Eterna’s not exactly a hip, happening place. In fact, it’s pretty sleepy city, for the most part. Team Galactic’s set up shop in a huge building in the northern part of town, and their influence can be felt as you walk around and talk to people. There’s also a statue of a mysterious Pokemon in the center of town which will undoubtedly foreshadow encounters to come.

When you first enter Eterna, you’ll be greeted by a mysterious blonde woman, who will give you the Cut HM before taking off. While you’ll see shrubbery you can use Cut on scattered about the city and its vicinity, you won’t actually be able to make use of the HM skill until you’ve got your second Gym Badge. Fortunately, that’s not too far off. A girl in the apartment buildings has a Chatot she’s willing to trade for a Buizel. Chatots aren’t encountered in the wild for quite some time yet, so if you want to add another Flying type to your roster, you can take advantage of this.

The Explorer Kit will be bestowed upon you in another house, which you can use to enter the Sinnoh Underground. (See our earlier feature for more info about the Underground!) Finally, there’s an interesting store here that sells herbal remedies. These tend to be considerably less expensive than Potions and other Pokemart-bought healing items, but pokemon tend to dislike the taste. Feeding a poke too much herbal medicine can decrease its affection towards you, which can be a problem if you’re trying for happiness-based evolutions.

Speaking of happiness-based evolutions, there’s a lady loitering around the Pokemon Center here who will share a new Poketch application with you. The Happiness Checker allows you to approximate the happiness levels of your individual team members. By tapping the pokemon with your stylus and holding it, you’ll see hearts form above its head. One heart means the poke likes you, two means you’re becoming close, and two hearts that grow larger indicates a pokemon that loves you forever and ever. (Or at least until you shove 30 Bitter Roots down its throat). If you see no hearts at all, then you’ve still got a ways to go to bond with that particular poke.

The Gym is in the southwest part of town, and it’s populated by lots of Grass-type pokes. This could give you some problems if you don’t have pokemon that can deal with Grass types. Poison, Flying, Bug and Fire types are your best bet, while Rock, Water, and Ground types should sit this one out. If you’re deficient in these departments, you’ll probably want to head back over to Eterna forest to capture and train up some of its insect specimens. Beautifly and Dustox make great combatants for these upcoming battles.

You can also pop on over quickly to Route 211, towards the east.

ROUTE 211 POKEMON

Meditite – Levels 12-14 – Common
Bidoof – Levels 12-14 – Common
Chingling – Level 13 – Rare
Ponyta – Level 13 – Rare
Geodude – Level 13 – Rare

ROUTE 211 CAVE POKEMON

Cleffa – Level 12 – Common
Meditite – Levels 13-14 – Common
Geodude – Level 13 – Common
Zubat – Level 13 – Uncommon
Chingling – Level 13 – Rare
Machop – Level 13 - Rare

There’s some decent Pokemon here for the catching. Meditite’s an interesting Fighting/Psychic combination, and Chingling can also contribute some good vibes to your crew with its Psychic skills. Ponyta’s a Fire type, which may come in useful for the Gym. It doesn’t learn its first Fire skill (Ember) until Level 16, though, so you’ll probably have to train it up a bit before it becomes even remotely useful for the Gym. If you have a good amount of Grass-beaters in your roster already, you may opt to save yourself the trouble and try to catch Ponyta in another area later. Wild Ponyta at higher levels tend to have a better skillset, making training them much easier.
 
You can’t really go much of anywhere here yet, though, as the cave to Mt. Coronet requires the Strength HM to enter. You can try and snag a Cleffa here if you’d like, though. We’ll just have to stop on by again later.

Once you’re ready to take on the gym, head on inside!

There’s a fairly simple puzzle you have to complete before you can take on the gym leader, Gardenia. You’ll need to play a game of Hide and Seek with four of her assistants, and win against each one in battle. None of them are too tough, but finding them can be a tad tricky, since you’ll need to locate them in a specific order.

When you've conquered your first four challengers, it'll be time to take on Gardenia herself. She has some very strong Grass types, including a new D/P addition, Roserade. Bring your strongest Pokemon to the forefront to take her on! Check out our movie to see what she'ss got up her sleeve, and how to handle it.