22. Route 5

Route 5

Nimbasa City

Before you can head to Route 5, in the northwest part of town, you'll run into Hugh having a stand off againstTeam Plasma! Oh no! You'll have to split the task with Hugh, taking on two Team Plasma Grunts on your own. The top one has a Trubbish L27. The second one will fight you immediately afterwards, and she uses aWatchog L27. After that fight, the Plasma Grunts will run off, and then Hugh will heal up your Pokemon before heading off himself.

Now you can continue onto Route 5!

Route 5

Items: Hyper Potion x2 , Super Repel, HM02, Cheri Berry, Electric Guitar

Trainers:

Name	Pokémon	Reward
Baker	Sunkern, Combee lv.24	$960
Artist	Sigilyph lv.25	$1200
Pokémon Ranger	Budew, Roselia lv.25	$1200, Cheri Berry
Dancer	Scraggy lv.25	$800
Musician	Maractus lv.25	$800, Electric Guitar
Cheerleaders	Minccino lv.24 (x2)	$1152
Biker	Tirtouga + Sigilyph + Archen lv.26	$832

As soon as you enter Route 5, Bianca will stop you and give you the useful HM02 (Fly), a pretty strong Flying-type attack that works a lot like Dig, plus you can use it outside of battle to fly back to any town or city you've already been to. Very handy!

After she gives you that, she'll lead you over to a suspicious dark patch hiding between some of the trees. Take note of this, because when you go inside, you'll discover a place called the Hidden Grotto, which is a hidden pathway hiding amongst the trees. Back here, Bianca will take you to a Minccino you can battle, although this Minccino is special in the fact that it has the Skill Link ability — which is its Hidden Ability.

Go ahead and catch it if you want; Bianca will leave you alone to do so, off to find more of those Hidden Grottoes. When you're done here, you can find some more occasionally as well. Just look carefully amongst the forests!

Hidden Grottoes

Hidden Grottoes are special places where you can find a variety of Pokemon, as well as items. They're hard to spot; it looks like a shadowy patch connecting four trees. When you enter a Hidden Grotto, you'll have a chance to find either a stationary Pokemon waiting for you with its Hidden Ability (an ability you would not normally be able to acquire), an item out in the open, or a hidden item. The items can vary wildly, and each location has its own set of items and Pokemon you can find. Some of the items you can find include Rare Candies and evolutionary stones, although these tend to be much rarer.

Every 256 steps, there's a slim chance each Hidden Grotto will replenish and contain a new item or Pokemon, so it can pay to make the rounds and visit as many Hidden Grottoes as you can once you learn their locations. It may take awhile to find the Pokemon whose Hidden Ability you want, though.

There's a great page over at the Marriland Wiki that outlines the Hidden Grottoes in detail and contains a full list of the Pokemon and items available, although the Pokemon found will be included in this walkthrough as well.

Route 5 Hidden Grotto
	Foongus  Lv. 20-25 Regenerator		Minccino  Lv. 20-25 Skill Link
	Liepard  Lv. 20-25 Prankster		Eevee  Lv. 20-25 Anticipation

Anyway, head on out, and then while you're over by the grass, you might as well head over to the west if you want.

Route 5
Wild Pokemon		Types	Level(s)	Rarity
	Gothita		Lv. 21 ~ 24	Black 2: 30% White 2: 0%
	Solosis		Lv. 21 ~ 24	Black 2: 0% White 2: 30%
	Minccino		Lv. 21, 23, 22, 24	30%
	Trubbish		Lv. 21, 23, 22, 24	20%
	Liepard		Lv. 22, 24	20%
Thick Grass		Types	Level(s)	Rarity
	Gothita		Lv. 23 ~ 26	Black 2: 30% White 2: 0%
	Solosis		Lv. 23 ~ 26	Black 2: 0% White 2: 30%
	Minccino		Lv. 23, 25, 24, 26	30%
	Trubbish		Lv. 23, 25, 24, 26	20%
	Liepard		Lv. 24, 26	20%
Shaking Grass / Swirling Dust			Level(s)	Rarity
	Audino		Lv. 21 ~ 24	85%
	Emolga	/	Lv. 22	10%
	Cinccino		Lv. 24	5%

Pokemon Reviews for any of the new Pokemon found here are found in the Route 16 section of the Bolt Badge, since both Route 5 and Route 16 contain the same Pokemon.

Over to the west is an Artist using a Sigilyph L25 on his team. There's a Super Repel just a little bit after it, along with a ledge. Keep going west and fight the PKMN Ranger, who uses aBudew L25 and a Roselia L25. She'll give you a Cheri Berry after winning. Oddly enough, that's all that's over there. You could jump down the ledge to skip ahead a bit, but I'm just going to take you back to where Bianca took you in.

Over by the RV, the Baker there will fight you, and she uses a Sunkern L24 and a Combee L24. Inside of the RV, you'll find a maid who will buy any of your items that have some kind of flavor or scent, like Mushrooms, Berries, or Casteliacones, for quite a bit of money (usually double what you'd sell them for in a shop).

Ice, Ice Baby!

In need of some money? There's no quicker way to amass a lot of money in a jiffy than buying Casteliacones in Castelia City and then selling them to the maid here. You can buy a dozen Casteliacones a day for a mere $100 apiece, but you can sell them to the maid for a whopping $2000 apiece! Whoa! That's a profit of $22,800 a day!

The only downsides are you have to sell the Casteliacones one at a time (at least you can just keep mashing A; if you do, try to put it in your favorites bag so you don't sell anything else by accident), and also you can't buy them in the Winter, but it's still a great option to make money at this point in the game.

There's a Hyper Potion hidden on the road just to the west of the Baker. Pick that up, then fight the Dancer. He's got a Scraggy L25. The Musician right above him has a Maractus L25. He'll also give you the Electric Guitar prop for your Prop Case.

Over towards the western part of route, you'll see a rather big commotion. Before you start on that, though, start by fighting the Cheerleaders directly south of it. They each use a MinccinoL24, but fight you in a Double Battle.

Now for the fun one. So long as you've gotten your fourth Gym Badge, you can take on Charles the Heartbreaker! He'll fight you in a Rotation Battle in Black 2 or a Triple Battle in White 2, which is the first Triple or Rotation Battle of the game.

If you're playing White 2, make sure the Pokemon you want in the middle — typically the strongest and bulkiest — is in the second position in your party, since it will be in the middle (otherwise, if you're playing Black 2, make sure you have your three strongest up front). Rotation Battles are essentially a one-vs-one style, except you can switch freely between any of the Pokemon in your active three without it using up your turn. He uses an Archen L26, a Sigilyph L26, and aTirtouga L26 in that order, all at once — so in White 2, make sure you keep any Pokemon weak to Flying-type attacks in the third slot and any weak to Water-type attacks in the first slot. His Tirtouga likes to use Wide Guard, which will prevent attacks that hit multiple of their Pokemon, and his Sigilyph can set up Light Screen to reduce the damage the whole team receives from Special-based attacks. Try to weaken Archen to less than 50% of its HP so its Attack will be severely lowered thanks to its Defeatist ability.

After beating him, he'll drive off on his motorcycle. Before heading over to the Driftveil Drawbridge, go back to the RV and then hug the path just south of the fence, following it until you find a Hyper Potion for you. Cool!