I’ve had a long period away fromPokemon Go. I went years without missing a day’s streak on the game, playing everyCommunity Dayto some extent, shiny hunting rarePokemon, and generally rinsingNiantic’smobile game for everything it’s worth.
Then, I tailed off. I had a kid, which meant I preferred to spend my weekends with her rather than glued to my phone screen. Niantic also introduced a fair few changes that derailed my enjoyment.Remote Raids were limited. New content seemed to just be new shinies, and lots of the exciting research was locked behind paywalls.
My play curtailed to just an hour on Comm Days, to not at all. I’d go weeks, months without logging into the game. And this wasn’t the first time. After the initial excitement in 2016, I quit for a year. I played solidly for about six months, but when I’d got enough candy to evolve every Pokemon in Kanto (or those I had, at least), there wasn’t much else to do. Eevee Community Day brought me back for the next four or five years, and the rest is history.
More recently, I faced a different problem. Instead of there being a lack of content, there’s content I’m not interested in or don’t want to pay for. But the new season has changed that, somehow.
I want to get this out of the way now: I don’t care aboutDynamaxing. It was afinemechanic in the main series, befitting the stadium-sized gym battles, and it’s less exciting in Pokemon Go. Especially because you can’t even spend your Dynamax points yet other than powering up the Wooloo you got in the special research who will definitely be useless once any other Dynamaxable monsters have been released.
However, the Dynamax portals that appear in the overworld like purple PokeStops have given the game new life. I’ll plan my walking routes by them even if my bag is maxed out, just to see what they are. The fact that they shift places every couple of days keeps things exciting, too. For a pointless mechanic, the visual interest alone is a small draw.
However, the biggest thing is thenew monsters. The Galarian starter Pokemon have been released alongside pseudo-legendary Dreepy and regional exclusive Stonjourner. Wooloo and Skwovet, who were released previously for some reason, also have their shiny versions available.
It feels like a missed opportunity to not add the shiny Galarian birds to the game in this update.
I don’t particularly care for any of these Pokemon. Sobble is the best boi, but his evolutions are terrible. Shiny Wooloo is great, but I’m hardly going to hunt it like the old days. However, I like the Galar region and Sword & Shield, so I logged back in to catch ‘em all.
I expected to grab a handful of each ‘mon and then disappear again. But instead, I was hooked. The most important factor for this was Stonjourner. The Stonehenge-inspired Rock-type is a regional exclusive to the UK, so I was immediately on the hunt for it. I didn’t want this to be one of those regionals that’s super common during the event and then barely spawns afterwards, so I chased down Stonjourner shadows until I had one. I was actually on a train when I caught it, the tracks comingjustclose enough to the PokeStop for Stonjourner to spawn. I’ll look for some more as the event goes on, but I’ve got my first one, and that’s an important step.
The starters appear more commonly, but here the timed research kicked in. Free collection events challenge you to catch all the starters and evolve them to their middle stages. It’s a simple task, but the chance for a badge and little reward is more than enough to get me using pinap berries and catching Grookey.
But the Pokemon that made the game feel most like the old days again was Dreepy. I have fond memories of running through Sheffield city centre to catch my first Electabuzz and sprinting into a farmer’s field to grab a Dratini, whose candy was so precious back then. Finding Dreepy feels like that.
Pokemon Go has nailed the rareness of its new Pokemon. While it would have been cool to get a slightly bigger release, so that we were seeing Yamper and Rookidee instead of all the Grimer I’ve been encountering for some reason, it really feels like we’re exploring a new region. Wooloo and Skwovet are everywhere – and if you’re min-maxing your Dynamax, you’ll sure need that Wooloo candy. The starters are slightly more rare, and Go’s relatively recent update to its biomes means that it’s fun heading to the sea to find Sobble, a park for Grookey, and nipping to my local volcano for Scorbunny. Getting enough candy to evolve them once was pretty easy, and after a few play sessions I think the challenge of fully evolving them is perfect. I’ll have enough candy by the event, but only because I’ve engaged with the game’s systems.
Then there’s Dreepy. I still haven’t found the elusive dragon, but I’ve seen its shadows on my radar at a few inopportune moments. If one spawns close enough to my house, I just know that I’ll excuse myself from work for a few minutes, throw on some shoes and tear down my road to grab it. It’s just like the old days again, except with a complex, expensive, pointless mechanic tacked on. That’s Pokemon Go’s biggest boon and most devastating problem in 2024.
