"My personal goal in Pokemon GO, which took me more than a year to accomplish."

#PokemonGO: With Gen3 around the corner, I wanted to tell everybody here about the goal I set up for myself quite a long time ago, just when I started playing Pokemon GO. (In case you don't feel like reding a huge wall of text, there is a TL;DR in the end.)I've seen several news about "Pokemon game in real world" some time prior to the release and the whole idea got me really interested. I was quite a big fan of a PSP AR game called "Invisimals" back in 2009, and remembering all the fun I had (and all the time I wasted) with that game just brought some nostalgia feelings to me, and after that I've been looking up for news about Pokemon GO from time to time. Also, I must say that I was completely unfamiliar with Pokemon by that time, probably as many people who are now big fans of this huge universe, thanks to PoGO. Unfortunately, when the game was released, I didn't start playing right away, as it was not released in my country. All the news said "The game will be released soon, please wait." Guess what, it still is not released here in Russia. Literally the first thing I did when I woke up in the morning was checking the appstore for the game, and with each day my disappointment grew, as I was only seeing new "Uber-Mega-MLG-Pro Guides for Pokemon GO" and tracker apps.Finally, at the day of 22 of July I grew too impatient to wait even a second more, and soon I was catching my starter (which was charmander by the way) at my friend's house. My main game goal started with a simple "Oh look, this funny little mushroom-insect guy is living in my bathroom" photo, which I sent to my mother. (It is not the main picture in my album for Paras, but I decided to include it as a honorable mention, here it is: http://ift.tt/2mnTLKI) And then I started taking an AR picture of every new pokemon I encountered. And then I started trying to make better pictures. You've probably already guessed where I'm leading: I decided to take a picture of each pokemon in the wild out there! * Insert a picture of Ash in an epic trainer pose here * Gotta snap them all!I travelled a lot around Moscow, always with my app open, looking for new pokemon to add to my PhotoDex. By that time I didn't cooperate much with other trainres, probably because I was pretty shy back then. I knew there were some lure parties out there, but the game was much more interesting for me when I was going around exploring, rather than sitting on one place grinding XP on pidgeys. I have to admit though: I visited one of these parties once and it was pretty fun! It was a main Pokemon GO farming place in Moscow, Kitay-Gorod. Four pokestops, lured daily and nightly by some really hardcore players, who wanted to be the very best, like no one ever was! The crowd was huge there, probably as at every place like this. (All the people on this photo are only a small part of this huge crowd: http://ift.tt/2z2c9io) I went there at the end of summer, to catch a Mr Mime, as I was leaving to Canada to study and it would be really sad to miss out on a regional pokemon from my home country. I was really psyched to see that shadow appear on my nearby list, I rushed there and got the photo and the pokemon I needed. That probably was my fist chase after a pokemon, even if I did walk faster than normal after some of them.Soon, I departed to Canada, and the game was set aside for some time, mainy because of all important stuff I had to do while adapting to living in a new country. After two months I resumed playing and filling out my PhotoDex with new entries. Nothing significant happened for quite a long time: catching, hatching, fighting for gyms. But then, I travelled to the a huge rhyhorn nest at the Edwards Gardens. I met some trainers from my team and we had a really nice conversation, after which I was invited to some local Valor groups. That's when the best stage of a game started. I've met a lot of new people, each one was so different from another, but they all were here for the same reason. The game really started to look different for me. We had some events, like gym raiding, which meant driving around and building strong gyms at the neighborhood. We also went for some hunts when the Gen2 kicked in, and it was much more interesting for me than xp grinding, mainly because I didn't forget about my main game goal.After some time I got really serious with my own achievement. I was monitoring spawns and areas, waiting patiently for something to pop up, and when the long awaited thing appeared somewhere close I rushed there. Appearing at the place on the last minutes, out of breath, is something which can't just be described with words. The euphoria of a hunt probably? Anyways, my hunting list got shorter and shorter with time. Of course I've missed out some of the most wanted pokemon, as you can't win all the time. But the emotions when you finally get that Ninetales you missed last time are just awesome!I travelled to another part of a city to get specific pokemon and I can definetely say nothing could make me do that a year ago. I even travelled to America mainly because of pokemon! And I know, a lot of people will say something like "Haha, you travelled to another country just for pokemon? That's stupid!". I would say it's not. Come on, I've been exloring Miami, seen a lot of cool places and just had a good time there, why would it be stupid?My hunting list was almost filled out when I came back to Russia, leaving Alakazam, Tyranitar, Blissey and a Flareon. I was hoping to get the last one mentioned during the fire event, and I even farmed whole night once, luring with several other Valor trainers. I had a great time there, but luck wasn't on my side, and the fire pokemon I wanted really badly didn't came to me. Fortuntely enough, the raids appeared! I got almost all pokemon I needed in no time, thanks to the raiding communty which was created in our messenger. Then the legendaries kicked in, being added to my PhotoDex one by one.The last one on my list was Blissey. Oh, I had such desperate times trying to find one! It always spawned on the other side of a city when I was free, but each time I was busy it appeared somewhere around. But finally, I got a message from one trainer, with whom I had several conversatons about this situation. "Hey, look, there's one close to you, don't miss it!". I took an Uber there and finally got the last photo I needed for my main game goal. The thing I was working on for more than a year now is completed at last! Even catching a legendary was somehing less satisfying than this!When I came back to Toronto the Legendary Beasts appeared, so I decided to wait three more months to get a picture of each one. And of course, I couldn't forget shiny hunting during the halloween event. I only got a shiny Duskull, but I was really happy to get this one, as it looked perfectly with my costume. (Included in the album, but here is the link anyways: http://ift.tt/2mnTMhK )So, as Suicune appeared here in Canada, my goal is completed for now. If you read everything up to this point, you must be really interested in my story, thank you! I won't hold you back any longer, just let me say some final words. I wanted to say huge thank you to all the people who helped me out on my way to this achievement, it really means a lot to me! And of course, I wanted to thank Niantic for creating something which had such a huge impact on my life. The game is far from perfect, of course, but I will stay with it and I really hope we will see it develop into something better than it is now. Each photo at my PhotoDex has a story behind it, so if you want to hear it feel free to ask, and I will be glad to answer all the questions! That's it, thank you once again for reading my story. (Should probably count this as an achievent too). Enjoy.http://ift.tt/2msEOqK: The link above leads you to my personal game achievement, which took me more than a year to accomplish: take a picture of each pokemon out there in the wild. In this album you will see a photo of (almost) every pokemon, which is possible to encounter on the map, plus all gender differences, and, in some cases, old and new textures. The only two out are Farfetch'd and Kangaskhan, as I was not able to travel to places they inhabit yet. If you want to know more details about my Pokemon Quest, please consider reading the text above! via /r/TheSilphRoad http://ift.tt/2mnQqvn