How You Can Secretly Get Pikachu As A Starter In Pokemon Go

If you are one of the six people who hasn't started playing Pokemon GO yet, then you might be interested to know that there's a way to add the iconic Pikachu to your growing collection and, even better, you can even make him your starter.

Just like any good Pokemon game, the instant hit that is Pokemon GO tasks players with choosing between a trio of starters including Generation 1 staples Bulbasaur, Charmander and Squirtle. When you first begin the game and design your character, Professor Willow will have you open up your map and locate these three critters. Everyone assumes that you're supposed to snag one and start diving deeper into the game with a quickness, but it turns out that there is a fourth hidden starter just waiting to be captured instead.

If you walk far enough away from the trio of starters and then back, they'll respawn. Do that four times, and Bulbasaur, Squirtle and Charmander will now be joined by the legendary Pikachu.

Way back when the Pokemon series of video games launched, a third, special edition of the OG Pokemon launched that let you begin your adventure with Pikachu at your side. According to Gamesradar, Pokemon GO pays tribute to the series' origins by offering that same option. Just like everything else in Pokemon Go, adding Pikachu to your early collection requires little more than walking around a bit. If you happen to miss out on grabbing Pikachu as a starter, though, you can still obviously find the critter out in the wild. The same goes for all of the other starters, too. But still, if you haven't begun your journey into Pokemon GO just yet, you now know how to hit the ground rolling with the series' iconic mascot.

It's been a long time since a game has become such a phenomenon so quickly. There's all of these stories coming in about people finding dead bodies while playing Pokemon Go, or losing their job, or causing traffic accidents and the like. All of that aside, assuming I can be considered "the norm," I can't spend two seconds on any social media site before coming across a post about someone playing the game.

I ran some errands yesterday, taking me by a book store, a couple of tabletop game shops, a used video game store and the mall. Granted, those are some pretty prime locations to come across folks playing an altered reality game, but I was genuinely shocked by how many folks were out trying to catch em all with Pokemon Go. I came across dozens of folks at each location, all walking around blindly with their eyes glued to their screens.

My favorite moment came in the book store, where I came across a family of four kids and two parents, all wearing Pokemon hats and walking in a line with their smartphones held high.