Is there a way to know what Pokemon I have caught without looking at my Pokedex? I often find myself battling wild Pokemon that I am not sure if I have caught yet. Is there a way I can check while in battle?
3 Answers
Yes.
If you've caught the wild Pokemon you are battling a small Pokeball icon will appear next to the HP bar, as you can see below:
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2Oh man, I never ever noticed that. That's helpful.– user11502Jan 8, 2017 at 23:36
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4@Ash Really? It's not a new feature, that icon is present also in the previous titles :) Jan 8, 2017 at 23:39
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2Apparently I just am really bad at paying attention.– user11502Jan 8, 2017 at 23:41
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21Thing to precise, thia symbol won't appear during trainer battles even if you caught the pokemon.– KarlyrJan 9, 2017 at 0:44
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1@Karlyr it doesn't show the symbol during trainer battles because you can't catch those Pokémon regardless (they are owned by opponent). Jan 9, 2017 at 18:10
Yes, there will be a Pokéball by their name/HP bar while you are in a battle with a wild Pokémon if it is a Pokémon that you have caught before. If you haven't caught that species, there won't be a Pokéball.
As of Gen 7, you are also able to tell which Pokémon you've seen before during Pokémon battles and wild encounters, as mentioned in @Joe's answer.
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If you look at the answer by @Joe (gaming.stackexchange.com/a/297389/130295), there is a way to distinguish between seen/unseen in battle.– Brian JJan 9, 2017 at 16:15
In addition to the pokéball, you'll also be able to tell what pokémon you've registered to your pokédex - even during trainer battles - by the fact that you get a report as to which of your attacking moves are effective/ineffective/highly effective. It only appears on moves that deal direct damage (not on status effect moves), but it only appears if they've been registered.
Of course, this distinguishes between registered to the pokédex and caught, but most of the time that is the same thing, at least the way I play, and of course if you have caught it, it definitely should be registered (so if there are no effective/ineffective notes, you can be sure you didn't catch it).
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3This is useful if there's no info, but it's not too rare to have encountered a Pokemon in a Trainer battle, which will register it as Seen and activate the Weakness/Resistance indicator even though there hasn't been a chance to catch it. Still, it's a good way to know which Pokemon you have seen.– sceniaJan 9, 2017 at 6:05
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1Furthermore, I believe this is only available in the Sun/Moon version, not in the previous ones, whilst the Pokeball is. Nice catch though. Jan 9, 2017 at 7:06
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1This is only available in Sun/Moon indeed; OP tagged pokemon-sm so I assumed that was what was desired.– JoeJan 9, 2017 at 16:36