The second generation of Pokémon is finally in Pokémon GO. Last night (February 16), over 80 new Pokémon from the Johto region were introduced into the game, following months of Niantic, the game’s developer, teasing this update.
As of now, every second generation Pokémon is in the game except for seven. Six of those are the legendary Pokémon Entei, Raikou, Suicune, Lugia, Ho-Oh and Celebi. Additionally, the five legendary Pokémon from the first generation, Articuno, Zapdos, Moltres, Mewtwo and Mew, are also still not in the game. The one other Johto Pokémon not yet included is Smeargle. This is probably due to Niantic not quite knowing how to implement Smeargle’s signature move Sketch, so, like Ditto from the last generation, it’s being left out of the game until Niantic can figure out what to do with it.
The first generation of Pokémon featured some Pokémon that are region specific, such as Mr. Mime only obtainable in Europe and Farfetch’d only in Asia. It appears that none of the second generation Pokémon are region specific, so you should be able to “Catch ‘Em All” no matter where you live.
The addition of all these Johto Pokémon includes several evolutions of first generation Pokémon, such as Chansey now being able to evolve into Blissey. Item evolutions have now also been implemented into the game, requiring some Pokémon to not only have a certain amount of Candies, but for the player to have a certain item before certain Pokémon can evolve. For example, Onix requires 50 Onix Candies as well as a Metal Coat before it can evolve into Steelix, and Slowpoke requires 50 Slowpoke Candies and a King’s Rock before evolving into Slowking. These evolutionary items, which include the Metal Coat, King’s Rock, Sun Stone and Dragon Scale, among others, cannot be purchased in the game’s in-game store, meaning that the only way to obtain them is from PokéStops.
Eevee also gets two new evolutions from this generation, the psychic-type Espeon and the dark-type Umbreon. Eevee’s evolution is usually random unless you name your Eevee something specific. Previously, you could force an evolution on your Eevee by naming it “Pyro” if you wanted it to evolve into a Flareon, “Sparky” if you wanted a Jolteon and “Rainer” for a Vaporeon. In the second generation, if you name your Eevee “Sakura” it will evolve into Espeon and naming it Tamao will evolve it into Umbreon.
Pokémon GO fans have cited the game’s lack of regularly adding new things to the game, such as new Pokémon, as a reason for the game’s declining popularity since its peak in July of last year. Maybe the addition of all these Johto Pokémon will be able to get old fans back into it and maybe even bring new players in.