How To Hatch Eggs Fast in Pokémon Crystal

Eggs in Pokémon Crystal can be quickly hatched by traveling long distances while carrying them in your party. The number of steps needed to hatch each egg depends on the Pokémon inside. Walking, surfing, and cycling all count toward hatching eggs. Even walking up and down stairs works!

The two best locations to quickly hatch your eggs are at Johto’s Goldenrod City and at Kanto’s Cycling Road, as they offer long and uninterrupted roads for cycling.

How Long Do Eggs Take to Hatch?

Pokémon Eggs hatch after you’ve walked a certain amount of steps with them in the party. The specific amount varies by Pokémon species.

Tip: Each tile traversed by walking, surfing, or biking counts as a step.

Egg Hatching Time
Steps to Hatch*	Pokémon
1,280	Magikarp.
2,560	Cleffa, Igglybuff, Pichu, Togepi.
3,840	Caterpie, Geodude, Hoot-hoot, Ledyba, Pidgey, Rattata, Sentret, Spearow, Spinarak, Weedle, Zubat.
5,120	All other Pokémon not on this table.
6,400	Elekid, Heracross, Magby, Mantine, Misdreavus, Mr. Mime, Onix, Pinsir, Scyther, Smoochum, Skarmory, Tyrogue.
7,680	Kabuto, Omanyte.
8,960	Aerodactyl, Eevee.
10,240	Chansey, Dratini, Larvitar, Lapras, Snorlax.

*Depending on egg cycles, the exact amount may be up to 255 steps lower.

Regrettably, there’s no way to keep track of an egg’s progress. You can’t keep track of how many steps you’ve taken with an in-game pedometer, either.

The best you can do is manually count the steps if you’re running around trying to hatch an egg. Goldenrod City, for example, is 34 tiles long vertically.

Whenever an egg hatches, you’re treated to a cutscene. So don’t worry about hatched eggs going unnoticed!

Tyrogue is born.

Understanding Egg Cycles

The amount of steps you need to walk for an egg to hatch is measured in “Egg Cycles.”

There are three things you need to know about Egg Cycles:

It takes 256 steps to complete an Egg Cycle.
Egg Cycles are constantly counted even if you don’t have an egg.
Eggs only get progress if they’re in your party when an Egg Cycle ends.

The game awards your eggs “+1 Egg Cycle” every time an Egg Cycle ends, getting them closer to hatching.

So if you get a Magikarp egg on step 255, it still completes a whole Egg Cycle on step 256. That means you only have 1,024 steps left before it cracks open.

Fastest Egg Hatching Methods

What you need to hatch eggs fast is a long and straight road you can bike up and down as you accumulate steps.

Tip: You can have up to five eggs in your party simultaneously to maximize efficiency.

There are two ideal locations to do this in Pokémon Crystal:

SCROLL

Best Egg Hatching Locations
Map	Location	Description	Benefits
	Goldenrod City	Straight road connecting Route 34 to Route 35, passing through Goldenrod.	Day Care Center is located on Route 34.
	Cycling Road	Straight road connecting Route 16 and Route 18, passing through Route 17.	Longest straight road in the game.

While the Cycling Road is the longest straight road in the game, the Goldenrod City run is just north of the Day Care.

Heading up to Goldenrod City from the Day Care Center.

This makes Goldenrod City more convenient if you’re hatching eggs while you wait for your Pokémon in the Day Care to produce more of them.

Tip: Remember you can know whether there’s a new egg without entering the Day Care by checking if the Day Care Man is outside, in the yard. If he is, there’s an egg!

Why Your Party Order Matters

Each time you complete an Egg Cycle, the game goes through the eggs in your party individually to register the progress.

If an egg near the top of the party hatches, the game “forgets” to add the progress to the rest of your eggs.

Visual explaining how Egg Cycle progress is recorded.

That means those eggs will take an entire extra cycle (256 steps) to hatch.

For this reason, you want to keep eggs closer to hatching near the bottom of the party.

Tip: Check the mother’s species against our Egg Hatching Time table above for an estimate.

Easiest Egg Hatching Method

Alternatively, just find a stairwell like those in the Goldenrod Dept. Store or Radio Tower and just keep going forward.

This will make you go up and down the stairs indefinitely.

Going up and down the stars at the Goldenrod Dept. Store.

While this method takes more time than walking down a straight road, you can find a way to hold down the Up button and automatize the process.

Tip: A heavy object is enough for a keyboard, but you might need to get creative with a rubber band and some folded-up paper on consoles.

Just make sure to check the screen from time to time to see whether an egg has hatched. The rules about egg order explored in the last section still apply.

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Nelson Chitty

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Nelson Chitty is a Venezuelan expat living in Argentina. He’s a writer and translator passionate about history and foreign cultures. His ideal weekend is spent between leisurely playing games of Civilization VI and looking for the next seinen anime to marathon.

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