How to Catch Drifloon in Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl

Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl bring back many of the iconic interactive events with certain Pokémon you catch throughout your adventure. One of them is getting to Drifloon, the pre-evolution of Drifblim. If that sounds familiar, it’s because Drifblim is used by one of the Elite Four members, Flint. Here is where you can catch Drifloon, the elusive balloon Pokémon in Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl.

How to catch Drifloon in Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl

This Pokémon can be found at the Valley Windworks, located just east of Floaroma Town. However, you can only encounter this Pokémon once every Friday, so keep that in mind. It’s also at Lv. 22, so it’s a fairly simple and easy fight.

You will also need to have beaten the game far enough to drive Team Galactic out of the area. This includes saving the Windworks manager and reuniting him with his daughter. It’ll occur after defeating Mars, one of the commanders of Team Galactic.

Another important thing to note is that if you happen to play through the story and defeat Team Galactic on a Friday, Drifloon will not appear. You’ll have to wait until the next week to encounter the balloon Pokémon. Do not fret, you will be able to see Drifloon through other trainers in battle, so for your Pokédex’s completion, it’ll be okay. Besides, this Pokémon can be encountered even after beating the game for the first time.

Can you set your system’s internal clock to Friday to catch Drifloon?

Unfortunately, the whole “time-skipping” trick that you could do in previous Pokémon games does not work here. You’ll actually have to wait until it’s Friday depending on your system’s hardware. However, if it matters that much to you, you could just wait until another Friday comes to catch one for the sake of having it and breed it for more desirable traits down the line.

Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl are out now exclusively for the Nintendo Switch.