Pokemon FireRed and LeafGreen+: How to Find All 15 Rare Candies

If you came here for “15 Rare Candies,” stop counting at 14. Pokemon FireRed and LeafGreen+ has 14 fixed Rare Candy pickups across Kanto and the Sevii Islands. The extra one floating around in old checklists is Selphy’s reward on Five Island, which is a repeatable random drop, not a static location, so it does not belong in the fixed count. Sort that out and the hunt becomes a clean, story-order sweep.

The short version

• There are 14 fixed Rare Candies, not 15. The “15” only appears when Selphy’s random reward gets counted as a location.
• Some are visible Poké Ball pickups; several are hidden ground items you need the Itemfinder to spot.
• Item placement is fixed, never randomized, so anything you miss can be grabbed on a return trip.
• Two spots cause most of the confusion: Cerulean City and Route 9 are two separate candies, and there is no Rare Candy on Route 10 itself.
• Selphy is a bonus, not a stop: rescue her, show the Pokémon she asks for, and Rare Candy is a 5% chance you can farm.

All 14 fixed Rare Candy locations

1. Mt. Moon – early-game dungeon pickup as you push through to Cerulean.
2. Cerulean City – hidden in the flower patch in the backyard of the blue-roofed house near Nugget Bridge. Walk into the flowers and check.
3. Route 9 – hidden in the northeast corner of the route, right beside the ledge just before it transitions into Route 10 and Rock Tunnel. This is the “before Rock Tunnel” candy older lists keep merging with Cerulean.
4. Route 6 – a hidden ground item, so sweep the route with the Itemfinder rather than looking for a ball.
5. Pokémon Tower – easy to miss while you are dealing with the ghost floors and story event.
6. Rocket Hideout – buried in the multi-floor Celadon basement; do the item sweep before you reach Giovanni.
7. Warden’s House – in Fuchsia City. You need Strength to push a boulder out of the way to reach it.
8. Route 12 – another hidden ground item; Itemfinder the route as you head south toward Lavender.
9. Route 17 (Cycling Road) – one entry, two names. “Cycling Road” and “Route 17” are the same place, so grab it once and tick it off.
10. Silph Co. 10F – the floors blend together after the plot event, which is why this one gets left behind. Clear the floor before you leave the building.
11. Pokémon Mansion – a Cinnabar Island pickup it is easy to walk past while chasing statue switches.
12. Victory Road – a late dungeon pickup before the League; sweep it while you are solving the Strength-boulder puzzles.
13. Cape Brink, Two Island – your first Sevii Islands candy.
14. Lost Cave, Five Island – the easiest to skip, because Lost Cave reads as optional postgame content rather than part of the route.

If a checklist from somewhere else shows fewer than 14, it usually folded Cerulean and Route 9 into one Cerulean note. If it shows 15, it counted Selphy. Both are bookkeeping errors, not different versions of the game.

The route that collects them with the least backtracking

Early Kanto

Your first stop is Mt. Moon on the way to Cerulean. Once you reach Cerulean City, go to the blue-roofed house near Nugget Bridge and walk into the flower patch in its backyard to pull the hidden candy. Then handle Route 9 separately: the candy is hidden in the route’s northeast corner, by the ledge that leads into Rock Tunnel. Treat these as two pickups. Players routinely grab one, assume the cluster is done, and leave the other behind for half the game.

While you are moving through Kanto, the Itemfinder earns its slot. Route 6 and Route 12 are both hidden ground items rather than visible balls, which is exactly how they get walked past.

Midgame Kanto: the building stretch where misses happen

Pokémon Tower, Rocket Hideout, and Silph Co. swallow the most candies because your attention is on the boss, the warp pads, and the story beats, not the empty corner tiles. Sweep each floor like a checklist before you take the next staircase, elevator, or warp. At Silph Co. 10F in particular, do the cleanup before you leave; every floor looks the same once the plot is over, and you will not trust your memory later.

In the same stretch, get the Warden’s House candy in Fuchsia City. You will need the Strength HM to shove the blocking boulder aside, so come back once you have it if Strength is still missing. Clear Route 17 (Cycling Road) while you are already riding that corridor. It is a single entry under two names, so if your notes say “Cycling Road done,” you are not missing a separate Route 17 candy.

Late Kanto and the Sevii Islands

Your late Kanto pickups are Pokémon Mansion on Cinnabar and Victory Road. Both are maps where a miss comes from impatience: Mansion pulls you into statue switches, and Victory Road into Strength puzzles. Sweep them anyway. Then the route extends into the Sevii Islands, which is where most incomplete lists quit early. You still need Cape Brink on Two Island and Lost Cave on Five Island. Lost Cave is the classic skip because it sits in content that feels optional.

Selphy: the farmable bonus, not the 15th location

Here is the entry that broke everyone’s count. Selphy at Resort Gorgeous on Five Island can give a Rare Candy, but it is not a fixed pickup. First you have to rescue her from Lost Cave. After that she asks to see a specific registered Pokémon, and you have to bring it back to her within 250 steps. Her reward is random: Rare Candy is a 5% chance, one of seven possible “expensive” items behind a 70% Luxury Ball default. Because the quest is repeatable, it is a renewable source of Rare Candy rather than a one-time spot. Useful, but it is a farm, not the 15th location.

Common mistakes

• Counting Selphy as a fixed candy. That is the only reason “15” exists. The static total is 14.
• Merging Cerulean and Route 9. They are two separate hidden candies, and there is no candy on Route 10 itself.
• Looking only for item balls. Route 6, Route 12, Cerulean, and Route 9 are hidden ground items. Use the Itemfinder on dead ends and empty-looking tiles.
• Skipping the Warden’s House without Strength. The boulder blocks the candy until you can push it.
• Stopping after Kanto. Cape Brink and Lost Cave are part of the route, not optional extras.

When to actually spend them

Once the route is done, spend Rare Candies where they remove grind: pushing a Pokémon over an evolution threshold, or fixing a level spike right before a gym, a Rival fight, the Victory Road climb, or the Elite Four. Holding a few for late adjustments beats burning them one at a time mid-story, because by the endgame you know which Pokémon actually made your final team.

Practical takeaway

Treat it as 14 fixed candies plus one farmable Selphy bonus. Keep Cerulean and Route 9 separate, treat Route 17 and Cycling Road as one entry, push the boulder at the Warden’s House, and do not stop the checklist before Cape Brink and Lost Cave. Sweep the multi-floor buildings with the Itemfinder, and the set closes out without guesswork.