Every area in a Pokémon game has a series of different spawns, some of which are so common you’ll be instantly sick of seeing them and some of which are so rare you might not even know they’re there.
Some Pokémon are even so difficult to find that you might not be able to without doing some research. There are a few Pokémon so rare and difficult to access that it seems they were intended to need a guide. Here are some of the easiest and hardest Pokémon to find.
10 Easy - Starters
Is there anything that is easier to catch than a starter Pokémon? Technically, they don’t even need to be caught, as they’re just handed to you. Every player in almost every game is given a choice between one of three Pokémon, typically a Fire-type, a Water-type, or a Grass-type.
It is, however, much more difficult to get your hands on the other two starters. Usually, the starter Pokémon are not found anywhere in the wild, meaning you won’t be able to catch the two you don’t choose.
9 Hard - Version Exclusives
While you’re looking for a friend that chose another starter so you can complete your Pokédex, you’ll want to ask which game version they have. This is because all of the main series games have version exclusives — Pokémon that are locked to one game or the other. Over the various generations, the same Pokémon have often been used for this, like Lotad and Seedot or Vullaby and Rufflet.
In Sword & Shield, some of the fan-favorite pseudo-legendary Pokémon are even locked, with Deino and Jangmo-o in Sword and Larvitar and Goomy in Shield.
8 Easy - Early Game Team-Fillers
Over the years, there has been a “rodent” and a “bird” introduced into every generation. These Pokémon are typically found on a very early-game route, like Route 1, and are easy-to-catch common spawns that can help round out your team before you have access to more competitive choices.
Pokémon like Rattata, Pidgey, Zigzagoon, Rookidee, and Hoothoot are some notable examples. These Pokémon are commonly found on many routes in the games, and you’ll be sick of seeing them pretty quickly.
7 Hard - Regis
Any longtime Pokémon fan can tell you how difficult it is to find the Regi trio in Ruby & Sapphire and Regigigas in the Generation IV games. It’s near impossible to remember this entire sequence without following a walkthrough.
The quest to find the Legendary Golems involves reading Braille, equipping HM moves, having certain Pokémon in your party, and using nicknames. It’s overall a frustrating and dizzying journey that will leave your head spinning.
6 Easy - Forced Legendaries
Legendary Pokémon often play a pivotal role in the main plot of the games, especially the box mascots. Fighting the respective Legendary is often part of the storyline for the game to progress, forcing you to either knock it out or capture it.
For these Pokémon, it’s very easy to find and locate them without a guide, as the game doesn’t really give you much of a choice. It’s fairly easy to catch these guys, so it’s probably not worth wasting a Master Ball on.
5 Hard - Different Forms
These days, there are quite a few Pokémon that have different forms. Some Pokémon swap between them through various mechanics, while others are just born with those forms and remain in them permanently. Some of these are incredibly hard to find, meaning you’ll need to do your research and put in the time and effort.
One example of this is Authentic Sinistea, which makes up only one out of every hundred Sinisteas. Other form differences that are a bit trickier to get your hands on are all the Unown shapes, season Deerling, and Vivillon.
4 Easy - Electrode
One of the consistently-easy Pokémon to find in many games is Electrode. This exploding Electric-type is often disguised as items on the overworld, especially in Rocket buildings and Power Plants. By trying to pick up the item, the player will be ambushed by the Electrode.
This is one of the few ways that a Pokémon is clearly visible on the overworld before it became the standard in the Let’s Go series and Sword & Shield.
3 Hard - SOS Salamence
The Generation VII games introduced a new mechanic called SOS. This allows wild Pokémon to “call for help” and summon a second Pokémon, creating a double battle. Each Pokémon that can call for help has a set list of other Pokémon that can show up to aid it.
On Route 3 on Melemele Island, a player can encounter a Bagon if they are very lucky, as it has a one percent chance to appear. It is likely to call for another Bagon if its health is dropped low enough. However, keep at it for a long enough time without knocking the Bagon out, and it may call a Salamence to its aid.
2 Easy - Fossils
Joining the long list of Pokémon that are just handed to the player without much effort is the fossils. In almost every generation, these Pokémon are revived from fossil items that are just chosen off the ground or handed to the player by an NPC.
The only barrier to these Pokémon is that you can typically only select one of two in a save file. Sword & Shield also introduced a weird system of trading fossils across the two versions. But, overall, these are very easy Pokémon to acquire.
1 Hard - Feebas
There are few Pokémon that spawn more groans and frustrated sighs in the fanbase than Feebas. This horrible fish is notorious for being super difficult to find.
In its original games, Feebas would only appear on a handful of tiles on the entirety of the route, and they would change over time. On top of that, the correct tiles have a significant chance to find something instead of Feebas when fishing, meaning you could have the right tile but not know because other things keep biting your line. Various other processes in future games would make Feebas equally difficult to find, but it’s most infamous in Ruby & Sapphire.
NEXT: Pokémon: All of the HM Moves, Ranked By Uselessness
