Postcards in Pokémon Go

Some time ago, Pokémon Go introduced the postcard feature, which is actually an expansion and extension of the Gift feature. It also initially appeared to be a feature that is purely a novelty, something not to be utilized often; recently, however, the feature has evidently become important for its role in connection to two Pokémon species, both inside and outside of the game. As such, I feel the need to make a write-up about its intricacies and what happens when it is involved, particularly because of recent developments.

Every Gift, whether obtained by oneself or received from another Trainer, has a postcard that identifies where it was obtained. This postcard can be pinned when viewing Gifts that one possesses or received from friends. The destination of the pin in either case is the same: the Postcard Book, which serves to collect all the pinned postcards. Each Trainer can pin and collect postcards to a certain number, but this can be increased in the same way as for bag and storage space, by buying upgrades from the Shop.

Now, the first Pokémon for which the feature becomes important is Vivillon. By pinning Gifts from different places around the world, it increments sub-badges for patterns of the Vivillon Collector badge, which when filled will lead to an encounter with a Scatterbug that can evolve to Vivillon with that pattern. As well, as mentioned in the Pokémon Presents roundup, by sending those same postcards to the Scarlet and Violet games, they will lead to encounters of Vivillon with the same specific patterns in those games.

Of course, the present main objective of sending postcards is for attaining a way to capture Gimmighoul (at least, its chestless Roaming Form) in Pokémon Go by way of activating the Coin Bag in the same way one activates the Mystery Box for Meltan. Sending postcards for five days will allow the Golden Lure Module to be earned, which when installed on a PokéStop, allows for earning Gimmighoul Coins while it is active; Gimmighoul itself may appear, but very rarely - the Coin Bag is the surefire way to encounter the Pokémon.

Linking Pokémon Go to the Scarlet and Violet games is just like linking with the earlier Let's Go games to obtain the Mystery Box for Meltan, except this time one is sending postcards and not Pokémon. In either case, those precious Gimmighoul Coins are needed to evolve one of them into Gholdengo - as mentioned, 999 of them. In the case of Pokémon Go, the Coins do not take up bag space once earned properly, so it's in the best interest of one to make best use of resources and earn the coins from PokéStops.

The postcard feature in Pokémon Go represents a remarkable transformation, from a humble and unassuming feature to one that is absolutely necessary for two Pokémon and their related species families. In this case, the keepsake postcards can then become the impetus for the keepsake of Vivillon with different patterns and the coin-loving Gimmighoul, whose evolutionary transformations may also be considered to be in the same way. That seems valuable enough to be treasured by those who play the respective games.

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