In Pokémon GO you can do a lot of goals “on the fly”, even if you don’t pay attention to them. That’s how it went with MeinMMO author Max Handwerk – until last weekend everything suddenly came together
I’ve been playing Pokémon GO for 4 years and almost exactly 10 months. In early February 2018, with the freezing cold and slush on our doorstep, my girlfriend and I thought it would be a great idea to start the Get Out Catch Monster game.
And even if the weather conditions in the village could have led to an immediate termination, I’ve stayed on the ball to this day.
Over time, more and more features were added, like Battle League, Team Rocket, etc. All cool, but my favorite part of the game has always been collecting new monsters – which is sometimes frustrating when you keep seeing the same ones and new Pokemon come in bit by bit game come.
Besides that, I always had an eye on the level. The old max level 40, that’s what I had chosen as my big goal. But the almost ridiculous amount of EP that you need for this made sure that I worked through it more “on the side”. I just had a rough idea in my head that it would have to be 40 in the near future.
And that’s exactly what happened last weekend.
It all came together with the arrival of the Ultra Beasts
November 27th was Ultra Beast Arrivals and I actually didn’t have time to attend that day. It was the perfect event for the collector in me. Because I was still missing a few of the ultra beasts and even the regional Kaguron could be obtained through the research tasks.
So we dragged ourselves out an hour before the end to check out a few raids. The necessary raid passes were there and the ultra beasts could easily be beaten in pairs. There was also an XP bonus on the raids, so I thought: Perfect, then I can continue to crawl towards 40. I checked the EP status and noticed: The 7 raids should be enough to get to level 40.
Suddenly the motivation was awakened.
Now the steps quickened and we scrambled from arena to arena to bag the Ultra Beasts. Within an hour we completed all 7 raids needed to complete the research. This in turn meant that not only did the Ultra Beast Dex fill up – no, everything else I wanted to do in Pokémon GO almost did itself by the way.
It was kind of a crazy hour that I probably hadn’t experienced for the last time at GO Fest 2021, when there was the raid day with all legendary Pokémon. For the collector in me, it was almost like Christmas. Ultra Beast Arrival turned out to be the perfect event for me – and I almost skipped it.
At the same time, there is now a big question mark for me. It feels a bit like the aquarium fish from Finding Nemo. They want to break the whole film out of an aquarium, finally manage it and end up stuck in plastic bags on the sea surface – and ask themselves: “Now what?”.
Well and now? Now it’s time to wait. To the next Ultra Beasts, the next big research, exciting developments or other new content. Let’s see what else the game has in store. At least there are still levels 41 to 50 with special tasks and even more XP collection.
The collector in me wants a bigger wave of new Pokémon, but hope is limited.