Jump-Start Special Research – The Best Special Research Ever

For Pokemon Go’s anniversary, a new special research quest was released and frankly, I think it’s the best special research they’ve ever released. Like, seriously, this 6 stage quest is awesome. First off, this quest is really fucking easy. The only hard bit is the fact that you have to make two new friends, one on stage 1 and one on stage 6, but there’s loads of ways to make friends even if you’re the only person around who plays Pokemon Go, and at some point you have to battle another trainer in the Great League in PvP – something… [Continue Reading]

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The Slakoth Community Day that Really Slacked Off

I’m not sure why Niantic decided to choose Slakoth for June’s Community Day. There’s not a lot of reasons I can think of why it was picked, but I can think of plenty of reasons why it wasn’t a good choice. I suppose it fits the criteria for a Community Day Pokemon. A three-stage Pokemon with a cute basic form and a monstrous final evolution and a second evolution that no one cares about, capable of having a somewhat signature move, having some sort of use somewhere and tends to only come from 10km eggs, while being insanely rare in… [Continue Reading]

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The Lapras Raid Event

I kinda wish Niantic would do more Raid events like the Lapras raid event that just happened. Like the Legendary Birds raid events and the Gengar raid day, the Lapras raid day stuck a raid on every single available gym (assuming it didn’t already have a raid on it) that’s available for three hours. During this time you have an increased chance of getting a shiny (which is a guaranteed catch if you get a shiny from a successful raid) and everyone gets 5 free orange Raid Passes, valid only for the raid event. When I first heard of the… [Continue Reading]

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Tons of Useless Raids

The other day, in the three places across town that have 90% of all the city’s gyms, there were no interesting raids. None at all. So for the last few days, my free Raid Pass has gone unused. I’ll tell you what there were raids for though. Granbull. Four of them, in fact. Granbull, for those who can’t remember, is the final evolution of Snubbull, a small, pink clown dog Pokemon that spawns regularly whenever the weather is cloudy. Now, Snubbull has a really nice shiny form. It looks adorable. Granbull’s shiny form is mediocre though, mostly because Granbull is… [Continue Reading]

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Castform Community Day

Castforms! Castforms everywhere! Normal, stumpy little Castforms! Little teardrop-like, cloud-shaped bastards with little bollocks for feet! Castform was one of the first Pokemon I caught when I started playing Pokemon Go, so I have a slight fondness for the cute little bollock cloud, bollock sun, bollock raindrop and bollock snowflake. And yesterday’s Castform Community Day was a lot of fun! Wait, what’s that? It wasn’t a Castform Community Day? It was a Lotad Community Research Day? Well I wouldn’t have guessed, considering how many Castforms were spawning and how many of them were shiny. Unfortunately for Castform, only the normal… [Continue Reading]

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Clamperl Research Day

When I saw the announcement for the Clamperl Community Research event, I thought two things: “Why is Clamperl only being released now?” and “Oh heck, is this going to be like the Feebas event?” Thankfully, while the answer to the first question is unknown, the answer to the second question is a resounding “NO!” It seems that Niantic learned a huge amount from the Feebas event because this Clamperl event was a billion times easier. First off, the research. Far better research. The Make Nice Throws and Make Great Throws tasks returned, but their numbers were reduced to 5 Nice… [Continue Reading]

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Shiny Inequality

It’s funny how much we care about shinies in Pokemon. They’re just Pokemon with different colours on them. But they’re rare. Insanely rare. Like, a one in a thousand chance. Possibly more. It’s possible that you’ll never see a shiny in any of the handheld console games. The original games didn’t even have them anyway since they were monochrome. But when it comes to shinies, there are some very odd patterns in play and some Pokemon get a far better makeover than others. There are some patterns when it comes to shinies. For example, blue Pokemon very often end up… [Continue Reading]

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The Feebas Community Research Three Hour Event Thing

Not every Pokemon is suitable for a community day. Many Pokemon either aren’t popular enough, don’t have enough evolution stages or simply have mediocre shiny forms. Other Pokemon evolve in too awkward a way to be able to give them a special move and flood areas with them for three hours. One of those Pokemon is Feebas, and Feebas was the recipient of a miniature community event. Unlike other events, Feebas didn’t have a higher chance of spawning in the wild. For three hours on January 19th, from noon until 3pm depending on your time zone, all research tasks from… [Continue Reading]

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A Happy Chikorita Community Day

September 22nd, between midday and 3pm across the world, was Chikorita Community Day. The green, grassy, derpy, flowery, generation 2 starter Pokemon began spawning all over the place, with any third form evolutions gaining a unique attack if evolved during that time and a higher chance to obtain shinies. Chikorita basically replaced every other Pokemon, except for the odd Mankey or Meowth. Of course, I had to go and catch some Chikoritas. I arrived at the town hall just before noon with my brother, meeting up with a couple of other players. Before noon, there were various Kanto Pokemon wandering… [Continue Reading]

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The Naru Syandana and Other Tennogen Items

So after Christmas, I caved and bought myself a Tennogen item. The Naru Syandana is a pair of wings based on the Naberu Halloween-exclusive cosmetic. It cost €5.99, was modeled and textured by members of the community and can be equipped on any Warframe. The wings lower themselves when walking, running and aiming and open up while bullet jumping or whenever you visit a public place like a relay or Cetus. The price seems a little bit high, but the people who made the item need to get paid, you know? Tennogen items are voted on via the Steam Workshop… [Continue Reading]

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