Terence Ho might have just gotten featured on the papers for his success in completing his Pokedex in a record amount of time, but many are calling him out on his ‘creative’ methods.

The 39 year old who works as an app developer told The New Paper that he caught the available 145 Pokemon on the app within 10 days. The 2 others who have a similar accomplishment os Nick Johnson from the United States and Ahmed Ali from the United Kingdom, who completed their Pokedex in 16 days and 2 weeks respectively, effectively earning Ho the Gold Medal in this category.

His route to success was cited to be $150 worth of in-app purchases, and playing the game till 1am after work.

An area of contention, though, was that Ho didn’t even travel out of Singapore to catch region-specific Pokemon, and got his friends overseas to log-in to his account instead.

As compared to his peers, Johnson had reportedly taken a 10 day trip around the world, and Ali had flew to the US to complete their Pokedex.

Region-specific Pokemon make the challenge of completing a Pokedex even harder because players would either need to travel out their continent to catch them, or be extremely lucky and get them hatched from eggs.

The Pokemon are Tauros (North America), Mr Mime (Europe), Kangaskhan (Australasia) and Farfetch’d (Asia).

“Creative” Way Of Catching Pokemon

Said Ho to TNP, “It’s always been the goal of every Pokemon trainer to catch all the Pokemon in the Pokedex. I’m no different. […] But I’m sure other players may not believe me and claim that I ‘cheated’ to catch all 145 of them.”

Well, he might have actually hit the nail on its head, with comments on the news garnering calls that he actually had cheated by getting his friends to log-in to different servers using his account.

A quick check on Niantic’s support page shows that “playing with multiple accounts” and “sharing accounts” is considered as an act of cheating.

However, Ho still maintains that it is a “creative way […] without breaking the rules”.

“Every one of us [uses] our own unique and creative ways to solve each problem. […] What I did was to think out of the box, devise a possible solution and [execute] it.”

Regardless, as compared to being impressed, commenters were caught in between calling him out;

and sarcastically commenting on his achievements:

Less Controversial Tips That We Could Adopt From Him

Regardless, there is no denying his dedication to the cause, and there are some tips he shared that we could take on ourselves – without the controversy.

1) Catch Up On Latest News

“Before you catch any Pokemon, you should always read up on the latest news so that you know where the rare Pokemon are going to spawn.”

As the founder of the SG Pokemon Go Singapore Facebook group, he is also said to update the page with locations that he had caught Pokemon at.

Local Pokemon GO Facebook groups are aplenty, and some that I refer to are the Pokemon GO Singapore group and the Pokemon GO SG Hougang-ers group.

2) Travel Around Singapore To Hotspots

Ho’s usual hangout is a nearby park, but he has been reported to go to locations all around the island as well.

We have published a list of hotspots around Singapore, and also another where rare Pokemon have been found, so the line in the theme song “I will travel across the land” is probably as accurate as it gets.

3) Use Candy To Evolve Pokemon Rather Than Power Them Up

As compared to using Candy to power up his Pokemons’ Combat Power (CP) so that he could win fights at Gyms, Ho focused on evolving his Pokemon to get to his goal.

Of course, people play Pokemon for various reasons, and I personally know of those who would rather dominate Gyms with their high CP Pokemon.

But Where’s The Fun In Completing It So Quickly?

Personally, I find that the game is fun because of the exploration factor, and not so much about competing to complete the game so quickly.

Of course, I admittedly want to fill up my Pokedex eventually, but the game has so much more to offer when played consistently, and by taking into account all of its features (Gym battles are fun, even if you don’t win them).

While in-app purchases make it easier for players to level up, there’s nothing like earning it step-by-step, stop-by-stop.

I am also thoroughly enjoying the people-watching that comes with the game – never have I seen Singaporeans so obsessed and ‘united’ over something!

Ho’s accomplishment has yet to be acknowledged by Niantic, but for me, I’m taking it slow.

Feature Image Credit: rilek1corner.com