With Pokemon Yellow now officially available on the Nintendo 3DS, we've made a guide detailing how to catch one of the original three starter Pokemon – Bulbasaur.

As any aspiring Pokemon Master has come to realize, catching 'em all is a rather challenging task in the original pair of games. Indeed, with one-off starter monsters only being made available by owning a second version of the same game, it can become challenging and expensive to secure all of the beasts. Fortunately, Pokemon Yellow has done away with that by allowing fans to obtain every single one of them by completing tasks and talking to trainers. The only catch is that they can be easily missed.

With that in mind, we've put together a brief guide on how to secure one of the more challenging original starter Pokemon, Bulbasaur. This Grass-type can only be added to your party by ensuring that Pikachu is incredibly happy, but (as many will attest) this can be a rather challenging affair. Fortunately, we've got a few tips to help make the process a little less painful for those struggling to lock the creature down in Pokemon Yellow.

Without any further ado, let's catch a Bulbasaur!

Step 1: Go to Cerulean City

This is somewhere that players will naturally end up in due time, as it's the fourth town encountered after defeating Brock in Pewter City. For those struggling to identify the area, it's the town that appears after trekking through My. Moon and it features the Water-type trainer Misty as its gym leader.

Step 2: Ensure There's Space in Your Party

Provided you didn't go hog wild with your limited Pokeball supply, there's a good chance that there's still room left in your 6-Pokemon party for an extra monster. Ensure that this is the case, as Bulbasaur will only be given to you if you've got the spot. Of course, it's also possible to deposit Pokemon into your PC as well, so it's always an option to go back and get the starter after you've done that.

Step 3: Make Pikachu Happy

This is the only way to secure Bulbasaur and it's the most challenging part of this whole process. There are several ways to make Pikachu happier, and they can usually be figured out shortly after arriving in Cerulean City – provided the electric rodent is at a high enough level.

Here are some bullet points detailing what makes Pikachu happy:

  • Levelling Pikachu up.
  • Defeating gym leaders.
  • Using back-to-back health potions.

Allowing Pikachu to faint or storing it in the PC will drop the Pokemon's happiness, so try to avoid doing these at all costs. Players can identify once the Electric-type is happy enough to secure Bulbasaur by looking at it and clicking the 'A' button. For reference, if you look at it and it jumps in the air several times then you are one happiness-related stage away from being able to receive your prized Grass-type starter Pokemon.

Step 4: Enter Melanie's House to the Left of the Pokemon Center

After completing all of these steps, just talk to the girl located at the back of the house and she'll happily hand over your prize. Congratulations, you've just added Bulbasaur to your ever-growing team of Pocket Monsters!


Hopefully you found this guide of use, as it's a task we've struggled with accomplishing in the past as well. After launching our review of Pokemon Yellow, it was evident that a guide for capturing Bulbasaur needed to happen. Of course, the ability to trade the Pocket Monster over to Pokemon Sun and Moon will is also another reason to lock up the starter, as many fans can likely attest.

Struggling with capturing the other starter Pokemon? We’ve got guides to help you there too! They can be seen by following the links below:

Are you enjoying Pokemon Yellow so far? Did you manage to add Bulbasaur to your party? Get at us in the comments.