The mad lads at GameFreak have done it again. Pokémon Scarlet and Violet push the series’ overall Pokédex into four figures, and the special 1,000th Pokémon turns out to be a gold coin surfing freak with a fanny pack called Gholdengo. Is it going to sell me crypto? Is it made of crypto?? I can’t wait to find out.
I first learned about the Gholdengo from IGN, who noted the coin entity’s striking resemblance to a General Mills cereal mascot but was otherwise effusive in its praise. Gholdengo, it turns out, is the evolved form of Gimmighoul, a Dungeons & Dragons-style mimic chest revealed by Nintendo earlier in the month. How that evolution takes place is the real magic. YouTuber nickcucc described it as, “Probably one of the most tedious yet rad evolutions you’ll ever experience in your entire life.”
When you defeat a Gimmighoul it drops gold coins. Once you’ve picked up 1,000, your Gimmighoul will evolve into Gholdengo on its next level up. “Its body seems to be made up of 1,000 coins,” reads the Pokédex entry. “This Pokémon gets along well with others and is quick to make friends with anybody.”
I’m sure it is quick to make friends. One moment you’re feeding Gholdengo a Bocadillo de Jamón, the next it’s talking your ear off about how you can yield farm Dengo Coin at 16 percent and you should buy the dip on that FTX token that just blew up. Web 3.0 ain’t going to make itself. Now be a good Pokémon trainer and ditch those TMs for some NFTs.
To the extent that Gholdengo looks like a walking Ponzi scheme, it’s a lowkey testament to the series’ own unflagging durability through the decades. Pokémon is too big to fail. Scarlet and Violet’s performance issues can’t stop it from being the most pre-ordered game in franchise history. So what if the series’ 1,000th creature looks like it just got back from making DeFi TikToks at Burning Man?
At the end of the day, good or bad, millions of people, myself included, will do whatever it takes to get another shot at catching these adorable abominations and run them through a spreadsheet calculus so obtuse it would make even your H&R Block accountant weep. Even if the Pokémon in question is a literal keychain, ice cream cone, or in this case, Gholdengo. I’m going to catch so many of these goddamn things, and we’re going to hold our diamond hands until the seas rise and swallow us whole.