During the past month we've had Throwback Challenges for Kanto, Johto, Hoenn and Sinnoh. To celeberate generations 1 through 4. No celebration for 5 as it's been slowly rolling out. Each of them lasted for a week. There are two ways to unlock the Throwback Challenge Champion 2020 Special Research with Galarian Pokémon and Genesect encounter. More on it later in the blog after a short recap.
Credit for this picture goes to pokemongolive.com as I couldn't take a proper picture of it in game
I have personally not always played that much during the 4 Throwback Challenges, but I did still make sure to finish them all. Every one of them had a Legendary encounter with one of the Legendary Pokémon from that region. These knew a Charged Attack previously unavailable to them, except for Mewtwo whom got Psystrike like the last time it was in Raids. For the Johto Challenge we got a Ho-Oh with Earthquake, the Hoenn Challenge gave a Groudon with Fire Punch and the Sinnoh Challenge encounter was a Cresselia with Grass Knot. You can see all 4 of mine with their IVs in the next screenshot. I named them all Throwback as I would like to keep them.
You can see if you completed all Throwback Challenges under the Special Research tab in your Research Tasks menu. If you scroll down to the bottom it shows you all your completed Special Research tasks, in order of completion. Here is a screenshot of the bottom of my list, showing all 4 of the Throwback Challenges completed.
How to unlock the Throwback Challenge Champion 2020 Special Research
There are two ways to unlock it. Well there are actually two variations.
1st, if you completed all 4 Throwback Challenges, you will automatically get access to the Throwback Challenge Champion 2020 Special Research.
2nd, if you did not complete all 4 of these Challenges, then you will have the option to purchase a ticket for $7,99 (or equivalent in local currency). Purchasing this ticket will unlock a slightly different Special Research called Throwback Challenge Celebration 2020.
For players who completed all challenges and have the Throwback Champion Research it will also be possible to purchase a ticket for the Celebration version. Which means you get to complete both Champion and Celebration versions of the quest. Players who do this won't get twice the encounters though, instead they will get encounters from the Champion questline and where they'd get encounters from the Celebration questline they will get 10 Candy of that Pokémon instead.
Both of these Special Research will have encounters with Galarian Meowth and Galarian Stunfisk, who will be making their debut in Pokémon GO! This one will also focus on generation 5 as it will have Research tasks with encounters for the Unova Region Pokémon: Snivy, Tepig, Oshawott, Blitzle, Audino, Darumaka, Gothita AND GENESECT!
I already have Genesect from the A Drive to Investigate Special Research a while ago, but I'm definitely looking forward to having my 2nd chance to get a Genesect, especially because we don't know how long it'll take before we can have EX-Raids again.
You can also get Professor Willow's glasses as an avatar item as one of the rewards.
Are you looking forward to these Galarian forms and the chance to catch Genesect?