As is the case with a lot of RPGs, shopping is super important in the Pokémon universe. Maybe you can’t pop into an armorer to buy yourself a nifty new sword or mace to crush unsuspecting Weedles with, but supplies are crucial nonetheless. Without a solid supply of Poké Balls, you’re certainly not catching ‘em all, friend, or even healing the ones you do have.
Through the course of the series, players have been using handy mechanics like the Amulet Coin and Rotom Powers to boost their prize money from winning battles, in an effort to get their hands on some of the most expensive items in the games. Which items are these? Let’s take a look!
10 A Fully-Upgraded Rotom Bike: 9,000 Watts
Pokémon Sword and Shield added an all-new currency to the series: Watts. These are acquired by defeating Brilliant Pokémon (those with the tell-tale aura), taking part in Max Raids against enormous Pokémon threats, and so on. You’ll want to stockpile them, because Technical Records (TMs that break after a single use), the Digging Duo and such can be expensive.
The biggest outlay for your Watts, however, is fully upgrading your Rotom Bike. There are three separate upgrades, costing 1,000, 3,000 and 5,000 Watts respectively. For those who play online, this isn’t very much at all in the grand scheme of things. However, if you’re an offline player, the amount of Watts you acquire for activities in the Wild Area is much, much lower.
9 The Paradoxical Popper (& Other Art): 100,000
In Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, you’ll find a struggling artist in Lilycove City’s museum. He’ll complain that the museum won’t display his pieces, before offering them to you… for a hefty price, naturally.
The Paradoxical Popper, Heterarchical Loop, and Meditative Seat can be yours for 100,000 Pokédollars each. While they don’t serve any particular purpose, they do make pretty neat decorations for a Secret Base (such as the one pictured here). Enthusiastic Pokémon interior decorators might want to take note.
8 Tears: 150,000
So, you might be wondering where exactly you can buy tears in the Pokémon games. Are they the tears of somebody who has missed Will-o-Wisp twice in a row only to be double-critted and flinched by Rock Slide? Those kinds of tears are super common in competitive Pokemon, but they’re not the ones we’re talking about today.
Instead, Tears is a rock that can be purchased from a salesman in Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, who gives deceptive names to all of his merchandise. Along with the other starters’ Mega Stones (Swampertite is named ‘Ebb’ and Blazikenite is named ‘Fading Fires’), he will also sell you three Hard Stones, each with different names. Loneliness costs 45,000, Emotionless costs 80,000 and Tears costs an extortionate 150,000! This item only strengthens Rock-type moves.
7 Crown: 999,999
Now, of course, we’re not being snarky here. After all, the super adorable sight of a Pikachu or Eevee wearing a crown is something you just can’t put a price on.
Sadly, though, Game Freak went ahead and put a price on this sight in Pokémon: Let’s Go Pikachu and Eevee anyway: 999,999 Pokédollars. If you want your beloved companion to be the greatest and most elite version of themselves they can possibly be, this classy cosmetic item is the way forward.
6 Slowpoke Tail: 1,000,000
As uncomfortable as it was to discover that Slowpoke’s tails are famously delicious, that’s just a canon fact now. It probably started as a joke about Slowpoke’s evolution into Slowbro, but now here we all are.
The Slowpoke Tail was an item in the Generation II games, available from a shady merchant for 9,800. However, there’s a certain NPC who tries to sell the player one for 1,000,000! That’s higher than the maximum amount of currency the player can hold in the game, though, so technically this can’t be purchased.
5 Lumiose City’s Starter Pokémon Mega Stones: 1,000,000 (Originally)
Well, there’s a caveat here. If you have a hankering for Charizard/Venusaur/Blastoise’s Mega Stones and step into Lumiose City’s Stone Emporium in Pokémon X and Y, you might indeed be looking at a hefty price tag of 1,000,000 Pokédollars.
Might? Well, it depends on your style. Being the super hip and happening city Lumiose City is, Style Points come into play here. You gain them by performing various activities around Lumiose (such as shopping), and as your Style increases, the prices of those stones decrease dramatically. Eventually, you’ll be able to buy them for just 10,000 each!
4 The Bike: 1,000,000
Speaking of iconic items that can’t technically be bought, here’s another Pokémon mainstay: the bike. In Pokémon Red and Blue, the player is given a Bike Voucher to redeem one for free from Cerulean City’s Bicycle Shop. That’s very lucky, considering that the price is 1,000,000 Pokédollars without one!
As nostalgic players will remember, the voucher is obtained from the Chairman of the Pokémon Fan Club, to thank you for listening to him gush on and on about his beloved Rapidash.
3 Kommo-o/Lurantis Armor Set: 2,400,000
Style Points are one thing, but the true fashion mongers among us know that Generation VII was the place to be for clothes. Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon offered up these little doozies: the Kommo-o Armor for male characters and the Lurantis Armor for females. They’re available in Hau’oli’s shopping mall, in the very exclusive boutique called Gracidea.
How exclusive? Well, with each piece of the set ranging from 400,000 to 700,000, they both cost a grand total of 2,400,000 each! Is it worth it? Well, that’s entirely up to the player’s discretion.
2 A Fully Furnished Villa At The Resort Area: 2,500,000
Now, an absurdly expensive outfit is one thing, but there’s something else you’re going to need to complete the celebrity dream: an absurdly expensive home to go along with it. Luckily, Pokémon Platinum has us covered.
When the player becomes champion and gains access to the Resort Area, they’ll come across an NPC who simply… gives them the Villa for free with no questions asked (other than “do you want a free villa,” but that was obvious). The catch is that it’s almost entirely empty on the inside, so you have to buy the furnishings yourself. To buy every item in the extensive catalog, you’re going to have to pay out 2,500,000! Just narrowly more than Alola’s most pricey outfit.
1 Team Flare Pass: 5,000,000
We’ve finally arrived at the item with the highest price tag in the series. Granted, it’s not actually possible to purchase it, which is a bit of an anti-climax, but that’s just the way Game Freak likes to do things sometimes.
Back in Pokemon X and Y, players who arrive in Laverre City and try to pass through to Route 15 will encounter two Team Flare grunts. They’re only there to stop you heading through before you’re supposed to, but they offer an interesting proposal: they’ll let you through if you join Team Flare… but they demand the princely sum of 5,000,000 in return. Interestingly, it’s possible to reach this amount at this point in the game if you’re dedicated enough, but they’ll still just repeat the same dialogue and nothing will change.