How to Receive All Three Starter Pokemon in Pokemon Scarlet/Violet

 

We received amazing news a couple weeks ago when Nintendo announced that Pokemon Scarlet and Violet players would be able to receive Sprigatito, Fuecoco and Quaxly simply by linking their game to the Pokemon Home app. It seemed too good to be true... so was it?

Tonight, we finally got around to attempting this process, and we found it to be much less straight forward than advertised. We even had a bit of trouble finding a simple walkthrough when, defeated, we turned to Google for help. So, we thought it might be a good idea to break down the process for anyone else who's looking to bolster their Pokedex.

First of all, you'll want to make sure that you have the Pokemon Home app on both your Switch and your phone, and that your account is connected to those apps. We're not going to break down that process here, but this article by Eurogamer.net seems to be pretty thorough (although a bit outdated, now that Scarlet and Violet are compatible with Home).

Secondly, you'll need (of course) either Pokemon Scarlet or Pokemon Violet and, presumably, you should have played the game at least once and caught a few Pokemon in the wild.

After you've got Pokemon Home on your Switch and your phone, with your account connected, and caught a couple wild Pokemon on Scarlet or Violet, follow this process to link your game and claim those elusive Scarlet/Violet starters:

1. Open Pokemon Home on the Switch.
2. Push any button to enter the app. Wait for the app to load.
3. Press A on the "POKEMON" button. The app will display any Pokemon games you've played on the Switch.
4. Highlight Pokemon Scarlet/Violet and press A.
5. Confirm that you want to connect to this game by pressing A again. The app will move to a screen that shows any Pokemon currently stored in Pokemon Home on the left side of the screen. On the right, it will show any Pokemon currently held in your "box" in Scarlet/Violet.
6. Supposedly, the free gifts are awarded the first time the user transfers a Pokemon from Scarlet/Violet to Home. To be safe, we also transferred a Pokemon from Home to, in our case, Violet. Do so by selecting the desired monster with A, moving them to the opposite side of the screen and depositing them in the other box with another press of A.
7. Once done, press the + button to quit.
8. Press A to "Save changes and exit."
9. Close the Pokemon Home app on the Switch.
10. Open the Pokemon Home app on your phone.
11. Tap the screen to start the app.
12. Once the app loads, press the menu button in the bottom-middle edge of the screen. A menu will pop up.
13. Tap the "Mystery Gifts" button.
14. Tap the "Gift Box" button.
15. The three starter Pokemon are claimable here and are named "Special Link Gift No. 7!", "Special Link Gift No. 8!" and "Special Link Gift No. 9!" Opening each gift will allow you to claim these little cuties for use in Pokemon Scarlet/Violet.
16. Close the Pokemon Home app on your phone.
17. Open Pokemon Home again on the Switch. (Note: We assume that having previously closed the app in Step 9 and re-opening it will allow the apps to sync the three new Pokemon to your Home app.)
18. Press A on the "POKEMON" button.
19. Again, select Pokemon Scarlet/Violet, as in Step 4.
20. Move all three new starters from the Basic Box on the left to the in-game boxes on the right.
21. Press the + button to quit.
22. Press A to save the changes.
23. Close the Pokemon Home app on the Switch, for good.
24. Boot up Pokemon Scarlet/Violet on the Switch.
25. Your three new starter Pokemon can be found by accessing your "boxes." Press X to open the main menu.
26. Navigate to the "Boxes" option on the right side of the screen and press A.
27. Verify that the three new Pokemon are found in your box, then use them to your heart's content.

There you go! A 27-step process certainly isn't like riding a bike, but we got there in the end, and that's all that really matters. We hope this guide made things easier for you than it was for us.

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