You may be a Pokémon Go fanatic, but chances are you haven’t taken long walks around the greater New York City Area—often in excess of eight hours—after working all day long.
But that’s exactly what Nick Johnson did to catch all of the 142 Pokémon that are currently available in the U.S., according to Business Insider.
In a Reddit post on Wednesday, Johnson announced the completion of his collection. The post didn’t go without a few skeptics, however, who questioned if he truly caught them all, accusing him of cheating or faking his accomplishment.
https://twitter.com/PokemonsNews/status/756246270147047424
Johnson, who is the Head of Platform with startup Applico and a recently published author, told Business Insider that he didn’t have much time during the day to catch Pokémon through the augmented reality mobile game. Instead, his Pokémon hunting would ensue post-work, where he would often walk for eight hours in search of Charmander, Pikachu, and their cohorts. He even took an Uber to Jersey City, N.J. to find Porygon, the second-to-last Pokémon he needed.
Although Johnson claims to have caught all 142 in the U.S, there are actually 151 Pokémon in the original game, which Pokémon Go is based on. Johnson is missing the remaining nine, three of which are supposedly locked to certain regions. The remaining six are unaccounted for. In other words, he has yet to find—and capture—the elusive Mew and Mewtwo, among others. However, there’s a chance Johnson could trade for some of the rarer Pokémon, just like in the original game’s heyday. Niantic, the company that built the app, said its working on a feature that will allow players to trade the Pokémon they’ve captured with other players.
But until then, it seems as though Johnson is about as close as he can get to achieving his childhood dream of becoming a Pokémon master.
