Mythicals and Legendaries don’t really do it for me in Pokemon. Catching Zapdos with a Great Ball in Pokemon Blue is still one of my fondest memories – I had no idea Zapdos would be there and wasted my last Ultra Ball on Magneton – but for the most part, I don’t pay them much mind. I’ll always have time for Meloetta though, which is why I can’t wait for it to come to Pokemon Go.
Pokemon has grown more complex since its debut, but the respect it has given Legendaries seems to have decreased a little bit – to find Articuno in Gen 1, you need to use Surf to reach an isolated set of caves, make your way through these caves by strategically dropping boulders down various levels, and adventure across the currents to find the glorious icy bird. In Sword & Shield, you just have to play for long enough and the game chucks Zacian, Zamazenta, or Zinedine Zidane at you. In the Crown Tundra, Legendaries are devalued further, with so many crammed in there and the ability to continue to battle them again and again, rather than the pressure of having to catch them first time. Yes, I know we all save scummed anyway, but it’s just not the same.
Related: What's Up With Pokemon Wonder Only Being Open For A Year?Even in the older games, when they were treated with a little more respect, I mostly avoided the Legendaries and Mythicals. I would catch them because they added a new sense of depth to the game, but I rarely used them. Rocking up to the Elite Four with Ho-oh in tow-oh just felt like cheating. Levelling Gengar up to 100 and spamming Hypnosis and Dream Eater? Fair game. Bringing in a big red bird? Get outta here, ya cheater!
You could argue that Pokemon Go devalues Legendaries even further. While Mythicals are limited to event tasks, Legendaries are found in Raids, meaning you're free to catch as many as you want. I'm not that much of a raider in Pokemon Go, yet I have nine Raikou (one shiny), seven Latios (two shinies), and four Kyogre (no shinies, only pain). They're just the first three Legendaries I searched for too, and I know several hardcore raiders who catch Legendaries purely for the candy, immediately trashing them if they have anything less than 14/14/14 stats. Certainly, compared to the main series, Pokemon Go treats its Legendaries like garbage.
It doesn't feel as disappointing though. Pokemon Go is extremely light on narrative, so the fact it doesn't assemble a complex mythology around each Legendary doesn't really matter. Sword & Shield, with its 50-hour runtime, gets less of a pass for giving up and lobbing the Legendaries right at you. It's the loading screens that carry a lot of the storytelling in Pokemon Go, and in the current screen, Meloetta is the star. A recent leak confirmed it would be in the game soon, but you don't really need a leak to let you know that the main character in the loading screen will soon be making an appearance. Still, it's nice to have it confirmed, along with the fact Hoopa is coming next. Hoopa's better than it's given credit for, like much of Black & White, but it's way down the list compared to Meloetta.
Meloetta's design is just fantastic. I've always thought that if you were going to create a new Pokemon type, something musical would be the way to go. Jigglypuff, Exploud, and Grookey fit into this typing so easily, as do moves like Screech and Sing. Of all of them, Meloetta would obviously be the face of this new type, with its hair made up of a twist of sheet music that changes depending on the Pokemon's forme. It looks like a cartoon character, like something you'd see in Merrie Melodies back before it became Looney Tunes. Yet it also fits perfectly into Pokemon's world – something Legendaries and Mythicals often struggle with.
Legendaries are supposed to look special, and the likes of Zapdos, Mewtwo, and Lugia accomplish this while still remaining recognisably Pokemon. Eternatus, Gen 8's bone chicken, does not. What even is Giratina? Meloetta might be the turning point for this, with the various Legendaries, Mythicals, and Ultra Beasts in Gens 6, 7, and 8 all straying further and further away from what makes a Pokemon a Pokemon. Meloetta coming to Pokemon Go is one of the last Legendary arrivals I'm going to care about, so it only seems fair that I celebrate by catching 16 of them.
Next: Five Years On, Pokemon Go Still Feels Like The Best Game This Century
