Pokemon X player fills the Pokedex without progressing in the game by leveling up the Pokemon from the original area and trading with other Pokemon trainers.
One of the best things about RPGs is that players can play and enjoy the game as they desire. Sometimes, gamers will avoid a game’s normal rules or story and set off on a journey of their own.
When it comes to the world of Pokemon, there usually isn’t much a player can do outside of the normal progress of the game. However, one dedicated gamer, Matthew Johnson, had an idea for a new way to play Pokemon X: complete the Pokedex without collecting a single badge.
For those unfamiliar with Pokemon games, the way a player beats the game is by collecting Pokemon in the wild, then using said Pokemon to take on other trainers and gym owners. As a player fights and beats other Pokemon trainers, they’ll level up their Pokemon and open up new areas full of fresh Pokemon and battles. So when Johnson decided to try and catch every Pokemon in Pokemon X without progressing in the game, he knew he had a big challenge ahead.
To make the endeavor enjoyable and challenging, Johnson set a few rules for himself. First, he was unable to trade with himself from a different game. He also couldn’t use any kind of cheating device that would allow him to find and capture hacked Pokemon. Additionally, he wouldn’t accept hacked Pokemon from anyone else, and didn’t allow himself to accept more than 10 Pokemon at a time.
With the rules in place, Johnson set out on his quest. Over the course of two years, Johnson employed numerous tactics to gather the Pokemon he needed to complete his Pokedex. His first act was to scour the starting area in the game and hunt down any Pokemon available. He then trained and evolved each of those Pokemon until he had every possible combination from the starting area.
From there, Johnson moved on to Wonder Trade, the online Pokemon trading feature that allows players to blindly trade Pokemon with each other. Naturally, many of the Pokemon Johnson received were ones he already had, since most players aren’t too keen to give up rare Pokemon, but every once in a while he received one that filled a slot in his Pokedex.
With each new Pokemon came another round of training and leveling. Unfortunately, since all the Pokemon around the starting area are level seven or below, the process was painstakingly slow and tedious, but Johnson soldiered on. Over the first year, Johnson conducted around seven thousand trades, at which point progress slowed almost to a halt.
For a moment, Johnson considered giving up, but decided to venture into more creative realms before fully deserting his quest. The dedicated Pokemon trader signed up for the Pokemon Global Link (PGL), which awards players with “Pokemiles” for their trades. Johnson was able to accrue enough Pokemiles to trade them in for Rare Candies, Fire Stones, Happiness Berries, and Pokeballs, which allowed him to once again progress in his journey.
Johnson also hopped on the PokemonTrades subreddit, seeking out whatever Pokemon he could through the Reddit classified ads. Using his new found success, Johnson was able to trade for bigger and better Pokemon. He even traded a code for a Legendary Pokemon he received at a GameStop event for many Pokemon he needed to complete his Pokedex.
Finally, after a Herculean effort, Johnson evolved his final Pokemon, completing the adventure in an impressive 837 hours.
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Johnson didn’t say whether or not he plans to run the experiment again with another game, though after the first run, he may leave that adventure for another player. Speaking of, it’ll be interesting to see if anyone take on the effort to beat Johnson’s time, implementing the same tactics to complete the journey even faster.
What do you think about Johnson’s effort to fill his Pokedex without winning a single badge? Would you have the patience to do it?