Pokemon Winds and Waves Walkthrough: Resort Island, First Adventures, and the Rival Battle That Surprised Me

I went into the Resort Island section expecting the usual Pokemon handholding. What I got instead was a rival who actually made me nervous, a hotel that's definitely hiding something, and an Adventure challenge that involved rescuing a Wailmer from a reef net. Not what I expected from the first hour.

This walkthrough covers the opening sequence up through your third Adventure challenge. Everything here is based on the Pokemon Day 2026 presentation and the demo footage Game Freak showed at the press event. Some details might change before the 2027 release. I'll update this as new info drops.

Arrival at Paradise Atoll Resort

The game opens with a cutscene of your character and mom on a ferry approaching the archipelago. The ocean looks incredible on Switch 2 hardware. Sunlight actually refracts through the water. Your mom mentions she won a vacation package from some corporate raffle. This matters later. The Hotel Chairman, the guy who runs the resort, is the game's villain. And his "free vacation" thing is definitely a setup.

You name your character, pick your appearance (version-exclusive outfits depending on whether you bought Winds or Waves), and the ferry docks. The Resort Island hub area is a beachfront hotel complex. Palm trees, a boardwalk, some shops, and a jungle path leading inland.

The first thing the game lets you do is walk around. No forced dialogue sequence for the first five minutes. You can explore the beach, talk to tourists, find a hidden Potion behind a lifeguard tower. I appreciate that. Pokemon games have been getting more and more tutorial-heavy, and Winds and Waves seems to be pulling back from that.

Meeting Your Rival and Choosing a Starter

After poking around the beach, head toward the hotel lobby. Your rival stops you. They're another kid staying at the resort, about your age, and they challenge you to find Professor Nalu's lab first. It's a race through the jungle path.

The jungle path is maybe three minutes long. Wild pokemon appear in the tall grass, but you don't have pokeballs yet, so you can only watch them. The professor's lab is a research station built into a seaside cliff. Professor Nalu herself is younger than most Pokemon professors. She studies weather patterns and their effect on pokemon evolution. Her lab has charts and instruments everywhere. The weather theme is baked into everything in this game.

Both you and your rival arrive at the same time. Professor Nalu offers you a starter. Browt (Grass), Pombon (Fire), or Gecqua (Water). The rival picks immediately after you, always choosing the type weak to yours. Then you battle.

This first rival fight is scripted but not in the usual way. The rival uses a Potion during the fight, which I don't remember any rival doing in a first battle before. Caught me off guard. You can win with just your starter's basic moves, but if you picked Browt and the rival has Pombon, use Growl a few times before attacking. Pombon hits harder than it looks.

After the battle, Professor Nalu gives you five Pokeballs, a Pokedex, and registers you in the Adventures system. Your rival storms off toward the hotel. They're annoyed about losing. There's a chip on their shoulder that feels more real than the usual "let's be best friends" rival dynamic. I like it.

Adventure Challenge 1: Coastal Cleanup

The Adventures system shows up on your Rotom Phone after the lab sequence. Your first challenge is called Coastal Cleanup, and it's on the Resort Island beach. The objective is simple. Wild Grimer and Trubbish are littering the shoreline. You need to defeat or catch three of them.

This teaches basic catching mechanics. Weaken the pokemon, throw a ball. But there's a twist. A Toxapex spawns if you take too long. It's level 8, which is stronger than anything you have at this point. If it shows up, you can still complete the challenge by defeating the three target pokemon before the Toxapex knocks out your team.

Rewards for this Adventure include 500 Pokedollars, three additional Pokeballs, and your first Adventure Point. Adventure Points unlock things later. Hoverboard upgrades, certain shop items, access to restricted islands.

Between Adventures, go back to the hotel. Talk to the receptionist. She mentions the Chairman is "away on business" on Island 8. The game plants this early. There's also a kid in the lobby who'll trade you a regional variant pokemon for any pokemon you caught on the beach.

Adventure Challenge 2: Jungle Race

Your second Adventure happens back in the jungle. It's not a battle. It's a race. You and your rival compete to reach a research outpost first, navigating through dense vegetation, vine bridges, and wild pokemon encounters.

Your Rotom hoverboard unlocks during this challenge. The game teaches you basic movement and boosting. Boosting uses energy that recharges slowly when you're not boosting. The hoverboard transforms based on which pokemon you have linked. With Browt linked, the board sprouts vines that let you swing across gaps. With Pombon, it gets a speed boost on straight paths. With Gecqua, you can cross shallow water sections that slow the other two down.

The rival is genuinely fast. I lost this race the first time. If you lose, the rival gets bonus Adventure Points and gloats about it. If you win, you get extra points and the rival is visibly frustrated. Either way, the story continues. The outcome doesn't lock you out of anything, but winning gives you 200 extra Adventure Points and a Rare Candy.

At the outpost, you meet a researcher who explains the Seed Pokemon system. More on that later. For now, you get a Cut HM replacement item called the Machete Module for your hoverboard. It clears small trees blocking paths.

Adventure Challenge 3: Reef Rescue

This is where the game shows off its underwater mechanics. A Wailmer is trapped in a fishing net on a coral reef just offshore. You need to Dive down, cut the net, and escort the Wailmer to safety.

Diving is fully 3D. You swim in any direction, and the camera follows smoothly. The reef is full of wild Water types. Finneon, Mantyke, a few Clamperl. A Sharpedo patrols the area and will chase you if it spots you. The demo footage showed the Sharpedo's detection cone as a visible red zone on the minimap. Stay out of it.

To cut the net, you need a pokemon that knows a cutting move or the Machete Module equipped on your hoverboard. If you won the Jungle Race, you have the Machete Module. If you lost, you can catch a pokemon that learns Cut. Several grass types on the Resort Island can learn it.

Once the Wailmer is free, it follows you to the surface. Then a Wailord shows up. It's the mother. She doesn't battle you. Instead, she gives you a Wailmer Whistle, which is a key item that calls a Wailmer to ferry you between islands later in the game. This is a genuine surprise. I thought fast travel would just be a menu option. Instead, you literally ride a Wailmer between islands, and different Wailmer have different speed stats based on which ones you've helped throughout the game.

What to Do After the First Three Adventures

You now have access to the ferry service to Island 2. But before you leave Resort Island, there's some cleanup worth doing.

Go back to the hotel at night. The Chairman's office on the top floor is locked, but there's a letter on the reception desk that mentions "Project Stormwave" and "Island 8 development." You can't read the whole thing. The receptionist catches you. But it's the first real hint at the villain plot.

There's a fisherman on the east pier who wants to see a Magikarp. Catch one from the beach (they spawn in the shallow water with a 40% encounter rate) and show it to him. He gives you a Dive Ball, which has an increased catch rate for pokemon encountered underwater.

Stock up on Pokeballs and Potions at the mart. Island 2 doesn't have a Pokemart for the first section.

That's the Resort Island opening. About three hours of gameplay if you're taking your time and exploring everything. The game opens up significantly after this, with multiple islands accessible in different orders. I'll cover the Island 2 and 3 content in the next walkthrough section.