Holy shit I love this game! My Oshawott just got 37000 Exp. taking down ONE Pokemon (a level 60 something Arcanine with my Lvl. 6 Oshawott and Lvl. 81 Hydreigon)! Oshawott got 37,000 Exp. and Hydreigon got 4000 something.
It went from lvl. 6 to lvl. 35!!!!!!!!
Reposting because it ended up at the bottom of the page and I don't think it got the attention it deserves.
By the way, anyone who has two copies of the game and two DSes, or a friend irl with the game, needs to STOP EVERYTHING THEY'RE DOING RIGHT NOW AND COMPLETE THE ENTRALINK MISSIONS.
Seriously, the Pass Power feature doesn't receive nearly as much recognition as it deserves in this game. You can easily spend an hour and complete all the Entralink missions if you have access to a friend/a second DS. You should be able to get about 150 Pass Orbs in that amount of time. By registering the
+3 Exp. Boost Pass Power to your C-Gear, for the cost of 4 Pass Orbs you get three minutes of double experience gain! And once you reach Nimbasa city and other people can start giving
you support powers from missions, you can be getting DOUBLE EXPERIENCE FOR 30 MINUTE PERIODS!! And as soon as those 30 minutes are up, just have your friend/other DS re-do the support mission (it takes like 30 seconds) and you can get another 30 minutes, and so on.
Effectively, from Nimbasa city onwards, you can go through the whole game earning double experience points, and all you have to do a support mission every half hour. That's fucking insane.
Until you get to Nimbasa city you'll have to rely on the Pass Orb/Pass Power system, which only lasts for 3 minute intervals. It's still pretty great, but I'm really looking forward to the point where I can play for 30 minute intervals without having to do Entralink stuff.
If you haven't looked into any of the Entralink stuff this probably sounds confusing as hell, but please ask me anything and I'll try to clarify it, it's totally worth it!
I've just finished the second gym (I didn't even battle any trainers in the area west of Nacrene city, but before the actual Pinwheel forest) and my party consists of:
Sinvy (Lv. 20)
Pignite (Lv. 23)
Oshawott (Lv. 22)
I used multiple save-states to get all three starters with my OT, so none of them are even gaining boosted Exp.
And this is with
absolutely no grinding.
If you go through the game without exploring Pass Powers (assuming of course that you can) you have no idea what you're missing out on.