At the beginning of a new game, you will be greeted by Professor Rowan. He will then explain to you about Pokemon, and will instruct you to open a Poke Ball. A Poke Ball will appear on the touch screen. Simply touch the center of it, and a Buneary will pop out. After putting the Buneary away, you will be able to choose whether to play as a male or female character, both donning snazzy new clothes since their debut in Pokemon Diamond and Pearl. Just highlight the one you want to play as and press A. It makes no significant impact on the gameplay and is merely personal preference (to my knowledge). (For the sake of this Walkthrough, I am going to assume that you are playing as a male character.) You will then be prompted to enter a name, which can be up to 7 letters, numbers, or symbols.

After entering your name, your "rival" will be shown on screen and you will be prompted to give him a name as well. Same rules apply, except there are different default names for him. For the sake of this walkthough, I am going to refer to him as Rival. Yeah, pretty original nickname for him, huh?

You will then be shrunk into the game, and your journey will begin.