Catching Up With Pokémon GO EXP Star Brandon Tan During Pokémon GO Tour: Johto

Pokémon GO was a massive cultural phenomenon back in 2016 and if you’ve followed the scene chances are you’ve heard about Brandon Tan. Here’s a quick refresher: his claim to fame was being the Singaporean player who raided as much as 50 times a day during legendary raids. He’s also the first player to reach a billion EXP in the game. Brandon Tan also has his own Youtube channel with a current total of 535K subscribers where he vlogs and showcases his Pokémon GO adventures.

Fortunately for the Filipino community, specifically the Cebuanos, he was in town and we caught up with him during the Pokémon GO Tour: Johto event. Here’s how our conversation with him went:

Brandon Tan with some members of Pokémon GO Team Cebu.

How’s Pokémon GO Tour: Johto so far?

So far, I played the [Pokémon GO Tour: Johto] event for the last 3 and a half hours and it has been okay. But comparing it to last year’s Kanto Tour, I think it’s slightly underwhelming because a lot of players were expecting from this particular [tour weren’t met]. It probably [was because] of people [preferring] last year’s [Kanto Tour]. [During the] Kanto Tour last year, a lot of people were looking forward to the shiny Snorlax and the shiny Mews. But this time around, we are getting mythical pokemon that we’ve gotten before like Celebi so it’s not really enticing. If you look at the available raids (Ho-oh, Lugia, and the legendary beasts Raikou, Entei, and Suicune), They are not as exciting as Mewtwo. Mewtwo is like the holy grail of all Pokémon trainers. So, comparing it to last year’s Kanto Tour, the Johto Tour is definitely is a bit underwhelming.

Brandon Tan is currently at max level (Level 50) in Pokémon GO.

As the first one to hit 1 billion exp, do you still have the drive to reach EXP milestones?

The latest milestone I have just reached, around 2 months ago, I reached 3 billion EXP. But, if you ask me if [reaching EXP milestones] is my main focus right now, the answer is no. My actual final EXP goal was just to reach 1 billion — to reach 2 and 3 billion is actually just kind of a byproduct from doing other activities in Pokémon GO and then eventually the EXP just came in naturally.

The pandemic has changed a lot of things in Pokémon GO. What do you think about the current status of the game right now?

The current status of the game is very very different from how it was like before the pandemic. It’s kind of a double-edged sword. What I mean by that is that Niantic has been trying to improve the way we play Pokémon GO because you know now we have remote raid invitations, we have other means of playing the game, and increased interaction distance with Pokéstops and etc. However, it kind of hurts the community where people would just not want to come out to play the game because they can do a lot of activities at home or at a spot. Not needing to come out to do raids physically or, in fact, play the game as to how it was before the pandemic. So, a lot of communities, including here right now in Cebu city, I can see the community has slowly divided as compared to how it was like before. Even for me back home in Singapore, the community isn’t as strong as is it before. I’ve always said this for Pokémon GO, the most important thing is actually the community. If everyone just plays the game alone and not in like groups and interacting with each other, eventually as a solo gamer you’ll find it has become a very boring game and you would just wanna quit the game.

You’ve been here in the Philippines quite a lot. Why do you keep coming back?

Well, the first reason, the main reason, is actually my girlfriend is here [in Cebu, Philippines]. My girlfriend is Princess and she’s here [in Cebu]. In fact, during the pandemic I was thinking to come here once every month but you know I wasn’t able to come back. Partly, the second reason is also that I really like coming to the Philippines. I like the food, I like the culture, and I like the people, I like team Cebu. Hence why I’m willing to come back here. Of course, for me too to be able to come back and meet people like Lucas and the rest I’m more than happy to. You know, treating them as real friends and having to know them for over 3 to 4 years already now.

What are your plans for the near foreseeable future?

As of now, I plan to travel and I have quite a number of places in my mind to travel to and it’s mainly also for Pokémon GO but also for leisure. My girlfriend has never traveled out of Phili[ppines before so I’d like to bring her to go and travel the world and play Pokémon GO together. Some of the places we intend to go by in the next few months are Malaysia, Japan, Korea, London (for the Pokémon GO championship in August). We’ve also been planning to go for some of the events like the Safari Zones and etc. If you know travel restrictions do allow us to go especially for us. So that’s going to be a huge challenge but if you ask me for like in the two years that would be the plan to travel but that’s basically in the next 3 or 4 months planned for now.

If you’re curious as to how the rest of Brandon Tan’s experience during the event went, you can check out his vlog above. You can also give him a follow on Twitter for more updates about his adventure.

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