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Battle Arcade

The Battle Arcade is one of five facilities located in the Battle Frontier, accessible in Platinum, HeartGold, and SoulSilver. The Frontier Brain here is Dahlia.

Modes

As with all Facilities, the Battle Tower has options for Single Battles, Double Battles, and Multi Battles. Multi Battles are conducted with a second player with their own copy of Platinum, HeartGold, or SoulSilver.

The player can enter three Pokémon in Singles, three in Doubles, and two in Multi (with the other player providing another two).

Mechanics

Gimmick

Before every battle conducted in the Battle Arcade, the player will first spin a roulette to determine what effect will apply to the following battle or the roulette itself. Effects can either help or hurt the player. A list of effects and the icons associated with them can be found in the Advanced Mechanics section below.

Items that are obtained via the roulette will be kept until either a) the player completes the current round of seven battles; b) the item is used, stolen by the opponent, or swapped with the opponent; or c) the player lands on the roulette option to give their Pokémon items, at which point the old item is replaced with the new one. For information about the possible items, and for further documentation about the mechanics governing the Arcade's roulette, please check out the Advanced Mechanics section.

General

Mechanics that apply to every Facility are on the Battle Frontier page. Here are mechanics specific to the Battle Arcade:

• Two Pokémon of the same species cannot be entered.
• Held items held by Pokémon in the party will be removed before the beginning of a round.
• The player's Pokémon will be set to level 50 if they are higher than 50. Pokémon lower than level 50 will not be leveled up to 50. The opponent's Pokémon will always be level 50.
• The opponent's team will never have two of the same Pokémon.
• Opponents' Pokémon do not have held items, unless the player lands on the roulette option that gives them items.
• The player's Pokémon will be automatically healed after every battle.
• Battles are conducted in rounds of 7. The player can save between battles in a round, but will not be able to do anything except complete the rest of the round when they load the game. The player can do anything between rounds without it affecting their streak.

Resources

• Speed stats for opposing Pokémon

Frontier Brain

The Frontier Brain, Dahlia, will always use the same three Pokémon in each of her battles, but they can be in any order. Her Pokémon have 31 IVs in both battles. The gender and Ability of her Pokémon are random. Her teams are as follows:

Silver Print

Dahlia Battle (1st)

Pokémon		Nature	Moves								HP	Atk	Def	SpA	SpD	Spe
	Dusknoir	Brave	Shadow Punch		Fling		Will-O-Wisp		Trick Room		120	167	187	85	155	58
	Medicham	Jolly	Zen Headbutt		Reversal		Endure		Fake Out		135	112	95	72	95	145
	Ludicolo	Adamant	Waterfall		Razor Leaf		Drain Punch		Swords Dance		155	134	90	99	152	90

Gold Print

Dahlia Battle (2nd)

Pokémon		Nature	Moves								HP	Atk	Def	SpA	SpD	Spe
	Zapdos	Modest	Thunderbolt		Air Cutter		Heat Wave		Signal Beam		165	99	105	194	110	152
	Blaziken	Adamant	Flare Blitz		Superpower		Thunderpunch		Night Slash		155	189	90	117	90	132
	Togekiss	Modest	Hyper Beam		Air Slash		Aura Sphere		Psychic		160	63	115	189	135	132

Trainers and Pokémon

The list of Trainers that can be encountered is located here. The list of Pokémon that can be encountered is located here.

Battle Points

The following table contains the amount of Battle Points the player will receive for finishing each round of seven battles. Defeating the Frontier Brain will always give the player 20 Points for that round.

Advanced Mechanics

The method by which the game chooses the panels to display on the Roulette, as it turns out, depends on a few factors, including the current round (set of seven battles), the current battle, and the player's performance in the previous battle. This information comes from documentation here, completed by Kurausukun and Magpie. This section is an attempt to condense some of this information.

Events and Impacts

Each panel that can be seen on the roulette has two properties: an event and an impact. An event is what will happen as a result of selecting that panel, and the impact is who it will affect. There are four different impacts:

• Player: The event will impact the player's Pokémon. Panels that affect the player are colored black / dark blue.
• Opponent: The event will impact the opponent's Pokémon. Panels that affect the opponent are colored red.
• Both: The event will impact both parties. Panels that affect both are colored gray.
• Special: The event does not impact the battle, or perhaps has an impact that can't really be said to apply to a participant. Panels with a special impact are colored gray, like those affecting both.

The list of potential events is as follows:

Icon(s)	Name	Impact	Effect
	Lower HP	Player or Opponent	Lowers the HP of the target's Pokémon by 20%
	Poison	Player or Opponent	Poisons all of the target's Pokémon, except for Poison types, Steel types, or Pokémon with Immunity
	Paralyze	Player or Opponent	Paralyzes all of the target's Pokémon, except for Ground types or Pokémon with Limber
	Burn	Player or Opponent	Burns all of the target's Pokémon, except for Fire types or Pokémon with Water Veil
	Sleep	Player or Opponent	Puts one of the target's Pokémon to sleep, except for Pokémon with Insomnia or Vital Spirit
	Freeze	Player or Opponent	Freezes one of the target's Pokémon, except for Ice types or Pokémon with Magma Armor
	Berries	Player or Opponent	Gives all of the target's Pokémon a held Berry
	Items	Player or Opponent	Gives all of the target's Pokémon a held item
	Level up	Player or Opponent	Boosts the level of all of the target's Pokémon by 3
	Sun	Both	Sets the Sun weather, which will last until the battle ends or it is overwritten
	Rain	Both	Sets the Rain weather, which will last until the battle ends or it is overwritten
	Sandstorm	Both	Sets the Sandstorm weather, which will last until the battle ends or it is overwritten
	Hail	Both	Sets the Hail weather, which will last until the battle ends or it is overwritten
	Fog	Both	Sets the Fog weather, which will last until the battle ends or it is overwritten
	Trick Room	Both	Sets the Trick Room condition, which will last five turns
	Swap	Special	Swaps the player's party with the opponent's
	Speed Up	Special	Speeds up the roulette by one level until the end of the round
	Speed Down	Special	Slows down the roulette by one level until the end of the round
	Random	Special	Causes the roulette to move between panels randomly when the roulette is next used
	BP	Special	The player gains 1BP
	BP+	Special	The player gains 3BP
	Skip	Special	The following battle will be skipped
	No Effect	Special	No effect occurs for this battle

Roulette Speed and Auto-Stop

Information for this section comes from a write-up by Magpie located here.

Platinum, HeartGold, and SoulSilver run at 30 FPS. The number of frames for which the cursor will remain on a roulette tile is dependent on two factors: what round the player is in, and whether or not they have clicked any speed up or slow down tiles, as shown in the below table.

The roulette is set to automatically stop itself after 30 seconds (900 frames) have passed without any input from the player. Using this number and the number of frames per tile shown in the above table, it is possible to predict where the automatic stop will occur relative to the starting tile. An example is given below. Note that this of course is not relevant if the player has selected the Random tile.

The below list only applies to battles 43+ and only contains information about one slowdown level. Information from Magpie's post.

• At the default speed (2 frames per tile), the board of 16 tiles will cycle 28 times (448) in the 450 tiles that it goes through in 900 frames. That means the default stop is 2 tiles after the starting tile (450 - 448 = 2).
• At "speed up" (1 frame per tile), we can repeat the numbers above, but it's 56 cycles in the 900 tiles, giving 900 - (56 x 16) => (900 - 896) = 4 frames after the starting tile, or exactly 1 row below as the default stop.
• At "speed down" (3 frames per tile), 18 cycles for 288. (300 - 288) = 12. That's 12 frames after the starting tile or exactly 1 row above.

The starting tile is always random.

Berries and Items

When the player selects a roulette option that gives the player or opponent held Berries or held items, the selected item will come from one of three groups. Which group is used depends on which battle the player is on, as shown below.

The items in each group are shown below.

Performance Points

The panels that can appear on the roulette are partially determined by the player's performance on previous battles. At the beginning of each round of seven battles, the player's performance points are set to 0. At the end of each battle in the round, points will be added depending on the number of turns the player takes, the number of fainted Pokémon, and the number of Pokémon with a status condition in the player's party.

The first criterion is the number of turns that the previous battle took to finish.

The second criterion is the number of Pokémon in the player's, or their Multi Battle partner's, party that have fainted.

The third criterion is the number of Pokémon in the player's, or their Multi Battle partner's, party that are suffering a status condition. Status conditions that matter here are Sleep, Paralysis, Burn, Freeze, and Poison.

When the battle ends, the player's performance points are used to determine the chances that each type of impact (player, opponent, both, or special) will be generated for the next roulette.

Generating Panels

When panels are generated, the impact is first chosen according to the player's performance points, and the event is chosen afterward once an impact is selected. The number of performance points needed for each chance distribution is shown below.

Once the impact is determined, an event is chosen for the panel. The round of seven battles the player is on determines what events the game can select from.

From battle 43 onward, all panels can be chosen.

The battle number within the round that the player is on also determines whether some of the Special panels can show up. Naturally, a panel can only be selected if the panel is included within the set corresponding to the player's current round of seven battles. In the tables below, 1 represents the first battle in the round, and 7 the last battle.

In Battle 7, the only Special event that can be used is No Event.