In Pokémon GO, you can accomplish a lot of objectives “on the side”, even if you’re not paying attention. That’s how it was for MeinMMO author Max Handwerk – until everything suddenly came together last weekend.
I’ve been playing Pokémon GO for 4 years and almost exactly 10 months. In early February 2018, in freezing cold and slush outside the door, my girlfriend and I thought it was a great idea to start the “get-out-and-catch-monster” game.
And even though the weather conditions in the village back then could easily have led to an immediate stop, I’ve stayed in the game until today.
Over time, more and more features were added, like the Battle League, Team Rocket, and more. All cool, but my favorite part of the game has always been collecting new monsters – which can sometimes be frustrating, when you keep seeing the same ones and new Pokémon are only released in small batches.
In addition, I always kept an eye on the level. I had once set the old max level 40 as a big goal. However, the seemingly ridiculous amount of XP required for that meant that I did it more “on the side”. I only vaguely had in mind that it should be about time for the 40 to drop.
And that’s exactly what happened last weekend.
With the arrival of the Ultra Beasts, everything came together
On November 27, the “Ultra Beasts Arrival” event started and I actually had no time that day to participate. However, it was the perfect event for the collector in me. Because I still needed a few of the Ultra Beasts, and even the regional Kaguron could be obtained through research tasks.
So we dragged ourselves out an hour before it ended to do some raids. The necessary raid passes were available, and you could easily defeat the Ultra Beasts in pairs. Moreover, there was an XP bonus on the raids, so I thought: Perfect, then I can crawl further towards 40. I checked my XP status and realized that the 7 raids should be enough to reach level 40.
Suddenly, motivation was awakened.
Now the steps were quicker, and we rushed from gym to gym to catch the Ultra Beasts. Within an hour, we completed all 7 necessary raids to finish the research tasks. This, in turn, meant that not only was the Ultra Beasts Dex filling up – no, everything else I wanted to accomplish in Pokémon GO also seemed to take care of itself.
- We collected all the currently available Ultra Beasts. That was the most important thing.
- On the side, I collected the necessary raids to meet the requirements for the Galar-Makabaja evolution – I also developed a Galar-Oghnatoll, which I’ve been chasing since Halloween.
- The XP from the raids was enough to actually reach level 40.
- This also cleared the final hurdle of the “Masterwork Research” to Shiny Mew, which I had been carrying around since the Kanto Tour in February 2021. That was also caught.
- And because the raids yielded a few special candies, I was also able to feed the last missing candies to eF-eM and evolve it. I had also been carrying it as a buddy for ages to collect candies.
It was kind of a crazy hour, which I might have last experienced at the GO Fest 2021, when there was the Raid Day with all legendary Pokémon. For the collector in me, it was almost like Christmas. The Ultra Beasts Arrival turned out to be the perfect event for me – and I almost skipped it altogether.
At the same time, a big question mark remains for me. It feels a bit like the aquarium fish from “Finding Nemo”. They want to escape from an aquarium throughout the movie, eventually succeed, and end up hanging in plastic bags at the ocean’s surface – wondering: “Now what?”.
Yes, what now? Now it seems to be waiting. For the next Ultra Beasts, the next big research, exciting developments, or other new content. Let’s see what the game still has in store. At least there are levels 41 to 50 with special tasks and even more XP collecting.
The collector in me wishes for a slightly larger wave of new Pokémon – but hope is rather limited there.
