Haven’t posted much about this here but I am an absolute freak about 100%ing a pokemon collection
I currently am missing only 5 total Pokemon from my “Living Dex” (a collection of 1 of each Pokemon, held simultaneously in a box) on Pokemon Home, the current mobile/Switch version of Pokemon Bank. Three of those five I’ll get after completing BD/SP. I’m so close!!!
Because I have collected almost all the Pokemon, period, this gives me an instant win switch for the major objectives in those games. I can just transfer in hundreds of pokemon from Home, turn the game on, and get rewarded for catchin’ them all!! I can ruin the fun for myself in this way, for sure… but I feel ACCOMPLISHED.
As a result, I’ve gone back to Arceus this week to get my fill of playing it before I transfer in all the missing Pokemon and get credit for owning them. Spent this week finishing the last hour or two of the Arceus main quest and doing a ton of side quests. I’m really enjoying myself! This game is a lot of fun to noodle on long-term. I think the next game they make in this format, with some learnings and polish from PLA, will absolutely be “more fun” for me than a traditional pokemon JRPG.
I will probably transfer in all the remaining Pokemon I haven’t caught yet this weekend. Interestingly, This won’t “beat” the game for me in the same way it would “beat” the lategame objectives in traditional Pokemon games. Arceus’s Pokedex has a little grindy checklist of mini-objectives for each individual Pokémon, and you must satisfy most of the checklist for EVERY Pokémon to get the game’s final reward. That reward is the “shiny charm”, which makes it easier to find shiny Pokémon (and I’m trying to make a Living Dex for shinies, too).
I think one of the reasons they changed the Pokedex in Arceus was for this specific reason–it makes “completion” more resilient to the effects of trading these animals between games. I think this is the first time that I’ve seen a Pokemon game’s core features seemingly-intentionally resist how the interoperability of these games can let people shortcut the lategame. Even as it becomes harder and harder to actually transfer Pokemon between generations, and even as Gamefreak abandons the expectation that all your Pokémon can always go to every game, Pokemon is becoming more and more ecosystem-oriented in a couple of these really weird ways. Interesting stuff!!