Over the last 25 years, Pokemon has been a source of adventure for many gamers. Across eight different regions and generations, fans have enjoyed discovering and catching Pokemon to fill out their Pokedex and strengthen their teams. Fans of the fourth generation have been reliving their adventures with the release of Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, but some have had their adventure ruined by the Balloon Pokemon, Drifloon.
In the original DS games and as well as Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, Drifloon is a ghost-type creature in the shape of a balloon who appears at the Valley Windworks on Fridays, as well as an encounter through Honey Trees on the same day. If fans missed their chance to catch Drifloon, the DS version allowed fans to adjust the time on their system to have the ghost appear, but the new remakes have instead been build-in with features to prevent time manipulation to trigger in-game events.
The features preventing time travel would be fine if it wasn't for the fact that not seeing a Drifloon can softlock players out of the National Dex, and in turn, post-game content. There's only one trainer in the entire game who uses a Drifloon, and that trainer is easy to skip due to them being found in a gym. Luckily, two fans on Reddit have helpfully shared a few workarounds. The first one requires that fans either haven't started the game yet or need to delete their save.
- Change the Switch Clock to Thursday night 2-3 hours before midnight
- Start the game
- Use Turtwig or Piplup to quickly get to Valley Windworks
- Clear out Team Galactic while the game is still on Thursday
- Wait for midnight
- Re-enter the route, and Drifloon should be there.
Another fan has shared a much easier workaround for Drifloon that doesn't require slightly speedrunning the game or deleting save files. It turns out, unlike games like Animal Crossing: New Horizons which detects time changes while the game is suspended, Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl work in the opposite way. With the game suspended, players can change the game time without penalty and can get Drifloon quickly.
- Stand outside the Valley Windworks
- Go to the Switch home screen
- Leave BDSP suspended
- Change the console's time to last Friday at 10:40 AM
- Go back into BDSP
- Enter the Valley Windworks and then leave
- Drifloon should be outside.
With these methods of getting the Balloon Pokemon, players should be able to catch Drifloon with ease. Even without catching it, fans will still have it marked as seen in their Pokedex, which is enough to unlock the National Dex and unlock the late-game content. However, there's a chance of future patches fixing these exploits out, so fans who need assistance getting Drifloon should take advantage while they can.
Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl are available now for Nintendo Switch.
