2024 has been a grand year for Pokémon fans, with the announcement of Legends ZA, the release of TCG Pocket, and a slew of debuts in Pokémon GO, including the Necrozma fusions, GO Wild Area, and the Galar region.
In all this excitement, have you ever wondered what the most popular Pokémon in 2024 have been? That’s exactly the premise of this article as I shall use Google Trends to unravel the most searched and hyped Pokémon in each month of 2024.
Put on your seatbelts as we go on a whirlwind tour of 2024 *Uses Hermione Granger’s Time Turner*
The Taken Treasures event in Jan 2024 marked the debut of the first-ever Steel/Poison type in the franchise and trainers were eager to add Varoom to their collection. However, it was limited to 12km Eggs obtained from beating Team GO Rocket Leaders.
A massive 4,800% upwards on Search made Varoom a massively popular Pokémon in the first month of the year.
Feb 2024 started with the Lunar New Year event, where Drampa made its debut in the game alongside its shiny! Naturally, this sparked the interest of the Pokémon GO community and trainers hit 3* raids to hunt for its shiny.
The rest of the month had everyone aboard the Sinnoh Tour hype train, so the Origin Formes of Dialga and Palkia generated interest. Surprisingly, it turns out that Palkia was searched more than Dialga, maybe because its Origin Forme looks more outrageous than Dialga?
Lastly, the most popular of the Lake Guardian trio, Azelf (and its shiny) featured in 5* raids. More importantly, these are among the few Legendaries catchable from the wild, and Azelf definitely piqued everyone’s interest the most.
The Legendary Tapu Koko was available in 5* raids along with the signature Tapu move, Nature’s Madness. The combo of shiny availability and a new signature move on a Legendary was enough to set the community abuzz.
The Sizeable Surprises event brought the shinies of Ultra Beasts Kartana and Celesteela into the game, but the little origami monster took the cake when it came to popularity. Kartana is also a great Grass type attacker, adding fuel to the demand.
But straight up with Kartana, we have the humble Combee whose increased shiny odds during the Bug Out event caught everyone’s attention as well.
Ultra Beasts Stakataka and Blacephalon finally made their much-awaited debut, and Stakataka raised eyebrows due to its peculiar design. For fans not acquainted with the Alola region, this Pokémon was an abomination!
Yveltal is among the strongest Dark types in PvE and is also formidable in the Master League. The prospect of catching the shiny of this powerhouse made it the focus of fans in June 2024 and rightfully so!
A whopping upwards of 2,220 is an extremely popular Pokémon in general because of how adorable it is and its special transformation to Maushold where one (or two) little Tandemuas just pop up and the three (or four) critters together make up a Pokémon.
Getting the Family of Three is a tough nut to crack and trainers left no stone unturned to collect both forms.
Kangaskhan is an iconic Pokémon but is a regional, limited to Australia in Pokémon GO. So, when raids featured Mega Kangaskhan, you can bet fans were eager to capture it! A tremendous upwards of 2,200% on Search fully justifies the craze.
After waiting for ages, the Galarian starters and other fan favorites finally made their debut in Pokémon GO, and guess which one trainers were most interested in? Dreepy of course!
Dragapult has an incredible design and is among the most popular Pseudo Legendaries. Naturally, finding this elusive Dragon/Ghost type was at the top of everyone’s minds.
Dragapult does well in both raids and the Go Battle League, and it continues to be a coveted Pokémon into 2025 as well.
Okay, so, umm… October had the Pokémon fanbase rife with hilarity and even, disgust (?) when certain leaks revealed some myth/lore stories of certain Pokémon taking a dark side just like the Grimm Brothers’ take on our classic fairytales.
Typhlosion was featured in a strange story where the Gen 2 starter did some questionable stuff that’s best left to the NSFW category. You’ll have to read more about Typhlosion’s antics from the internet but there’s that. Everyone was talking about Typhlosion in October 2024.
In November, fans were more interested in Safari Balls and the latest sensation in the Pokémon world, TCG Pocket.
But, they were also occupied with Regieleki, the lightning-fast Electric type Regi whose shiny was made available. Close on heels was also Toxtricity, but ultimately, the buzzing month of November gave its popularity crown to Regieleki.
The final month of the year and fans shone the spotlight on a Pokémon that is everyone’s cup of tea, Sinistea!
This tiny cup of tea (literally) has an Authentic and Phony form, with the former being exceptionally rare and marked with a seal under the cup. It’s a unique Pokémon with the Ghost typing adding to its allure, and ultimately, it takes the biggest sip of popularity in December 2024.
That’s all folks! Those were the most popular Pokémon in 2024, and it’s clear that Pokémon GO fans are the most active of the lot. Kudos to all of you!
With that, I wish you a very happy new year in 2025!
