Another Ramble about Costumed Pokemon

As of writing, we are on part 2 of a two-part Halloween event in Pokemon GO. Alongside all your normal ghost types, this year, we have a ton of new costumed Pokemon. But these costumed Pokemon are different. They can evolve.

Yep, we got a costumed Vulpix and a costumed Pumpkaboo, and both of them can evolve into Ninetails and Gourgeist, keeping their costumes as they do so. Both of the basic Pokemon are also shiny-eligible but, although you can find wild Ninetails and Gourgeist with the costumes on, they can’t be shiny. Pretty common stuff with the shiny versions, but evolve-able costume Pokemon for Halloween make a nice change.

Actually, quite a few of this year’s costumed Pokemon have been made to evolve. In the Fashion Week event, we got Croagunks and Diglets with hats and capable of evolving. On the other hand though, we still got multiple Pikachus that can’t evolve, and things like Shinx and Wurmple that have costumes and still can’t evolve. Last year’s Fashion Week and Halloween Event Pokemon aren’t able to evolve.

Only for Fully Evolved Pokemon

Some Pokemon kinda cheat at this though. While Gengar as MULTIPLE costumes, on par with the likes of Pikachu and Charizard, its baby forms aren’t as lucky. There’s no costume for Gastly and Haunter, but Gengar has three separate costumes – a Halloween hat, some sort of weird stitched up costume and the Party Hat Gengar, which came out a few years back. Okay, sure, putting a costume on a Gastly seems kinda weird but it’s perfectly doable.

Butterfree goes down the same path with its pretty bow costume. You can’t get Caterpie or Metapod with a bow on, but you can with Butterfree. What’s also kinda weird is that Butterfree can be shiny – that’s normally restricted to Pokemon with Mega Evolutions. And, speaking of Megas, Pokemon with hats CAN mega evolve, but their costume disappears until they turn back to normal. Charizard is a Pokemon that both can be shiny and also has a costume – Party Hat Charmander can be evolved into Charmeloen and Charizard and still keep its hat.

What CAN evolve?

Sadly, this doesn’t apply to all costumed Pokemon, and it’s not retroactive either. Pikachu with a Halloween hat and Piplup with a pumpkin crown are spawning in this event, and they can’t evolve. Pikachu is kinda in an odd spot overall, since some costumed yellow rodents can evolve into Raichu, and others can’t. Party Hat Pichu can evolve right up to Raichu, so can Flower Crown Pichu, but the costumed Pikachu in the Halloween event couldn’t evolve at all.

Thing is, it’s all wildly convoluted, looking at what can and can’t evolve. Croagunk from last year couldn’t evolve, but can evolve this year. Eevees with a flower crown can evolve into their respective forms, but the jumper-wearing Glaceon from 2021’s winter event can’t. We have Spheal with a scarf, which is adorable, but despite it’s Community Day being in the winter, those scarfed Spheals weren’t allowed to evolve at all. And some costumed Pokemon, we may never see again, like the Litwick costume for Sableye and Pikachu in a Mimikyu costume. Then again, we all thought that sunglasses Squirtle would never return, but it did AND it was capable of evolving. In fact, sunglasses Squirtle was one of the very first costumes, and it could evolve right off the bat.

I don’t know, none of this makes sense. But I guess it’s nice that some costumed Pokemon can evolve now…