There’s a new set of Timed Research in Pokémon Go in celebration of the franchise’s 30th anniversary, and the mobile game is giving you three different options: Chespin, Fennekin, and Froakie.
If you love all the Kalos Starters equally, you might be a bit stumped on which path you should choose in the “A Beautiful Day to Celebrate!” Timed Research. But the good news is, you won’t be missing out on anything too rare if you pick “wrong”—and really, there’s no “wrong” answer here.
The “A Beautiful Day to Celebrate!” takes readers to the world of Kalos by challenging you to catch Pokémon every day and rewarding you with one of the three generation six Starters: Chespin, Fennekin, or Froakie. Whoever you pick will be the one that spawns as a reward for completing each leg of the research. So—if you’re like me and picked Chespin, for example—you’ll only get Chespins after completing a task.
But it’s not just any old Kalos Starter. It’s on a special background. There are two different backgrounds your Starter can have: either a blue-and-white design that almost resembles a window effect or one with orange and maroon tentacle-like effects. So, again, it doesn’t really matter which Pokémon you pick, but I recommend choosing one that you need the most for your collection, or if you have a favorite of the three, pick that. You could get a Shiny, and a Shiny with a special background is definitely better than one without.
It’s unlikely these backgrounds will appear again, since this Timed Research is specifically in celebration of the franchise’s 30th anniversary. Luckily, you’ll have six different options to get a Shiny Kalos Starter with a special background, as there are six different legs for this research. Each task requires you to catch a Pokémon on a different day, and you have nine days in total to complete all tasks. So if you miss a day, no sweat—just don’t miss more than four. Once you’ve completed all six tasks, you get five Candy of whichever Starter you chose, Stardust corresponding to your Starter’s PokéDex number, and 2,026 experience points.
If you haven’t yet unlocked the new research, head on over to the Pokémon Go website to redeem a code. You’ll need to log in to your account and then type in the code “GOTOURKALOS.” That will automatically unlock the research, and you can make your choice in the Special Research tab of the game, but the research itself will appear under “Events.”
For more Pokémon celebrations, be sure to check out the reveal of the generation 10 mainline games, Wind and Waves, and start weighing the pros and cons of each Starter before your journey begins.
