Pokémon Sword and Shield Motostoke City: where to find the missing Minccino and Kabu's Fire-type Gym mission

Motostoke City and finding the lost Minccino are your next stops and objectives, and follow on from the Wild Area in your quest through Pokémon Sword and Shield's main story.

On each page of our walkthrough like this, we'll cover any and all of the obtainable Pokémon, item locations, trainers and their teams that you might come across here, as well as walking you through any key steps of the story, puzzles or challenges along the way.

Where applicable, note that our walkthrough pages will be down into separate sections referring to each of your visits to a given location, seeing as you often backtrack or revisit various places in your quest to become Galar League Champion. And of course if there are any, we'll clearly mark any spoilers, too!

For more explainers, meanwhile, or walkthrough pages on more locations in Sword and Shield, head back to our main Pokémon Sword and Shield walkthrough and guide hub.

On this page:

Pokémon Sword and Shield: Motostoke City

Motostoke City is the first major city you'll reach in Sword and Shield, with a full two levels of the city to explore and a nice amount of items dotted around the place, if you know where to look.

Your actual objective here is to start your Gym Challenge, but first things first, Sonia will appear as you enter and take you to the Pokémon Center, to get your own League Card made.

To crack on with the story right away, head straight on to the elevator contraption on the back wall, which takes you up to the Stadium. Lean will appear and give you an item that boosts the power of your starter's-type moves, and he takes you up to find Hop in front of the Gym.

Inside the gym you'll find an extremely arrogant person in a purple puffa jacket. Ignore them for now and choose a number for the back of your shirt when you sign up, and outside follow the League Staff to the Budew Drop Inn, which is just a couple doors down to the left.

Talk to Sonia inside the Inn for some lore, and then when you try to check in, Team Yell will be in the way. Battle them! Hop will heal you up after you've done two battles in a row and jump in for a two-on-two himself.

After the battle, someone called Marnie will come in - she's the one Team Yell seem to idolise - and then you can finally check in. The next morning it's time to go to the stadium again for the opening ceremony, so talk to the man at the desk to get your uniform and head through.

After the ceremony, Chairman Rose will come and indroduce himself and do a spot of gloating about his wonderful company and how they manufacture your Dynamax bands.

Outside, one of the League Staff will give you a gift: access to Flying Taxis, which are effectively free fast travel (replacing the tradition HM Fly, if you're a long-term Pokémon player).

Your next location is Route 3, on the way to Turffield for your first gym battle. You'll battle Hop once more as you head for the exit that way, and he gives you his League Card when you inevitably defeat him. And with that, you're off! Or at leat you are for the story side of things - there's still some optional stuff to do here if you fancy it!

Available Pokémon

Available Items

Trainers and Battles

With it finally in the wild, here's how to start the Crown Tundra DLC and our full Pokémon Crown Tundra walkthrough. Plus, here's how to catch Calyrex, Glastrier and Spectrier, the Regieleki and Regidrago puzzle solution and Regirock, Regice, Registeel locations, details on how to catch Legendary Birds Articuno, Zapdos and Moltres in the Crown Tundra, the Ultra Beasts and Necrozma adventure, Dynamax Adventures, including the legendries you can catch on these adventures, and the new Crown Tundra Pokédex and returning Pokémon explained. For Isle of Armor players, here's how to find the Slowpoke, where to find Max Mushroom locations, and how to get Kubfu, become best friends and evolve it, plus all Diglett locations too! For the base game, here's info on the ability to transfer Pokémon to Pokémon Home, the Wild Area, lists of all TM locations and TRs, all Galarian forms and finally our main Pokémon Sword and Shield walkthrough for the whole game.

Pokémon Sword and Shield: where to find the lost Minccino in Motostoke

If you want to hang around for a little longer in Motostoke, there are a few quick objectives to tackle and things to do. A woman on the right inside the Pokémon Center, called Haley, will trade her Skwovet for your Bunnelby, for instance, if you really fancy that for some reason.

On the right is a barbers if you fancy a new trim. You can battle once a day in the Pokémon Café for a minor reward (there are a couple of these Cafés dotted around the larger cities in Sword and Shield). But most of all you might have spotted a young boy on the upper level by a shipping container, between the Budew Drop Inn and the Stadium.

He's lost his Mincinno! Apparently it likes water and is somewhere in Motostoke - and it makes a certain noise when you're near.

Thankfully, it's not far.

Missing Minccino location:

The Minccino is in one of the two water fountains with Poké Balls in them, in front of the Motostoke Gym Stadium.

If you go to the one on the right, you'll hear the sound and... a weird man gets out. Extremely odd. Try the one on the left.

Much better. The Minccino is hiding in that left hand fountain - head back to the boy and he'll give you an item called Throat Spray, which is slightly underwhelming, to be honest. But good job finding his little pal!

That's everything here for now - you'll be back for your Gym Challenge here in Motostoke later on, after you have the Grass and Water badges - so continue on to Route 3 for the next steps in your quest, or cycle back to our main Pokémon Sword and Shield walkthrough and guide hub for all the other pages we have like this.

Remember, just to be clear, there are some mild SPOILERS in the section below!

Motostoke revisited: how to beat Kabu's Fire-type Gym and solve the Motostoke Gym Mission

Returning to Motostoke, your task is to finally take down that Fire-type Gym.

First things first, head to the Budew Drop Inn again and, as before, you'll bump into Marnie. This time it's her who's up for a battle, so take her on and then get some rest.

Available Items

The next morning, Marnie will be waiting for you in the lobby, she says Hop's already gone on ahead - of course he has - and that you'll find him in front of the stadium. Turns out he's already won! Better dive in yourself and catch up.

Talk to the receptionist as usual to change, and head inside. This time, the challenge is an unusual one...

Motostoke City Gym Mission solution:

This mission requires you to catch Pokémon! Specifically, you need to earn five points to clear the mission, and you get one point for defeating a wild Pokémon and two points for catching one - so you need to catch at least two and knock out of catch the third, to progress!

Trainers and Battles

The twist is, each wild Pokémon you encounter in the long grass of Kabu's Gym will also come with a trainer attached - and they'll be on "your side" but trying to catch the Pokémon too. It's a bit like a doubles battle, only there's only one Pokémon on the other team, and your own teammate is trying to beat you to catching or knocking out the Pokémon!

Available Pokémon

The solution is to knock out your teammate's Pokémon first, then you have a clear ruin at catching the Pokémon. The Pokémon themselves are also pretty rare and useful, so this is a great chance to add a good Fire-type to your own squad, too.

After you've reached five points by catching two or three of the Pokémon, it's time for the main event.

How to beat Fire-type Gym Leader Kabu

Kabu uses three Fire-type Pokémon, and the third is Fire and Bug-type, meaning the first two are weak to Rock, Water and Ground, and the third doubly weak to Rock, making that your go-to choice, as well as Water and Flying.

Carkol is a great option here, as its Fire-typing will make it immune to burns, which Kabu is very fond of and not only deals damage each turn but also lowers the burned Pokémon's attack stat. Carkol's Rock-typing can also clear his team incredibly quickly. Otherwise, good old Water works great - especially if you chose Sobble as your starter - as does Ground, maybe if you picked up a Diglett back in the first Galar mine, or a Shellos in the second!

Centiskorch, Kabu's third Pokémon, doesn't just Dynamax - it Gigantamaxes, granting it access to an extra strong move called G-Max Centiferno, so try to take it down quickly and save your own Dynamaxing for then!

After the battle, the usual things follow: you get the Fire Badge, which lets you catch wild Pokémon up to level 35, as well as the ability to buy Repels from Poké Marts too. You also get TM38 Will-O-Wisp, which is great for applying Burn status conditions to enemies, and the Fire Uniform too.

That's everything here for your return to Motostoke City. Now, you need to head back out to the Wild Area and this time head North, towards Hammerlocke! Remember you can always head back to our main Pokémon Sword and Shield walkthrough and guide hub for all the other pages we have like this, too.