Pokemon Sword and Shield: Grab this limited-time Pikachu Mystery Gift to ‘Celebrate’ 2021

Pokemon Sword and Shield celebrates 2021 with a special limited-time Pikachu Mystery Gift. Check it out in action and grab one for yourself!

2020 is finally behind us, giving the last decade a final season so disappointing it puts it on par with things like Lost, Heroes, Dexter, and Alf. In fact, if I would compare it to any show finale, it would be the beloved sitcom Dinosaurs where hubris triggers disasters the world over and all the characters huddled inside with their families as every single character died. I’m not kidding. Look it up. I’m still scarred.

2021 hasn’t been around long enough to really let us know how it’s going to be different, though, the first thing I saw trending on Twitter was Belle Delphine and I’m trying really hard to not see that as an ill omen.

But one good thing this new year has kicked off with was cool events in a lot of games. Live games like Animal Crossing and Fortnite had impressive parties complete with fireworks and limited-time events. And Pokemon Sword and Shield gave us one of the strangest special Pokemon I’ve ever seen, you just wouldn’t know it by looking at it.

Hoping into the game, go into your Mystery Gifts and tell it to look on the Internet. When you do, you’ll see KIBO’s Mystery Gift. If you’re curious, this is in reference to the Japanese KIBO Space Station who recently did a live stream of the Pokemon game.

Downloading the gift gives you a very normal looking Pikachu until you look at its Summary. First, it’s level 21 in celebration of 2021. It has a ribbon that, when equipped, makes it appear as “Pikachu the Premium” in battle. But the biggest thing is its moves.

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Thunderbolt is pretty par the course for Pikachu. Swift and Wish are both there because they are very space themed which is cool. But Celebrate isn’t a move I’ve ever encountered. I was very confused with what the move did so I wanted to test it.

The first thing that happened, and I have no way of knowing if this is a coincidence or not, you let me know, is that the very first Pokemon I encountered was a shiny. I caught it completely forgetting what I was there for.

But after catching it, I went up against one more Pokemon to test this out. Here’s what happened.

Yup. That was it. No stat boosts or changes, no attack, it just literally drops from the sky in a gift, puts on a light show and celebrates. It’s as cool as it is useless. If you want this Pikachu (which I recommend you do as it’s a cool one-off thing, and it comes with a Comet Shard) make sure you do this before the 15th of January as it is a very limited-time event.