Gaming How-To

Pokémon Pokopia: How to Rebuild the Bubbly Basin Pokémon Center

The exact materials, specialty Pokémon, and Life Coin cost you need to finish the underwater Pokémon Center repair.

The exact materials, specialty Pokémon, and Life Coin cost you need to finish the underwater Pokémon Center repair.

Restoring the ruined Pokémon Center is the first Important Request you take on after diving into Bubbly Basin with Popplio in the Pokémon Pokopia Expansion Pass. It gates itself behind a bit of town-building, then asks for four specific materials and a mix of Pokémon before the repair can start.

Quick answer: Raise Bubbly Basin’s Environment Level to 3, buy the Pokémon Center Rebuilding Kit from the PC shop for 1,000 Life Coins, gather 25 Star-spotted rock, 5 Shiny pearls, 10 Seashells, and 10 Sea glass fragments, then assign eight Pokémon that include Build, Scrub, and Bulldoze specialists and wait 24 hours for construction to finish.


Everything the Pokémon Center rebuild requires

Before you touch a single material, the town needs to reach a set progress point and you need enough currency to unlock the kit. Here is the full checklist in one place.

RequirementDetails
Environment LevelBubbly Basin must reach Level 3
Rebuilding KitBought from the PC shop for 1,000 Life Coins
Star-spotted rock25 (Rock Smash on blocks)
Shiny pearls5 (scrubbed from grubby pearls)
Seashells10 (found on the seabed)
Sea glass fragments10 (found on the seabed)
Pokémon8 total, including one Build, one Scrub, and one Bulldoze specialist
Build time24 real-time hours

Start the request in Bubbly Basin

When you dive through the gate with Popplio, you arrive in the run-down underwater town. Popplio wants your help brightening it and drawing more Pokémon back, and Professor Tangrowth checks in over the Pokédex shortly after.

pokemon center location bubbly basin pokopia
Head northwest from the platform where you talk with Popplio. Follow the hall to the set of stairs on the left, then climb them to reach the wrecked Pokémon Center at the top.
Use the working PC outside the ruins. Professor Tangrowth calls back, suggests fixing the building with the Pokémon Center Rebuilding Kit, and the Important Request officially begins.
important request rebuild pokemon center bubbly basin pokopia

Unlock the Rebuilding Kit at Environment Level 3

The PC will not sell you the kit right away. The Pokémon Center Rebuilding Kit only appears in the shop once Bubbly Basin’s Environment Level hits 3. The fastest route there is to find traces of Pokémon, build their habitats, and keep adding a decoration or two to make those Pokémon happier with their homes, which pushes the level up.

At Level 3, buy the kit for 1,000 Life Coins. If you are short on coins, open the PC and click the Ditto icon to see the daily and general Bubbly Basin challenges. Completing them pays out Life Coins.

pokemon center rebuilding kit in pc shop pokopia

Gather the four materials

Three of the four materials are easy pickups while you swim around the town. Star-spotted rock comes from using Rock Smash on the blocks scattered through the Basin. Seashells and Sea glass fragments sit out in the open on the seabed in various spots, so grab them as you explore.

star-spotted rock and grubby pearls pokopia
seashells and sea glass fragments pokopia

The fourth material, Shiny pearls, takes real setup. You will not find them lying around, so this is where most of your time goes.


How to get Shiny pearls

Shiny pearls start life as grubby pearls, which Cloyster turns shiny using its Scrub specialty. To reach Cloyster, you first work through Mareanie.

Welcome Mareanie first

Build Mareanie the Swaying Flower Bed and Coral habitat. Find a colorful coral near the main square where you first spoke with Popplio, then use your Rototiller to dig up seabed flowers and plant four flower plots next to the coral. Wait for Mareanie to move in.
Look for Mareanie with an orange “Uh oh…” bubble overhead and talk to them. They ask you to find pearls in a cave northeast of the main square, to the right of the big staircase.
cave with grubby pearls directions pokopia
Follow the path on the right. In the corner you will spot what looks like a dirty ball in the sand, which turns out to be a grubby pearl when you pick it up. Bring it back to Mareanie, and they share the Swaying Flower Bed and Seaweed habitat so you can attract Cloyster.
pokemon gifting grubby pearls pokopia

More grubby pearls wait deeper in that same cave, with several in the large room at the end of the hall. Pokémon you have befriended may also hand you grubby pearls as a thank-you for rebuilding the town.

Build the habitat for Cloyster

The Swaying Flower Bed and Seaweed habitat needs chimney rocks, 4 seabed flowers, and 2 lush seaweed. Chimney rocks are the structures that taper toward the top and blow bubbles from a hole. Use Rototiller to move the seaweed and flowers up to a chimney rock, and Cloyster shows up.

Cloyster carries the Scrub specialty, which is exactly what converts your grubby pearls into the Shiny pearls the rebuild needs.


Line up the specialty Pokémon

The rebuild calls for eight Pokémon in total. Three of them must have specific specialties, and the remaining five can carry any specialty at all. Cloyster covers Scrub, so you still need a Build and a Bulldoze specialist.

SpecialtyPokémonHow to get it
ScrubCloysterSwaying Flower Bed and Seaweed habitat
BuildCorphishSandy Basin Tall Grass habitat
BulldozeWugtrioStage habitat near the Pokémon Center

For Corphish, build the Sandy Basin Tall Grass habitat. Use Leafage to pull up four squares of seabed tall grass anywhere around a sandpile, which looks like a sand tunnel dotted with sea glass and seashells.

For Wugtrio, you need to have finished building the Ocean Temple first. After that, Chinchou asks you to set up a stage near the Pokémon Center. Once it is ready, investigate the stage and it becomes Wugtrio’s habitat.

Note: The five non-specialist Pokémon only need a specialty of any kind, so any befriended residents will do.


Assign the Pokémon and start construction

With all four materials in hand, go to the Pokémon Center and ask the required Pokémon to follow you.
Open the Pokémon tab, select them, and choose Start Building.
Wait out the 24 real-time hours of construction. When the timer ends, the ruined building is replaced by a finished Pokémon Center, which confirms the Important Request is complete.

Once the center is done and the Ocean Temple is built, Professor Tangrowth calls to hand you the next task, raising Bubbly Basin’s Environment Level to 5. Clearing that request rewards you with a Music Box, and the easiest path is simply packing the Basin with as many Pokémon as possible.