RE: Joseph Dowland in the Thursday Inbox. Thank you for letting me know about the Pokémon event giveaway. Having looked around it appears the UK event starts on Monday 21st October at GAME, according to their own Twitter.
It does seem to have been put together at the last minute. I don’t know if things will change for Sword and Shield, but I find the way Pokémon only do timed events instead of permanent DLC for Pokémon giveaways archaic and unfair.
I know mega-fans will get both copies of a new Pokémon release on day one, and by limiting the events the company is encouraging early buyers, but for anyone who waits for a sale or comes to a Pokémon game a year later you’ve missed out on some of the strongest Pokémon. I missed out on Marshadow last generation, and the chances of me ever having a Jirachi, Arceus, or Darkrai are slim. It’s even worse if you care about natures and IV distribution.
Yet fans have made online battle simulators like Pokémon Showdown where you can easily select any Pokémon, moveset, nature, IV, and EV distribution in minutes and battle. In the actual games this takes multiple hours of breeding eggs and moves. I even think Game Freak are aware of this as breeding and seeing IVs has become easier each generation.
I do love the games as they are great role-playing games but they could cater a lot better to fans. I don’t own a Switch yet and won’t for sometime, so I’m resigned to the fact I will likely miss out on the new mythical Pokémon even before the games have been released.
SJC
