Pokemon Go / Tropes I-R

Pokémon GO Tropes
A to C (Adaptational Badass | Anti-Frustration Features) | D to H | I to R (Luck-Based Mission) | S to Z

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I

• Interface Screw: In PvP battles, heavy snowfall makes the swipe-bubbles that has to be hit during a charge sequence harder to see, especially fast-moving, erratic ones such as Flying-type bubbles.
• Interface Spoiler:
  • The "hatch an egg" task will have its notification pop up when one of your eggs have hatched, ruining the surprise. Likewise, when using the Poké Ball Plus, tasks related to catching Pokémon will have its notices pop up when you make a successful catch, even while the device goes through its three "shakes" gimmick.
  • While not consistent, if you have a task that requires earning experience points, it will slide into view during wild Pokémon encounters if your thrown Ball is set to successfully catch the Pokémon and won't slide in if the Pokémon is set to break out.
  • Zorua takes the form of your current buddy, so if your buddy is a Pokémon that doesn't often appear in the wild, it becomes easy to spot a Zorua. However, it's a dead giveaway if your buddy is a Shiny, Legendary, Mythical, or Mega-evolved Pokémon. Shiny Pokémon don't show up on the in-game map, and are only revealed as such if you start the catching process. Mythical, Mega-evolved, and most Legendary Pokémon do not spawn in the wild.

J

• Joke Character: While Shedinja can potentially be a Lethal Joke Character in the main series games, it's reduced to this in GO. Abilities (and therefore Wonder Guard) don't exist in this game, but Shedinja keeps its pathetically low base HP, making it effortless to defeat. Tellingly, it can't even be selected for use in trainer battles.
• Joke Item: The souvenirs gifted by Buddy Pokémon at the Ultra Buddy rating serve no practical use and are solely trinkets for collecting.

L

• Lady Not-Appearing-in-This-Game: A male version that's not used for Fanservice. News stories and unofficial ads for the game have been using a cartoon depiction of YouTuber TheJWittz, specifically the image that he typically uses in his thumbnails. He's not actually in the game, although he does play it, and has made a video discussing this.
• LARP: Short version: Basically, you take your iOS or Android device outside, and it spawns virtual Pokémon, which you can actually see through the camera on the device, and then capture, train, and battle, creating a facsimile of Pokémon training. The game is designed to encourage outdoor activity, especially exploration.
• Lethal Joke Character: Thanks to PVP and especially the Great League, which only allows Pokémon up to 1500CP, almost anything can become this, with certain meta-relevant Pokémon standing out. Azumarill and Medicham? Still highly powerful despite low stats and no Huge Power. Legendaries with low Attack like Registeel and Cresselia? Finally have a place to call their own. Even unevolved Pokémon like Haunter and Munchlax are heavy hitters!
  • Shuckle and Smeargle are banned from the Little Jungle Cup (max 500 CP) because they would be too overpowered.
• Luck-Based Mission: Too many to count, it has its own page.

M

• Magikarp Power:
  • Magikarp, of course, which evolves into the giant sea dragon Gyarados. Since candies now cause evolution instead of simply leveling up, this game makes evolving Magikarp a challenge by requiring 400 candies instead of the usual 50 for a single-evolution Pokémon. A single Magikarp gives three candies (six if a Pinap Berry is used), plus an additional one for transferring it, meaning 58 Pinaped Magikarp are needed for a single Gyarados. That said, once you manage to evolve Magikarp, it goes from having the absolute worst CP (220 max) to one of the best (3281 max), fifteen times Magikarp's original value, which is the single largest CP jump of any Pokémon in the game. Wailmer and Swablu, introduced in the Gen 3 updates, also require 400 candies to become Wailord and Altaria respectively, though they don't get such a massive spike in power.
  • Chansey was uselessly weak until Gen 2 mons were added, introducing the evolved version, Blissey. Since Chansey is so rare, it's difficult to get enough candy to evolve one (unless you gathered a lot during the Valentine's Day event), but once you do... you've got a Ridiculously Cute Stone Wall that can hold a gym against almost all comers. Her absurdly high HP stat at its best serves as a deterrent to attackers due to the sheer amount of time needed to whittle her down, and at its worst can cause the battle timer to run out before she falls. Though her attack is subpar, several of her moves are super effective against Fighting types, most players' go-to Blissey killer.
• Mechanically Unusual Fighter: Slaking retains its obscene base stats from the core series, but Pokémon GO lacks abilities and it therefore doesn't have its Truant ability to offset this. To balance Slaking and make it operate similarly to the main games, it instead has its fast attack set to Yawn, which does virtually no damage and is there to charge up its Charge Move.
• Mêlée à Trois: Three factions — Teams Instinct, Mystic, and Valor — fight among themselves over gyms.
• Metal Slime:
  • Unlike Com Mons and most uncommon Pokémon, ultra-rare Pokémon such as Lapras, Snorlax, Chansey and Aerodactyl have no fixed spawn areas and can spawn in any area at any time, and do so very rarely. They are usually very hard to hit with a ball, have abysmal catch rates, and are highly prone to escaping if they keep breaking out.
  • Ditto. They are very uncommon, hide disguised as Com Mons, and break free more frequently than their true counterparts.
  • Unown comes in 28 forms based on English alphabet letters as well as ? and !, and has an achievement dedicated to collecting all of them. This Pokémon is so rare that most players haven't even seen one on the Nearby list, let alone in a gym. It's even rarer than wild Tyranitar and more useless than Magikarp.
  • The Galarian forms of Articuno, Zapdos and Moltres. They're extremely likely to flee after breaking out of a ball, and only appear while a Daily Adventure Incense is active (which lasts 15 minutes and can only be used once a day), and even then only in about 1% of encounters.
• Mighty Glacier: Snorlax and Blissey are considered the two best gym defenders due to their massive health pool and high CP, and with the right moveset are difficult to dodge or counter. Expect to see one of each in most highly-contested gyms. They're closely followed by Slaking, Ferrothorn, and Dragonite, for the same reasons.
• Mini-Boss: The GO Rocket update adds Team GO Rocket members to various Pokéstops, and visiting them will initiate a fight with the GO Rocket Grunt. Not all Grunts are pushovers — some hold teams of fully-evolved Pokémon.
• Mirror Match:
  • Fighting a Pokémon as the same Pokémon in gyms.
  • Ditto will transform into the first Pokémon it sees in a gym, inheriting the latter's CP.
• Money Spider: Evolved Pokémon and certain specific species (associated with rarity or money such as Audino, Sableye, and Meowth) drop more Stardust when caught than other Pokémon.
• Mystery Box: Pokémon Eggs. Unlike those from the core game series where you usually know what species is inside as you bred them yourself, the Pokémon available inside eggs are random, selected from five different pools of species based on the egg's color. Incubators must be used to hatch them, which can only be purchased en masse from the Shop.
• Mystical 108: The general theme of the Halloween event quests, ending in the player catching Spiritomb.
• Mythology Gag:
  • The medals for catching Pokémon of a certain type are all references to the Trainer Classes that used them in the main games.
    • The medal for catching a certain number of Rattata is called "Youngster", a reference to Youngster Joey and his top percentage Rattata.
    • The medal for catching a certain number of Magikarp with the XL tag is called "Fisherman", a reference to the Fishing Guru at the Lake of Rage who had a Side Quest involving being shown giant Magikarp.
    • The medal for catching Ghost Pokémon is called "Hex Maniac".
    • The medal for catching Steel-types is "Depot Agent".
    • The medal for catching Flying-types is "Bird Keeper".
  • Pikachu is the only Pokémon in the game who has Pokémon Speak, just as in Pokémon Yellow and the Generation VI and VII games.
  • Many items in the game are featured in the main series but have different effects; Stardust is Shop Fodder in the games but is used to level up Pokémon in GO, the Razz Berry is used as a Pokéblock/Poffin ingredient in the games but is used to increase capture chance/reduce flee rate here, and Pokémon candies are similar to Rare Candy/evolution stones in their ability to evolve Pokémon.
  • Abra is the single most likely Pokémon to flee if it breaks out of its capture ball, a direct reference to the fact that, in the main games, Abra's only move was Teleport, which it would use to immediately flee from battle if not caught (or incapacitated) during the first turn.
  • The motivation system is lifted from Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon, but has been reworked to suit the different game mechanics.
  • The Alolan Marowak Raid Battle is a Harder Than Hard version of Totem Marowak Challenge in Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, despite Totem Auras not being present in this game.
  • Two of the new series of Lure Modules, Mossy Lure Module and Glacial Lure Module, reference to the Moss Rock and Ice Rock in core-series games as they can be used to locate and allow anyone nearby to evolve their Eevee into Leafeon and Glaceon respectively. They're also similar to Mossy Rock and Frozen Rock in Pokémon Mystery Dungeon series.
  • You can find Pikachus wearing Ash Ketchum's hat during April Fool's.
  • Arlo is notably a lot more of a raging dickass than any of his Go Rocket cohorts, is the most openly insulting of all of Go Rocket towards the player, and treats his Pokémon as nothing more than tools, reflecting a long line of douchebag rivals starting from Gary Oak and beyond whose role is to talk shit, harass the player, then get utterly destroyed repeatedly.
  • Every possible dialogue option for the Go Rocket Grunts is a line used by an opposing trainer in one of the earlier games. Just as an example, a Go Rocket Grunt specializing in Psychic-types will say "Are you scared of psychics that use the unseen power?", which was originally said by one of the trainers in Sabrina's gym, and the defeat quote of "Not enough grit!" was originally used by a Team Rocket Grunt in the first game.
  • The Sinnoh Stone is made up of a diamond and a pearl, while the Unova Stone is colored black and white.
  • On Pokémon Day 2020, party hat-wearing Nidorino and Gengar were featured as exclusive raid bosses. This is a reference to the first games' intro cutscene, which is a battle between Nidorino and Gengar.

N

• Nerf:
  • To counterbalance the significantly smaller movepools every Pokémon has and the inflexibility of which moves they can use at what times,^note As opposed to having four moves they can use usually whenever they want, Pokémon have one weak fast move that can be used whenever they want, and up to two stronger charged moves that can only be used occasionally at best types that provide immunity to another type are instead calculated as having doubled resistance to it. Players still won't want to try using Electric-type moves on a Ground-type Pokémon since it'll do Scratch Damage, but if the situation forces them to then their chance to finish off a weakened Pokémon is a lot better.
  • The 0.31.0 update nerfed the base damage of numerous attacks (in particular, the formerly dominant Water Gun from 10 to 6, helping to bring Vaporeon into check) and buffed many others by up to 50 points in some cases (like Hyper Beam).
  • The same update nerfed catch rates, with even low-CP Com Mons having high chances of breaking out of a ball and escaping, which increases as the player's level rises.
  • The overhauled gym system in June 2017 produced a major nerf on gym defenders - defenders would slowly weaken over time (though this can be counteracted by feeding them berries, and they're back to normal once they leave the gym), a gym is filled when six (as opposed to the previous ten) have been placed, and finally, only one of a given species can be in a gym at any given time. This downgrades Blissey from a nightmare stacking a gym ten deep to a difficult but manageable problem that is unique in that gym.
  • The October 2018 rebalance was notable for buffing several offense-oriented Pokémon but infamous for nerfing many defensive-oriented ones, most famously Blissey. Changes to the stat calculation reduced max HP for the extreme outliers as well as reduced the effect of unbalanced defense stats in the original games, both of which put a serious crimp in Blissey's effectiveness as a gym defender. Further, the effects of Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors was enhanced in both directions - super-effective attacks are even stronger than before, but resisted attacks do even less damage. Blissey's weakened stats and lack of resistances put Blissey in danger from many more attackers. She's still by far one of the best defenders, but she's way more manageable than before.
• New Media Are Evil: Within days of the introduction of Pokémon Go, news outlets passed along a number of stories relating to it, including people being robbed while playing the game, a woman stumbling on a dead body, and people playing in inappropriate areas. In most cases the problems encountered stemmed either from a lack of common sense while playing or were risks one would take by simply going outside.
• No Fair Cheating:
  • If you try to travel at more than 15 mph, the game won't track your distance for egg-hatching purposes. If you travel faster than 30 mph, Pokémon spawns, Poké Stops, and the tracker are disabled until you slow down.^note However, this feature is also in place to prevent people from playing and driving at the same time which developers and safety agencies obviously DO NOT want players to do. Despite this, if you use Incense to force wild Pokémon to spawn while driving at fast speeds, every attempt will result in a runaway.
  • If you try and download the app in a country where the game is not legitimately released, there will likely be no Poké Stops or wild Pokémon spawning since they aren't programmed to appear there. This doesn't stop some impatient players from doing it anyway, in hopes Pokémon will somehow appear anyway or to give themselves an early advantage whenever the game is actually released in their region. If Niantic figures out that you're sideloaded and are playing outside of the regions where the game is available, they'll eventually tempban your account until the game becomes officially available in your country.
  • Don't even think of trying to use a GPS spoofing app to trick the app into thinking you're somewhere else. If Niantic figures it out, they'll issue a temporary ban which causes all Pokémon to automatically run away on the first breakout, disables all Poké Stops and gyms, and prevents you from leveling up.
  • Pokémon can be slashed out if the user is discovered to be using third-party apps like GPS spoofing and tracking apps. Slashed-out Pokémon cannot be used in Gym battles and will not yield any candy after transfer.
  • There are also several day shadow bans, which only allow common Pokémon like Pidgey and Ratatta to be seen and lock the player out of raids.
  • 90 day account bans are the next level up, then account termination.
• Non-Standard Character Design: The game uses animesque character designs based closely on the original games than the anime but has more realistic proportions, including the size of the eyes, hairstyles and made to accomodate the 3D designs. So when Jesse and James from the anime are introduced into the game, they look like they were transplanted directly from the anime with more exaggerated eyes, hair and body designs.
• Non-Standard Game Over: In AR+ mode, reaching the Pokémon too quickly (ie: instantly) will raise the warning bubble by filling it with red, increasing the likehood of fleeing even before you try to capture it.
• No Plot? No Problem!: Unlike Ingress with its extensive, ongoing lore and its use of real-world Kayfabe events as storytelling, this game doesn't really have much of a plot beyond "Congrats, you're a trainer, now go catch Pokémon and join one of these three teams!" The closest the game has is Special Research, where Professor Willow assigns the player tasks to help him research in studying and identifying Mythical Pokémon, and Rocket events, where players hunt down Rocket goons and beat the stuffing out of them. Even in the wake of Harry Potter: Wizards Unite (another Niantic game), which is very heavy on story and lore, Go remains aggressively about being the very best, like no one ever was.
• Not Allowed to Grow Up: Event Pokémon with special outfits, accessories, or other visual tweaks cannot evolve under any circumstances if their evolution(s) don't also have the cosmetic available to them.
• Not Completely Useless:
  • Ever since the 20% boost in power for Shadow Pokémon was introduced, purification was largely seen as a Power-Up Letdown since battle-wise, the only unique trait gained is the underwhelming Return move, which was nerfed after an update and is seen as too weak for raids and too slow for PVP. However, Purified Sableye is the exception, because other than Foul Play, its other two regular charged moves (Power Gem and Shadow Sneak) are underwhelming, so Return provides it a slow, but powerful move that can turn otherwise losing matchups into winning ones.
  • Pokémon with extremely low CP ratings are cheap to power up, often costing as little as 200 stardust and one candy, making them a cheap way to complete "Power up X Pokémon" field research tasks, which usually grant Mega Energy.
  • Com Mons like Pidgey and Weedle generally aren't useful for the most part, but their costs to evolve are generally quite cheap, which makes them excellent for farming EXP via evolution. Combine that with the use of a Lucky Egg and/or evolving Pokémon during events that boost EXP gains and you can obtain a ton of EXP with very little cost to you. Likewise, common Pokémon in their Shadow form also have a cheaper cost to purify, which can greatly help with tasks that require purifying Shadow Pokémon.
• Not the Intended Use: Trading randomizing IVs on a traded Pokémon seems like a way to prevent just trading already perfect Pokémon away to others without any disadvantage, and perhaps a way to give a useless Pokémon a chance of having high IVs or being a Lucky Pokémon. But there's one other use, too; some Pokémon only available through raids, eggs or research, such as Cresselia and Alolan Muk, have just too high CP at their normal catch point to be used in a certain PVP League. Trading them, however, has a good chance to lower their CP to usable levels, making them useable there.

O

• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: During the 2020 GO Fest event, players were tasked with battling Giovanni while the team leaders battled the GO Team Rocket leaders offscreen. After you beat Giovanni, Professor Willow tells you that the team leaders sent the Rocket leaders packing and the battles were awesome. You never get to see the leaders fight, but Niantic would later post a video of an animated short showing the leaders battling the Rocket leaders, which ends with a call from Giovanni telling his leaders to cut their losses and run away.
• Old Save Bonus: Starting from Generation VII of the main series Pokémon games, Pokémon GO features a variety of cross-compatibility features with the main series games, typically by way of Pokémon HOME.
  • In Generation VII, Pokémon Let's Go, Pikachu! and Let's Go, Eevee! featured GO Park, a replacement for the Safari Zone that allows you to import Pokémon caught in Pokémon GO to a main series game, the first feature of its kind to do so. Trading a Pokémon to Let's Go this way also recharges the Mystery Box, an item that allows you to find and catch the Mythical Pokémon Meltan, which is not only exclusive to Pokémon GO but can only be evolved to Melmetal in Pokémon GO.
  • In Generation VIII, Pokémon HOME was added, which allows you to send Pokémon caught in Pokémon GO to a general storage box. Compatible Pokémon can then be sent to other games, such as Pokémon Sword and Shield and Pokémon Legends: Arceus. Sending a Pokémon to HOME also recharges the Mystery Box.
  • In Generation IX, you can directly link to Pokémon Scarlet and Violet and send any Postcards that you have acquired to the Switch. Postcards you send will alter the pattern seen on Vivillon in the Paldea region, which normally default to Fancy Pattern, based on the location on the Postcard. Connecting to Scarlet/Violet awards a Golden Lure in Pokémon GO, which can be used to turn any Poké Stop into a Golden Poké Stop. Golden Poké Stops can be spun to acquire Gimmighoul Coins and attract wild Roaming Form Gimmighoul, which can only be caught in Pokémon GO. Just like in Scarlet/Violet, collecting 999 Gimmighoul Coins in GO will allow you to evolve Gimmighoul to Gholdengo for use in the game.
  • If you purchase the Pokémon GO Plus+ accessory, you will unlock the "Catching Some Z's" Special Research Mission, which requires you to use the accessory to track sleep in Pokémon Sleep. Completing Research Tasks allows you to catch the exclusive Nightcap Snorlax. In addition, recording sleep data will reward you with bonus prizes when you log into GO, such as Berries, Stardust, and Friend Hearts. Conversely, in Sleep, you will earn bonus Grepa Berries from Nightcap Pikachu based on the number of Poké Stops you spin in GO.
• Olympus Mons: As in the core series, legendary Pokémon. Premiering at the 2017 Pokémon GO Fest event in Chicago, legendary Pokémon are the target of tier 5 raids, with a new species debuting approximately once per month. Once their visit is over, the legendary Pokémon is semi-retired so others can take their place. Mewtwo can also be caught in EX Raids, which require extremely rare EX Raid Passes. After Mewtwo was changed to be a standard special raid, Deoxys took its place in EX Raids.
• One-Man Army:
  • Well, One-Mon Army. The trailer has Mewtwo, a single Pokémon, going toe-to-toe with the Pokémon of hundreds of trainers, and for quite awhile Mewtwo is kicking ass. On the long list of Pokémon Mewtwo had to fight off were Dragonair, Charizard, Pidgeot, Gengar and Gyarados; all powerful Pokémon in their own right, one of which even has type advantage. It is eventually caught, but given the clock, it held its own against all of them for almost ten straight minutes. Once they were finally released, max-level Legendary Pokémon all qualified for this trope.
  • Under the old gym system, when trying to raise the prestige of an allied gym, you were only allowed to use one Pokémon to defeat all the Pokémon at that gym, regardless of whether it has one or nine. The one you chose therefore has to be strong enough to fight all of them consecutively without being knocked out. You earned prestige for knocking out at least one, just not as much. The game gives out better rewards if your attacker is weaker than the defender, the largest bonus being awarded if the defender is twice as strong, so you could earn as much if not more prestige in one fight with a weak Pokémon as you could against the entire lineup with a strong one.
  • Upon the release of raids, gyms now can spawn Pokémon with a CP rating in the tens of thousands. The highest level of raids are simply not possible for a single person to handle, and that one Pokémon with a CP of over 40,000 can easily curbstomp multiple trainers with a full team of six.
• Our Wormholes Are Different: Instead of appearing in Raids via egg like every other Pokémon, Ultra Beasts appear in raids via wormhole.

P

• Parrot Pet Position: Just like Ash and his Pikachu, you can have a Pikachu and certain other small Pokémon (most notably Pidgey and Spearow, in which case it's justified because they're fairly small birds, as well as Eevee) ride on your avatar's shoulder if you assign it as your buddy. This isn't automatic in Pikachu and Eevee's case, however; you have to keep it as your buddy for a while for the effect to kick in. Prior to that, it just stands beside you like the others.
• Pattern-Coded Eggs: Played With. Egg color is meaningful and the Pokémon within can be vaguely determined based on it, but multiple species can be attributed to the same egg design. The closest this comes to being Played Straight is with the Raid Eggs of Mega-Evolved bosses, which still use a single pattern for almost all Mega Evolutions but have a Mega Evolution symbol upon the egg itself to clearly indicate what's coming out will be Mega Evolved.
• Peninsula of Power Leveling: Locations with good pedestrian accessibility and a ton of Pokéstops and/or Gyms are great places to farm up some items. These tend to be densely-populated regions with lots of landmarks, such as downtown city areas, colleges and universities, and large shopping complexes.
• Permanently Missable Content: Towards the end of 2020, Niantic made a medal given to players who managed to reach level 40 before the year's end as well as unique clothing items. Anyone that didn't reach level 40 before the year's end lost out on the rewards.
• Photo Mode: The game lets you take Snapshots of the various Mons along with yourself using the Augmented Reality feature. Many of the in-game tasks also require players to make use of it.
• Piñata Enemy: The Team GO Rockets that occupy various Pokéstops might look intimidating and can actually devastate low level or inexperienced players, but they give at least 500 stardust when you defeat them and 100-375 more stardust when you successfully catch their Pokémon, in addition to instantly refreshing the Pokéstop's cooldown. This allows high-level, expert players to grind them for large amounts of stardust as long as they have a steady supply of potions.
• Player Tic: If the first two or three Pokémon in a Gym follow an obvious enough theme, there's a decent chance that other players will try to follow that theme if they have the right Pokémon when placing defenders at the gym themselves. Filling a Gym with Eeveelutions only is easy so long as you and a friend coordinate the first two placements, as Eevee are decently common, popular, and have strong evolutions to the point of other people being able to follow that theme to a reasonable extent, but it's possible to do other themes (like all pink Pokémon, given Chansey's popularity as a defender).
• Play Every Day: The game has daily streak bonuses, in which your first Poké Stop visit and first catch of the day will net you an additional 500 XP, 500 additional Stardust from the Pokémon caught, and additional items from the Stop. If you maintain the streak for seven days, the seventh day will increase the bonus XP/Stardust to 2000 and the items from the Pokéstop will be greatly increased, in addition to dropping rare items needed for certain evolutions. The cycle repeats after that. Missing a day resets the cycle. This encourages players to at least visit one Poké Stop and catch at least one Pokémon daily. Visiting a gym grants a free Raid Pass every day (provided the player doesn't already have one), and the player can complete research tasks for one field research stamps per day, with a breakthrough bonus after seven days.
• Pokémon Speak: Pikachu does this, provided by Ikue Otani. The rest have upgraded versions of their cries that were first heard in the Generation VI games.
• Power Level: Pokémon in this game have a "Combat Power" (CP) rating, which is calculated based on a series of hidden values such as experience level and stats to provide an at-a-glance summary of how strong that Pokémon is. It can be misleading sometimes, though.
• Power-Up Food:
  • The Candies that are received when capturing or transferring/releasing Pokémon can be used alongside Stardust to enhance the Combat Points of a Pokémon of their corresponding evolutionary line or evolve them.
  • Berries can be fed to Pokémon in an allied gym, increasing their motivation and temporarily boosting their CP.
  • Inverted against wild Pokémon with Nanab Berries, which make the Pokémon move around less, and Razz Berries, which make it harder to break out of a ball.
• Product Placement: Certain real-world businesses may pay Niantic to have their locations automatically turned into Pokéstops; Starbucks was one of the first to have their locations featured in such a way. This also extends to many other real-world buisness locations, which may be featured in the game for free if they fill several criteria.^note must be locally owned, pedestrian-friendly, and applied to via Niantic Wayfarer

R

• Randomly Generated Quests: Field Research Tasks, which are given at PokéStops. These tasks range from capturing Pokémon to making good/great/excellent throws to keeping a streak by doing a certain task several times and not missing. These tasks can grant Pokéballs, berries and even Pokémon, and are randomly generated every day.
• Rare Candy:
  • The only way to power up your Pokémon's stats, as well as evolving them, is by feeding them candy.
  • Aside from species-specific candy exclusive to Pokémon of that species, there's also a version of the Trope Namer, Rare Candy, which can be transformed into regular candy for any species.
  • The December 2020 "GO Beyond" update also brought XL Candy, which is used to power up Pokémon beyond level 40. And, of course, there's XL Rare Candy.
• Rare Random Drop:
  • Zigzagged with evolution items (Sun Stone, King's Rock, Metal Coat, Dragon Scale, Up-Grade and the Sinnoh and Unova Stones), needed to evolve certain Pokémon. Spinning at least one PokéStop a day for 7 days straight always awards a random evolutionary item from the first spin on the seventh day; all other times they have an 0.15% estimated probability of being dispensed from a Poké Stop.
  • Technical Machines, or TMs (which replace a Pokémon's attack with a random new one), are sometimes dropped by raid bosses, their rarity being greater the lower the tier; roughly 60% of Tier 4 raids drop them, while a minority of lower-tier raids do.
  • The introduction of the GO Battle League made obtaining these items easier, in exchange for the player winning at least two battles out of a series of five.
• Readings Are Off the Scale: A wild Pokémon's Combat Power is displayed as "???" if it is higher than the highest CP Pokémon the player has.
• Recruited from the Gutter: Cliff. If you take his word for it.
• Redemption Demotion and Redemption Promotion: Shadow Pokémon manage to play both straight, albeit at different times. When Team GO Rocket uses Shadow Pokémon, they get a significant bump to their CP (and thus overall stats), on par with a two-star raid boss, plus they can use the standard assortment of charge moves. Should the player defeat the Rocket Grunt and catch said Shadow Pokémon, though, it gets a very rapid demotion to around level 1 and is stuck using Frustration, which is deliberately built to be the absolute worst charge move in the game. On top of that, it costs 20% additional resources (stardust and candy) to power it up or give it a new move. However, purify it, and it instantly levels to 25, it can learn other charge moves (including replacing Return, which replaces Frustration but is only marginally better), it gets a +2 bonus to the IV values of all of its stats (unless it would take it over the maximum of 15), and the cost to power up or teach a new move gets a 20% decrease from normal. It might not ever reach the frankly unfair levels of power that a Shadow Pokémon reaches in Team GO Rocket's hands, but it's much easier to max out a purified Pokémon than one caught in any other fashion.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Shadow Pokémon are now pictured with bloodshot red eyes locked into a permanent angry expression.
• Reduced Resource Cost: Purified and Lucky Pokemon require less stardust and candy to power up than their normal counterparts.
• Regional Bonus: There are several Pokémon that are continent or country-exclusive which can be found in the wild or hatch from 5km. eggs. A few of them have also appeared in special events, allowing those outside the Pokémon's natural habitat a chance to catch them.
  • Kantonian Farfetch'd can only be caught in Japan, Taiwan and South Korea, but Galarian Farfetch'd have been released worldwide.
  • Kangaskhan can only be caught in Australia.
  • Kantonian Mr. Mime can only be caught in Europe. In the same vein, Mime Jr. can only hatch from eggs obtained there. Galarian Mr. Mime have been released worldwide, in a similar fashion to Farfetch'd.
  • Tauros can only be caught in North America.
  • Corsola can be caught between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn.
  • Heracross can be caught in Southern Florida, Southern Texas, Central and South America. It is a highly useful bargaining chip for trades since it is a fan favorite Pokémon that is quite useful in battle. ^note (The cutoff point between Tauros and Heracross is about 29 degrees latitude, which means Heracross can still be found in the far southern region of Texas, approximately from San Antonio southward, and about two-thirds of Florida, from Daytona Beach southward.)
  • Illumise can be caught in North America and South America. Volbeat, on the other hand, can be caught in Asia, Australia and Europe. The same situation is repeated with the duos Lunatone/Solrock, Zangoose/Seviper, and Durant/Heatmor in those orders. ^note (It was the other way around for Zangoose and Seviper at first, but they were later swapped, a change that also applied to Durant and Heatmor soon after they were added to the game. As for Lunatone/Solrock, the regions take turns in hosting them, swapping them at solstices)
  • Relicanth can only be caught in New Zealand and surrounding islands (Fiji, Samoa, etc.). This makes it a very valuable bargaining chip in trades.
  • Torkoal can only be caught in South Asia.
  • Tropius can only be caught in Africa, Southern Spain, the Mediterranean Sea (Malta, Cyprus, etc.), and The Levant (Israel, Lebanon, etc.).
  • Carnivine can only be caught in Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia.
  • Chatot can only be caught in the Southern Hemisphere.
  • Pachirisu can only be caught in Russia, Alaska and Canada above about 52 degrees north.
  • Shellos is an interesting case, as it's available everywhere, however Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia get the "eastern" (cyan) variation while the Americas get the "western" (pink) variation.
  • Pansage can only be caught in Asia-Pacific (roughly from Assam eastward).
  • Pansear can only be caught in Africa, Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia.
  • Panpour can only be caught in the Americas.
  • Throh can be found only in North America, South America and Africa.
  • Sawk can only be found in Europe, Asia and Australia.
  • Basculin can be found anywhere, but red-striped ones spawn in the western hemisphere while blue-striped ones spawn in the eastern hemisphere.
  • Maractus can be found in the southern U.S., Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean and South America.
  • Sigilyph can only be found in Egypt and Greece.
  • Bouffalant can only be found in New York City and its surrounding area, including Long Island.
  • Klefki is exclusive to France.
  • Some of Furfrou's cuts are available to certain regions: Debutante Cut to the Americas, La Reine Cut to France, Star Cut to Asia Pacific, Kabuki Cut to Japan, Pharoah Cut to Egypt and Diamond Cut to Europe, Africa and the Middle East.^note Then there's Heart Cut, which is available on certain events.
  • Comfey is exclusive to Hawaii.
  • As expected, the four Oricorio forms are available in certain regions: Pa'u in Africa, Asia, Pacific and Caribbean Islands; Pom Pom in the Americas; Sensu in Asia Pacific; and Baile in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
  • Hawlucha, being based on a lucha libre wrestler, can only be found in Mexico.
• Relationship Values: There are five levels of friendship between you and your friends. Higher friendship levels means reduced Stardust costs for trades and increased attack and extra Premier Balls in raids if they participate alongside you.
• Running Gag: Part of a series-wide one, as of the second Team GO Rocket update. You know how there's inevitably someone in the games that uses full team of only Magikarp? There's a chance that a Water-focused Team GO Rocket grunt (leading off with "These waters are treacherous!") will be sporting a whole team of shadow Magikarp. Not surprisingly, even with the boost to CP that Rocket-controlled Shadow Pokémon get, it's the easiest possible Rocket fight.
• Reward for Removal: It shares the "transferring" mechanic with Pokémon Let's Go, Pikachu! and Eevee!, where you can send extra Pokemon to the professor in exchange for candy which lets you power up Pokemon of the same evolutionary line.

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