Vol. 3, Issue 9 - Interview with Hallowed Tower
An interview with Reece, who runs a Pokémon fan website called Hallowed Tower. The website opened in 2024, and features guides, resources and tools. Plus a recap of Pokémon Day news, and more mailbag!
Welcome to Vol 3, issue 9 of Johto Times! Twenty-nine years ago today, Pokémon Red & Green launched in Japan and became a global phenomenon. In recent years, this date has been marked as Pokémon Day, where a range of activities occur and news is shared. This year is no exception, which is why our newsletter was delayed until later in the day to accommodate all of the latest Pokémon announcements. Thank you for your patience!
This week’s feature is an interview with Hallowed Tower, a Pokémon fansite which launched in March 2024, making it one of the newer fansites we have highlighted so far! In this interview, we had the pleasure of speaking to its owner Reece, who tells us more about this passion project. Additionally, we also have a new entry in our mailbag; be sure to check it out!
News
The Pokémon Company group have announced new details and footage for Pokémon Legends: Z-A. The latest Pokémon Presents live stream shared our first glimpse of gameplay from the upcoming game, which takes place in Lumiose City, where an urban redevelopment plan is underway to create a city that belongs to both people and Pokémon. Players will have the choice of three partner Pokémon to take on their adventure: Chikorita, Tepig, or Totodile.
Wild Pokémon can be caught in wild zones, Pokémon habitats which allow Pokémon to thrive. Pokémon can also be found throughout Lumiose City. The game also introduces real-time actions during Pokémon battles, with new gameplay mechanics which will require players to precisely time their moves and their area of impact.
Pokémon Legends: Z-A will launch in late 2025, so we still have a little longer to wait until we can get our hands on the game for ourselves!
Source: Pokémon Legends: Z-A, Pokémon
A new title called Pokémon Champions was announced today, developed by The Pokémon Works in collaboration with Game Freak, and will release on the Nintendo Switch family of systems as well as on mobile devices. This title will focus on core-style Pokémon battles, which fans will be familiar with from mainline Pokémon titles. While the game features connectivity with Pokémon HOME, limitations will apply, such as only being able to use Pokémon featured in Pokémon Champions and not being able to transfer Pokémon obtained in the title to Pokémon HOME. No release information was given, but further announcements on Pokémon Champions will be made in the future.
Source: Pokémon
Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket is receiving another themed Booster Pack on February 28th, 2025, called Triumphant Light, which features cards such as Glaceon ex, Garchomp ex, and Arceus ex. There is currently a promotion taking place where players can log in and receive special booster packs that guarantee at least one ♦♦♦♦ rarity or higher. Finally, Ranked Matches will be introduced to the game starting next month, with further details coming at a later date. It has also been confirmed that the app has now reached a massive 100 million downloads!
Source: Pokémon
Pokémon games are expanding their playable languages to include Latin American Spanish, bringing the total number of languages to ten. Pokémon Legends: Z-A and Pokémon Champions will support Latin American Spanish at launch, as will the upcoming Pokémon TCG expansion: Scarlet & Violet—Journey Together. When more people can experience Pokémon in their regional language, it's always a cause for celebration!
Source: Pokémon
New episodes of Pokémon Concierge will be coming to Netflix in September 2025. The first four episodes are currently available on the official Pokémon YouTube channel, until March 9th, 2025.
Source: Pokémon
The Mega Evolution Series is coming to the Pokémon Trading Card Game in 2025. Mega Evolution cards offer stronger attacks and HP, but if they get knocked out, your opponent can take three Prize cards. Mega Evolution was introduced in the XY Series and last seen during the Sun & Moon series. We got our first look at cards such as Mega Lucario ex and Mega Gardevoir ex in the latest Pokémon Presents stream, but more information can be found on the official website.
Source: Pokémon TCG
The official website for the 2025 Pokémon World Championships in Anaheim, California, which will take place between August 15–17, 2025, has now launched. Additionally, the logo and main artwork for Worlds 2025 has been revealed. Information on the events and activities taking place during Worlds 2025 will eventually be available on this website, so be sure to bookmark it if you are keen to learn more!
Source: 2025 Pokémon World Championships
A reminder that the Mystery Gift code to obtain a Jumpluff in Pokémon Scarlet & Violet, based on the one used by Marco Silva, the three-time International Champion and winner of the Latin America International Championships, will expire tomorrow, February 28th, 2025. The code was distributed during the EUIC live stream earlier this week. The code is EU1C25SUNNYDAY.
There were many updates and event announcements for other titles, such as Pokémon Scarlet & Violet, Pokémon GO, Pokémon Sleep, Pokémon UNITE, Pokémon Masters EX, and Pokémon Café ReMix. Check out the latest Pokémon Presents to catch up on everything we’ve shared for yourself!
Feature: Interview with Hallowed Tower
Hallowed Tower is a Pokémon fansite that launched on March 16th, 2024. The website features guides, resources and tools, mostly related to the fourth generation of Pokémon games: Diamond & Pearl and HeartGold & SoulSilver. In this interview, we speak to its owner Reece, who shares his thoughts and feelings about his website.
It’s great to speak with you, Reece! Let’s begin with an introduction. Tell us about yourself and your website!
Reece:
The pleasure is all mine! I’m Reece; I’m 23 and live in Canada. I’ve been playing Pokémon since I was about eight years old, with my first real playthrough being Pokémon Pearl. I primarily shiny hunt nowadays, which I stream on Twitch and make videos for on YouTube! My website is the Hallowed Tower, which I put together in March 2024 as a fun little website to keep all my recondite knowledge about the Gen 4 games in one spot, and also to help the greater Pokémon community with some day-to-day calculators and information. It’s far from pretty, but I like to think the information on the site is useful, haha.
You launched your website on March 16th, 2024, almost a year ago at the time of interview. What encouraged you to start a Pokémon fansite in the first place?
Reece:
It was a weird perfect storm of random coincidence honestly. I had fallen into the rabbit hole of Pokémon fansites, starting with Cave of Dragonflies and following the affiliate links onto a bunch of other sites. I fell in love with the designs and passion everyone had put into their little sites, and it really got me thinking about making my own. I had also been taking an HTML class at the time, which I think kept my very limited coding knowledge fresh in my brain. When March break came up, I got sick and was stuck at home. So I just decided that, if I was gonna be stuck at home, I may as well start building the site! That’s where it started.
Hallowed Tower’s mascot is Spiritomb. How did you decide on this Pokémon to represent your website?
Reece:
Anyone who’s been to my streams or even seen any of my profile pictures knows Spiritomb is my absolute favorite Pokémon. Ever since I was a kid and saw Cynthia use one, I’ve loved the little guy. On top of the great design and, at the time, great typing, I also really loved the method of encounter in Gen 4. I think the process of grabbing the Odd Keystone, talking to everyone [in the] Underground, and heading back to the Hallowed Tower is super interesting.
Hallowed Tower has some useful guides, such as farming rare candy in mainline games, information on how to utilise the PokéRadar device, and how to detect counterfeit game cartridges. What processes do you undertake to ensure the information you are putting on your website is accurate, unique, and helpful to readers?
Reece:
I always do my best to grab information from as many sources as possible to try and corroborate what’s being said. If I can’t check something out myself, I also know plenty of people in the community who know way more than I do. I do my best to make sure the stuff on the website is accurate, mostly because I hate coming across something on a website that’s false myself. I’m sure as time goes on and we learn more about the games, my website will start to go a bit out of date, but I’ll do my best to update it as we go!
You also have a lot of great resources, such as a tool to calculate which trees will offer specific Pokémon and a Mystery Gift Date Calculator. How much effort goes into the creation of tools like these?
Reece:
I don’t really consider myself much of a programmer, so coming up with the idea for the calculators and tools is much, much easier than bringing them to fruition. I think the hardest time I had was the Mystery Gift Calculator, just because I knew absolutely no JavaScript before tackling it. It took quite a bit of trial and error with all of the dropdown menus and arrays, but I eventually worked it out. But now that it’s all done, I noticed the DNS Server my DNS Guide has listed doesn’t even give Mystery Gifts out on certain days anymore, which sort of makes the tool obsolete. I left it up, though, in the hope that it’ll eventually get fixed!
I really enjoyed your Forgotten Areas in Gen 4 page! I played enough of this game to believe I had visited all of these areas, but I was surprised to learn I had never discovered an area to the right of Pastoria City! There's also a lot of cool information in here about Pokémon capture rates. What are your methods of researching features such as these?
Reece:
For a lot of the “For Fun” pages on the site, I mostly just go by memory and play through the games myself, like the Forgotten Area pages in particular. As for the information regarding encounter rates and such on the Shiny Hunt Generator page, a lot of my information comes from other sites, like Bulbapedia, or the Encounter Rate Calculator program from AngefloSH. I always try to double-check encounter rates on multiple sources, but with how complex the math can be, sometimes it can be hard to confirm exactly what the numbers are without trawling through the code myself (which I have no idea how to do).
Your website has the look and feel of a classic Pokémon fansite from the late 90s and early 2000s, but with modern features that makes it more appealing to view and navigate. How much inspiration did you take from early fansites in your approach to your website’s design?
Reece:
A lot. The site in particular that I took a lot of inspiration from was Blue Moon Falls, but I really enjoyed Pamtre Berry, Buried Relic, and Cave of Dragonflies as well. I’m not much of an artist, and even deciding on the colors for the site was a whole ordeal, so it was nice to have some very very well made websites to take inspiration from. I still don’t think my site is anything too special to look at, but I’m glad people seem to enjoy it regardless!
You’ve referenced some great websites there! Blue Moon Falls, Pamtre Berry, and Buried Relic are relatively new fansites, just like your own! They were all created within the past couple of years. How likely do you think it could be that we are seeing a resurgence in the creation of Pokémon fansites?
Reece:
I think you’re completely right! I think the more high-quality sites we see (like Buried Relic and Blue Moon Falls), the more people will be inspired to build their own sites. It’s the exact reason why I built mine! I also think the more we learn about the games, the more websites will pop up to provide the information. Pokémon has always been a series deeply rooted in nostalgia and I think these old-school website designs also play a part in why people enjoy them so much!
You mentioned shiny hunting being a big focus for you at the moment. Tell us a bit about the process of shiny hunting and what is involved for you!
Reece:
Shiny hunting, for anyone that doesn’t know, is basically just searching for shiny Pokémon in whatever Pokémon game you prefer. From Gens 2 to 5, the odds of a shiny were 1/8192, and from Gen 6 onwards they are 1/4096. I started back in 2011, where I found my first ever shiny, a Budew that I hunted through Pokéradar. For the last three years or so shiny hunting has kind of been my primary hobby, and it pairs really nicely with streaming and YouTube as well!
On stream I run a bit of a crazy setup: I have 5 DS capture cards, all of which are controller modded, so I can control all of them with a single DS. I used to play them all separately, like a piano, but I eventually decided to controller mod them to save myself the wrist pain. Personally I love hunting in the older 1/8192 games, just because they have all of my favorite Pokémon and I enjoy spending a bit of time with the hunt instead of just finding it right away. If you’ve never given it a try, I highly recommend it!
I’m curious to learn more about your experiences growing up with Pokémon. What are your earliest and fondest memories of the series?
Reece:
I think my first ever time seeing a Pokémon game on DS was sometime in 2008. I’m sure that I knew what Pokémon was before then, but I wasn’t interested in the games until I saw my friends play Diamond while I was over at their house. I think I ended up running around in the game for an hour or two while they played something else, and I was completely hooked since then.On April 9th 2009, I got Pokémon Platinum for my birthday, and on April 11th I got Pearl. For the longest time I always thought Pearl was my first game, because it was my first real playthrough and I’ve kept the save file since then. However, I actually found my very first starter from Platinum, a level 70 Infernape, which is dated two days before Pearl. So it’s really neat to both have my original childhood Pearl save [and] my first ever starter Pokémon.
What are some of the Pokémon-related items that you own which mean something to you?
Reece:
I have a few small things in my collection that I think are pretty neat. Most recently a friend and one of my moderators, Zak, sent me a Nutpea Berry eReader card, which was really kind of them. I never had any eReader cards, so to get such a great card solely as a gift was incredibly kind. It’s a touching reminder of how great the shiny hunting and greater Pokémon community can be.I also have a full collection of Pokémon Platinum in all seven languages, which I’m really proud of. It’s my favorite game and I love having multiple copies for shiny hunting. It was also neat to learn that there are actually differences in certain areas in certain languages, like the Korean copy, which has a different text color on the summary pages!
I’ve got a bunch of guide books that I love collecting, and I have a full collection of every Pokémon game, but I think my favorite item in my whole collection is this tiny Spiritomb finger puppet that my girlfriend bought me on my birthday a year or two ago. I just think he’s neat.
At the time of interview, your website is still rather young, and it would be great to hear about your plans for it! What can we look forward to seeing in the years ahead?
Reece:
Between school, work, streaming and YouTube, I admittedly haven’t been prioritizing the website, which I’m a little disappointed by. I would love to put some more stuff up; I need to fix some stats on the Pokéradar Page, I have a page on the Void Glitch planned and almost completed, and I’d love to add some fun stuff like the ability to change the website’s theme. The site’s backend also warrants some cleaning up; the more I learn about JavaScript and HTML, the more I realize how my own website is basically held together by glue sticks and scotch tape.The gaps in updating the site also mean [that] every time I do want to add something, I need to shake off the rust and try to remember how to code again, haha. But all in all, I don’t see myself forgetting about the site completely; whenever I have some time, I’ll fix up a few urgent things and hopefully get to working on some new pages! I have a whole notepad of pages and ideas; it’s just finding the time to work on them that’s difficult!
Thank you so much for taking the time to speak to us about your website, Reece! Do you have any closing comments you would like to make to our readers and fans of Hallowed Tower?
Reece:
I’d like to thank you, first and foremost, for having me here for the interview! I think your site is fantastic and I love that you’ve got all sorts of stories from so many people in the community about how and why Pokémon means so much to them.
As for everyone else, I just appreciate you taking the time to check out my site! It’s far from perfect, and far from pretty, but I spent a lot of time on it, and I can only hope it’ll help someone out someday, whether it be finding their Munchlax Trees in-game or using the Fake Cartridges page to inform an online purchase.
The Pokémon community online has always been great, so just be kind to each other and enjoy the games!
A big thanks to Reece for taking the time to answer my questions and for sharing Hallowed Tower with us. It’s great to see more fansites pop up, and we wish him the very best of luck with everything he has planned for it!
Mailbag
We received a new letter in our mailbag this week from an artist called CoolKaius, who shared this awesome collage of artwork drawn in Pokémon Art Academy on the 3DS!
A collage of my favorite pieces I did from my completed playthrough of Pokemon Art Academy. I used many different kinds of weird art techniques.
CoolKaius, United States
Hey, CoolKaius, it’s great to hear from you! I really liked the many art styles you used in this one image; I think my favourites are the ones featuring Arceus and Poliwhirl. I never got Pokémon Art Academy for the 3DS, mostly because I didn’t have a 3DS XL, and I believe the larger screen would help when it comes to drawing. Your art has certainly made me reconsider that idea, though. Keep up the fantastic work!
That’s all for this week’s issue! If you enjoy what Johto Times provides, be sure to share our newsletter with your friends and loved ones to help us reach even more Pokémon fans. For Discord users, you’re welcome to join our server for the latest notifications from our project. We are still open to sharing your mailbag entries, so if you have anything you would like to share with us, drop us a line by visiting this link to contact us directly!
It is a great website, I have it bookmarked along with the Nose Club one, Poliwager, Colostadium, Pamtre Berry and such. Another good article!