you don't have a flyer, you'd be screwed. There's alot to consider when the transfer is one-way.

[Negrek]

You can't transfer pokémon that are in your party, though, so there'd be no way to strand yourself somewhere--you'd need the HM move to get to the island or whatever, so you'd need to have a pokémon in your party with the attack. Since that pokémon, being in your party, can't get sent to D/P, you'd for sure have the HM move available to get you back out of wherever.

[mr_pikachu]

This isn't very eloquently said since I'm loopy from cold medicine, but there's another issue to consider.

Let's say you transfer a Pokemon with an HM to DP. (For the sake of the example, assume it's Surf.) Consequently, you use that Pokemon to advance through the game without ever acquiring the Surf HM. You end up on some island, trade the Surfer away, and then discover that you need Surf to leave! Sure, you can probably fish for a Water-type, but what good would it do you? Without the HM, you could be totally trapped.

...Actually, now that I think of it, that's not possible since Pal Park can't be used until the end of the game. Told you I'm a little out of it right now. However, it might apply to same-generation trading... one could fulfill the previous example simply by trading a Diamond Pokemon with Surf to a Pearl cartridge, for instance.

And to take it a step further, what if you decided to be a real imbecile by doing that with multiple HM moves? Say you did that with Surf, Strength, Cut, maybe Waterfall and Rock Smash... you could completely lock yourself into a corner!

...This requires further testing. If that's actually possible, it could be a major hole in the DP programming.

[Crazy Elf Boy]

Nope. I don't know that dive counts as an HM move when being transferred to D/P, though, because it's not a D/P HM. I think you might be able to get that ludicolo through the Park as is.

Nah I still think Dive counts as a HM move, cause my Latias knew it and it couldn't be transferred

[Negrek]

...Actually, now that I think of it, that's not possible since Pal Park can't be used until the end of the game. Told you I'm a little out of it right now. However, it might apply to same-generation trading... one could fulfill the previous example simply by trading a Diamond Pokemon with Surf to a Pearl cartridge, for instance.

And to take it a step further, what if you decided to be a real imbecile by doing that with multiple HM moves? Say you did that with Surf, Strength, Cut, maybe Waterfall and Rock Smash... you could completely lock yourself into a corner!

Since you can't use HM moves outside of battle until you've gotten the right gym badge, doing same-gen trading to get them ahead of time wouldn't let you trap yourself like that. You could get a pokémon with surf right at the first gym or something, but you wouldn't actually be able to surf anywhere until much later, and by that point you'd have the HM move yourself.

Nah I still think Dive counts as a HM move, cause my Latias knew it and it couldn't be transferred

Then in that case, there is in fact no way for a ludicolo in D/P to know dive.

...or, I guess, any pokémon in D/P.

[mr_pikachu]

Since you can't use HM moves outside of battle until you've gotten the right gym badge, doing same-gen trading to get them ahead of time wouldn't let you trap yourself like that. You could get a pokémon with surf right at the first gym or something, but you wouldn't actually be able to surf anywhere until much later, and by that point you'd have the HM move yourself.

I'm not saying that you get the HM move before you acquire the requisite badges. Rather, once you have the right badges, you could simply trade for the Pokemon with the HM moves instead of getting the HMs normally.

Then, after traveling for awhile and leaving the HMs far behind, you might stupidly trade away your HMers... and get stuck, since you never picked up the HMs to reteach those moves.

As an example, let's say you get enough badges to use Strength. But instead of picking up the HM, you just trade with another DP game to get a Pokemon with Strength. You advance for awhile, using Strength as necessary... and when you get to a town, you stupidly trade away your Strength user. Suddenly you can't get back, since you can't teach any of your other Pokemon Strength without the proper HM - which you totally ignored!

Of course, this all hinges on whether you can trade away the only Pokemon you have with any particular HM move. (You also have to leave the Fly HM behind, but that seems easy as well.) That is what requires testing... if you can, it may be possible to lock yourself into a corner.

[Negrek]

Of course, this all hinges on whether you can trade away the only Pokemon you have with any particular HM move. (You also have to leave the Fly HM behind, but that seems easy as well.) That is what requires testing... if you can, it may be possible to lock yourself into a corner.

You can trade away stuff with HM moves, yeah, but even if you never actually pick up the HM yourself, it's impossible to trap yourself in an area where you'd need that move. You have to be in a pokémon center to trade, so that narrows you down to, mostly, cities, as the location you'd be in when you gave away your HM users.

Twinleaf Town, Sandgem Town, Jubilife City, and Oreburgh City all require no HM moves to access in the first place. You can't strand yourself in Eterna City, because from there you're able to get back to Oreburgh and the cut and rock smash HM's. The same is true of any city on the mainland (or the two Centers near Victory Road/the Elite Four): you might not be able to make it to them without HM's, but you can make it back without them. Even at the battle island thing, which has three pokémon centers, you can always take the boat back to snowpoint and return from there to wherever.

The only places where I think you could conceivably get yourself stuck would be the center before Victory Road, if you got rid of your flier and your surfer and had not gotten either HM, and possibly the center near the resort area on the battle island; I haven't really explored around there, so I'm not sure if there's any way to get to it without surfing. You'd have to be really trying hard to get yourself stuck like that.

[Jeff]

Even if you trade away all of your HM users, you are at a pokemon center and could conceivably get new ones.

[Negrek]

Right, but the premise was that you had traded in HM users and never actually bothered to get the physical HM's themselves; therefore, you could get new pokémon that could learn the HM's, but you wouldn't have anything to teach them with.

The fact that Nintendo actually has failsafes in there to (mostly) prevent this boggles the mind.

[Jeff]

No, I meant that since you are at a pokemon center you can just trade pokemon onto your game that know the HM moves, thus getting yourself unstuck.

[Negrek]

Ah, yeah, that's right. You would really have to work hard to get around that in order to really get stuck.

[AdventureSerum]

Finally some information about the pal park! Can anyone tell me if individual pokemon are transferred, or if pokemon as a species are transferred?

[Blademaster]

Just individuals. You want more - you gotta breed them.

[AdventureSerum]

So if my Blaziken goes to Pearl, then it's there... Forever?

[Blademaster]

Yep. Hence the 'Pokemon cannot be traded back to game cartridge once transferred.' message that pops up when you go to Migrate any. Sorry. :s