"These unnamed men show up throughout Lumiose, typically next to a Pokémon Center, and if you ever see them with a yellow text bubble above their heads, you should talk to them immediately. See, these handsome gentlemen are part of the city's clean-up crew, but they focus on a specific type of trash littered around town: Poké Balls. Every time you misthrow one of these capture devices at the local wildlife,"
"Crucially, he will only pick up ones that miss their target, not ones that fail to capture a Pokémon because you didn't weaken them enough in battle. But even so, that's such a handy quality-of-life change that I'm surprised it took nearly 30 years to implement. I guess it works best when your game is set in one city, and thus it makes sense to have dedicated systems and workers who can devote their shifts to this."
"Now these collectors are amassing a ton of fans, and I wouldn't be surprised if we saw them featured in other media moving forward. A guy who picks up garbage and brings it back to you is just waiting for a trading card that lets you pick through your discard pile."
Lumiose City includes dedicated Poké Ball Collectors who patrol near Pokémon Centers to retrieve misthrown Poké Balls and return them to trainers. These workers pick up only balls that physically miss their target, not balls that fail due to insufficient weakening in battle. The feature reduces unnecessary purchases and functions as a practical quality-of-life improvement, enabled by the game's single-city setting and concentrated systems. The collectors underscore themes of community infrastructure and public services, and they have become popular with players, inspiring ideas for broader representation and playful cross-media references.
Read at Kotaku
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