Pokémon GO Sinnoh Region Launch – 24 Hours Later

A little over 24 hours ago Sinnoh Region Pokémon began appearing in Pokémon GO.  This is nearly a year after Hoenn Region was introduced in late 2017.  Hunting, Catching, and Evolving new Pokémon still remains my favorite part of the game.  Since the launch I’ve had no time to play outside of at home or my commute to and from work.  Given that fact you’d think I wouldn’t have made much progress.  However, here’s where I stand with candy for the three starter Pokémon.

For Turtwig, Chimchar, and Piplup I have 48, 86, and 92 candies respectively (I’ve caught more since making this image).  That seems a little too easy.

The game has changed a lot since its launch in July of 2016.  I remember distinctly not evolving my first Venusaur until October and my first Charizard in November.  There were no Pinap berries, essentially no events, and your biome more directly impacted your spawns.  Yet here I am with a very good chance of being able to evolve all three starters to their final evolution by the end of the second day.

I’m excited to see this next generation introduced but it seems like before I will get a day off of work to go out and hunt I’ll pretty much be done with this first wave, all while simply casually catching at home, my kids’ skating lessons, and on my commute with my GO Plus.

A few things are still not figured out with this launch.  Firstly, Niantic made a brief and bungled attempt at rebalancing stats which they immediately rolled back.  Until that is redone we’re all in a holding pattern, waiting to see what is worth powering up and how the new gym game is going to look.

Secondly, there has still been no increase in Pokémon storage.  With nearly 500 Pokémon soon to be in the game, this is making catching and grinding difficult.  Even if you only kept one regular, one shiny, and one lucky of each Pokémon you would still run out of space.  With the addition of trading in there is so much need for more space.  Culling Pokémon is much harder now that they all have some sort of value in the game whether for distance, lucky acquisition, or simple friendship boosting.

And, lastly, how are the Gen 1-3 evolutions going to work?  We can already see that those Pokémon do not have the option to evolve in game.  With the starters so easy to acquire I’m really hoping that my long held hopes for getting these Pokémon will come into play.  At least something like this.  With these  Pokémon out for so long, and now spawning again at increased rates, it would really make the game fun if there was a big challenge in rounding out your Pokédex with these evolutions.  Making up 20% of the Sinnoh Pokémon it would be a real let down if all I had to do is run through my Pokémon and just evolve them all consecutively.

This is only the first wave and it will be interesting to see how the remaining waves are introduced into the game in the coming months.

For now I will simply sit and lament my 98% Chansey which I’d hope to evolve into a killer Blissey.  It’s looking more and more likely that it may never live to see the full potential I’d hope for it.

RIP, Pure Bliss.  2018-2018.