POKEMON DIAMOND AND PEARL ALTERNATE POKEMON FORMS

In the advanced games, we had three Pokemon who had different forms depending on the circumstances. Unown changed according to its DVs. Castform changed according to the weather. Deoxys changed according to what game version you were currently playing. In Pearl and Diamond, a few more have been added.

Unown can be found at the Solaceon Ruins, to the east of Solaceon Town. At first, only the 26 letters are available, but once you have caught all of these, the Ruin Maniac on Route 214 will tunnel into the ruins, allowing you to capture the ? and ! Unown.

If you follow the directions laid out in the Solaceon Ruins, you will encounter the F, R, I, E, N and D Unown. All the other dead-end rooms hold other letters. Explore them all to capture all 26 Unown.

Castform is available in the Trophy Garden as a daily special in Pearl and Diamond. It still alters its form based on the weather.

As mentioned before, Deoxys has different forms depending on which GBA version you caught it in. In Pearl and Diamond, there are four meteorites in Veilstone City that let you alter the form of your Deoxys: the top meteorite changes Deoxys into its Speed form, the middle into Normal form, the bottom left into Attack form, and bottom right into Defense form.

Burmy, the Bagworm Pokemon, changes form depending on the last place you battled. It has three forms:
- Grass, if you last battled in grass or forests
- Ground, if you last battled inside a cave or dungeon
- Steel, if you last battled inside a building

At level 20, a female Burmy will evolve into Wormadam, and it will retain whatever form it had last. Note that while Burmy is a pure Bug type, Wormadam is dual-typed and the second type will match whatever form it is in. The unique thing about this is that each of Wormadam's forms have completely different learnsets and base stats, so they are in effect, three different Pokemon.

Cherrim, the Blossom Pokemon, has two forms, Normal and Sunny, depending on two factors. Cherrim appears in its Normal form most of the time, but if the move Sunny Day has been activated (either by move, or by the ability Drought), Cherrim changes to its Sunny form.

Shellos and Gastrodon have two forms, East and West, depending on where in Sinnoh you catch them. Their forms have no differences apart from looks, so their learnsets and stats are the same.

Arceus, the Alpha Pokemon, has 18 different forms. However, unlike the previous Pokemon, its changes are reflected by different colours rather than completely different guises. Each of these 18 forms corresponds to a particular type; shown above is Arceus in its Normal form. Check the Picdex for the full set.

Scattered around the world are 16 plates, one for each of Bug, Dark, Dragon, Electric, Fighting, Fire, Flying, Ghost, Grass, Ground, Ice, Poison, Psychic, Rock, Steel and Water. If you attach one of these plates to Arceus, it will change its form and type. Strategywise, this allows players to change what kind of STAB Arceus is awarded.

Note there are 18 forms and only 17 types in the game - this is an allowance for the Unknown type, ???, which is the type of the attack Curse. It appears that this form is unobtainable.