Completing the National Pokedex in 2025 is almost impossible – the toughest Pokemon to catch
We’ve been in the late era of the original Nintendo Switch’s life span for a good while now, which means it’s as good a time as any to work on a Pokedex. At the time of writing, there are a whopping 1,025 existing Pokemon, and the only way to hoard ’em all at once is to put them in Pokemon Home. To be clear, I’d finished my “Living Dex” a long while ago – but to fill the time between Nintendo’s official releases, I decided to redo my entire Living Dex – but with every Pokemon caught in a standard Poke Ball and with my OT (which means traded Pokemon don’t count towards it). If you don’t know this already, a Living Dex is when you have every single Pokemon in the game stored in your boxes. That means the entire evolutionary line, and in my case, every gender difference and form difference for each Pokemon as well.
Working on a Living Dex in 2025 made me realize how absurdly difficult it is to complete this task in 2025. Having completed all of the main series Pokemon games, this was much easier for me than for someone just starting a Living Dex project. But today, I’ll explain what the toughest Pokemon to obtain for Living Dex purposes are and how to go about obtaining them in the easiest way. Surprisingly, there are also a lot of Pokemon that cannot legitimately be caught in a standard Poke Ball along with your OT. We’ll be going over those too.
Kanto region
Starting with Kanto, this region overall isn’t too bad. The most problematic Pokemon here are Galarian Articuno, Galarian Zapdos, Galarian Moltres, and Mew. When it comes to Kanto’s original Legendary Pokemon – Mewtwo and the three Kantonian Legendary birds – you’ll find that a ton of Pokemon games make them catchable. You can find these four in just about every generation, but some more recent ones include Sword and Shield, Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, Let’s Go Pikachu and Let’s Go Eevee, and Ultra Sun and Moon. You’ll need to revisit older games in order to finish a Living Dex, and if you wind up playing through multiple, you’ll likely end up with more Articuno and Zapdos than you know what to do with. The same isn’t true for their Galarian counterparts, though – they’re only catchable in Sword and Shield, which means you’ll have to start a new playthrough of the game to get them. Sword and Shield wind up being instrumental to a Living Dex’s progress for one key reason – it’s very easy to cheese the game and obtain a Level 70 Pokemon within the first hour of playing the game.
If you have the DLC, you can use Wedgehurst Station to head to the Crown Tundra before you even get a Gym Badge. You’ll meet Peony there, who challenges you to a battle – but losing the battle progresses the story as well, meaning you can continue on to the Max Lair. Once there, you can catch a Level 70 Pokemon from a Dynamax Adventure. It’ll always listen to you, too, since it’s caught on your file and has your OT. You can catch as many high-level Pokemon as you want and then head to Dyna Tree Hill to start the Galarian bird quest. They’re very tricky to catch thanks to their low catch rate, though, so it might be a good idea to find a Bisharp in Dynamax Adventures or something that can learn False Swipe and Thunder Wave. Galarian Articuno roams the Crown Tundra, Galarian Zapdos roams the first Wild Area, and Galarian Moltres roams the Isle of Armor, which you can also access before you even get a Gym Badge. Simple enough!
Mew is actually even easier than the Galarian birds. Despite its status as a Mythical Pokemon, you can receive a gift Mew in Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl as long as you have save data for Let’s Go Pikachu or Let’s Go Eevee on your console. This Mew is in a standard Poke Ball with your OT (and at a low level), making it perfect for a Living Dex! Japanese copies of Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl can be played in English on any Nintendo Switch console, and they’re quite inexpensive to buy on reseller sites. As we’ll discuss later, BDSP also house Arceus, Shaymin, and Darkrai, who will be important once we reach Sinnoh region Pokemon.
Other than these Pokemon, there are a few loose ends here and there. Alolan Rattata and Raticate are extremely difficult to obtain on Nintendo Switch; in fact, the only way to get them is to trade with an NPC in Let’s Go, Pikachu and Let’s Go, Eevee. This Alolan Rattata will not have your OT, but if that doesn’t bother you then it serves just fine for Living Dex purposes. You can repeat this trade more than once and then evolve the second Alolan Rattata into Raticate. The rest of the Pokemon from Kanto, for the most part, can be found spread across Sword and Shield, Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, Scarlet and Violet, and Pokemon Legends Arceus.
If your Living Dex goal is to catch every Pokemon with your OT and a standard Poke Ball, there are a few Kanto Pokemon that you cannot legitimately catch with those criteria. The Ash cap Pikachu (there are eight of them) are in standard Poke Balls, but can only have Ash as their OT. This makes them the first “Poke Ball/OT unobtainable” Pokemon, and there are plenty of others in this group that we’ll be discussing later on.
Johto region
The Johto region introduced substantially fewer Pokemon than Kanto did, but a few of its Pokemon are still a bit challenging to get in 2025. A good example is Unown, which has 28 total forms – one for each letter plus the ! and ? forms. The absolute easiest way to get Unown is from Pokemon Legends: Arceus. 28 of them are hidden around Hisui, and after you catch them all, you can find repeatable Unown inside the Crimson Mirelands’ ruins. That said, you’ll be catching these in ancient Poke Balls. If for some reason you’re like me and you wanted Unown in standard Poke Balls, your only option on Switch is Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl at the Solaceon Ruins. The Solaceon Ruins are split into two kinds of areas: large rooms and tiny rooms. The large rooms generally only have one form of Unown available to encounter, while the tiny rooms are home to tons of different forms. Since the room is so cramped, you have to carefully run from one tile to the next in order to create wild encounters in the cramped space. Each form of Unown has a 5 percent chance to appear in these small rooms (with the rest being exclusive to the large rooms), so it might take a while if you want to catch every Unown in this manner.
The other tough Johto Pokemon is Celebi. Celebi has been distributed via events time and time again, but if you’re looking for one in a standard Poke Ball with your OT, your only option is the 3DS Virtual Console release of Pokemon Crystal. It’s got the Celebi event natively installed, so you can go to Ilex Forest and catch it in a Poke Ball there. That said, once Pokemon Bank eventually closes down, this will no longer be an option. This is also currently the only non-time limited way to get a Celebi with your name as its original trainer, so keep that in mind in case you want to do that before Pokemon Bank shuts down. Do note that at the time of writing, Pokemon Bank has no specific closing date – it’ll remain open for the time being.
Once again, the other Legendary Pokemon from Johto are very common in older Pokemon games. They’re also all available in both Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl and Sword and Shield, so there’s no lack of options if you’re looking to catch them on a Switch title specifically. Larvitar, Pupitar, and Tyranitar are difficult to level up and evolve, especially since you need all three of them for a Living Dex. Unfortunately, we’ll need to do lots of leveling up for other Pokemon in the future; specifically, when we get to the Unova section.
Hoenn region
If you’re looking to catch every Pokemon in Hoenn legitimately, you’re in for a horrible time. I mentioned this earlier, but my Living Dex contains every gender difference and form difference. You certainly don’t have to follow the same rules for your Living Dex (in fact, it makes it much more difficult if you do), but it creates a big problem: Deoxys. All four forms of Deoxys can be deposited to Pokemon Home, which means you technically have to catch four Deoxys to complete the Hoenn section. If you happen to have four different Deoxys event distributions on you, that’s great – but if you want Deoxys with your OT, there are only two options. Playing through FireRed and LeafGreen four times and catching the event Deoxys each time is one way; the other is playing through Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire four times along with the Delta Episode and catching four Deoxys that way. That’s not a logistically possible task, considering this essentially requires you to beat all of the content in ORAS.
Jirachi, like Mew, is available in Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl as a gift Pokemon if you have save data from Sword and Shield. For the most part, the other Hoenn Pokemon aren’t too difficult to catch. Notably, the only place to find Castform on Switch is as a Trophy Garden encounter in Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl. It’s only accessible after obtaining the National Pokedex and there’s only a small chance that it’ll be the Castform you need. Milotic is another one that seems difficult, but you can actually catch it in the wild in Sword, Shield, Scarlet, and Violet. Overall, this region isn’t particularly tough – you do need to level up a lot to get Pokemon like Metagross and Salamence, though. Or you could catch those in the wild in Sword and Shield’s Crown Tundra instead.
Sinnoh region
Sinnoh is where the Living Dex project gets more difficult. This is mainly because Sinnoh added many more Mythical Pokemon than the generations that came before it. If you don’t mind what Poke Ball your Mythicals are in, you can obtain them all from Pokemon Legends: Arceus. If you do want them in standard Poke Balls, things get more difficult. You’ll need to catch Arceus in Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl; to do this, you need to obtain the National Dex in BDSP and have a Pokedex-complete Pokemon Legends: Arceus save file on the same profile. This is currently the only way to get Arceus in a regular Poke Ball. Darkrai, Shaymin, and Manaphy, meanwhile, can only be obtained via distribution carts in the original Diamond, Pearl, and Platinum games. The former two can be caught in normal Poke Balls, while the latter hatches from an Egg and is therefore only obtainable in a Poke Ball. Do note that you need two Shaymin to complete an all-forms Living Dex; it can be deposited in Sky Forme as well.
There are few other problematic Pokemon from the Sinnoh region, though none as limited and exclusive as its Mythical Pokemon. You can catch Burmy from trees in Pokemon Legends: Arceus (if you don’t mind the ancient Poke Ball) or from honey trees in Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl. In total, you’ll need seven Burmy if you’re going for an all-forms Living Dex. That entails Plant Cloak, Sandy Cloak, and Trash Cloak forms for both Burmy and Wormadam plus a Mothim. As a reminder, Burmy and Wormadam will change form according to their environment. So if you catch three Plant Cloak Burmy, you can change two of their forms by battling in a desert and inside a building. Spiritomb is another Pokemon who is normally tough to find, but can simply be caught in the wild on Glaseado Mountain in Scarlet and Violet without any special setup.
Unova region
Unova is where things get tricky, and part of what makes it so difficult is catching Victini in 2025. At the time of writing, there’s no ongoing event distribution for it, which means it is technically unobtainable through normal means. The only way to get one right now (and the only way to get one with your OT at all) is to use a Liberty Pass distribution cartridge for the original Pokemon Black and White games. This lets you access an early-game event where you can find and catch your own Level 15 Victini in any Poke Ball you want.
We’ll circle back to the rest of Unova’s Mythical Pokemon in a moment. While most of Unova’s standard Pokemon can be caught in the wild in Sword, Shield, Scarlet, or Violet, a good number of them are completely missing from every Switch game at the moment. Patrat, Watchog, Pansage, Simisage, Pansear, Simisear, Panpour, and Simipour are completely unobtainable on Switch, which means you cannot physically complete a Living Dex in 2025 unless you have a 3DS and a sixth or seventh-generation Pokemon game. The easiest way to get all of these Pokemon is in X and Y; Watchog is available in the wild, which you can then breed with a Ditto to get a Patrat. The elemental monkeys can all be found in Santalune Forest or the Friend Safari. It’s possible that the upcoming Pokemon Legends: Z-A will feature these lost Pokemon, but it’s impossible to know for sure. It might be a good idea to catch and import them before Pokemon Bank eventually closes.
Standard Darmanitan is also surprisingly difficult to catch. Galarian Darmanitan appears in Pokemon Sword and Shield and is easy enough to find, but its Unovan counterpart can only be claimed via a randomly spawning in-game trade on the Isle of Armor. In my thousands of hours on Pokemon Sword, this NPC has never offered a Unovan Darmanitan for trade – so it’s a very rare (and essentially nonexistent) option unless you get extremely lucky. Surprisingly, Darmanitan is also difficult to obtain on the 3DS games. Darumaka and Darmanitan are not natively available in X and Y, Sun and Moon, or Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon. You can catch Darmanitan from specific Mirage Islands in Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, but other than that the only way to get a Darumaka is to catch it all the way back in Black and White. Surprisingly difficult for an otherwise unassuming Pokemon. Alternatively, you can just have a friend trade you a Unovan Darmanitan and then breed it in Sword and Shield with an Everstone so you can get a Darumaka of your own.
While we’re at it, it actually is possible to obtain Hisuian Pokemon like Zorua and Zoroark in standard Poke Balls even though you can only directly catch them in ancient Poke Balls. If for some reason you are going for all Poke Balls like I did (not recommended), you can breed a Hisuian Zorua with a Ditto in Scarlet and Violet and its offspring will be in default Poke Balls. Just make sure your Hisuian form holds an Everstone or else the offspring will be the non-Hisuian forms instead. Pokemon like Rufflet will not evolve into their Hisuian forms in Scarlet and Violet under any circumstance; these must be transferred to Pokemon Legends: Arceus in order to evolve. This goes for other Pokemon whose evolutions have Hisuian forms like Stantler, Petilil, Goomy, Bergmite, Dartrix, Quilava, and Dewott. Any other Hisuian Pokemon not listed there can evolve in Scarlet and Violet, so keep that in mind.
A few final notes before we get to the Mythical Pokemon of this region: you will need four Deerling and four Sawsbuck for an all-forms Living Dex. This is easiest to accomplish in Scarlet and Violet, where Deerling will change form depending on where in Paldea you battle with it. Battling with it in North Province transforms it into winter mode, West Province into autumn form, East Province into summer form, and South Province into spring form. You will also need two of each genie (Tornadus, Thundurus, and Landorus) since their Therian forms can be deposited into Pokemon Home. Sword and Shield let you catch all three, and if you don’t mind the Poke Ball they are obtainable in Pokemon Legends: Arceus as well.
Unova’s three Mythical Pokemon are tough to catch if you don’t already have them from events. Keldeo is obtainable in Sword and Shield via Pokemon Camp after catching all three Swords of Justice, but only once. You technically need two Keldeo for the Living Dex; one in Ordinary form and one in Resolute form. Meloetta, thankfully, cannot be deposited into Pokemon Home in its Pirouette form, so you only need one. You can catch one in Scarlet and Violet’s Indigo Disk without any time limitation or need for an event item. Genesect is sadly unobtainable outside of events (not counting Pokemon Go), and is completely impossible to obtain in a Poke Ball with your OT if you’re going for that. As a heads-up, we aren’t counting Pokemon Go for Living Dex purposes – you technically can get a Genesect in that game with your OT, but it will have the Go mark when transferred to Pokemon Home.
Kalos region
The Kalos region introduced fewer Pokemon than any other region, making it one of the easier regions to cover for a Living Dex in terms of quantity. Unfortunately, Kalos is home to Vivillon, which is every collector’s worst nightmare. If you were going for every Living Dex Pokemon in a Poke Ball with your OT, this might be where you give up. To accomplish that, you’d need tons of 3DS systems with different regions, and you would need to start 20 new files on Pokemon X and Y with different regions to catch and eventually evolve 20 Scatterbug. If you’re not up to that kind of commitment, that’s totally understandable – in that case, your best bet is a mix of the Pokemon Home GTS and Pokemon Go. Pokemon Go lets you transfer postcards you receive from your friends to Scarlet and Violet, which temporarily replaces all wild Vivillon with the geological pattern your Pokemon Go friend has. The flowery section near the Team Star base at the very north end of Paldea is home to lots of Vivillon, so if you have plenty of postcards in Pokemon Go this may be a good option for you. Do keep in mind that it is impossible to get a Poke Ball Vivillon with your OT, as it was only distributed via events (ones that ended 10 years ago).
Unfortunately, Kalos is also home to Furfrou, who is also currently unobtainable on Switch – it must be imported from Pokemon X and Y. Worse yet is that all nine of Furfrou’s trims can be transferred as-is to Pokemon Home – but the trim is only retained if Furfrou is directly imported from Pokemon Go. These trims are geographically locked; for instance, the La Reine trim can only be obtained if you physically travel to France and the Pharaoh trim can only be obtained if you physically go to Egypt. Unless you’re planning to visit every major country in the world, it is impossible to get every Furfrou trim in Pokemon HOME with your OT. This is another case where you’ll have to rely on the Pokemon Home GTS instead.
Technically speaking, Zygarde is internally counted as a different Pokemon depending on whether it has Aura Break or Power Construct as its Ability. This means you would need four Zygarde; a 50% form with Aura Break, a 10% form with Aura Break, a 50% form with Power Construct, and a 10% form with Power Construct. You can obtain Zygarde from Pokemon X and Y and both Sun and Moon games, as well as Sword and Shield. You will need to play through Sword and Shield at least twice to complete your Living Dex anyway, so you may as well pick up an extra Zygarde while you’re there.
Four more Pokemon from Kalos are impossible to catch in a standard Poke Ball with your OT. Battle Bond Greninja from the Sun and Moon demo can only have Ash as its OT, and Diancie, Hoopa, Hoopa Unbound, and Volcanion cannot be caught outside of events at all unless you’re playing Pokemon Go. So even though the Kalos region is small in terms of the number of Pokemon to catch, the ones it does have (Furfrou and Vivillon) are incredibly tedious to collect. Working on a Living Dex is certainly satisfying as a long-term goal, but it’s ultimately up to you if you want to collect every individual Pokemon form and gender difference or if you just want to get one of each Pokemon and leave it at that. The latter is definitely easier!
Alola region
Even though the Alola region is much larger than the Kalos region in terms of Pokemon introduced, it’s mostly smooth sailing as long as you have every main series Pokemon game (which may or may not be a reasonable ask). You do need two Type: Null for your Living Dex; one to keep and one to evolve into Silvally. As mentioned before, you will need to play through Sword and Shield twice anyway. However, Type: Null only comes after you beat all the Gyms, and you technically don’t need to do that on your second playthrough. If you can import a second Type: Null from Sun, Moon, Ultra Sun, or Ultra Moon, that’s your best bet when it comes to saving yourself time.
Dhelmise is only available as a 1% encounter in Sun, Moon, Ultra Sun, Ultra Moon, Sword, and Shield. Unless you have a friend who already has Dhelmise, this one might take you a little while to find. Similarly, Turtonator and Drampa are also 1% encounter rates in Pokemon Sword and Shield (they’re version exclusives as well), so if you can import these from Sun and Moon you’ll save yourself some time. This time around, there are only a few Pokemon you cannot get in standard Poke Balls with your OT: Magearna, Magearna in its original colors, Marshadow, and Zeraora.
Meltan and Melmetal also require you to play Pokemon Go; they are not obtainable in any other way. Connecting your Pokemon Go account to Pokemon Home and then transferring some Pokemon over unlocks the Mystery Box, which lets Meltan spawn once every minute or so for one hour every three days. By catching these Meltan over and over and using Pinap Berries to increase the candies they give you, you can work towards the 400 Meltan Candy you need to evolve it into Melmetal. Do note that Meltan cannot evolve once transferred to the Switch, they are stuck that way permanently as Pokemon Go candies are the only way they can evolve.
There are a few oddities with transferring Meltan. You can transfer it directly to Pokemon Home, but it will have the big Go symbol on it at all times. If you want to get Meltan in Pokemon Home without the Go symbol, you can transfer it to Pokemon Let’s Go Pikachu or Let’s Go Eevee. From there, you can visit the Go Park and then catch it in a Poke Ball, Great Ball, or Ultra Ball. This will override the Poke Ball that Meltan was caught in in Pokemon Go. For some reason, Pokemon you transfer to Go Park can flee, forcing you to restart the encounter. Meltan and Melmetal also have really low catch rates, especially if you’re going for a Poke Ball, so we’d recommend playing in multiplayer to perform a double Poke Ball capture (which has a higher catch rate). Overall, Meltan and Melmetal are a lot of work and one of the most annoying and time-consuming Pokemon to catch for a Living Dex.
Galar region
Thank goodness, when it comes to the Galar region, every Pokemon you need is available solely on Switch. You don’t need a 3DS, you don’t need Pokemon Go, you can get everything right on your console. A ton of Galar Pokemon are exclusive to Pokemon Sword and Shield (as in, they weren’t brought back for Scarlet and Violet) so you will definitely need at least one version or the other to complete your Living Dex. Most of the standard Pokemon in the Galar region are simple enough to catch – except for one. It’s another Pokemon who is in the same category as Furfrou and Vivillon with tons of different forms.
Alcremie has over 60 different forms, in fact. It has nine different cream colors and many different toppings that mix and match for a grand total of 63 combinations of cream flavors and toppings. If you’re going for an all-forms Living Dex, you will need a ton of Alcremie Sweets and plenty of time on your hands.
Galar’s Legendary Pokemon, however, are quite a pain to get. If you fully complete a playthrough of Sword and Shield, you will still be missing Zacian or Zamazenta, Regidrago or Regieleki, Single Strike or Rapid Strike Urshifu, and Glastrier or Spectrier. Fortunately, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet let you catch Glastrier, Spectrier, and Kubfu on their own, so you don’t necessarily need a second playthrough of Sword and Shield to catch these. You do need to do a second run, however, to catch either Regieleki or Regidrago. You can only choose one or the other in an individual save file, and will need to restart and make your way back to the Crown Tundra to catch the other. Zacian and Zamazenta are also version-exclusive, meaning you will need both games to catch them. Do note that the Eternatus in Sword and Shield is a guaranteed capture, so you can use any Poke Ball you want for it and it will be guaranteed to work.
The final hurdle for the Galar region is Enamorus, who is only present in Pokemon Legends: Arceus. This also means it cannot be caught in a standard Poke Ball. You also need two Enamorus since it has a Therian form, which unfortunately requires either trading or a second run of the game. Both Zarude and its Dada form cannot be caught in standard Poke Balls unless you’re playing Pokemon Go.
Paldea region
Even though the Paldea region is completely self-contained on Switch, it is one of the more difficult regions to complete in terms of catching Pokemon. Pawmo, Bramblin, and Rellor all only evolve after they take a certain number of steps following you in the overworld, which takes a while and really brings the Living Dex capture grind to a crawl. Then you have Tandemaus and Dunsparce, who each have a 1 in 100 chance to evolve into a special form (Family of Three Maushold and Three-Segment Dudunsparce). You can rarely find Family of Three Maushold in Tera Raid Battles in Paldea, but Three Segment Dudunsparce never appears in Tera Raid Battles or in the wild in any capacity. You can catch a bunch of Dunsparce in Area Zero, teach them Hyper Drill, and then level them up with a Rare Candy to see if it evolves into a Three Segment form. It’s unfortunately quite time-consuming, and we would definitely recommend saving them for the end of your Living Dex project given their rarity.
There are also tons of exclusive Paradox Pokemon in Scarlet and Violet, and this is where things get complicated. If you have Scarlet and a friend has Violet, you can technically use the Union Circle and then go to Area Zero for a chance to find the Paradox Pokemon that are not native to your game. However, for some reason, you cannot see other players in Area Zero – they are invisible. You have to coordinate with your friend in such a way that you are standing in the same place so that you can see the Pokemon that spawn near them. It’s kind of messy and ultimately it’s just easier to play the other game yourself if that’s an option for you.
Gimmighoul and Gholdengo are another obstacle. Gimmighoul requires 999 Gimmighoul Coins to evolve, and while they are common around Paldea, it will take a while to get that many if you’re starting from 0. Also do keep in mind that Gimmighoul has a Roaming form that can only be caught in Pokemon Go.
Where things get really egregious, however, is when you need to catch Walking Wake and Iron Leaves, the past version of Suicune and the future version of Virizion, respectively. They are exclusive to Tera Raid Battle events, which are time-limited. At the time of writing, there is no ongoing event for these Pokemon, making them completely unobtainable outside of trading or hacking. Walking Wake and Iron Leaves are required for Pokemon Home Dex completion, whereas other time-limited Mythical Pokemon are not. Given that Walking Wake and Iron Leaves are currently unobtainable, we think this is an exceptionally poor practice that adds a needless barrier to Pokedex completion. But if you already participated in the raid events and have caught them, you’ll be saving yourself a potential headache.
With that, we’ve gone over every single Pokemon region and all of the most difficult Pokemon to capture from each one! Do you have a Living Pokedex, or are you still working towards one? Or perhaps more reasonably, you just go for Pokedex completion in-game and don’t bother spending hundreds of hours to individually capture each Pokemon. That’s understandable too. Whichever the case, let us know your thoughts in the comments down below. If you would like to see some guides on how to more efficiently capture Pokemon who are otherwise difficult to find for a Living Dex, let us know as well.
If you want to start progress on a Living Dex, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet are as good a place as any to begin. You can check out the official website for the games here.
