A Casual Player’s Ramble About How Mega Pokemon Won’t Be As Game-Breaking As We All Think

Mega Pokemon have been confirmed for Pokemon Go for 2020, but we don’t know much about them. We don’t know how we’ll obtain Mega Pokemon or trigger their special evolutions or anything. All we know is that Mega Evolutions are coming “soon”. But, considering how powerful Mega Pokemon are in the main games, players worry that Mega Pokemon will get in the way of everything. That they’ll be game-breaking in some way.

Honestly, I don’t think that’s going to happen.

In the main games, these Pokemon are monsters.

Mega Pokemon are insanely strong in normal Pokemon games. I mean, it’s almost common knowledge that Mega Rayquaza is so powerful that it has its own tier of overpowered-ness. In competitive play, Mega Rayquaza is so powerful that it’s basically uber uber banned from use. All Mega Pokemon get amazing stat boosts and, with so many moves available to them, amazing ways to use those stats.

Mega Pokemon are actually monsters that don’t have much control. When they were introduced, Mega Evolution was supposed to be this magical connection between Pokemon and Trainer, but later on, all the Mega Pokemon were given horrific Pokedex entries.

For example, Mega Gyarados’s Mega Evolution “affects its brain, leaving no other function except its destructive instinct to burn everything to cinders”. Mega Houndoom’s “red claws and the tips of its tail are melting from high internal temperatures that are painful to Houndoom itself.”

Better stats are nice but aren’t the be-all-and-end-all.

When it comes to the stats of these Pokemon, you can see just how strong these Pokemon are. Mega Evolutions tend to push up one stat a lot, with slight buffs (or maybe even nerfs) to other stats. In Pokemon GO however, we only have three stats: attack, defense and HP. Speed and Special Attack/Defense don’t exist. Which means that stats in Pokemon Go are calculated, well, weirdly.

Some Pokemon benefit from new typings though. Mega Charizard and Sceptile both become dragon types, while Mega Altaria gains a fiary typing, making it resistant against other dragons. Mega Aggron however becomes a pure Steel type, losing quite a few weaknesses.

The biggest limits are their moves.

In Pokemon Go, we only have two or three moves. One fast attack and one or two charge attacks. Not every move that’s in the main games is in Pokemon Go. On top of that, the moves a Pokemon can have in Pokemon Go are very limited. For example, Tyranitar’s only dark moves are Bite and Crunch, which aren’t that great. The only reason why it was the Dark type king for so long was because Houndoom is a glass cannon and we didn’t have Darkrai yet.

Even though Mega Evolution gives Tyranitar a huge burst of power, it doesn’t have the right moves to capitalize on that power. And the same can be said for a LOT of Pokemon. Charizard won’t be a great dragon-type because he doesn’t have a dragon fast move, same with Sceptile. And pretty much every move for Poison and Bug types is rather mediocre, meaning you can replace them with non-mega Pokemon. Just because you are mega, doesn’t mean you’re good.

That’s on top of other, Niantic-imposed limits.

A lot of the stat calculations assume that we can have as many Mega Pokemon as we want. Niantic may add a lot of restrictions. We might only be able to have one Mega Pokemon at a time. Or we might need best buddies. Perhaps we will need a ton of candy. Who knows?

So perhaps it’s worth nor worrying about Mega Pokemon. They won’t be as game-changing as we think.

Well, aside from Mega Mewtwo and Mega Rayquaza. But frankly they’re broken no matter what.