Pokémon Contests are a type of competition often contrasted with Pokémon battles and held in Contest Halls.

In the games

Pokémon Contests are in Pokémon Ruby, Sapphire, and Pokémon Emerald only. Pokémon can be entered in one of five categories: Coolness, Beauty, Cuteness, Smartness, and Toughness, and compete against three other Coodinator's Pokémon entered in the same category in two phases.

Preliminary judging

First, the audience preliminarily votes on which four competing Pokémon looks the coolest, most beautiful, cutest, smartest, or toughest, depending on what category the Contest is in. The attributes the audience doesn't dislike and overall Luster also beneficially influences the audience. To make a Pokémon look cooler, etc., a Coordinator prepares Pokéblocks of a specific color from certain Berries, depending what category he or she wants to augment, and feeds them to his or her Pokémon. One might predict how well a Pokémon will do in this phase by the number of hearts that appear over the audience members' heads.

Secondary judging: appeals

Then in the secondary phase, the four Pokémon take turns, or appeals, using certain moves in front of an appointed Judge. In one Contest, there are five rounds of Appealing, in which each Pokémon may make appeals once or less, depending on the moves it and the other Pokémon have used in the previous round. Every move is in one of the five Contest categories, adds a certain amount of "red hearts" (how much the Judge likes the appealing Pokémon; a "negative" number of hearts is indicated by black hearts), and may have a certain effect on it or the other appealing Pokémon, such as Jamming or reducing other Pokémon's number of hearts, making it or other Pokémon more nervous, and so forth. Move combos (e.g. Sunny Day + Solarbeam) score extra hearts. Moves that are of the same Contest category of the Contest it is competing in may excite the audience, and if the audience becomes extremely excited, the Pokémon scores extra hearts.

Turn order

In the first round, the turn order is determined by how well each Pokémon did in the preliminary judging. In the rounds after the first, they are ordered from who won the most hearts to the least in the next round, unless one of the appeals' moves changes or randomizes the order.

Statuses induced by Contest moves

If a move a Pokémon uses in an appeal makes it "settle down just a bit", indicated by a circle icon, it prevents one jamming, i.e. losing hearts from another Pokémon's move, to take place; after a jam occurs and is prevented or the round is over, the Pokémon stops being "settled down just a bit".

If a move a Pokémon uses in an appeal makes it "become oblivious to others", indicated by a circle icon, it prevents it from being jammed at all during the entire round.

If a move a Pokémon uses in an appeal tries to jam another Pokémon, it or they are indicated with either a swirly spiral icon or an ear.

If a move a Pokémon used in the previous round renders it unable to appeal in this round, it is indicated by an "X" icon.

Stars may be earned in an appeal as marks of "good condition", and may be received from the Judge as a result of an earlier-used move. They add one more heart to the appeal.

Judge's reactions

When the Judge has a question mark "?" over his head, each Pokémon is indicated with the text "NEXT TURN: ?". When this happens, the turn order for the next appeal round is scrambled.

When the Judge has a number 1 or 4 over his head while watching a Pokémon appeal, that Pokémon is indicated with the text "NEXT TURN: X", where X is the number over the Judge's head. When this happens, that Pokémon will become first or last in the turn order in the next round, depending on X. If another Pokémon uses a similar appeal and also moves to the beginning or ending, the Pokémon that appealed first will move to the next turn, and "NEXT TURN: X" will change accordingly.

When the Judge has a swirly spiral over his head while watching a Pokémon appeal, that means the Pokémon has repeated a move it used last turn. The first time a move is repeated, the Pokémon loses two hearts. The second time, it loses three hearts, and so on. There are a few moves to which this rule doesn't apply, such as Hidden Power. To prevent this from happening accidentally, the move's named used in the previous round is gray when selecting a move to appeal with.

When the Judge has a single exclamation point "!" over his head while watching a Pokémon appeal, that means a combo is possible with the move just used, and the Pokémon is indicated by a flashing red dot. If the Pokémon knows a move it can perform a combo with, its name will be red when selecting a move to appeal with.

When the Judge has a double exclamation point "!!" over his head while watching a Pokémon appeal, that means it has just performed a combo with the two previous moves it appealed with. Then, the Pokémon will receive the number of hearts double of the second move's base Appeal.

When the Judge has a star over his head while watching a Pokémon appeal, the Pokémon receives a star.

Audience

In secondary judging, the crowd's excitement over a Pokémon's appeal influences the number of hearts it earns. This is shown by the Exitement meter, a series of five ovals that may be filled or empty.

If a Pokémon uses a move whose Contest category is the same as the category of the Contest it is participating in and the Excitement meter is below five, the meter increases by one, and the Pokémon receives one more heart in its appeal.

If a Pokémon uses a move whose Contest category is disliked by the audience for the Contest it is participating in, the Excitement meter will decrease by one.

If a Pokémon uses a move, and the Exitement meter then reaches five, the Pokémon receives six more hearts in its appeal, and the Excitement meter returns to zero.

After judging

After five rounds of appealing has passed, the four Pokémon's results are shown. Here, stars represent how well the Pokémon did in the preliminary judging, and the hearts indicate how well the Pokémon did in the secondary judging; both fill up the four Pokémon's meters. The Pokémon whose meter becomes the highest is announced as the winner of the Contest, and is awarded a Ribbon. A small portrait of the winner is painted and placed in the Contest Hall. A painter will paint a large painting if the winner of a Master Rank contest wins with a high score. These larger paintings are displayed in the Lilycove Museum.

Contest Ranks

There are four Contest ranks: Normal Rank, Super Rank, Hyper Rank, and Master Rank, and a Contest, as well as having one of the five categories, has one of these four ranks. A Pokémon may not enter a Master Ranked Contest without having won a Hyper Rank Ribbon in the same category as the Contest, a Pokémon may not enter a Hyper Ranked Contest without having won a Super Rank Ribbon, and a Pokémon may not enter a Super Ranked Contest without having won a Normal Rank Ribbon. Any Pokémon may enter a Normal Ranked Contest.

A Contest Pass is required to enter into any Contest.

In Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire, Normal Ranked Contests are held in the Verdanturf Town Contest Hall, Super in Fallarbor Town, Hyper in Slateport City, and Master in Lilycove City.

In Pokémon Emerald, Contests of all four ranks are held in the Lilycove City Contest Hall only. Also, the Contest Pass is not required.