Pokemon fans can earn a new pair of shiny mons through Pokemon Home, but one of these mons comes with a slight downside. To add to the ongoing shiny giveaway that sees shiny Enamorus and shiny Manaphy offered to players who complete the Pokedex for Pokemon Legends: Arceus and Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, respectively, players who complete the base game and Isle of Armor and Crown Tundra DLC Pokedexes for Pokemon Sword and Shield can earn a shiny Keldeo, and those who complete the Let’s Go Pikachu and Eevee Pokedex can receive a shiny Meltan. However, this shiny Meltan may not be as desirable as it seems.
Players will need to connect to Pokemon Home and confirm their completion of these Pokedexes within the Games tab to claim these shinies.
Meltan is already a bit of an outlier for the Pokemon series, having debuted in the spin-off Pokemon GO before it ever became available in the mainline games. Although it is one of the Mythical Pokemon for Gen 7, Meltan was never available in Pokemon Sun and Moon or Pokemon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, debuting in Let’s Go Pikachu and Eevee. Its evolution, Melmetal, has remained even more elusive—despite receiving a Gigantamax form in Pokemon Sword and Shield—due to an annoying evolution caveat.
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Shiny Meltan is a Nice Reward, But Can Never Reach its Full Potential
Meltan Can Only Evolve into Melmetal in Pokemon GO
Given its debut in Pokemon GO, it’s not surprising that Meltan’s gimmick revolves around the mobile title. To get Meltan in the mainline series, players originally had to have one in Pokemon GO and then transfer it to Let’s Go Pikachu or Let’s Go Eevee via the GO Park. However, players who transferred a Meltan to one of these titles before evolving it were unfortunately out of luck, since Melmetal can only be obtained by evolving Meltan with 400 Candy in Pokemon GO.
This stipulation throws a major curveball in the plans of fans hoping to evolve the shiny Meltan received from this Pokemon Home event into a shiny Melmetal. Players can’t transfer mons from outside games into Pokemon GO—it’s only a one-way street. So, the shiny Meltan earned by completing the Let’s Go Pokedex is destined to remain a Meltan until a new method for evolving it into Melmetal outside of Pokemon GO is made available.
Shiny Melmetal is still possible to obtain but requires players to catch and evolve a shiny Meltan in Pokemon GO before transferring it.
Future Pokemon Games Need an Alternative Way to Evolve Meltan
While players may not be able to evolve this shiny Meltan at the moment, there’s always hope that a future generation of Pokemon games will offer a new method for its evolution. For as strong as Pokemon GO continues to be, relying on a mobile title as the only way to obtain a certain critter is not a great way to future-proof the Pokedex, as the potential shutdown of the mobile game would end up locking players out from ever obtaining a Melmetal again. As such, it’s likely that Meltan will receive a new evolution method at some point.
The Pokemon series is no stranger to reworking outdated evolution methods for mons that need them. For example, Milotic used to evolve from Feebas based on its Beauty condition prior to Gen 5, when the stat was eliminated and the evolution method changed to a trade evolution when holding a Prism Scale. Pokemon Scarlet and Violet also feature several evolution methods that may need reworking to account for mechanical changes in future generations, so it’s not hard to imagine Meltan gaining a new evolution method in the future as well.
- Released
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November 16, 2018
- ESRB
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E for Everyone: Mild Cartoon Violence