With Pokemon Diamond and Pokemon Pearl now available Ninntedo decided to allow you to transfer your Pokemon from your GBA games (Ruby, Saphire, Emerald, Leaf Green and Fire Red) to your new game. This is done via the migrate feature and the PalPark.
After you defeat the Elite Four in Diamond and Pearl and complete your Sinnoh Pokedex you acquire the NationalDex. with the NationalDex in your hands the PalPark will now be open for business.
In order to get Pokemon into the PalPark you must insert a GBA Pokemon game into your GBA slot on the DS. You can only transfer Pokemon that are in your box and they can not have any HM moves on them. This means common HM moves such Cut, Surf and Fly must be removed before they can be transferred. I don't know why they chose to do it this way but it may have to do with the shuffling of HM moves that occurred when Diamond and Pearl were released.
- To Transfer Pokemon:
- Insert the GBA game into your DS GBA slot
- Turn on the DS and start Diamond/Pearl
- On the menu screen choose the "migrate from XXX" option
- Click yes when it asks you the questions
- Select 6 Pokemon to transfer
- Click yes
Your game will now restart and the six Pokemon you chose will be in the PalPark waiting for you.
It is very important to understand that this is a one-way transfer. Pokemon can not travel back to the GBA game.
Once you arrive at the PalPark you will be given six Park Balls, these are effectively Master Balls. You will then be let loose into the park where you will have to run through grass and surf on the water in an attempt to find all of the Pokemon you transfered over. The more rare the Pokemon the harder it will be to find. You also need to take care of what sort of Pokemon you transfer as they will be in a certain part of the park based on their type. i.e. water Pokemon will either be in the pond or in the ocean and Rock Pokemon will likely be in the rocky area of the park.
It should not take more than five minutes to capture all six. You have to capture all six before you can migrate any other Pokemon.
Limits
There are some limits in place for migration:
1) You can only migrate from a given GBA game once per 24 hours.
2) No HM moves
It is very important that you do not try to change your DS clock to migrate twice in one day. All this will result in is a 24 hour ban on the migration feature. Trust me, it's not worth it!
The same thing will occur if you put your game into a different DS. The game will balk and lock you out of the migration feature for 24 hours!
The 24 hour feature is based on 24 hours since you last transferred Pokemon from that particular GBA game, it does not reset at midnight.
Otherwise, if you have multiple GBA game packs you can transfer multiple groups of six Pokemon all day long!
Note
I do have one concern. A while back I purchased a used copy of Ruby from a game store. On that game were a few "hacked" Pokemon. One of them was a Deoxys that would not obey. On a lark I transferred him to my Pearl game. He now obeys.
When you transfer a Pokemon via the PalPark the only information that stays is where they came from (Hoen/Kanto) and the level they were transferred at. This means the old standby of checking where the Pokemon was first met is gone. In the past, if someone had a rare Pokemon that was met at the wrong place and at the wrong level you could tell it was hacked.
I fear that the GTS may be ruined by the influx of hacked Pokemon. The only thing I can tell you is to beware of any Pokemon trades that involve Pokemon that are not native to Diamond and Pearl.