Watching my Pokemon at the nursery through my Pockecchi.
Time itself in the game ticks along in real time and is split into five stages; morning, day, dawn, evening, night and late night. You can see the changes in shades of colour as the game moves from one period of time to the next but most notably after dawn. After the bright orange light of sunset disappears, you can see lights brightly lit in building windows and off once it’s late night. Oddly enough, the same NPCs still walk around outside, though. As with previous Pokemon games, you’ll find certain Pokemon will only appear during certain time periods.

It’s not all about battling other trainers and aiming to be the Pokemon Champion however. You can let your Pokemon take part in “Pokemon Contests” which is divided into three mini games; dressing up, dancing and performing. By collecting various accessories from NPCs or buying them from shops, you can compete to dress up your chosen Pokemon to match a randomly specified theme in the dressing up part of the contest. Dancing has you typing your button taps to a rhythm bar while performing has your Pokemon showing off the moves he/she possesses. To help your Pokemon to become more competitive in these contests, you can also pick fruits from trees during your adventure and play a mini game to mix up some Pofins to boost non-battle related stats such as cuteness and coolness.

If taking part in beauty contests isn’t for you then, you can also dig underground and explore the passages that weave around the entire Shinou Region. Once you enter, you automatically enter wireless link mode allowing any other players nearby you to join in the fun. Alone underground, you can go around searching for spots where you can dig by tapping the screen much like the treasure hunting Appy. Once you find a sparkling spot you can dig, you enter a mini game where you must make use of a hammer or pickaxe to excavate fossils and special orbs. Orbs and other miscellaneous stones can then be taken back to an NPC specialist to swap for items. Fossils on the other hand can be revived as a rare Pokemon.

Besides excavating, you can also setup a secret base in a location of your choice then decorate with various goods that you can either buy or obtain from NPCs. These include bits of furniture such as tables, chairs, dolls and bookcases. Once you have this base setup, you can challenge a friend or another player to a game of “Capture the Flag” via wireless link. As the name suggests, what you have to do is find the other player’s secret base, steal their flag and take it back to your own to score. Of course, you will have to protect your own flag in the process otherwise you can’t score. To do so, you can setup various traps along the passageways to help delay your opponents.

Now there has been a lot of talk in promotions about how the Wi-Fi feature allows you to “play with players from all around the world” but how does it actually measure up? Well, lets have a look…

After earning your very first gym badge, you gain access to a building known as the “Global Trade Station” or “GTS” for short. Here you can set your location (currently limited to Japan only) and search for Pokemon you want via Wi-Fi so that you can trade with other long distance, anonymous players. What happens here is once you enter the details of Pokemon you want such as its name and level, anyone who is currently offering that Pokemon for trade on GTS will appear. Usually quite a few results appear and NPCs appear representing the players that wish to trade. You can then tap one of these avatars to trade providing you have the Pokemon they want. You can also upload your own Pokemon onto GTS to swap for another but only a maximum of one can be kept on GTS at anytime.