This is the Time to Use That!: Keeping Yourself Occupied During Quarantine
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Art by tiki.
Introduction
Quarantine sucks. I'm sure we can all agree on that as a collective group. It's pretty interesting, though, that as soon as we're told that we need to stay inside and keep away from others, that the regular activities that we enjoy doing alone just feel boring now. Unfortunately, we have to resist that urge to go do public activities for who knows how long at this point in order to actually start doing them again, but what're we supposed to do in the meantime? Well, the wonderful world of Pokémon has no boundaries, giving you infinite ways to play and enjoy the very popular franchise. So, here are a couple of Pokémon-related things that you can do during quarantine, or anytime when you're feeling bored, that will most certainly help you pass the time!
Casual Play
These activities are perfect for those who just want to relax and have fun playing the games they know and love with a bit more spice.
Replay Your Favorite Games...With a Twist
I'm sure we all have a favorite Pokémon game, but are you able to replay it multiple times without being bored? Chances are, you'll probably get bored at even the second playthrough. So, why not mix things up a bit and play with your own rules? When it comes down to setting restrictions, requirements, and more to a playthrough, it can really spice up your favorite game and motivate you to finish it once more. Nuzlockes, for example, have the main rule of considering a Pokémon "dead" and unusable for the rest of the game once it faints. There's a lot more possibilities to spice up your playthrough even more: have all your Pokémon be the same type, restrict the usage of Pokémon Centers and healing in general, or even try out speedrunning the story. There are so many possibilities for putting a twist on a new playthrough of your favorite Pokémon game, and the fact that you can makes these rules overlap makes for an infinite number of unique playthroughs!
Hunt for Shiny Pokémon
Everyone loves to show off their shinies, especially if they caught them all by themselves. However, they can be a pain to actually get, specifically through hatching Eggs, as that process can take hours and hundreds of eggs to finally get the shiny you wanted. Now, considering we have all the time in the world, you can spend a lot of time shiny hunting without worrying about other obligations. If you don't like hatching hundreds of Eggs, though, you most certainly utilize other methods to shiny hunt present in many games; battling or capturing the same Pokémon in Sword and Shield increases your chances of finding that shiny Pokémon, traveling far into Ultra Space in Ultra Sun and Moon can quite easily grant you wormholes to shiny Pokémon, and utilizing the DexNav to its fullest potential in Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire helps increase your chances of encountering a shiny Pokémon a lot alongside ones with Egg moves, perfect IVs, and even hidden abilities. Of course, shiny hunting can be a drag even when you have time, so it pairs well with other quarantine activities such as catching up on your favorite shows or just chatting with your friends online. Regardless, the grind to see your Pokémon with a glimmer will always be worth it in the end!
Take on Game-Exclusive Features
Have you ever taken the time to play around with the extra features sprinkled all across every mainline Pokémon game? Me neither, but now's a good time to get around to do them! There's surprisingly a lot of hidden gems in a lot of Pokémon games, all of which are incredibly unique when compared with each other. For example, take a trip to the Pokeathlon Dome in HeartGold and SoulSilver and have your Pokémon face off with other Pokémon in Olympic-like competitions such as the Hurdle Dash, Block Smash, and Disc Catch. If you grind these challenges out, you'll eventually earn a medal for your Pokémon to flex. Want a harder challenge and don't mind using up all of your quarantine time? Try to get your Dugtrio to earn the Jump Medal. Speaking of medals, Black 2 and White 2 introduced an interesting achievement-like system where you can earn medals by doing tasks that you can very well just happen to get while playing the game, such as walking a certain amount of steps, finding hidden items, and even saving a certain number of times. In all honestly, though, Black 2 and White 2 are the perfect games to explore fun little game-exclusive features, such as the Pokémon World Tournament and Pokestar Studios, so those games are definitely the ones to visit first when taking on such unique game features.
Competitive Play
More interested in making a name for yourself and become the best battler you can be? Try these out!
Get into Competitive on Cartridge
Usually, competitive Pokémon is hard to get into on the cartridge games due to the amount of work needed to actually obtain the Pokémon you'd like to use. Sure, you can just rely on Rental Teams, but the sometimes the selection won't have a team you like, and it's much more fun creating a team yourself. Now that you have plenty of time to yourself, why not start getting into competitive Pokémon on cartridge and begin to create your very own Pokémon to use? The process of actually obtaining the Pokémon you want through means such as Egg hatching isn't too much of a hassle, and elements that were pain to get right are easier to achieve in Sword and Shield, such as perfect IVs and Hyper Training. One major grind, however, that would otherwise take a lot of valuable time is obtaining Mints, which are only accessible via Battle Points at the Battle Tower for a rather large sum of 50 BP. With your newfound time in your hands, you can most certainly use to obtain the Mints you need without feeling like doing something better with your time. And of course, you can't get better without practice, so use the time to battle with your Pokémon you readied for great competition to get better!
Learn a Smogon Tier
As an alternative to the official cartridge formats, Smogon provides you with many different metagames thanks to its tiering system, separating Pokémon as such by their usage percentages. OU has been the most the most popular tier throughout Smogon's lifespan, and there's no exception to that right now during Generation 8, so you can definitely take the time now to train up in OU. If you already happen to fare well in OU, however, don't fret, as there are so many different tiers with vastly different metagames you can try out! Embrace your 10-year-old self and play with a team filled with legendaries in Ubers, try out "garbage" Pokémon that are amazing in PU, or even have fun six Pokémon of your favorite type in Monotype. If you're afraid that you'll be lost when trying out a new tier, don't fret! There's plenty of resources for any tier you'd like to play, and the community on Smogon and Pokémon Showdown! are always willing to help.
Miscellaneous Activities
If you're really bored of casual and competitive play, considering dipping your toes into these activities.
Create Your Own Pokémon
I'm sure we all remember scribbling our own Pokémon in the margins of our notebooks when we were young, so why not try it out again in a more formal fashion with the time you have? Creating your own Pokémon can be fun at times and can really help get your creative juices flowing and hone your art skills in general. It doesn't matter if you consider yourself a "bad" artist because there's no such thing, and besides, practice makes perfect! Draw as many of your own creations as you want, and soon enough, you'll be able to definitely see improvement if you keep it up. It doesn't matter if you are a digital or traditional drawer or prefer drawing cute or complex Pokémon, as creating your own Pokémon as a whole is a relaxing activity you can use to wither the time away while improving your artistic skills as you do so. Confident that drawing is completely not your thing? Have some fun theorymonning and create a Pokémon with its own stats, abilities, and moves! Take some notes from Smogon's CAP project and design one to fit perfectly into your favorite metagame, but don't make it too overpowered! Whether it's through drawing it or basing it around a metagame, creating your own Pokémon leaves the door open for many different possibilities for your creative side to really break through.
Try Out a Spinoff
The same old battle and story format every mainline Pokémon has can be tiresome to keep playing over, so how to keep yourself from being bored? Well, if you're not tired of Pokémon in general, take a spin (heh) on the many Pokémon spinoffs that definitely deserve more credit and popularity. Sure, we all can recall the iconic spinoffs such as the Mystery Dungeon series, but what about the less popular ones? Take Pokémon Conquest, for example, an unimaginable crossover between Pokémon and Nobunaga's Ambition. Moreover, it adapts a chess-like role playing battle system akin to Fire Emblem, so if enjoy those types of games, this one will be up your ally. If you want to try out something more recent and prefer fighting games more, Pokken Tournament DX borrows a lot of from the fighting style of Tekken to match up your favorite Pokémon to battle it out in, well, an actually real battle. Burn up the competition with Blaziken, put your opponents to sleep with Darkrai, and leave everything behind stinging in pain with...Croagunk? I guess this game really has it all. I can go on and on about the various other niche spinoffs like Pokémon Ranger, Pokémon Picross, Pokémon Art Academy, Pokémon Shuffle, Pokémon Magikarp Jump, Pokémon Rumble, and so much more, but I'll leave it up to you guys to discover something that fits your fancy.
Closing Thoughts
I hope this list inspires to you to use your quarantine time to try out new things while keeping your love for Pokémon alive and well. If you happen to be reading this once the quarantine is over, I'm sure this list will still be useful for you when you end up being bored one day and want to take some time to relax and discover new things to do. Let's hope that time comes soon. Until then, though, stay safe!
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