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In Festival Plaza, the festival never ends!

The Festival Plaza is available basically as soon as you get your Rotom Pokedex and is its own compartmentalized “game within a game”, so to speak.

Festival Plaza is important because it also countains all of the social features of this game. Gone is the PSS, if you want to connect to the Internet, it’s all contained within one convenient menu function. GTS, Wonder Trade, you name it, if it involves the Internet or Global Link, it’s here!

Not only that, but you can also build up your own castle . It’s not just a place to go so you can get online, it’s your very own kingdom!

Level up your castle to unlock new facilities, meet and greet with players from around the world, and use these facilities to do things from getting free items, giving your Pokemon free EVs, hatching eggs faster, or dyeing your clothes different colors!

This introduction will give a brief overview of everything you can do here, but be sure to dive into the following sections for a detailed breakdown on how to make the most of Festival Plaza!

Battle and Trade¶

You’ll notice once you get into Festival Plaza, the touch screen interface changes dramatically. The two biggest buttons are Battle and Trade .

Battle lets you battle with other players, either locally or online, depending on how you’re currently connected. You can challenge your friends or castle visitors to a battle if they’re available, or you can hook up with someone random online.

There are several rulesets you can choose from, and new battle rules are constantly being released for you to download and use (they usually correspond with official tournament openings) so you can practice!

Trade will let you, well, trade Pokemon with friends or guests. Wonder Trade lets you trade with a random stranger. GTS is a staple of the trading hub, letting you deposit Pokemon and request another Pokemon in exchange.

You can Link Trade to trade with a specific special someone, but if that someone is in the same room as you, you’re better off using the Quick Link option in the default menu instead of via Festival Plaza.

Use Facilities for Bonuses¶

As you rank up your castle, you will unlock Facilities you can build. You can never expand the max number of Facilities, so make your little circular road count, okay?

Facilities can all be used once per day and are well worth your while. They use their own special currency, Festival Coins (FC) , and you can do things like instant-give EVs to your Pokemon, hatch an Egg or get it closer to hatching, or win random items from lottery-esque facilities. Sweet!

Socialize!¶

It’s called “festival” plaza after all. Have fun meeting people! Random people from online will visit you as guests and you can chat them up.

As you level up your castle, you can do other fun things with them too, such as order their clothes if you don’t own them already (between each game version, certain outfit colors are exclusive).

You can earn Festival Coins by answering their questions, sending them to a facility you think they’ll like, and when someone online starts up a Mission you can join to bolster the score and earn even more Festival Coins!