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Pokémon Let's Go Vermillion City and Lt. Surge Gym Battle - available Pokémon, items and trainers

Our complete Pokémon Let's Go walkthrough and guide to your big adventure with Pikachu or Eevee.

Vermilion City and the Lt. Surge Gym battle are your next stops after Route 6, but you'll need to do a couple of things - including finding the Vermilion City Gym puzzle solution first if you want to progress.

Below, we'll cover any and all of the obtainable Pokémon, item locations, trainers and their squads that you might encounter in the area, as well as walking you through any key steps of the story along the way.

We've also opted to break out walkthrough pages down into sections, referring to each of your visits to a given location, seeing as you often backtrack or revisit various places in your quest to become Champion! Where applicable, we'll split our page into one section for each visit, and of course if there are any, clearly mark any spoilers, too!

For more like this, be it specific systems explainers or walkthrough pages on more locations, head back to our main Pokémon Let's Go walkthrough and guide hub.

On this page:

Pokémon Let's Go: Vermilion City

There's lots to see and do in Vermilion City, but before we dive into that it's worth noting that, for now, the Gym is inaccessible. You'll need to learn the Secret Technique Chop Down in order to remove the tree that's blocking your path to it - you get that by heading down the S.S. Anne just to the south of town - but first, there are some things to do here.

Talk to the Police Officer - the same one you met in Cerulean City - and you'll be offered the Squirtle she was struggling with. Again, like the Bulbasaur and Charmander you receieved, this one has great stats!

Other points of interest include the Pokémon Fan Club, which houses a particularly chatty Gentleman who'll give you a new outfit if you listen to him, another Alolan Pokémon trader in the Pokémon Center, this time with an Alolan Geodude for you regular one, and a Beauty on a bench, who'll give you either an Arcanine or a Persian if you catch five of the Pokémon she asks for.

Available Pokémon

PokémonNotes
Alolan GeodudeTrade your own Geodude with Hiker in the Pokémon Center
SquirtleFrom Police Officer near northern entrance to town
ArcanineFrom Beauty sat on the bench in the middle of town, if you've caught at least 5 Meowth
PersianFrom Beauty sat on the bench in the middle of town, if you've caught at least 5 Growlithe

Available Items

ItemLocation
Full HealHidden in crates by the Machop stamping the land flat.
Eevee / Pikachu SetFrom Gentleman in Pokémon Fan Club if you listen to his story about Rapidash
Pretty WingIn flower bed towards Diglett's Cave, found by following Pokémon.
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Head back to our main Pokémon Let's Go walkthrough and guide hub for all our pages in one place, including detailed, step-by-step help for tough spots like Cerulean Cave, and the Elite Four, plus tough dungeons like Silph Co., Seafoam Islands and Victory Road. Otherwise, take a peek(achu) at our Pokémon Let's Go TM list and all TM locations, Let's Go's starter locations and how to get Bulbasaur, Charmander and Squirtle, along with how to get Mew in Let's Go, and how to get Meltan in Let's Go and Go too. Beyond that we also explain how connect Pokémon Go to Let's Go on Nintendo Switch and transfer Pokémon, Catching, catch combos, and how to catch Pokémon, a quick collection of our best Pokémon Let's Go tips and tricks to get you off to a great start, and finally what we know about the Pokémon Pass app distribution event too.


Pokémon Let's Go: Vermilion City Gym puzzle solution and Lt. Surge Gym battle

Return to the City itself after clearing out S.S. Anne and you can finally chop down that tree to tackle Lt. Surge's Gym. He's an Electric-type master, so Ground-type Pokémon like Geodude, Onix, or Diglett (from the nearby Diglett's Cave) will work brilliantly. Otherwise, an Ivysaur, evolved from a Bulbasaur, also resists Electric-type attacks, or a Fire-type can help clear out the part Steel-type Magnemites.

The gym itself however has a puzzle to solve - and it's not the last one you'll encounter, either - but thankfully it's fairly simple.

Vermilion City Gym puzzle solution

The Vermilion City Gym is filled with what look like regular trash cans - plus a couple of coloured ones as well. All you need to do is interact with the cans to see if there's a switch in side. Flip the two switches and the electric fenches blocking Lt. Surge will be opened - but the catch is, they only both open if you flip the two switches one after the other. Accidentally interact with an empty trash can instead of one with another switch in, and the fences will reset.

If you're after a cheat sheet, then the trash cans you want to interact with are:

  1. The trash can to the right of the blue trash can.
  2. The trash can directly above that one.

Available Items

ItemLocation
Thunder BadgeDefeat Gym Leader Lt. Surge
Lt. Surge's AutographDefeat Gym Leader Lt. Surge
TM36 ThunderboltDefeat Gym Leader Lt. Surge

Trainers and Battles - Vermilion City Gym!

Trainer NamePokémonLevel
Sailor DwayneMagnemite22
Rocker BailyVoltorb
Voltorb
22
22
Gentleman TuckerPikachu22
Gym Leader Lt. SurgeVoltorb
Magnemite
Raichu
25
25
26

Once you've cleared S.S. Anne and the Vermilion City Gym, that's everything here in Vermilion City and our in-progress walkthrough itself for now, so cycle back to our main Pokémon Let's Go walkthrough and guide hub for all the other pages we have like this.