So, it’s been a busy month in Pokémon since the last post. I finished Pokémon Shield — loved it, have started on Pokemon Violet, and things have progressed somewhat in Pokémon Go. I haven’t met Giovanni again, yet. So, I don’t know what he has for me when he does crawl out of whatever hole he’s dug.
I’ve been raiding — a lot — in Pokémon Go, lately. My level has been slowly creeping up. The end goal, level 50, seems out of reach — even if I had the xp for it, there are leveling quests that must be completed. The level 50 quest includes making 999 “excellent” Pokeball throws. Yeaaaaaaaah not happening. I imagine I will stop playing the game entirely before I have to worry about that, though.
In this “season” of Pokémon Go, Niantic is trying to get people to meet up in person. The monthly Community Day is their main way to encourage this — we usually try to go to a mall or something and look for a group of people with their phones out shuffling obliviously past the stores. Those will be the Pokémon trainers.
After the Noibat community day, they had Noibat raids appear. In person only, no remote raiding, and this has made people pretty upset. Especially those who live far away from city centers, or are disabled, or for some other reason (avoiding COVID, perhaps?) just preferring to play from home.
If you are my friend on Pokémon Go, you know Charter Oak Park well from the postcards I’ve sent you. It is about a hundred feet from my house, and I try to go spinning the dozen or so Pokestops in the park at least a few times a week. I’d never met most of the people in the photo above in person before, but I knew them from their avatars and the Pokémon that they leave in the park gyms. There was a lot of mutual friend-making going on prior to the raid. And some people say that your kids are your best friends. My son, who is in the picture (guess which one) is my ULTRA-friend. Other moms, you’ll never match this.
The reason we’re all gathered here today is to take on Regidrago, one of the “Regi” family of Pokémon. We’ve had Registeel and Regirock since I started paying attention to the raids, and Regi-ice has shown up before. I don’t think I played the Pokémon game where they showed up.
Registeel, Ice and Rock showed up in normal raids. Today’s Regidrago and the coming Regielectri are elite raids. They cannot be raided remotely; you have to be there. Legions of Pokémon Go trainers have been scanning their local gyms in order to make them into Elite gyms. I must have scanned the White Oak gym a dozen times by now — and it has become an Elite gym, where elite raids happen.
We met, and friended. One of the trainers tried to coordinate us so that we wouldn’t all pile in and crash the raid, but that happened anyway, and all the careful separating of people so that they would be playing with their best friends and thereby getting bonuses was for nothing. Once we all rebooted the app and waited a few minutes, we were able to get in and take down the Regidrago. Mine wasn’t anything special.
After, we all walked over to the White Oak gym — the one I help power up most mornings — and did it again. My son had crashed after winning the raid on the first one, so this was his first. His bad luck was rewarded with an almost perfect Drago. Mine, not so much.
These raids all started at 11AM local time, and lasted for half an hour, so after two of them, we were out of time. We came back to the park for the next set of gyms at 2PM. I caught one, the other ran. No worries, neither were shiny or actually worth much of anything.
Regidrago, like the other Regis, isn’t a great Pokémon. If it were maxed out, leveled to the top, it still wouldn’t be in the top ten of my Pokémon. It’s unlikely that it will take a place in my dragon crew. It’s… it’s just a Pokedex filler.
But it was genuinely fun to meet all these other Pokémon Go trainers in person. Easily worth the buck I used for a raid pass for the final try at a decent Drago. Being forced to raid in person, well… Poke Genie is my jam, here. I can raid any random bit of free time, anywhere in the world. It’s fun to go to the park, but it takes a lot of time, and it is still pretty cold here in New England.
Summer’s coming, though…
