Random rantng on contests and berries

[Dark-San]

By the time I posted this topic, I'm already had 2 badges and 3 of my pokemons at level 40. My current location is at Hearthome City where a Pokemon Contest is about to be held. Here are some of the questions, I wish to ask regarding about Contests and Berries,

Contest
1) My bagpack itself contain a Fashion Case. And I already had a Pokemon in mind to enter into the contest. However the main problem would be on how do we utilise those decoration in the fashion case? I had this problem of everytime when I click on 'use' in the fashion case, it keeps showing me,

Accessories: 12
Backdrops: 3

And thats all! How do we equiped these to the Pokemon?

2) Is there any winning formula on how we should equiped what kind of accessories to the Pokemon to make sure that we would win the contest?

Berries
1) I have planted several berries on my journey and I had watered them quite regularly like once every 3 hours. But I am wondering how long does it take for a berry to fully bloomed and be harvested?

2) There is this little hut just outside the enterance of Hearthome City selling fertilisers (Mulchs). Hence if we would to plant those together with the berries, would it hasten their growth and by how much faster?

3) Another lady also in that same hut that gave me a berry detector or some sort. I realized that I was able to access it via the touchscreen of the DS. However when I looked at the map, I am totally confused. How do we go about looking into the map on whether have the berries you planned ripen?

Explorer Kit
1) What use does it have? Do we search for fossils using it?

[Mega Horny]

I think this a good question for this thread -- what the hell is 'The Natural?'

[Pokemaster Ash]

Well I have no experience thus far with contests or planting berries (I have a hoard now, grow later kind of play style with those...), but I can tell you about the Explorer Kit.

The Explorer Kit is what allows you to access the Sinnoh Underground, an INCREDIBLY addicting aspect to D/P. In the Underground you can meet people, make your secret base (Nature Power not needed this time, but you do need an item for it), and dig up lots of goodies. Here's the kind of stuff you can find down there:

Spheres (Red, Blue, Green, Prism, Pale; used only Underground)
Shards (Red, Yellow, Blue, Green; traded for TMs later on)
Element Stones (Thunder, Fire, Water, Leaf, Moon, Sun)
Everstone
Heart Scale
Revive
Max Revive
Fossils (Skull/Shield initially; Helix, Dome, Root, Claw, and Old Amber after you get the National Dex)
Arceus' Elemental Plates (you can get all 16, though there are some available in the regular game too)

....and a bunch of other fun stuff. It's really great!

[Elec Man EXE]

I think you put your accessories on your pokemon as you enter the contest, not by using the Fasion Case. I've not done any contests yet, but I believe thats the case. There's also a guy somewhere in the contest hall (I believe) that asks you to dress up your pokemon for a painting, and you use accessories for that.

As for berries... I love berries.

1.) Depends on the berry. These are all estimations, as I've never timed anything, but... The fastest growers are ones like Razz and Bluk, which grow in like 6-8 hours from seed to harvestable plant. The normal ones like Cherri take a bit longer. Berries like the ones you get from the west house in Pastoria (that weaken super-effective damage of certain attacks) take 3 days to grow. And even higher than that are the berries that increase stats in a pinch (Leichi and whatnot) which take 4 days.

2.) I'm not sure how much faster, as I've never bothered using them. It might be nice for some of the long-growers mentioned above, but I'm of the thought school of "less is more", so I just grow them without any mulch.

3.) Ah, the berry detector. Basically... look in the lower right corner. There's a symbol for a berry down there. That symbol will appear on the map in places where there are berries ready to be picked.

Some useful hints for berries...

~ You've probably noticed the dirt under the plant changing colors to represent moisture. Dark brown, brown, and tan (almost like sand). As long as you don't let the dirt get to the tan color, you'll get the max number of berries when you harvest (5 for most plants, though a few may give 6). The dirt dries out faster for faster growing plants, which makes it fairly difficult to get max harvest from fast plants, and very easy for the slower growing ones.

~ There are 3 places where you can get free berries (1 per day per location). Floaroma Flower Shop will give you common berries like Cheri. The Berry Master outside Hearthome gives some rarer stuff. And the west-most house in Pastoria gives all of the new berries. All 3 of those locations have berry patches, so you can plant in all 3 locations and then get the free stuff along the way. Also, Solaceon Town has a berry patch and also has the guy who gives you free pokeballs in exchange for seeing a certain pokemon once per day. Those are the 4 patches I use, so that I can get all that free stuff while doing my berry tending.

[Dark-San]

The Explorer Kit is what allows you to access the Sinnoh Underground, an INCREDIBLY addicting aspect to D/P. In the Underground you can meet people, make your secret base (Nature Power not needed this time, but you do need an item for it), and dig up lots of goodies. Here's the kind of stuff you can find down there:

Spheres (Red, Blue, Green, Prism, Pale; used only Underground)
Shards (Red, Yellow, Blue, Green; traded for TMs later on)
Element Stones (Thunder, Fire, Water, Leaf, Moon, Sun)
Everstone
Heart Scale
Revive
Max Revive
Fossils (Skull/Shield initially; Helix, Dome, Root, Claw, and Old Amber after you get the National Dex)
Arceus' Elemental Plates (you can get all 16, though there are some available in the regular game too)

....and a bunch of other fun stuff. It's really great!

I tried it earlier but it seems to be nothing there. Except for the occassional hikers that I came into contact.

[Jeff]

The berry checker just tells you where there are berries ready for harvest, it shows a berry icon on the route where there are berries, simple as that. Unfortunately it dosn't tell where there are plants that are sprouted/growing/blooming, just where there are berries.

Edit:

For the underground, what you have to do is go to where the shining spots on your top map are, then touch the touch screen and go to where you see a shining spot on the touchscreen. If you press A in front of one on the ground it will be a trap that you will disengage and get to keep (don't step on those spots, or you'll get stuck in the trap. If the shining spot you find is on the wall, go up to it, press A, and you'll get to dig for treasure. Great way to get all the old evolution stones.

[RattataGuy]

I tried it earlier but it seems to be nothing there. Except for the occassional hikers that I came into contact.

Talk to the guy who gave you the Explorer's Kit. He gives somewhat of a good tutorial.

[Razola]

I did one contest and they work like this:

First phase is fashion. You use the stylus to dress up your Pokemon according to the theme. Scoring is based on Hearts from the audience. Lacking experience, I have no idea how judging works here.

Second is dancing. One Pokemon leads and the other must copy his/her/its dance steps as best as possible (done via the normal face buttons). Each Pokemon has a turn as leader. Your performance is graded on dancing, so as leader your job isn't to do a "good dance" but to perform complicated dances that are hard to mimic.

Third is the same (more or less) as the previous generation. The Pokemon take turns performing moves to earn appeal from three judges.

If you need more fashion stuff, a woman in Pastoria? will sell fashion items for berries. You can also win backdrops via the Jubilife TV Station's lottery.

While not that appealing to me (I do like the last part of contests, but the first too are meh), they did flesh out contests quite a bit.

(Spoiler:) The "boss" of the contests is your mother.

[Phoenixsong]

Someone mentioned using the Fashion Case to get "paintings" of your Pokémon done. I haven't spent too much time in the contest hall, so I don't know if there's a person there, too, but I do know that on the (second? third?) floor of the Jubilife TV Station, some pseudo-French guy will let you use a dressing room to dress up your Pokémon using your Accessories and will then take a picture of it and display it in that hallway. The photograph might be featured on TV. I think that's who you meant.

[Dark-San]

Talk to the guy who gave you the Explorer's Kit. He gives somewhat of a good tutorial.

Where can I find him again? When I first entered the tunnels, I was told to look for some guy at Eterna City. I chatted with everyone but none of them could explain it well to me about the spheres and other stuffs

For the underground, what you have to do is go to where the shining spots on your top map are, then touch the touch screen and go to where you see a shining spot on the touchscreen. If you press A in front of one on the ground it will be a trap that you will disengage and get to keep (don't step on those spots, or you'll get stuck in the trap. If the shining spot you find is on the wall, go up to it, press A, and you'll get to dig for treasure. Great way to get all the old evolution stones.

Thanks Jeff, I will try that after all my Pokemons are in their level 40s.

@Raz- Hey thanks, I pretty sure Leafeon will do a good job.

@Phoenixsong- Will try that soon too. Thankey.

[Silent Dragonfly]

Stage 3 of the contests, while similar to the classic style contests of RSE, has changed quite dramatically. There is no opportunity to jam your opponent's appeals, the old move combos don't appear to work and moves are basically doing entirely different things. I've really struggled in the Master Rank using my team of RSE contestants.

[Razola]

Stage 3 of the contests, while similar to the classic style contests of RSE, has changed quite dramatically. There is no opportunity to jam your opponent's appeals, the old move combos don't appear to work and moves are basically doing entirely different things. I've really struggled in the Master Rank using my team of RSE contestants.

I did ONE contest in Pearl, and haven't done a contest in Ruby in...four years.

Yup.

[Elec Man EXE]

The guy who gives you the Underground tutorial is in the house right next to the pokemon center in Eterna City, IIRC. To the right of it.