The Early Birds of Generation Four in Pokemon Go

It seems that the first few members of Generation 4 have started appearing in Pokemon Go. The three starter Pokemon, Turtwig, Chimchar and Piplio were all teased over the last few days, and a handful of Pokemon have started popping up alongside the normal bunch of regulars one sees around town.

The list though is quite small. The entirety of Generation 4 hasn’t been released yet, it is literally just under thirty Pokemon. The three starters and their evolutions, the Starly evolution line, the Shinx evolution line, Bidoof and his evolution, Riolu and Lucario, Buneary and Lopunny and a handful of others. The common ones, Bidoof, Starly and Kricketot, will plague 2km eggs for a while, Buneary and the starters will hide in 5km eggs, but Riolu right now is in 10km egg only, alongside Luxio, the second state of Shinx, strangely enough.

There’s currently only one Generation 4 shiny available, and it’s Shinx via 1-star Raids. In fact, Generation 4 Pokemon have replaced all 1-star raids, but all higher tier raids remain the same – good because I STILL haven’t been able to get a Tyrannitar.

Anyway, some people might think that this very tiny selection of Generation 4 Pokemon is kinda mediocre, especially when there’s a LOT of good Pokemon in Gen 4. But really, a slow release is good. If you release a whole generation at once, you kinda get flooded and don’t know what to get. Everything’s competing and everyone manages to get everything too quickly (which is bad for Niantic) or only a handful remain common and no one can collect anything at all (which is bad for everyone). A steady stream not only keeps people hanging on edge for the next lot of new Pokemon, but it also gives everyone a chance to start collecting, especially more casual players who don’t have hours to spend scouring Pokestops and gyms for more Buneary.

I feel sorry for Buneary.

But what’s strange is that we also haven’t seen any of the evolutions from Pokemon from prior generations. There’s quite a few of them, for example Raltz has a male evolution line and two of my favourites, Magmar and Rhyhorn/Rhydon, both have a new evolution in Generation 4. There’s quite a few of these and I’m surprised we haven’t actually seen any of them yet, since they seem like the perfect thing to keep bored Pokemon Go veterans happy.

What’s even better though are the changes as to what appears in the wild. In the hour or so time I’ve had to catch the new stuff, I’ve also seen some really interesting old stuff too! Most of the Pokemon I’ve seen are common Pokemon that are slightly less common than the REALLY common stuff, but there’s been some surprises. It was so nice not seeing the same old Pokemon over and over again. I like Snubbull, it’s cute as fuck, but most of the time it’s one of the few Pokemon I see aside from Numel, Meowth and Mankey. The best thing though, I actually managed to catch a Shellgon in the wild, the evolution between Bagon and Salamence. I already have a nice Shellgon but that’s 10 extra candies I wouldn’t have gotten otherwise! I’ve also seen other interesting things on radar, but if those Pokemon are “in the wild”, they could be anywhere.

No matter what, there’s some exciting things to come. Even if Generation 4 will slowly trickle out, it’s so good seeing more variation in Pokemon in general.