You’ll be catching a lot of Pokemon in Let’s Go Pikachu and Eevee, but the thing is, you need to be good at it if you don’t want to burn through Pokeballs. You are also going to end up having to catch a lot of duplicates, since they are what will get you Candy from Professor Oak, which in turn helps with controlling stat growth for your Pokemon.
This guide deals with how to catch Pokemon effectively, and what to do with extras.
POKEBALL THROWING TIPS
Catching Pokemon in Let’s Go mimes the Pokemon catching minigame from Pokemon GO. It follows a lot of the same principles: you run into wild Pokemon, you throw Pokeballs at them, and you catch them. However, you’ll notice that sometimes when you throw a Pokeball, you get a rating for it—catching a Pokemon with these ratings gets you bonus experience for catching it.
There are three—Nice, Great, and Excellent. You trigger these by catching the Pokemon when the circle around it (this circle is coloured green, orange, or red, and gradually shrinks) is small, and you throw the ball right at its center. The smaller the circle is when you throw the ball, the higher the rating (so a very small circle when you threw the ball gets you an Excellent). Remember, however, that getting a Nice, Great, or Excellent isn’t a guarantee that you catch the Pokemon—it can still break out of an Excellent throw, for example.
- In general, I recommend playing in handheld mode. In handheld mode, the gyro is only used for broad aiming, and the actual throwing of the Pokeball is a button press. This means that your throws are more accurate and likelier to go where you want them to go, in handheld mode over console mode
- If the Pokemon is jumping around a lot, feed it a Nanab Berry. Nanab Berries make Pokemon calm down.
- Time the throw when the circle is getting small, and make sure you are aiming at the center—this way, your Pokeball should hit the center and catch the Pokemon when the circle is at its smallest possible, getting you an Excellent rating
TRANSFERRING EXTRA POKEMON
As mentioned in a previous guide, catching duplicate Pokemon is extremely helpful—it gets you Candies, and it makes it likelier for rare and Shiny Pokemon to spawn. However, it also means your Pokemon Box is now cluttered with five dozen Zubat, and no one likes having five dozen Zubat.
So, what do you do with all the extra, duplicate Pokemon? Well, transferring them is the solution. Which is a simple process—open up your bag, go to the Pokemon box, select a Pokemon, and select “Transfer to Professor”. The game will actually let you select multiple Pokemon to send to Professor Oak now, so select as many as you want, and then hit Y. The Pokemon will be gone from your Box right away, and you will get Candies from Professor Oak for your Pokemon.
