SoulGold Battle Tower, Rocket Arcade, Battle Café and Pyramid: how each works

The SoulGold Battle Tower, Rocket Arcade, Battle Café and Battle Pyramid all open after you beat Lance. The Tower pays BP for training items, the Arcade pays money, the Café pays points for legendaries, and the Pyramid is a dungeon run with Hoopa at the bottom. Start with the Tower, because its Exp Candy XL gets your team to Lv 75 for innates faster than anything else.

Facility	Where	Opens	Pays	Big prize
Battle Factory	Battle Factory grounds, by Goldenrod Shore	After Whitney (3rd gym)	BP	Ability Patch, Feathers
Battle Tower	Route 40, near Olivine City	Champion	BP	Zeraora at a 30-win streak
Rocket Arcade	Goldenrod City	Champion	Money	Magearna at 25 wins
Battle Café	Route 50	Champion	Café Points	Forces of Nature, Tapus, Galarian birds, Diancie
Battle Pyramid	Vajra Pyramid, Vajra Desert	Champion plus a Tinkaton trade	Floor items	Hoopa

Battle Factory, the one you can do early

The Factory opens after your third badge and is the only facility in the main game. You battle with rental Pokémon, so your own team doesn’t matter. Its BP shop sells Feathers, Ability Capsules, Ability Patches and the Beckoning Bell, and after 8 badges it adds Nuggets and Big Nuggets. The full rundown, with what to spend BP on first, is in the Battle Factory guide.

Battle Tower

Elm calls the moment you’re Champion to say the Battle Tower is open. Head to Route 40, near Olivine City. The Tower, Factory and Pyramid run on Battle Frontier rules, so you pick a level mode in the lobby.

• Classic scales your party to Lv 50 and bans the restricted legends (Mewtwo, Lugia, Ho-Oh, Rayquaza, Jirachi, Zeraora and the rest of the box legends).
• Chaos scales your party to Lv 100 and anything goes.

Every innate is on at any level in facility battles, for you and for them. A Lv 50 team in Classic still has all three innates. The lobby menu lets you switch innates off if you want plain battles.

What to buy with BP

1. Exp Candy XL, 3 BP. Buy these first. Your team needs Lv 75 for the first innate in normal play.
2. EX vitamins, 10 BP each (HP Up EX, Protein EX, Iron EX, Calcium EX, Zinc EX, Carbos EX). Each one maxes a stat’s EVs instantly. One per stat beats an hour of EV training.
3. Bottle Cap (15 BP) and Gold Bottle Cap (45 BP) for IVs.
4. Choice Band, Choice Specs and Choice Scarf, 40 BP each, once your core six are trained.

The same clerk sells PP Max for 8 BP. The second clerk has the four weather rocks (15 BP), the four terrain seeds and the Lucky Egg (20 BP), and Weakness Policy, Blunder Policy, Room Service and Heavy-Duty Boots (25 BP). I burned my first 100 BP on weather rocks and regretted it by the next morning.

Zeraora

Reach a lifetime 30-win streak in the Battle Tower and Zeraora appears outside. It’s a Lv 80 boss with 4 health bars and Plasma Fists, Close Combat, Fire Punch and Grass Knot. Bring a Ground type that can take a Close Combat.

A 50-win streak in the Tower or the Factory also earns a Trainer Card star.

Rocket Arcade (the Goldenrod Battle Arcade)

The Rocket Arcade in Goldenrod is SoulGold’s Battle Arcade, and it pays money instead of BP. It’s the best money farm in the postgame. A roulette of panel effects runs before each battle. The old freeze panel inflicts frostbite now, and a TV inside shows your win streaks.

The Arcade takes your held items for its battles, so no Mega Stones and no Choice items. Build a team that works with nothing held.

A round is seven battles. After each win you choose to cash out or keep going, and if you keep going and lose, you lose the whole pot. The pot grows with every win:

Wins this round	Pot
1	4,000
2	8,000
3	12,000
4	24,000
5	48,000
6	96,000
7	384,000

The seventh win pays out on its own. The first time your streak reaches 21 and 49 wins, the seventh battle is Archer, the Arcade boss, and beating him doubles the pot to 768,000.

The board can land on these panels:

• Your side or theirs: HP lowered, poison, paralysis, burn, sleep, frostbite, a lent berry, a lent held item, or three extra levels.
• The whole field: sun, rain, sandstorm, snow or Trick Room.
• Specials: swap teams with the other trainer, speed the board up or slow it down, a random cursor, skip the battle (only from your fifth round on), or nothing at all.

Magearna and the Arcade shop

1. Talk to the burglar inside the Arcade once you’re Champion.
2. Win 25 Arcade rounds.
3. Talk to him again. He gives you a key to the top floor of the Goldenrod Apartment.
4. Beat Maddie up there, then fight Magearna, a Lv 75 boss with 4 bars (Shift Gear, Calm Mind, Draining Kiss, Stored Power). Stop the Calm Minds early or Stored Power gets out of hand.

The Arcade shop sells the Darkness Scroll and the Water Scroll, which evolve Kubfu into the two Urshifu forms. They cost 999,999 each. The shop also sells the Shiny Genome for 750,000, which turns any Pokémon you own shiny, plus a Master Ball for 999,999 and EX vitamins for 40,000.

Battle Café location and modes

The Battle Café is on Route 50. Route 50 gets a Fly point once you’ve been inside. Each challenge can be won once per day, and a loss ends the run, but you can retry until you win.

Mode	Teams	Healing	Points
Daily Challenge	Three opponents, teams of four	Healed between battles	3 for winning all three
Rush Mode	Teams of four	No healing	5
Super Challenge	Teams of six	Healed between battles	Unlocks Endless Challenge
Super Rush	Teams of six	No healing	Unlocks Endless Rush
Endless Challenge	Teams of six	Healed after every win	1 per win
Endless Rush	Teams of six	Healed after every third win	2 per win

The regulars are Athena, Bai, Doves, Drac, Elton, Nem, Simpli and Tylarie, at Lv 90 on Normal and Lv 100 on Hard. Beat all eight once and the owner gives you Diancie.

What to buy with Café Points

• 5 points each, Lv 70: Galarian Articuno, Zapdos and Moltres; Tornadus, Thundurus, Landorus and Enamorus; Tapu Koko, Lele, Bulu and Fini.
• 25 points each: Koraidon or Miraidon, once you own every other Paradox Pokémon.

Your first Forces of Nature purchase also gives you the Reveal Glass for Therian forms. Buy Tornadus first. It sets a free Tailwind every time it comes in, and the Tornadus page has the set. The Café also sells the Gold Bottle Cap and the Shiny Genome, and you can fish Chi-Yu out of the Café’s water fountain.

Battle Pyramid (Vajra Pyramid)

The Battle Pyramid is the Vajra Pyramid in the Vajra Desert. To open it:

1. Become Champion.
2. Trade a Tinkaton to the scientist in the southern house of Rinto Village.
3. He moves to the front of the Pyramid. It stays shut until you’re Champion, then you can go in.

Bring a team at Lv 77 to 80. The Pyramid takes your held items, like the Arcade, and gives you a Full Heal to start. Each floor guarantees a recovery item, status cures come as Lum Berries, and every trainer you beat widens your Flash range and points you to the teleporter.

The lobby mart is the place to stock your main team. It sells Life Orb, Focus Sash, Assault Vest, Flame Orb, Toxic Orb, White Herb, Power Herb and Black Sludge.

Deep inside, three spirit trainers (Gastly, Haunter and Gengar, Lv 77 to 79) guard Hoopa, a Lv 80 boss with 3 bars that switches to its Unbound form as the bars break. Catch it and you get the Prison Bottle too.

Title Defense and the Hall of Fame

After you’re Champion, every League run ends with a random challenger instead of Lance. The first pool is the eight Johto gym leaders, all at Lv 85. After 5 defenses, Lance, Steven, Elder Li, the Director and Leaf join the pool. You never face the same challenger twice in a row.

The Elite Four rematches before them are Lv 85 too, with two team variants each. They’re singles on Normal and doubles on Hard. Your round number shows on the Hall of Fame screen.

Each Title Defense also resets a few things. Sudowoodo respawns, the Paradox legendaries respawn, and the Lugia spawn comes back, which is how you get Shadow Lugia if you already caught the normal one. I ran six defenses in one sitting just to see Leaf show up.

Gym leader rematch locations

The postgame gym rematches are where you go next for Victini. Beat all eight, then talk to the old woman in the Kitakami Border house.

Leader	Where	Avg Lv (Normal / Hard)
Falkner	Violet City school	75.2 / 78.0
Bugsy	National Park	75.2 / 77.2
Whitney	Goldenrod Dept. Store 6F	75.5 / 77.5
Morty	Bellchime Trail	76.0 / 77.7
Chuck	Route 47 bridge	76.2 / 78.0
Jasmine	Olivine café	76.5 / 78.5
Pryce	Lake of Rage	78.3 / 80.2
Clair	Dragon’s Den cave	80.2 / 82.5

VS Seeker and Route Experts

The VS Seeker resets the route trainers outside so you can fight them again. You get it from the quiz on Radio Tower 1F in Goldenrod, and it recharges every 200 steps. If you have an old save with the Radio, trade it in with the 1F receptionist.

The Route Experts stand on Route 31, Goldenrod Shore, Route 47, Route 43 and Route 27. For a quick EXP stop, the Kitakami dojo has an Audino and Blissey trainer you can fight for a 10,000 fee.

Go to Route 40 and start your first Tower streak. Check the postgame checklist for the order to do everything else.