Some Pokemon evolution methods are stranger than others. Alongside the standard evolution chains that ask players to gather experience or use certain items, there are still some oddly specific methods confusing players to this day.
One great example of this is Sirfetch’d, the evolution for Galarian Farfetch’d. This Pokemon has a strangely specific evolution requirement. To evolve Galarian Farfetch’d, it needs to hit 3 critical strikes in one battle – which can be pretty tricky if you’re not facing off against a defensive Pokemon.
Evolution methods like this are quite hard to unpack without looking it up online. Alongside Sirfetch’d, there are other Pokemon like Runegrigus, Malamar, and Basculegion that are still confusing the community.
Runegrigus in particular came up in a recent discussion about strange Pokemon evolutions, with a player wondering how fans figured out the evolution in the first place. The original poster noted that the method had a definite “My uncle works at Nintendo” aura.
Evolving Galarian Yamask into Runegrigus means ensuring that it’s taken 49 or more ticks of damage, then taking it to the Dusty Bowl area of the Wild Zone in Pokemon Sword or Shield. It’s a convoluted method, and it feels almost impossible to accidentally stumble across it while playing.
Other players agreed that the evolution method was “obtuse”, with some noting that data-miners must have gotten their hands on the information. One reader even theorized that Pokemon evolution methods like this were created with data-miners in mind.
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Another method that popped up in the discussion was location-based methods, with fans discussing how confusing they can be as a first-time player.
One person noted, “I remember not knowing about Magnezone’s evolution, keeping a Magneton all the way through the game as I tried to evolve it, than it evolving on Mt. Coronet. Only later, I found out it was location based. I thought I had just hit the required level.”
It’s interesting to see unique evolution methods like the ones for Runegrigus and Sirfetch’d – but it could be helpful to get more information about them in the Pokedex to make it more feasible for players to uncover. Perhaps an NPC could provide a hint instead? A mysterious NPC near the Dusty Bowl area could’ve been the perfect solution for Runegrigus.
It’ll be interesting to see whether we get any unique evolution methods or even Mega Evolution methods in the upcoming Pokemon Legends Z-A. No new evolutions have been confirmed at the time of writing, but a brand new Legends title is arguably the best time to introduce some intriguing new ‘mons.
