Meltan Comes to Pokemon Go!

On Friday, November 16th, the mythical Pokemon Meltan has finally been updated into the game. While there has been rumors, hints, and even teases referring to the existence of this little guy, most of it has been an accident. Like the first time it appeared in PoGo, it happened to be a minor glitch after a global "Safari Event" that was later covered up as a clever teaser. During this time players everywhere were encountering a wild "Meltan". Upon catching it however, it would turn into a Ditto masquerading as the new, yet unavailable, Meltan. Since then, between Niantic and the Pokemon Company, they have used it as a hype train to also cross-promote the new Nintendo Switch game: Pokemon Let's Go Eevee and Let's Go Pikachu! Ironically, since they've more or less benefited from their small glitch, the bugs regarding Meltan seem to continue on.

On the day Meltan was introduced to the Pokemon Go app, our ever so clever Professor Willow seemed to have some trouble with his words. Just like any other " Mythical Research" quest or task, The Professor contacts you with a new list of tasks to tackle in order to bring you steps closer to uncovering and gaining the chance to catch the new mythical Pokemon. This time around though there seemed to be something a little weird going on, as when interacting with Willow to learn more, he seemed to instead of giving the usual lore or instructions for this research, he instead for the duration of the speech only seems to say "quest_special_dialouge_meltan_0_1". As there are approximately eight or so text boxes throughout the conversation. Even the quest title itself once viewable in the research icon on the right of the screen appeared as nothing more than the program code intended to display the actual name. Even though these weird glitches occured during the time of release, it seems like the actual quest tasks listed to accomplish were unaffected and counted correctly for the steps taken to complete them.

This little slip up seemed to only happen for a few hours, as later that same day upon reopening the app, the quest title and text appeared to display normally and as intended originally by the programmers. Meltan seems to be a huge focus for Pokemon Go and Let's Go players alike. That being the case, if playing both games, the easier way to obtain this new mythical Pokemon seems to be acquiring it through either of the Let's Go Pokemon games (Eevee or Pikachu). If plainly going after Meltan in Pokemon Go however, this will involve the completion of a nine step quest with three tasks to complete per step. This seems to be the common way Niantic gives a chance to catch any mythical Pokemon, just like with Mew or Celebi. Currently the only downside to anything revolving around acquiring Meltan just through Pokemon Go is the fact that to get this little guy to evolve and become a force to be reckoned with, one must transfer this Pokemon into one of the Let's Go games. While this can be bad news for those who do not currently have a Nintendo Switch or one of the new games, you can accomplish this still by trading to a friend and having them transfer into the Switch game and then swapping back. Still this takes longer and does make it harder to pull off, it is important to point out this is a Mythical Pokemon with an evolution form, as well as the fact that Meltan seems to be a huge marketing tool to encourage players to play with the cross over idea for the mobile game and the Nintendo Switch games.