The Slowly Increasing Need for More Backpack Space

Right now, I have enough space to hold 1450 Pokemon on my level 42 Pokemon GO account. Also right now, I am using 1430 of those 1450 slots. There’s probably an event coming up, so I’ll need to clear some space. I need to start transferring Pokemon, so I can catch more of them. After all, I can’t keep every Pokemon, right? Well, I’ll try…

I don’t like deleting things.

I’m a weirdly sentimental person. Even when I am running out of space, I don’t like deleting things or throwing things away. The thought is always “what if this turns out to be useful later on?”

The exact same thing applies in Pokemon GO. But, because I don’t have unlimited backpack space, I can only have so many Pokemon. The question is, which ones are genuinely useful and which ones can I get rid of? It’s very hard to answer. I mean, do I really NEED 9 Rock Wrecker Rhyperiors when 6 is enough? But at the same time, do I have enough Rampardos? I only have 4, plus a lucky Cranidos I haven’t evolved yet. It’s very easy to say “just have enough for a squad of each type!” but you never know when a Pokemon might come in handy. Sure, I have a bunch of Raikou for electric types, but sometimes you need something a bit different, like an Electavire spamming Thunder Punch, to win the day.

But even if I do delete most things I catch, I don’t delete all of them. I’ll save a few for later, whether to evolve or trade. And that number of Pokemon slowly creeps up over time. I have to constantly purge to keep on top of things.

Events really hurt the backpack space.

After the Kanto event, I’m left with tons of Pokemon that I don’t know what to do with. Like, do I really want to delete the three Ekans shinies I got? Or what about the Legendary Birds I caught during their recent raid event? I did a bunch of raids and caught a bunch of birds, but do I delete them? A bunch of them have special moves, maybe I can delete the ones that don’t have special moves?

Community Days are the worst for this. I always catch way too many. Sure, I could just not catch them in the first place… but who does that? Who intentionally doesn’t catch a shiny Pokemon? So it gets caught and takes up space in my inventory instead. Then I have to make the decision to delete it later. Better than watching a Pokemon flee though.

Of course, none of this is helped by the fact that you can’t mass-delete legendary, mythical and shiny Pokemon. So you have to look each one in the eye as you “transfer them” to Professor Willow. And we all know what really happens when we confirm those transfers…

And then there’s stuff I definitely CAN’T delete.

After all, how can I delete that lucky Deino? It’s a Deino and it’s lucky! But what about that lucky Dratini? I have four lucky Dratinis. One of them is 98% but also only 200CP. Another is nearly capped, but has kinda mediocre stats. How about a lucky Zapdos?

And then we have Pokemon you can only get once. Sure, my Jirachi’s stats are awful, but I’ll only ever get the one. The same applies to both my Celebis and my Victini. But do I keep the Meltan I got for finishing the Let’s GO Meltan quest? Or do I just delete all my extra Meltans?

There’s also tons of other Pokemon I can’t transfer for historic reasons. I still have Flafflebutt, the first Houndour I ever caught. And then there’s a 98% Persian I caught at level 5, after throwing pretty much all my Pokeballs at it.

Guess I’ll just buy more space then…

Really, the only solution is to buy more backpack space. But you can only do this for so long. There’s a maximum capacity for Pokemon Storage, at about 2500 Pokemon. New accounts start off with only 300 space. It sounds like a lot, but it’s really easy to hit that cap. But buying storage is expensive. Okay, sure, if you are lucky with coins, you can get 200 coins in 4 days. That however requires both time and luck, and not everyone has that.

For now though, it really is the only answer. Because I’m far, far too sentimental about all these digital monsters.