Mewtwo in Pokémon GO
Pokémon GO is, in a sense, a phenomenon within a phenomenon. When it came out in 2016, it reawakened the so-called Pokémon Fever of the late 1990s for both new and older fans alike. And with good reason — it's fun!
To play Pokémon GO you have to, well, go. Building on the legacy of the Pokémon Pikachu pedometer and the Pokéwalker of Pokémon HeartGold & SoulSilver, Pokémon GO puts emphasis on getting off the couch and walking around. As an augmented reality
game, various real-life landmarks you might have previously overlooked at your local park and around town are highlighted as gameplay locations within the game of Pokémon GO and by visiting them in real life with your GPS-activated smart phone, you can obtain items inside the game. As you walk between destinations, you will find wild Pokémon that you can attempt to catch, possibly even using your phone's camera to show the Pokémon seemingly interacting with the real world.
When Pokémon GO came out, I lived in a town with wonderful nature trails, and every park bench along the trail became a PokéStop within the game. The game was another fun thing for us to do as Rosy and I would go on a walk together — oh look, there's a Growlithe over there, let's catch it!
Everyone in town got super into it, and our usually quiet nature trails suddenly were a hip and happening place to be.
Teens would hang out around a particular park bench that would be a contested in-game Gym, and little kids would run back and forth between two benches to keep re-spinning the PokéStops. Adults would walk around the loop and pause to toss a PokéBall at a Meowth. It seemed like everyone in the world was playing this game and really super into it. While not without valid criticisms, in general, with the emphasis on walking around, reconnecting with nature or discovering the local history of your hometown, and on teamwork during collaborative events, the experience of playing Pokémon GO at that time was generally very wholesome and fun!
After such a big cultural boom, Pokémon GO was fully embraced by The Pokémon Company and has had a lasting impact on the Pokémon franchise in general.
The focus on catching Pokémon without first needing to battle and weaken them called into question this core feature of the main series games — and so Let's Go Pikachu & Let's Go Eevee (2018) were remakes of Pokémon Yellow that instead feature Pokémon GO-style catching mechanics.
Pokémon GO were the first games to not ask the player if they are a boy or a girl
. Instead, Professor Willow simply asks What do you look like?
and allows you to customize your avatar. This more inclusive approach was adopted by the Let's Go games and carried forward in future main series games.
The collaborative gameplay style of Raid Battles in Pokémon GO influenced the mechanics (and name) of the then in-development Max Raid Battles of Pokémon Sword & Shield (2019), which in turn influenced the Raid Battle format of the Pokémon Trading Card Game and the Tera Raid Battles of Pokémon Scarlet & Violet (2022).
Pokémon caught in Pokémon GO could be transferred to the Let's Go games when they came out in November 2018. And, as of November 11, 2020, Pokémon caught in Pokémon GO can be transferred to Pokémon HOME and then between several main series games. I feel this inter-compatibility elevates Pokémon GO to be more than just an average side-game.
When Pokémon GO first came out, its focus was on the ever-nostalgic Pokémon of Kanto, with new ones being added to the game in batches every so often. As the updates worked their way down the PokéDex, there loomed the possibility of eventually seeing the most powerful Kanto Legendary Pokémon, Mewtwo.
Mewtwo is an important figure for Pokémon GO, and has been from even before the game first came out. Mewtwo was featured in a pre-release trailer for Pokémon GO, which depicted a huge crowd flooding the streets to confront Mewtwo as it flew over New York City's Times Square. I bet the people responsible for the trailer were amazed at how close their whimsical trailer came to being a reality.
Mewtwo's in-game debut in Pokémon GO was on August 14, 2017, during the Yokohama Stadium event in Japan. Fans could purchase tickets to enter the baseball stadium for fifteen minutes, and while there, they could confront Mewtwo at one of three special PokéStops inside. The celebration was complete with real life fireworks and pyrotechnics that would make Mewtwo proud, and the cell towers were all overloaded as everyone was trying to use their smart phones all at the same time, and I really can't overstate the vibrating mania for Pokémon GO at this time.
This grand event heralded Mewtwo's more regular introduction in Pokémon GO shortly thereafter, with its first EX Raid Battles starting September 6, 2017 and many recurring events for years to come.
After a successful Raid Battle against Mewtwo, the players who participate all get to individually encounter Mewtwo and have a chance to capture it.
And beyond all the limited-time events involving Mewtwo in Pokémon GO, the most stable and straight-forward way to get Mewtwo in this game is to complete the Special Research: Level 50 Challenge, which was added during the GO Beyond update, released November 30th, 2020. Once the player reaches the required level and achieves certain in-game tasks, they get to encounter Mewtwo and have a chance to catch it. So even if there isn't a Mewtwo-related event at the moment, players aren't blocked from catching Mewtwo.
Following the update from September 16th, 2019, Mewtwo encounters after successful Raid Battles have a 1/20 chance of being Shiny Mewtwo, and once you encounter Shiny Mewtwo you cannot fail to catch it. This means Pokémon GO offers one of the best chances to catch an official Shiny Mewtwo in any Pokémon game.
Another fun alternate Mewtwo was available from July 10 to July 31, 2019 in Pokémon GO as a promotional tie-in for the Japanese premiere of Mewtwo Strikes Back: Evolution — players could have a Raid battle against Armored Mewtwo: a special costumed version of Mewtwo wearing the remake movie's version of the armor Mewtwo wore while under the control of Giovanni. Armored Mewtwo returned again from February 25 to March 2, 2020 to celebrate the international release of Mewtwo Strikes Back: Evolution. This time around, Armored Mewtwo had the featured move Psystrike and a different spread of stats. The same event also featured Mewtwo's friends: the cloned Venusaur, cloned Charizard, cloned Blastoise, and cloned Pikachu, all with their special markings from the movie. Aw.
In a way, Pokémon GO also serves as a sequel to Pokémon Ultra Sun & Ultra Moon (2017). At the end of those games, after Team Rainbow Rocket is defeated, Giovanni teleports away while musing: "Now...what new world shall I unleash my evil schemes upon...?" In a Pokémon GO teaser trailer from 2019, Giovanni answers himself: "Earth is where I shall unleash my evil schemes next!" He's attempting to conquer the real world through the augmented reality of Pokémon GO. Woooah!
As part of Team GO Rocket's invasion, they took over PokéStops with Shadow Pokémon — a concept we hadn't seen since Pokémon Colosseum (2003) and Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness (2005). Shadow Pokémon have been corrupted in such a way that they have become very powerful, but also dreadfully unhappy. If the player adds a Shadow Pokémon to their team and works hard to reconnect with its heart, the Shadow Pokémon can become purified and instead be boosted by the power of friendship.
And, of course, the dark star of Giovanni's corrupted team is Shadow Mewtwo, complete with red eyes, boosted stats, and the move Frustration. Defeating Giovanni while he is using Shadow Mewtwo allows players to "save" Shadow Mewtwo from its bad trainer and work towards resolving its corrupted state. The first time Shadow Mewtwo was available was as a special paid promotion during GO Fest on July 26, 2020, and then potentially available for all players starting from October 13, 2020 during special events. On May 27, 2023, the potential was added for players to encounter and save a Shiny Shadow Mewtwo, for double the specialosity.
As an aside, when we played Pokémon Colosseum, we felt a disconnect between the gameplay and the plot, in that the characters would be all saying things about how the Shadow Pokémon are sooo strong, and there's the temptation for the protagonist to continue to use their dark power rather than to take the steps to purify them... but in practice Shadow Pokémon aren't so great, and of course we would want to purify them as soon as possible to be gain access to their full move pool and potentially trade them to other games (and because we want them to be happy and safe!). So, there was no such temptation for us in Pokémon Colosseum to keep a Shadow Pokémon as a Shadow Pokémon on purpose. But in Pokémon GO, it sounds like the temptation is indeed strong this time. While researching the timeline events, I happened across three different articles by three different authors discussing how overpowered Shadow Mewtwo is in the Pokémon GO meta-game, and urging the reader, in all-caps, DO NOT PURIFY SHADOW MEWTWO. Yikes, are you sure you want to be so aligned with Giovanni on this topic? There are more important things in life than raw power...
In terms of inter-compatibility, special Mewtwos like the specific Yokohama Stadium Mewtwo, Armored Mewtwo, Shadow Mewtwo, and Purified Mewtwo cannot leave Pokémon GO, but regular Mewtwo and Shiny Mewtwo can be transferred to Pokémon HOME and potentially to other games where applicable.
So yeah, I believe that the developers at Niantic are themselves fans of Pokémon who understand what fans would be excited about. Accordingly, Mewtwo has been a prominent figure in Pokémon GO as a powerful enemy and a sought-after ally, spotlit for celebrations and promotional events, and featured in interesting callbacks to Mewtwo's role in the anime and movies. I think Pokémon GO did the most creative and fun tie-ins for Mewtwo Strikes Back: Evolution (especially compared to the absolute plops from the analogous events from Let's Go Pikachu/ Eevee and from Pokémon Sword & Shield). And its neat that even Shiny Mewtwo gets to have an unusual amount of attention in Pokémon GO. And bringing back the concept of Shadow Pokémon — with Mewtwo as a prominent Shadow Pokémon — is really, really cool. So, overall, I'd say, Pokémon GO did a great job for us Mewtwo fans, hehe.
Notes
- Wooper!