Pokémon Go has made a lot of big changes in the last month, to the degree that if you’ve not logged in for a while, you’ll find yourself bemused by what look like new, pink Poké Stops, Dynamaxing Pokémon, and at long last, the starters from 2019’s Pokémon Sword and Shield. Continuing this trend of finally catching up with the Galar region, we now to get to choose between Sword and Shield in a Timed Research quest that runs until Oct 1.
Called Legendary Heroes, the event gives everyone a week to pick a side, and work on a bundle of tasks. And, astonishingly for the increasingly mercenary game, the event is free! To get started, all you need to do is catch eight Pokémon of any type, and you’ll begin the quest, starting with a completely unexplained choice between “Sword Path” and “Shield Path.”
It’s sadly rather typical of POGO at this point to present players with such a decision without any prompt or warning what difference it’ll make. Thankfully, the ever-reliable LeekDuck has revealed all the details about what will come of picking either path.
The goals you need to complete are the same whichever path you pick, but it’s the rewards that’ll change. So either route means you get a bunch of dreary but incredibly easy tasks—use eight berries, power up eight times, catch eight Pokémon, then explore 3km, use an incense, and catch another eight Pokémon—which will net you encounters with specific Pokémon, a few Great and Ultra balls, and a thimble-full of XP and Stardust.
But what are those Pokémon, you cry! Um. Yeah. If you pick Sword you’ll get rewarded with—and I’m not kidding—Koffing, Galarian Darumaka, Deino and Rufflet. If your choice is Shield, then it’s the dizzying excitement of Koffing, Galarian Ponyta, Larvitar and Vullaby. Yeah, no kidding, the rewards contain not one single Pokémon original to Galar, and just two that are at least local variants. Oh, and all of these Pokémon are regularly just found in the wild, some of them in the game right now.
The path choice will also give you a different set of Pokémon for a collection challenge, although both include the Galarian starters, Grookey, Scorbunny and Sobble, then bizarrely just swaps out the banal gang that make up the rest to be a trade challenge for the opposite path. Imagine having to trade to get a Seedot—that’s a thing here! And the reward for completing the catch challenge? A SKWOVET. You know, the squirrel thing that you see seventeen of every time you play, and was the prize for collecting the eight Pokémon at the start of this bloody thing.
However, there is one aspect about which I don’t feel scorn, beyond that Niantic is at least not charging for this bizarre anticlimax: it’ll be possible to encounter shiny Zacian for the first time, and that’s a cool, blue dog-lion-thing. Zacian is in 5-star raids, so load up Poke Genie and start grinding for your shiny.
Shiny Zamazenta is arriving in raids October 4, with the start of Galarian Expedition, along with yet another $8 Master Ball research task.
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