Let’s Go’s Pokémon GO integration works pretty well

While our review of Pokémon Let’s Go Pikachu! went live last night, sadly Pokémon GO integration was not available in time for publishing. The feature went live this morning, however, and after spending a little bit of time with it earlier today, I’m pleased to say that it works pretty damn well.

It’s a straightforward process — all you have to do is link your GO account to your Switch, select the Pokémon to transfer, and suddenly they’re in the game. Linking your GO account is fairly painless; you open the settings in both Let’s Go and GO, select “Link a GO account” in Let’s Go and “Nintendo Switch” in GO, and your console will show up in the list of devices on your phone. After tapping that, you’ll have to wait a few seconds, and then you’re ready to go. Transferring Pokémon after that is as simple as selecting “Bring Pokémon from GO” in GO Park, tapping the Switch button in your list of Pokémon in GO, and selecting which ‘mons you’d like to send. The game even filters out any ineligible Pokémon , like non-Kantonian Pokémon , special Pokémon like sunglasses Squirtle, and Mew, which sadly cannot be transferred.

Once your Pokémon have made the trip to Let’s Go you can catch them, which shuffles around its stats a little bit, but will mostly keep your Pokémon at the same level they were in GO. This means that, if you have a Pokémon with perfect IV’s in GO, there’s a pretty good chance it’ll have perfect IV’s in Let’s Go too, with the exception of the Speed stat, which seems to be entirely randomised. Catching Pokémon in GO Park works exactly as it does everywhere else in Let’s Go, so you can use whatever balls and berries you’d like. Pokémon can run away during the catching phase, but all it does is throw you back out to the overworld where you can speak to the Pokemon to try again.

There’s also a fun little minigame that can be unlocked if you transfer 25 or more of the same Pokémon species to Let’s Go. In it, you’re tasked with gathering up all the Pokémon and trying to safely get them back to a teleporter, while avoiding hazardous Pokémon like Dugtrio, which are pretty much just there to mess up your day. If you collect all the Pokémon and get them home safely before the timer runs out, you’ll get a stack of candy for that species, so transferring as many Pokémon as you can definitely has its benefits.

While we can’t quite show you all of this in action just yet, I can confirm that everything works perfectly without much issue. You can connect multiple GO accounts to the game just fine, and each GO account that connects is given access to the Mystery Box, a special item that, when opened, activates an incense that attracts the Mythical Pokémon Meltan, which can then be sent back to Let’s Go. I did have some slight issues connecting my GO account to my Switch at first, but it turns out that you can’t connect to your Switch while a Pokémon GO Plus or Poké Ball Plus is connected to your phone. After disconnecting my Poké Ball Plus, everything worked flawlessly.

If you haven’t checked out our review of Pokemon Let’s Go Pikachu! yet, you can click here to have a read. And if you’re picking up the game tomorrow, make sure to check out our comprehensive Bargain Guide to make sure you’re getting the best price.