How to win Super Contests in Pokemon Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl

Winning Super Contests in Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl requires the perfect combination of Poffins, Ball Capsule decorations, and rhythm-based skills.

While your Pokemon are primarily used for battling in Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, you can also enter them into various Super Contests to show them off to the world and win rewards for performing well.

Super Contests are unlocked as soon as you arrive in Hearthome City, but that's the easy part – if you want to win, you’ll need to raise your Pokemon's attributes, design Ball Capsules, and work on your rhythm.

Super Contests are a great way to show off your bond with your favorite Pokemon. There are five categories you can enter – Beauty, Cleverness, Coolness, Cuteness, and Toughness – across multiple ranks.

Your Pokemon will be evaluated in three different areas: Visual, Dance, and Move. These scores will come together to form your final rating, so you’ll need to perform well in all three sections to win.

When you send your Pokemon out, it will be given a Visual Evaluation based on its attributes and Ball Capsule. Then, during a rhythm mini-game, it will be given a Dance Evaluation and Move Evaluation.

Winning a Super Contest requires a good combination of visual appeal and rhythm-based skills. There are a few ways to improve your chances of success in a Super Contest, which we’ll go over below:

The easiest way to improve your visual score in a Super Contest is to cook Poffins for your Pokemon. The Berries you use to cook these Poffins will affect the attributes they increase, from Toughness to Beauty.

You should feed your Pokemon Poffins that match the Super Contest you’re entering. For example, if you’re entering a Jigglypuff in a ‘Cute’ contest, you’ll need to give it Poffins that increase its Cute attribute.

A Pokemon's nature will also affect which flavor it enjoys: If it likes a flavor, the corresponding attribute will increase at a slightly higher rate, but if it dislikes a flavor, it will increase at a slightly lower rate.

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It's not quite as important as using Poffins, but decorating Ball Capsules with Stickers can give you a small boost to your visual score. You’ll need to create a design that matches the theme of the Super Contest.

You can get more Stickers in Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl by defeating Gym Leaders, talking to NPCs, winning contests, or exchanging them at the Pick A Peck Of Colors Flower Shop in Floarama Town.

Once the Visual Evaluation is over, the Dance Evaluation segment will begin. This is a simple rhythm mini-game where you need to tap ‘A’ in time with the approaching Poke Balls, and hold ‘A’ for long Poke Balls.

You’ll get the most points for hitting Brilliant/Shining notes, slightly fewer points for Great notes, and even less for Nice notes. The aim is to fill up your Heart Gauge, which then contributes to the Hype Meter.

If you’re struggling to keep in time with the beats, our best advice is to simply practice, practice, practice. The dance segment will be harder the higher the rank you enter, so try entering a lower rank.

When choosing which Pokemon to enter into a Super Contest, you’ll also be able to select a Contest Move. These have different impacts, such as increasing Hype or allowing you to make mistakes, so choose wisely.

You can use your Contest Move once by tapping ‘X’ during the dance segment. If you time it right with the other contestants to create a Move Chain, you’ll earn even more points towards your Hype Meter.

If you win a Super Contest, you’ll receive rewards based on the rank and category you entered. This can range from Ribbons that correspond to the category (like Cute or Cool) or matching Stickers.

Now you know how to win a Super Contest, check out some of our other Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl guides:

All Rare Candy locations | Where to find Cresselia | How to get the National Pokedex | Best starter to pick | Beating all Gym Leaders | How to get all Sinnoh starters | Best ways to make money | How to unlock Mystery Gifts | How to get Eevee | How to get Leafeon | How to get Glaceon | How to get Umbreon & Espeon | Where to catch Spiritomb | How to get Riolu & Lucario | Where to find Gible & Garchomp | How to unlock the Bike | All trade evolutions