Does Size Matter in Pokemon Go? Here’s What You Need to Know

Pokémon Go is a 2016 augmented reality mobile game where players need to use their phones’ GPS to track, catch, train, and ultimately battle other players in the real world. This was a phenomenon when it came out years ago and became one of the most successful games in history. Its concept was new, fresh, innovative, and addictive and players realized that some stats of Pokémon do not present the whole “truth”. In this article, we will discuss if the size of the Pokémon does mean anything in the Pokémon Go game.

In the Pokémon Go game, size only matters when trying to catch a Pokémon in the wild. The size of the Pokémon does not affect the CP or base stats of the Pokémon. However, PvP is a different story. Pokémon Go released a patch in October of 2021, where they added a new “size mechanic” as a part of the Halloween event where players catch different-sized Pokémon which affects their stats. Unfortunately, that was only for one Pokémon, Pumpkaboo. In the base game, hunting and the size of the Pokémon only matter for special achievements.

We will further discuss the answer we provided and see if Pokémon bigger in size are better than smaller ones. We will also discuss whether is weight and height or size of Pokémon important at all or is just a cool stat for curious players. If you are interested, stay with us until the end of the article.

What Are the Most Important Stats In Pokémon Go?

Before we dwell on if the weight and size of the Pokémon are important in Pokémon Go, we should determine which stats are actually essential in recognizing which Pokémon is the strongest.

First of all, Combat Points or CP are the obvious indicators of your Pokémon strength. Of course, with different Pokémon, you catch, CP changes, and even if you have two same Pokémon, the CP will be different.

The CP is an abbreviation of Combat Points, which means that that particular stat shows how a Pokémon will fare in the fight. Of course, the more experience you get as a trainer, the higher CP your Pokémon will have. This is quite interesting since you can have the same two Pokémon but their stats for combat will be different. So it is basically a combination of several hidden stats that we will mention further below.

Another important feature is Hit Points or HP. As most of the games include combat, Hit Points shows how much health your Pokémon has. Of course, during combat, it replenishes, and Pokémon after fights need to rest. Most of the time you need to use potions or other treats to heal your Pokémon to continue fighting.

And lastly, IV or Individual Values as hidden stats that closes out the circle of really important features in Pokémon Go. IV is randomly generated when catching a certain Pokémon or when it is hatched, and those are Attack, Defense, and HP. IVs are indicators of how strong Pokémon can potentially be, and you can check in by clicking on your Pokémon and pressing the Appraising option. You will see your Pokémon potential, IV stats, and how many stars each Pokémon has.

It is also really important to mention that Pokémon with a maximum of four stars is a perfect Pokémon that has maximized IV stats in all three sections. Of course, those stats are closely tied to CP, and the higher stats, the better Pokémon. However, are weight and size really important for Pokémon’s stats? Let’s find out.

Do Weight and height or Size Matter in Pokémon GO?

Well, if you actually look into the stats of your Pokémon you will see there are weight and height of it displayed on your screen, and many players were confused if this is necessary and if these stats influence Pokémon’s strength. There was also an indication that some Pokémon have displayed XL (extra large) or XS (extra small) near their height stat.

However, they do not have anything to do with weight – you can have Charmander with an XL tag near his height and another who is “higher” and does not have it all. This fact is what confuses the players, because why even bother putting these tags on Pokémon if it isn’t consistent with actual height, at least in this case.

Another example is Rattata which I caught years ago. It has an XS tag near its height, and basically shows nothing else or indicates that this tag has anything to do with combat.

However, after digging further into this mystery, we realized XS, XL, or in this case weight and size of the Pokémon does not have anything to do with the strength of Pokémon. Yes, there were cases where some players reported that it is harder to catch smaller Pokémon or easier to catch bigger ones, but that is basically it. HP is actually a base stat or in this case IV that comes differently with each Pokémon, which you can actually upgrade with experiences and evolutions.

The weight and size of Pokémon are good for medal hunters – there is an achievement if you catch a certain number of Rattatas that weigh less than one kilogram, you will get The Youngster Medal. There is also The Fisherman Medal that is awarded if the player catches very light Magikarps. Besides that, size of the Pokémon essentially does not have value during combat.

However, there is a catch. Pokémon Go released a new update in October of 2021 called Pokémon Go Halloween Part 2: Ghoulish Pals, where the players could catch Pumpkaboo in four different sizes. Each size, small, average, large, and super had the same evolutions as well – depending on which size Pokémon you caught, your evolution won’t change the original size of the Pokémon.

Besides being bigger or smaller on screen while trying to catch them, different-sized Pokémon had different stats, or in other words, a new “size mechanic” was added to the game. This was huge for PvP since the players had to look after the size of the Pokémon and adapt to the stats they will get from the evolutions.

However, this update was only for Pumpkaboo Pokémon and no one else. Still, it is important to us to mention it, since players get confused a lot by hundred different answers all over the Internet.

This is it for this article. If you are interested in more Pokémon Go content, check out our article on blue background.