Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl Contest Guide

Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl are now out. Players can dive into Sinnoh and embark again on their adventure to defeat all of the Sinnoh gym leaders, take on Team Galactic, and take on the Elite 4. If you're not just content battling with your pokemon there are also pokemon contests, a hybrid pageant/talent show for your pokemon to compete in to show off their most popular quality. This Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl Contest Guide will go over what's different in the new contest system and what you can do to give yourself a competitive edge.

Contests are found in Hearthome City, you'll have to come to this building as part of the story. Contests are a non-battle way for your Pokemon to show off their stuff. This is by no means the first time that contests have appeared in the Pokemon games, but with Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, a new twist has been taken. Contests used to be played out as a battle of sorts where you'd select different attacks and where you were in the turn order, or what your opponents had done you could earn bonus points to appeal to the audiences, now it's a very different type of contest.

What is new about contests?

In the past contests were a way to have Pokemon use their moves to show off how good they were in certain categories. While the categories have remained as contests for the pokemon to enter the moves now no longer have their own category setting. You can no longer feel locked into certain loadouts when applying for contests. These categories are as follows:

• Coolness
• Beauty
• Cuteness
• Cleverness
• Toughness

You can enter any Pokemon into the Normal Rank of each of these contests. In order to enter them in the higher tier Great, Ultra, and Master Rank you need to have successfully cleared the previous rank with that Pokemon.

Instead of contests having a battle layout as they did in the original Pokemon Diamond and Pearl now they're conducted as a rhythm game. Tap along with the beat or hold the beat where it's indicated to pump up the crowd. It's a single button rhythm game so you don't need to worry about anything too complicated, just making sure that you're hitting the notes where you can. The closer you match the beat and earn "BRILLIANT!" remarks the more points you'll get. After selecting one special attack that you can use to wow the crowd you'll be taken to the contest arena. Find a good moment to use your special attack to earn extra points for your performance.

At the end of the song, all of the participating Pokemon will be ranked and the one with the highest crowd appeal will become the victor!

The contest is broken up into three sections

• Visual - this is determined by your Ball Capsules and Pokemons entrance
• Dance - this is a single button rhythm game where you need to tap or hold the A button
• Move - this is determined by the hype earned using your Pokemon's contest attack

How to give my Pokemon the competitive edge?

The easiest way to have your Pokemon appeal more in battles is to mix together poffins and feed them to your partners. You can make poffins all across Sinnoh, the closest location to the contest hall is in Amity Square Garden. The poffins you create will each have their own stat that they'll boost, if you look at the poffin in your poffin case you'll be able to see specifically which stat they'll affect.

Be careful when picking berries to turn into poffins as bad combinations will result in the creation of Foul Poffins!

Each Pokemon has a maximum amount of poffins that it can be fed. This is represented by their Sheen value. If you try to balance a Pokemon out across all categories you'll only be able to get so far. It's recommended to pick a stat you want to max out for certain pokemon. Each Pokemon will also have different foods it may be partial to contributing to increased stats.

Another way to improve your Pokemon's appeal is to create a stylized Ball Capsule with all of the different stickers and effects that you unlock across your journey. Take your time to consider the category and what stickers you have at your disposal when you're deciding how to set them up. In the early game you will find that you're quite short on stickers to add to your Ball Capsules but as long as you keep interacting with NPC and progressing through the story you'll find you collection increasing.

How do I get stickers for the Ball Capsules?

You get to obtain more stickers from completing a variety of requirements:

• Defeating gym leaders
• Talking with random NPCs
• Purchasing them at Sunyshore Market