21. How to start with Pikachu
If you’ve just downloaded Pokemon GO, this may be the tip for you. If you are instead the kind of person who downloaded the game as soon as you could and picked Charmander, Bulbasaur, or Squirtle, you may feel a little bad about this.
You can, in fact, start the game with Pikachu as your first Pokemon, so long as you’re willing to reject Charmander, Squirtle, and Bulbasaur. Though the game instructs you to immediately start trying to catch one of the three, you need to start walking away from them instead.
In fact, you may have to do it multiple times. However, should you be persistent enough, you can grab yourself a Pikachu. Thankfully, you don’t have to deal with a Rock-type Gym first off like players of the original Pokemon games did.
Starting with Pikachu is, of course, a reference to the Pokemon anime, where Ash woke up too late in the first episode to get one of the traditional three starters. Pokemon: Yellow Version later came out to capitalize on the electric mouse’s serious popularity.
Unfortunately, Pokemon GO hasn’t added the option to have a Pokemon follow you just yet, like Pikachu does in both the anime and the game.
You can catch all three starters and Pikachu in the main game, however, so don’t feel too bad about turning any of them down.
