When the sky-based wave of Generation 3 was announced last week, the Pokémon Company claimed that it was the "final wave of Pokémon originally from the Hoenn region." But it may not be as final as they claim, as Niantic has a record number of held-backed Pokémon.
In every generation so far, there have been Pokémon that need more time to code its special "thing." In Generation 1, it was Ditto. In Generation 2, it was Delibird. It also was, and still is, Smeargle. And, in the age of Generation 3, we have a record-setting eight holdbacks (excluding Legendary and Mythical Pokémon). They are the following Pokémon:
So why are these Pokémon being held back? They aren't Legendary like Latios, or Mythical like Deoxys, so Niantic really has little reason of holding these commonplace Pokémon back. We'll be looking into each evolutionary family in this article, and speculating why Niantic hasn't released them yet.
SPINDA: Spinda is a very unique Pokémon. We use the word "unique" quite literally. Each individual Spinda is said to have a totally unique pattern of spots. It seems understandable why Spinda is being held back, given the fact that this unique quality will take some time to figure out how it will work.
NINCADA FAMILY: One of Nincada's possible evolutions, Shedinja, has only one HP. In the mainstream games, Shedinja's Wonder Guard Ability makes it immune to any attack that is not super-effective. Abilities are a feature from the mainstream games that has not been implemented into Pokémon GO yet. Without its Ability, Shedinja would be more useless than Magikarp or Sunkern in battle.
Nincada's other evolution, Ninjask, really has no reason to be held back. The only reasonable explanation is that Shedinja and Wonder Guard are holding the entire evolutionary family back. Otherwise, we probably would have seen Nincada and Ninjask released with the land-based wave.
KECLEON: Similarly to Shedinja, we think that Kecleon is being held back due to its Ability from the core games. Its Color Change Ability changes its type to the type of the attack that last hit it. With the long-wanted rework to the battle system (which would probably include Abilities), we may never see Kecleon or Nincada's family.
CLAMPERL FAMILY: Clamperl is a Pokémon with a branched evolution. When given a Deep Sea Tooth, it will evolve into Huntail. When given a Deep Sea Scale, it will evolve into Gorebyss. We know from a leak that Niantic plans to add these new Evolution Items, but we haven't seen anything in the code. We should note that the leak was from Niantic's support page in December, which no longer mentions the Deep Sea Tooth and Scale.
Our ongoing theory is that Niantic plans to release Clamperl in a Community Day over the next one or two months. However much we think that this would be an interesting way to release Clamperl's family, we don't understand why Niantic hasn't released these three Pokémon. We'd say that Niantic has just been lazy, and haven't dedicated the time to coding the Deep Sea Scale and Deep Sea Tooth into one of the new updates
Thanks for reading, Trainers. If you haven't seen our in-depth Raid Guide for Rayquaza, we encourage you to read and bookmark it!
In every generation so far, there have been Pokémon that need more time to code its special "thing." In Generation 1, it was Ditto. In Generation 2, it was Delibird. It also was, and still is, Smeargle. And, in the age of Generation 3, we have a record-setting eight holdbacks (excluding Legendary and Mythical Pokémon). They are the following Pokémon:
- Nincada, Ninjask, Shedinja
- Spinda
- Kecleon
- Clamperl, Huntail, Gorebyss
So why are these Pokémon being held back? They aren't Legendary like Latios, or Mythical like Deoxys, so Niantic really has little reason of holding these commonplace Pokémon back. We'll be looking into each evolutionary family in this article, and speculating why Niantic hasn't released them yet.
SPINDA: Spinda is a very unique Pokémon. We use the word "unique" quite literally. Each individual Spinda is said to have a totally unique pattern of spots. It seems understandable why Spinda is being held back, given the fact that this unique quality will take some time to figure out how it will work.
NINCADA FAMILY: One of Nincada's possible evolutions, Shedinja, has only one HP. In the mainstream games, Shedinja's Wonder Guard Ability makes it immune to any attack that is not super-effective. Abilities are a feature from the mainstream games that has not been implemented into Pokémon GO yet. Without its Ability, Shedinja would be more useless than Magikarp or Sunkern in battle.
Nincada's other evolution, Ninjask, really has no reason to be held back. The only reasonable explanation is that Shedinja and Wonder Guard are holding the entire evolutionary family back. Otherwise, we probably would have seen Nincada and Ninjask released with the land-based wave.
KECLEON: Similarly to Shedinja, we think that Kecleon is being held back due to its Ability from the core games. Its Color Change Ability changes its type to the type of the attack that last hit it. With the long-wanted rework to the battle system (which would probably include Abilities), we may never see Kecleon or Nincada's family.
CLAMPERL FAMILY: Clamperl is a Pokémon with a branched evolution. When given a Deep Sea Tooth, it will evolve into Huntail. When given a Deep Sea Scale, it will evolve into Gorebyss. We know from a leak that Niantic plans to add these new Evolution Items, but we haven't seen anything in the code. We should note that the leak was from Niantic's support page in December, which no longer mentions the Deep Sea Tooth and Scale.
Our ongoing theory is that Niantic plans to release Clamperl in a Community Day over the next one or two months. However much we think that this would be an interesting way to release Clamperl's family, we don't understand why Niantic hasn't released these three Pokémon. We'd say that Niantic has just been lazy, and haven't dedicated the time to coding the Deep Sea Scale and Deep Sea Tooth into one of the new updates
Thanks for reading, Trainers. If you haven't seen our in-depth Raid Guide for Rayquaza, we encourage you to read and bookmark it!