Contest

Just like the secret base, contest is another unique feature of Ruby and Sapphire. You can
enter the contest in any building that hold them (the red building). First of all, to be
able to participate in the contest, you will need to get a Contest Pass which could be found
in Shidake Town (town between Kanazumi and Kinsetsu).

When you talk at the lady in the counter, you will be able to participate in the Pokemon
contest. If this your first time, she will explain the rule.

There are five kind of contest you could choose:
Coolness
Inteligence
Cuteness
Beauty
Strength

Round 1

In this round, your Pokemon will be judged by it's appearance. This round is important, as it could give you a head start over other competitor. In other words, don't bring cool Pokemon such as Bashamo or Rekkuza in a beauty contest. (Even though in the end my Bashamo managed to win the contest)

Round 2

In this round, you'll be showcasing the Pokemon move to the audience. Each move will resulted in the different number of hearts. Move like Overheat could get you 6-7 hearts, where as move like Blaze kick could only get you 4 hearts. the competition will continue until a Pokemon managed to reach the target set by the judges.

Thanks to Azura Stardust of Pokemasters.net for allowing me to post this info on the site.

Contests!

1. BASICS of CONTESTS

1.1 How do I enter a contest for the first time?
You have to go to SHIDAKE TOWN (which is the town west of the Electric Gym city, Kinsetsu City) and talk to the woman behind the counter. Just say yes to whatever she says and she'll explain the rules, which are as follows: (with a bit of adding in by me)
1.2 How do I play?
Go to a CONTEST HOUSE and talk to the woman behind the counter. Choose your type of contest and then start contesting! Contest houses are distinctive red houses with flat grey roofs with little indentations in them. The door is blue and has a white pokeball with a red ribbon printed on the door. If you still can't identify it.. geez.
There are only 4 Contest houses in the entire Houen, namely at SHIDAKE TOWN [ƒVƒ_ƒPƒ^ƒEƒ“], KAINA CITY [?????] (city with a big beach just south of it and a market in it as well), HAJITSUGE TOWN [ƒnƒWƒcƒQƒ^ƒEƒ“](the northernmost little blue dot if you see your map in your PokeNavi - this town is near the north end of the Sandy Cave Where You Save A Scientist From Team Rocket and west to the patches of grass with ash on them where you can find Sandshrew) and MINAMO CITY[ƒ~ƒiƒ‚ƒVƒeƒB] (accessible somewhere late-ish in the game, has a big pokemart and the biggest Contest House)
1.2.1 Types of Contest
There are 5 kinds of contest:
Coolness (‚©‚Á‚±‚悳j which is associated with the colour Red (note on these colours: they help you throughout the process of preparing your pokemon for a contest, because you can identify moves and poroks associated with a certain 'stat' - i.e. coolness, beauty, strength, etc. - and it makes things a lot easier.)
Intelligence (‚¤‚E‚µ‚³) which is associated with Blue
Cuteness (‚©‚í‚¢‚³) which is associated with Pink
Beauty (‚©‚µ‚±‚³) which is associated with Green
Strength (‚½E‚Ü‚µ‚³) which is associated with Yellow

1.2.2 Stages of the Contest
There are 2 stages to the contest, in which you compete with 3 other people to win.

The first part, you show your pokemon to the audience and based on the number of hearts you see popping up from the audience, your pokemon gets a better rating in the end. Feeding your pokemon certain poroks according to the contest will help. This is explained later in the FAQ.

The second part, you show off your pokemon's moves. Going by how many hearts appear after you show off your move, the scale underneath goes up. The blue-highlighted little panel displays your pokemon's information and status in the competition, etc.

You can show your pokemon's moves off 5 times, and after that, they will tally the results and you will come to a screen where they will list each pokemon. First, they will show the results of the 1st stage on a bar. Then, they will add on the results of the 2nd stage and the pokemon who has shown off the best wins the contest. If you win, your pokemon will be shown and confetti will fall. You will then go up to one of the judges and receive a ribbon for your pokemon. I'm not entirely sure what this does, but there's a section of the FAQ for ribbons...

1.3 I can't enter my pokemon into any contest! Why?
See if you didn't do as what 1.1 up there says. If you already have, you should be able to enter any of your pokemon into the contest at SHIDAKE TOWN. When you talk to the woman behind the counter and she talks a bit and then the pokemon you are carrying are brought up on a new screen with words next to them, you can instantly know which ones can be entered and which ones can't - Can be entered is ‚Å‚ç‚í‚Ü‚·.@Cannot be entered is ‚Å‚ç‚í‚Ü‚¹‚ñ. SHIDAKE TOWN is a type of beginner's contest house, where any pokemon can go in. HOWEVER, for later contest houses, If You Want To Enter A Pokemon Into The Contest There, That Pokemon Needs To Have Won A Contest At The SHIDAKE TOWN Contest House And Preceding Contest Houses. What do I mean by preceding contest houses? Take a look at the "contest house" section of the FAQ.

2. CONTEST HOUSES
2.1 Where are they?
Contest houses are distinctive red houses with flat grey roofs with little indentations in them. The door is blue and has a white pokeball with a red ribbon printed on the door. If you still can't identify it.. geez.
There are only 4 Contest houses in the entire Houen, namely at SHIDAKE TOWN [ƒVƒ_ƒPƒ^ƒEƒ“], KAINA CITY [?????] (city with a big beach just south of it and a market in it as well), HAJITSUGE TOWN [ƒnƒWƒcƒQƒ^ƒEƒ“](the northernmost little blue dot if you see your map in your PokeNavi - this town is near the north end of the Sandy Cave Where You Save A Scientist From Team Rocket and west to the patches of grass with ash on them where you can find Sandshrew) and MINAMO CITY[ƒ~ƒiƒ‚ƒVƒeƒB] (accessible somewhere late-ish in the game, has a big pokemart and the biggest Contest House)

2.2 What's in them?
2.2.1 Porok Making Machines
Porok making machines are the little grey square table-ish looking things with red dots on them. There are two in each Contest House. The blank one is for playing/mixing with a friend (needs link cable) and the other one is for playing/mixing with the person(s) at the table. You can only play if you have talked to a little girl in the KAINA CITY contest house and received a Porok Dispenser from her.

When you go to the machine and say Yes to all the things, the screen will change to the list of Berries you have. Choose a berry and put it in. The other person(s) will then put in their berries, and then you will see 3 2 1 Start. The dial in the middle will start spinning, and every time it goes near the dial where your name (in red) is, press A. If a red circle pops up, that means you have hit near your name. If a blue X pops up, you've hit too far from your name. If you see a red and yellow bullseye popup, you hit right on target. When you get red circles the machine goes faster and your porok is mixed faster. (The numbers at the bottom is the r.p.m. of the machine.) Bullseyes means it goes EVEN faster! However when you get X'es, the machine slows down. When the machine has finished (there is a red bar on top that will tell you how much the machine has finished mixing berries) they will show statistics of how many circles, bullseyes and X'es each person got. After that they will show each person's name and what berry they put in, and then you will receive your porok! There is a little yellow plaque on the wall of every contest house which shows the fastest speed ever in each contest house.

2.2.2 Picture
On the walls of the contest houses, they will show the latest winners of contests. Your pokemon's picture will be displayed if it's the latest one who won. THIS IS NOT THE SAME AS THE PICTURE IN THE MUSEUM WHICH IS EXPLAINED LATER.

2.3 So what's those Preceding Contest Houses you were talking about?
Think of it like this, each contest house is a level of difficulty. SHIDAKE TOWN is "beginner", HAJITSUGE TOWN is "intermediate", KAINA CITY is "hard" and MINAMO CITY is "expert".

To get into each level you need to have completed the previous ones. What I mean is that (eg) if you want your Mewtwo to enter a Cuteness (ha ha.) contest in Kaina City, that Mewtwo must have won Cuteness contests in Shidake town AND Hajitsuge town. Otherwise they won't let you in! And seriously, Minamo City is the hardest to win at because there are so many more members of the audience than before and your rivals have all fed *their* pokemon quite a good number of Poroks... so watch out!

3. POROKS
3.1 What are poroks?
Poroks are made from refining a berry. You can pick berries from all sorts of trees throughout the game. Like in GSC, you can only pick a tree once a day and then it disappears until the next day. Refining different berries give different poroks. You can see your poroks by selecting your Porok Dispenser (in the Important Items folder where things like your Bicycle go)
3.1.1 What kind of poroks are there?
There are all kinds of poroks, this has not been really studied into (not that I know of). Different ones can give different effects.
3.1.1.2 Levels
There are levels of poroks which show how much they will increase your pokemon's "stat" by. There is also another number which is shown along with the little colour cubes on the bottom left corner when you select a porok. I'm not sure what this does, I think it shows how much it fills your pokemon up. Levels can go from level 11 to level 64!! (I got one once. )
3.1.2 How do I know what it will increase?
When you select the Porok it will show on the bottom left corner what it will increase. Whatever colour is shown, it will increase. Check what colour each stat is up there. Top of the FAQ. Also, when you feed the pokemon the porok, it shows the contest stats of that pokemon and then an "UP" at teh respective contest stat it raised.

3.2 How do I get Poroks?
You need to go to the Porok Making Machines (see 2.2.1) and choose a berry and put it in. Play the mini-game and when it's done you have your porok. It is in your Porok Dispenser in your Important Items Folder.

3.3 I can't feed my Pokemon any more poroks... why?
See your pokemon's Contest Stats by going to your PokeNavi, then the Second Option, then the First option. If you have fed it no poroks at all, ( or only like one or two) there is only one little twinkling star above it's head. As the number of poroks you feed it increases, the number of stars increases and it grows closer to it's Porok Saturation Limit. This means that you cannot feed it any more poroks. You know when you can't feed it anymore when it is surrounded by twinkling stars when you see your pokemon's Contest Stats.

3.4 Pokemon likes poroks?
This I am not entirely sure of. I know somewhere in the game there is a person who will say whether your pokemon liked the last porok you gave it. I don't know if this has any effect to your pokemon's performance.

4. DETAILS ON MOVES and POKEMON FOR CONTESTS
4.1 What are some good moves to teach my pokemon?
To answer this, you need to look at the effect of a move (contestwise) which you can do by going to the 4th page of your pokemon's status screen and pressing A on an attack. I'll explain more about what you see on that screen now.
4.1.1 Red or, as sometimes seen, White Hearts
This is the base number of hearts you will get for performing that attack. Others may be added or minused due to different circumstances. In Japanese it is ???? which, in romaji, is Apiiru or in other words Appear(ance). You can't tell from the name which attack will be good! Selfdestruct gives you the maximum of EIGHT HEARTS while something like Rain Dance will give you only two (can't remember exactly). However Explosion makes you miss the rest of your turns... so it's quite logical to use it last! I have heard though, if you always use moves that give lots of hearts, you're considered showing off too much and you lose hearts for that. Not sure about this, any clarification would be appreciated.
4.1.2 Black Hearts
This is actually, when I translated the Japa word (which is ???? online, a "filibuster" or an "OBSTRUCTION". What it means is that it kinda makes the other people lose hearts or points, or gives them something BAD. A lot of the time, they can reduce the number of hearts of the other pokemon, or they could make another pokemon miss a turn, or something like that. The more black hearts, the more evil it can do to the others! But it also means that any side effect it has will be worse... for example, the crowd may not like it much, or it dosen't give many red hearts, or it could make you miss a turn or two!
4.1.3 Move "types"
If you look at each move, it has a contest "type", i.e. Beauty, Strength, Coolness, etc... If you want to see it at a go, see what the colour of the move is (like Beauty is green) and you will know what type of move it is. Now the importance of this is that you need to know which move is what stat because it is vital in entering a certain contest. For example, my Nendooru has 3 Intelligence attacks but one Beauty attack! Whenever I enter it into a Intelligence contest and use the Beauty attack, the crowd's Excitement (see later) drops by quite a bit and sometimes the number of hearts I earn drops too! This, however, can be part of a strategy in controlling the audience...
4.1.4 When I'm choosing the moves to use for my pokemon next I almost always see a greyed-out one and sometimes a bright red one! What are these?
The greyed out one is the move you used last. Don't use the same move consecutively because you get hearts minused off for that! A red-highlighted move means that you get twice as many hearts as you usually would for that move. Thanks to GrnMarvel13 for this info. I don't know how to get a move to be like that yet... maybe it's a random thing.
4.1.5 What do you reccommend?
I say you raise special pokemon for contests (not your normal battling pokemon), eg one pokemon for Strength contests, etc etc. Hunt through all the TMs it has and all the moves it can learn (don't worry, someday soon somebody smart will suddenly start a super list on the contest effects of moves! I hear Dont' Run With Scizors is compiling one!) or has LEARNT (the move maniac in Hajitsuge town will help you do this - he in the house left of the contest house. However you need an item that is found on the shores of Minamo City to do this.) and see which attacks do what.
My Coolness Nendooru, which won at all the contest houses and quite well, had a basic starter move that did 3 hearts, and a move with 2 red hearts and 2 black hearts, Selfdestruct (always pulls me through in the last part of the 2nd stage ) - and a Beauty move! This helped in my testing out the reactions of the crowd... so I say, you should get some good strong moves and at least one obstruction move.... but don't listen to me ^_^;;
4.2 So what's Crowd Excitement? How does the audience react?
Well, I'm not entirely sure on this. I have yet to find out more! However what I'm certain about is that if you use a move that is not the same as the contest type (like a strength move in a cuteness contest) the background goes black, funny "oops" music plays and the crowd excietment drops.
I believe that Crowd Excitement adds on to the number of hearts you have. The higher the better - and if you succesfully bring the Crowd Excitement to a maximum of five blips, you get a LOT more hearts! It helps very very much. So if when it comes to your turn, and the crowd's excitement is going to burst when it comes to then next pokemon, (i.e. at your turn it's at 3 blips) therefore giving the other guy more hearts, you can sabotage your opponent by doing a "bad" or rather, inappropriate move! Less hearts for you, but also less hearts for the other guy...!
But as I said I'm not entirely clear on this Crowd Excitement thing. Sometimes it seems to reset out of the blue! Always when a crowd reaches its maximum excitement it resets the next round.
4.3 So I want this variety of moves. But all my pokemon can learn are these attacks that do crap in contests! Help!
Well, it depends on the pokemon. Why not take a look at what it learns? Hopefully someday soon someone will come up with a list of what attack does how many number of hearts, etc, so you could refer to that... but for now, I can't help yet You can look through moves the pokemon has learnt before by going to the Move Relearner in HAJITSUGE TOWN after you give him "????????" which is "haato no uroko wo" which means Uruko of the heart. Don't ask me what that is exactly, but it's found on the beaches of Minamo quite often, I heard. Oh wait. Just checked. Uroko in hiragana means "scales". You can see what each of the previous moves' contest effectiveness is by pressing right when it comes to the move.

And if you look at 4.5.3, you can see that some moves have more potential than you think!
4.4 How do I know how my pokemon fares in the First Stage of the contest where I show off my pokemon?
You can usually gauge from the number of hearts that pops up from the crowd. You can know accurately when the results come out at the end of the contest.
4.5 In the second stage of the contest what are those little status things I get like stars and circles and X'es?
Depends on what it is...
4.5.1 Stars
I believe this adds to the number of yellow stars you get when you see the results at the end of the contests. You normally get Yellow Stars by showing your Pokemon, if I'm not wrong.
4.5.2 Numbers
This I REALLY Don't know... I'm terribly sorry... I haven't been able to decipher anything so far.
4.5.3 Exclamation marks
One Exclamation mark means that this move can make another move (which you may or may not have) do twice as many hearts. The move that can do twice as many hearts is highlighted in red (if you have it on that pokemon.) According to Dave, it lowers the amount of hearts an opponent can remove from you.

Two exclamation marks means you receive twice as many hearts as you normally would. You need to have selected a red-highlighted move to get this.

What do I mean when certain moves can make others stronger? Let me give you an example of NamaSyoMi my Namazun. It has Water Gun (4 hearts), Mud Play (4 hearts) , Mud Slap (2 hearts, 1 obstruction) and Snore (4 hearts). Doesn't look like a lot? Think again.
Now when it uses Mud Slap, the Judge says "!" and an icon flashes. The next time it comes to my round, I see that Mud Play is highlighted red. I use Mud Play, and the Judge says "!!". I get 8 hearts instead of the normal 4! And another example is in this set as well - I use Mud Play, and Water Gun AND Mud Slap are highlighted. So I can choose - and since there's a pokemon in front of me with a lot of hearts and I want to sabotage it, I decide to use mud slap. It makes the previous guys lose hearts (sometimes they lose a lot. DUnno why) and at the same time, I get 4 hearts instead of the normal 2. And believe me, it all adds up - especially if you're lucky enough to hit the crowd at Maximum Excitement when using a MudPlay-WaterGun combination! I did this once and got fourteen hearts! (In the end Namazun won all the contests like they were pushovers.)
4.5.4.1 So what moves are like this!!!
This section is hopefully going to be filled up You can try those I listed, as well as Rest/Snore, or Water Play/something, or Rain Dance/Water attack, or Electrification/electric attack... or Mind Reader/High Jump Kick (my Chaaremu won very easily with that set) Help is greatly appreciated, PM me or email me if you have help.
4.5.4 Circles
IThis makes prevents you from losing any hearts until someone uses a move to make you lose hearts. So you get a Circle, and for 3 turns nobody uses a move that makes you lose hearts... then someobdy does a move that does, and it doesn't remove any hearts, but removes the circle. After that you are susceptible to losing hearts.
4.5.5 The judge said this whirly greyish thingie...
If you see that, that means you repeated a move... and he takes hearts away for that! Too bad for you! The crowd also doesn't get excited over this, mind you.
4.5.6 X doesn't mark the spot... X does...
X means you lose a turn! If you get it, it means its because of a sideffect of a move YOU did.. Like for Explosion/Destiny Bond/Self Destruct, for all the turns after that you receive an X.
4.5.7 Wavy lines
Means that you ALSO lose a turn. This time it's because of a sideffect that someone else did!
4.5.8 An ear?!
Yep, an ear.. this means you've been affected by the Obstruction (black hearts, see 4.1.2) part of some other pokemon's attack. And this means you lose hearts!

5. ATTACHMENTS AND RIBBONS
5.1 What are ribbons?
Ribbons... are ribbons! They are attached to the pokemon that wins a certain contest for the first time or a pokemon that is in the team that beat the Elite Four, but not in the normal way - you can't take it off! It isn't attached in the way Berries etc are, it's got a special slot on the pokemon... See the 2nd page of your pokemon's status page, and the topmost, right most little thing under a yellow thing that says ??? ?ribbon) - it will say how many ribbons your pokemon has. You can also see which pokemon in your box or with you has how many ribbons from what contest by going to your PokeNavi, then the option that says ?????? (if I'm not wrong its the fourth option, or the second one which has a red square).
5.1.2 What do they do?
As far as I know, all they do is let you compete in certain contest houses. It shows that you have won a contest at a certain house.See 2.3 for details. They might have another effect, though... why would they just make Ribbons for that purpose only?
5.1.3 How do I get them?
Win at a contest the first time and your pokemon will have them! Check your pokemon's status page (2nd page). You only get one per contest house and a 5th one from the painter (see later where I mention how to get the trainer star)
5.2 Can I help my pokemon do better with attachments?
Now this is an issue nobody has really studied on so far, but I'll give my small findings...
So far, nothing helps. Except... BANDANNAS.
5.2.1 OMFGZ! Where do you get this leet thing!
We-ell... I can tell you for sure that you get them at this brown house that's on the left of the PokeMart. You have to talk to the gentleman on the sofa in the house.
5.2.2 That bad man won't give me anything! ;.;
I really don't know what you need so that you can get bandannas from him, but I've got the feeling that you need to have won at least one contest of a certain type to get a corresponding bandanna... I'm not entirely sure, I'm so sorry, but it might have something to do with poroks, then again, it might not. I think you must have won at least one or two contests of a certain type to get the respective bandana...
5.2.3 Huh? Corresponding Bandanna? Hey, you didn't even say what these things do!
Well, there are 5 kinds of bandannas if I'm not wrong - Pink, blue, green, yellow and red. Do these colours sound familiar? Of course they do! See 1.2.1! So from what I translated (I tried many translators and babelfish did the job for once) where it says what a bandanna does, it is...
"Being able to give, when it does in the contest, than the usual it is more seen"
in other words,
"Attaching this makes the pokemon do better in the contest".
So a bandanna makes your pokemon perform better! Cool huh?
5.2.4 How do I know if I have a bandanna with me...
Here's the Japanese for the respective bandannas.
Red Bandanna - ???????- A-ka-i Ba-n-da-na
green bandanna - ???????- Mi-do-ri ""
yellow bandanna - ??????? - Ki-i-ro ""
Pink bandanna - ??????? - Pi-n-ku """
blue bandanna - ???????- A-o-i """"

6. TRAINER STAR
6.1. I heard something about the Trainer Star and the contest - what the hell is all of this?
Firstly, you might want to know what is the Trainer Star. In your trainer profile (where you see the badges and whatnot), just above the money, when you do certain things you get a star.
6.1.2 What certain things?
Well, this is a bit offtopic, but you need to
1. Defeat the elite four
2. Defeat 70 trainers (nobody, I mean NOBODY has found the elusive 70th trainer)
3. Defeat 50 consecutive battles at the battle tower
4. Catch more than 150 pokemon (200?)
5. Win all 5 kinds of contest at all contest houses and get your pokemon's picture painted in the Minamo City Museum
6.1.3 So how do I get their picture painted?
You need to get the pokemon to win at the Minamo City contest house - and win well! If you look closely when the results of the contest are released, you can see that there is a line of hearts and stars. If you get 5-6 or more hearts and a good number of stars as well (not sure about the exact amount), and you win, then, when you are going to walk out of the contest house, there is an artist who can paint the picture of your pokemon for you. He also gives you a ribbon. The picture of your pokemon is on the 2nd floor of the Museum which is next to the big pokemart.
6.1.4 Whats the point in this?
Well nobody knows yet but some say if you get 5 stars then you can get something special. Everyone is trying to look for the 70th trainer so that they can get 5 stars and see what this is. (c'mon, think of the possibilities!)