Badge #17, Pt 3: Leningrad-Novgorod Offensive

Once in Calcenon City, there's a lot of NPCs around to talk to. The most important is Eve (next to the Pokémon Centre) who will give you info on three upcoming PULSE designs.

When you're done, walk into the one house that everyone used to hang around in for a long cutscene. Next stop: Agate City.

Operation Bagration

The entrance from the Circus is blocked off, so return to Route 1 (the easiest way is from the Iolia Valley) and enter Agate City from the checkpoint. Walk straight upwards (and don't talk to anyone) to enter a battle with the Schutzstaffel.

Continue up the stairs to the right and exterminate some more Schutzstaffel agents. Finally, link up with Hardy for a double battle, and finally a solo battle against Solaris.

After beating him down, use the Light Shard to heal and continue over the bridge.

The path here is relatively linear; surf up until you reach the waterfalls, then travel up to the third layer. Jump off to the left until you can go down the waterfall; once you're in that pool, dive down into the underwater section.

You'll find a fork in the path here. Travel up through it and into the cave area for a cutscene with Lin. If you instead go to the right, then surface and follow the waterfalls up, you can find the Pinsirite. Backtrack all the way back to your initial surf spot for another cutscene, where either Samson or Ciel will be disappeared (if you sided with Blake or not, all the way back in Ametrine city.)

After that, talk to Shelly again for another cutscene; after this Agate City is finally liberated and free for you to visit.

The Free City of Agate

There's a handful of things to do here before we fight Hardy. First, the house directly next to the Pokécentre has an NPC who asks you for a password. You could go find the magic square puzzle and solve it yourself... but that would be stupid. I'll just tell you the password: 139749. Follow the NPC into the room to find the Mannectite; then talk to her to get your 11th Department Store sticker. Only one more to go!

You may have noticed this inaccessible Rock Climb point before. It takes you up to Route 4. Great. The more interesting thing is the house immediately below this, just before the stairs. Walk in and talk to the lady standing on the sofa; she wants to see your Pokédex data. There's a few rewards for this, each at 100 Pokémon caught:

100. The Galladite
200. Froakie
300. The TM for Ice Beam
400. The Scirozite
500. The Electrium-Z
600. Kubfu
700. The Groundium-Z
800. The Blazikenite
900. A Poipole

If you want, you can get a Melmetal now. Now with 100% less stupid Magic Square puzzles!

Melmetal Guide

If you go into this house, and talk to the child inside, they'll show you into a spooky room downstairs. Down here, you can find the Rusty Metal Box.

Return to Silph Co in the Neo Obisida Ward and talk to the attendant inside (okay, all-gen guy: how the hell were you meant to figure this one out without the spreadsheet?) to get access to the back room.

Talk to the attendant and walk into the newly opened door, then open the gate by activating the computer. As soon as you reach a certain point in the room, the gate to the Melmetal within will open up.

Walk into the gate and Melmetal will appear. Kill it, then return to the attendant. You'll be gifted a Meltan as a reward. Next, talk to the other guy in the room, who will ask for a bunch of items in order to create the evolution item for your Meltan. He needs:

• Five Iron
• Five Zinc
• Five Calcium
• A single Steel Gem
• A single Metal Coat
• A single Iron Ball

Return to him with all of these (you can just buy them at the department store) to get the Meltan evolution item. Good diversion.

If you didn't pick Snivy as your starter, you can get one now too.

Snivy Quest Guide

Go into this house and wake the hiker inside up. He'll run off to Route 4.

You can find him here. Consult the previous chapter for more information on how to get here. Talk to him to start a battle

After beating him, he'll let his Pokémon out. Talk to him again to get some Pokesnax, then talk to him again and give him an Expert Belt. After that, feed all of his Pokémon the Pokesnax; make sure to feed the Golem last. If you don't, you'll need to find some more Pokésnax and feed it again.

After that, a new Rock Climb point will be generated, which leads to a (technically, another map) area where you can encounter wild Serperiors.

Agate Gym

The 17th Gym is on top of a hill overlooking the rest of Agate City. If you walk in and to the left side, you'll find the gym "puzzle", as well as TM187 High Horsepower (good job, Hardy!) just lying there.

The puzzle here is that you need to put the tiles on the correct notes in the right area, then use Rock Climb to make a sick guitar strum on the left area in order to match the notes that the NPC at the top plays for you. If you don't have an ear for it (like 90% of people), here's the solution, from top to bottom:

1. A
2. A
3. Low G (the one on the left)
4. B
5. B
6. High G (the one on the right)
7. E
8. C

After that """puzzle""", you can go in and fight Hardy. Some tips:

• Yeah, this gym is free. It's a rock type gym, for fucks sake.
• Strong steel types just carve through him. Melmetal with Double Iron Bash is an especially good idea.
• Aerodactyl can kill your grass types easily; make sure to bring a good answer to it... such as a Steel type.
• Bring your own weather setter! Pelipper or Simipour can set rain which stops his Lycanroc getting a speed boost.
• It's a double battle, so using Earthquake isn't a good idea unless you have something with Levitate. Fake Out support will still help, as usual.

After that, it's time to finally assault Labadorra City. When you're ready, return to Calcenon City.