Instead, they send these Pokémon-often with high but not perfect stats-through Surprise Trade in the hope that it could be useful to someone else. The easiest solution to this Pokémon storage problem is to simply release them in the wild, but that’s not what many players choose to do. There are things you can do to maximize your chances but the routine is pure luck, often times leaving breeders with hundreds of the same ’mon. Those a little more invested in the stats of a particular Pokémon will often breed and hatch eggs as they slowly chip away at the parent Pokémon’s inadequacies and produce stronger offspring. It sounds harsh, but there’s actually a lot of heart behind it. Sending out breeding rejects is another way for traders to show their generosity. Putting up a version exclusive shows that the trader isn’t just low-balling it and trying to get rid of junk Pokémon in the hopes of getting lucky and nabbing something better. Both are cool new takes on Generation 1 Pokémon and I’ve seen quite a few thrown into Surprise Trade. For example, Sword players have access to the stoic Galarian Farfetch’d while Shield players are treated to the colorful Galarian Ponyta. Like all main games before it, Sword and Shield feature Pokémon exclusive to each version. This type of kindness generally manifests in two different ways. More impressively, you also run into trades that feel a bit more deliberate, like the person you’re trading with is purposely going out of their way to provide the community with something a little more special. Sometimes you’ll get a higher level Pokémon that’s a bit trickier to find, like a Sinistea that has a 10 percent chance at appearing in Glimwood Forest. We’re talking your average level 5 Skwovet or an easily fishable Chewtle. Neither of you know what the other will send.Ī typical Surprise Trade often nets you a low-level, easy-to-find Pokémon. Before the trade begins, you pick any one Pokémon you’ve caught to put up for trade, and the other player does the same. In Sword and Shield, this simple online feature randomly pairs you up with another player from anywhere in the world. I made my momentous swap using Surprise Trade, the latest incarnation of Wonder Trade. With the introduction of Wonder Trade in Pokemon X and Y on the Nintendo 3DS, and the push for more heartfelt moments began.
#POKEMON MOON EGG FROM NURSERY SERIES#
Once you get past the Link Cables of the Game Boy, you get to the Nintendo DS series of games, which introduced the Global Trade System, a feature that lets you request a specific Pokemon to players online. Since the beginning, the series has always emphasized trading, but it was always under the “you help me, I help you” mentality. Yet there’s a very specific joy to doing something nice with no recognition or reward in return, and that’s an option Pokémon has built up with each new game. Giving one away is something you simply do not do. (If you use certain methods to boost the odds, as I did, you can get to a much more reasonable 1 in 512.) Most players will never encounter these elusive variants in their playthroughs or even through their entire time with the series. Each of these Pokémon has a shiny variant, an alternately colored version that’s super rare-just 1 out of every 4,096 you encounter, to be specific. The Pokémon series already prides itself on its addictive collection mentality, with nearly 900 total Pokémon, about half of which can be caught in the latest Switch releases.
#POKEMON MOON EGG FROM NURSERY FULL#
You might not understand the full scope of why this is the last thing you would ever want to do. No, what’s insane is that I immediately gave my most prized possession away, to a completely random and total stranger, with no guarantee of what I’d get in return. But the absolute time sink I voluntarily pushed myself into isn’t the crazy part.
After spending more than 30 hours hatching exactly 1,600 eggs in Pokémon Sword and Shield, the shiny Applin I’d worked so hard to find was finally mine.