Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl Grand Underground guide: Digletts, Hideaways, statues, and more

Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl are faithful remakes of the original DS Pokémon games. However, the Grand Underground has received the biggest change, having been vastly updated to include new Pokémon catching opportunities and the ability to dig up rare statues for your secret base. It's also the perfect place to go to pick up Pokémon you haven't been able to encounter in the above map, like Fire Pokémon if you're having trouble getting one. Collecting Digletts and Dugtio points can help you increase chances of finding specific Pokémon, too. Here's everything you need to know about digging, secret bases, and Pokémon Hideaways.

How to unlock the Grand Underground

When you get to Eterna City, enter the house next to the Pokémon Center and talk to the old man. He'll give you the Explorer Kit. He'll then walk you through how to use it.

1. Press X to open your menu.
2. Select Bag.
3. Use L or R to scroll to the Key Items Tab.
4. Select Explorer Kit.
5. Select Register.
6. Add it to one of your open slots.
7. Close out of the menu.
8. Press the +button and then move the joystick to the Explorer Kit.
9. Select the mode you'd like to use. If you can, Internet play will give you more chances for rewards.
10. Select Yes or whatever other answer you want.
11. If you want to save your game, select Yes again.

You'll be taken underground where you can start digging or exploring for wild Pokémon.

How to access the Grand Underground map

A small section of the map can be seen in the upper left corner. If you press down the Right joystick, you can zoom out for a different view. If you want to get a closer look, you can:

1. While in the Grand Underground, press the Y button.
2. Select Grand Underground Map. This will stay up as long as you want it to, which can be helpful for locating Hideaways or sparkling sections of wall.
3. The icon in the bottom right tells you what Increased type chances you have, if any. This is determined by the kind of statues you have in your base. In this instance, there's an increased chance of seeing Electric Pokémon.
4. Press B when you want it to minimize.

How to access every area of the Grand Underground map

There are six separate sections in the Grand Underground. Here's how to reach them and which Pokémon Hideaways they hold.

Main area: The largest expanse can be reached as soon as you are given the Explorer Kit in Eterna City.

• Spacious Cave
• Grassland Cave
• Fountainspring Cave
• Rocky Cave
• Swampy Cave
• Riverbank Cave
• Volcanic Cave
• Sandsear Cave
• Dazzling Cave
• Still-Water Cavern
• Big Bluff Cavern

Central area: Despite looking like you should head to Mt. Coronet to get here, you can actuially only access this small area when at or nearby Celestic Town.

• Dazzling Cave
• Icy Cave
• Stargleam Cavern

Top left: You need to go underground while on the snowy mountain near or at Snowpoint City.

• Whiteout Cave
• Icy Cave
• Dazzling Cave
• Spacious Cave
• Glacial Cavern

Bottom left: Use the Explorer Kit when in or nearby Twinleaf Town, Canalave City, and Ramanas Park to reach this area.

• Spacious Cave
• Grassland Cave
• Fountainspring Cave
• Swampy Cave
• Riverbank Cave
• Sunlit Cavern

Bottom right: You can only reach this larger section by digging under Sunyshore City.

• Spacious Cave
• Rocky Cave
• Fountainspring Cave
• Swampy Cave
• Sandsear Cave
• Bogsunk Cavern

Top right: You can only reach this area in the post-game. Dig underground when visiting the island with the Battle Zone, located in the top right of Sinnoh.

• Volcanic Cave
• Dazzling Cave
• Sandsear Cave
• Grassland Cave
• Fountainspring Cave
• Spacious Cave
• Rocky Cave
• Typhlo Cavern
• The main area

What do Diglett and Dugtrio do in the Grand Underground?

As you run around the Grand Underground, you'll occaisionally run into Diglett or Dugtrio in intersections. Touching them or picking up the pink sparkles they leave behind adds to the meter in the top left. Once you've collect 40 points, the meter fills completely and you'll have four minutes where any sparkles you dig at are guaranteed to take you to a place where you could find a rare statue or other rare items. Additionally, the full meter makes it so your chances of catching a Shiny Pokémon increase from 1/4096 to 3/4096, which isn't much, but it's something.

If you're digging, immediately run to another yellow spot before the four minute window ends and dig again to get another rare green statue.

How to build a secret base in the Grand Underground

After you've dug into the wall and found some treasure at least once, return to the old man at his house at Eterna City and he'll give you the Digger Drill. Now go underground and Press A against a wall when in a location that you like. This will let you use the Digger Drill to create a secret base. You can acquire another Digger Drill from a Hiker NPC down here. Using it will move the location of your secret base with all your statues still in place.

Any statues that you happen to dig up while in the Grand Underground can be placed in the secret base. Just interact with the orb on the right to start placing them. The default room can hold up to 18 statues as long as there is space for them. The types of statues you place will increase your chances of running into Pokémon of a specific type. For instance, a Pikachu statue will increase your chances of finding Electric Pokémon. Add more statues of Electric Pokémon to increase those chances. Rare, or green, statues improve your chances even more.

The list of statues tells you how many you have and how many squares of space they take up when placed. The rare statues are listed separately from their regular counterparts.

You can also enlarge your secret base to hold more statues by talking to specific Hiker NPCs found underground. But you need to pay them in the stones that you uncover. By placing more statues, you can increase your likihood of running into Pokémon of a specific type. It will really help you fill out that National Pokédex.

How to dig for statues, spheres, elemental stones, and other goodies

By mining into the walls in the Grand Underground, you can uncover evolution stones, shards, plates, Pokémon statues, and more. If you find rare Pokémon statues, which are green, and place them in your secret base, you'll increase the chances of running into specific type Pokémon.

Look at the map in the upper left corner and head towards any locations with a little yellow marker. When you get close, press the R button to send out a wave. If you're close enough, this will reveal a glowing yellow sparkle on the wall. Go up to the sparkle and press A. Then, select Yes to start the digging process.

You have to be careful when digging as each hit you make increases the crack at the top of the screen. If the crack reaches the left side then you'll have to stop digging. When you first interact with a sparkle, the game will tell you how many things are hidden for you to find, so pay attention to this number.

The hammer makes a huge impact and reveals more places, but makes the crack at the top move along faster. You can also press the R button to switch to the pickaxe, which reveals less spaces when used but also doesn't impact the top crack as much.

1. Use the hammer to break through thick stone chunks and reach the bottom.
2. If you happen to uncover anything, switch to the pickaxe and dig out the remaining bits still covered up.
3. Switch to the hammer again and check large open spaces within the digging area to see if you get a hit.
4. Anything you completely uncover will be added to your haul when the minigame ends.
5. If you dig up everything there is to find, the minigame will close.

Source: iMore

Statues take up six spaces when digging and are easier to find than many other items. A regular box has a yellow color with the elemental symbol in the middle. Rare boxes that hold green statues are purple with the elemental symbol in the center. Green statues can increase your chances of finding a specific Pokémon type more than a regular statue does. Place more of one kind in your base to increase your odds.

Source: iMoreTwo Mysterious Shards L on left, one Mysterious Shard S on right.

After you've beaten the Elite Four and become Champion, you can access a location known as Ramanas Park. This is where Legendary Pokemon from previous games can be caught. However, in order to catch them, you need to dig up Mysterious Shards in the Grand Underground, which come in either small or large sizes, and trade them with an NPC at Ramanas Park for Slates. The NPC will take three Small shards or one Large shard in exchange for a Slate. Slates are like keys that make the Legendaries appear.

• 3 Mysterious Shards S = 1 Slate
• 1 Mysterious Shard L = 1 Slate

Mysterious Shards are rare, so if you happen to see one while digging, do all you can to uncover it before working on exposing anything else. I was lucky enough to get two Mysterious Shards L in one go at one point, but that was after I had been digging over 200 times.

Pokémon catching in the Grand Underground

There are different Pokémon Hideaways or biomes within the Grand Undergound. These can be seen from the map in the upper corner. If you haven't been to one yet, it will just show a question mark. However, once you walk into it, the location type will display on the map. The biomes stay the same and do not change.

Pokémon with types that match Hideaway terrain tend to appear in these locations. For instance, you might see a Houndoom in the Volcanic Cave and a Psyduck in the Still-Water Cavern. Leaving a Pokémon Hideaway and immediately returning might yield completely different Pokémon from what you saw the first time. Here are all of the Pokémon Hideaways we've discovered so far.

• Spacious Cave
• Rocky Cave
• Whiteout Cave
• Sandsear Cave
• Starglem Cavern
• Fountainspring Cave
• Volcanic Cave
• Riverbank Cave
• Glacial Cavern
• Typhlo Cavern
• Grassland Cave
• Icy Cave
• Still-Water Cavern
• Sunlit Cavern
• Swampy Cavern
• Dazzling Cave
• Big Gluff Cavern
• Bogsunk Cavern

Want to encounter even more Pokémon? You'll need to unlock that National Pokédex. This is done by seeing all 151 Pokémon and then going to Sandgem town to talk to Professor Rowan. Once that's done, Professor Oak shows up and unlocks the National Dex for you.

There are also four distinct sections of the Grand Underground, so you'll need to travel to places that let you access all of them. For instance, there's a separate area under Ramanas Park or the Battle Tower area.

Digging Pokémon

There are so many fun moments to have in the Grand Underground. I completely got sucked into digging for rare statues and encountering various Pokémon during my journey through the Sinnoh region. It's a great way to break away from the normal course of the Pokémon RPG.