We're deep into the Nintendo Switch exclusive, having taken the push to complete our Pokedex with all available Pokemon, from shinies to rares. 

So whether you're looking to catch 'em all or are just about to step into Pallet town for the first time, here are a few tips and tricks to help you master either the Pikachu or Eevee game.

1. Free Persian or Arcanine in Vermillion City

Cover ground quicker early on with a free Persian or Arcanine from a friendly non-playable character in Vermillion City. You'll get an Arcanine if you're playing the Eevee game, or a Persian if you're playing the Pikachu game. You'll need to catch five Meowths for Eevee or five Growlithes for Pikachu.

2. Learn Sea Skim to access Seafoam Islands and beyond

Speeding around cities is fine – but once you've hit Fuchsia City, to cross the sea and battle the legendaries and ultimately Mewtwo, you'll need to learn Sea Skim.

Outside of the Go Park there is a man near the Lapras and a surf board. After listening to his story, he will teach your main Pokemon the Sea Skim ability, so you can surf out to Seafoam Islands and beyond.

3. Check IV and learn the Judge Function

Your Pokemon may have a high CP but how well it does in battle will depend on its Individual Values – such as Attack and Defence. If you play Pokemon Go on your mobile then an important post-raid ritual is checking if your legendary is a wonder and has 15 attack, and there are several third-party IV checkers that can be installed to help check this on your phone.

To check IV's in Let's Go you will need to visit Professor Oak's assistant who's working hard in the office above the checkpoint between route 11 and 12. If you have captured 30 unique species of Pokemon he will give you access to the Judge Function so you can be more selective of your Pokemon when preparing for battle and going up against the Elite Four.

4. Transfer Pokemon from Go to Let's Go

Go Park is where you can transfer Pokemon from Pokemon Go into Pokemon Let's Go.

You can also transfer any Kanto Pokemon, but each will be reset to level one – so don't expect to transfer your 100 IV 4000cp Dragonite with impunity, as you won't be able to transfer it back.

Once transferred those Pokemon will reside in Go Park, a replacement for the Safari Zone, and are available to be caught within Let's Go.

5. Bond with your Pikachu/Eevee

Let's Go is available in two forms: Pikachu and Eevee. The games are essentially the same, with some different content throughout. Plus, of course, your lead partner Pokemon will be Pikachu or Eevee based on the selected cartridge.

Be sure to bond with your chosen Pikachu or Eevee. Giving Pikachu and head rub isn't just cute – it also improves his unique special moves!

6. The Mystery Box and catching Meltan

When you transfer Pokemon into Let's Go it triggers the release of a Mystery Box, which allows players to encounter Meltan in the wild for 30 minutes – but this opportunity is only available once a week.

7. Collaborate with your friends

For those elusive last Pokemon missing from your Pokedex, sign up to a Nintendo account and get friend codes for trading. Or you could get friends to trade in missing Pokemon from their Go accounts in return for a Mystery Box.

8. Dual accounts: Two hands are better than one

Playing with friends is great, sure, but you might not always be able to play Let's Go in co-op mode. However, there's nothing stopping you from having two Let's Go accounts played simultaneously (one per Joy Con controller), which increases your chances of catching.

Just like many Pokemon Go players have a 'baby account' on a second phone, you can duo play Let's Go by yourself with both hands to increase your catching odds. This is particularly handy for hard-to-catch Pokemon, such as Meltan.

We also think it's worth undocking you Switch for an easier catch, so you lose fewer balls. We managed to waste at least thirty great balls trying to catch Articuno in the wild, for example. 

9. Battle for Pokeballs, avoid buying them

We foolishly ran out of Pokeballs trying to fill our Pokedex with transferred Pokemon in Go Park. Not an ideal situation as these balls are a staple of the catching system and it always seems a waste of your hard earned Pokecash to buy these – so make sure to replenish them by battling as much as possible. Selling multiples of small candies is a good way to offset their price if you do have to splash out at the Poke Mart.

10. Lures are essential, Super Lures not so much

Lures help immensely with filling your Pokedex, but don't waste money on the super lures – the normal ones will do the job.

You'll inevitably earn more experience points (XP) from catching than you will from battling, which is why it's so important. For example, for catching a Victreebel transferred from our Pokemon Go account, we received a whopping 3440 XP.

11. Use Evolution Stones with care: They're rare

You'll need evolution stones to evolve specific Pokemon – even though they respawn every day at Mount Moon (which is located between Pewter City and Cerulean City) – but these Moonstones are very limited, so use them wisely for the evolutions of Nidorina and Nidorino.

12. Managing Mega Evolutions in battle

Mega Evolutions activated by Mega stones – which were introduced in Pokemon Sun and Moon to give some Pokemon a battle boost – aren't available until quite far into the game.

Pokemon Let's Go implements such evolution slightly differently to Sun and Moon: during battles players can simply activate Mega Evolution. The Mega Evolved Pokemon will remain in this form for the whole of the battle, but will revert to its normal form once the fight is over.

13. Save, save, save!

It seems obvious, but it's so important to save your game. After 10 hours of grinding we turned off our Switch to extract some screenshots onto a microSD card and lost most of our progress. Be sure to save at regular intervals as it's olnly later in the game you'll be prompted to do this when you catch transferred Pokemon in Go Park.

14. Shiny Pokemon: How to catch them

Twitter seems awash with screengrabs of Let's Go shinnies, but you'll need to practice your dodging skills – to spawn a shiny you need to get some ridiculous Catch Combos (this is when a trainer catches the same Pokemon species repeatedly without accidentally catching a different Pokemon and breaking the chain).

If you want to increase your shiny odds even further, you can pick up the Shiny Charm after catching every Pokemon in the Pokedex, then head to Celadon City to talk to the Game Freak representatives.

15. How to catch Mewtwo

Catching Mewtwo to parade around as part of your party is essential, but it's also a strong psychic type with high base stats and an array of impressive moves.

Mewtwo can be found in Cerulean Cave after defeating the Pokemon League.

We would advise battling Mewtwo with Bug types (like Scyther and Pincer) with the addition some Dark types (such as Bite and a Grimer). Hit Mewtwo with Toxic and, even though it has Recover, that will eventually wear down his HP.

Be sure to catch with your Master Ball to avoid disappointment.