Cherrim (Pokémon Legends: Arceus)

About

Cherrim is a Pokémon that grew notorious among players of Pokémon Legends: Arceus in early 2022. The Pokémon proved extremely difficult to obtain in the game, frustrating players who wished to complete the game's Pokédex and complete a sidequest involving the Pokémon. Online, this was expressed in a variety of memes depicting Cherrim as a villainous creature, a stark contrast from its sunny disposition.

Origin

While Cherrim has been an available Pokémon in multiple games, it grew particularly well-known among players of Pokémon Legends: Arceus, released January 28th, 2022. Cherrim is required to complete the game's Pokédex, as well as a side quest given to the player in the early game.^[1] Players soon discovered that Cherrim proved extremely difficult to catch in the game. The Pokémon has a very low spawn rate and only appears in shaking trees, rather than out in the wild. Furthermore, some sort of bug in the game made it apparently immune to Poké Balls.

On January 23rd, Twitter account @pory_leeks,^[2] evidently playing a leaked version of the game, reported that "the Cherrim found on the bottom part of The Lonely Spring may have a bugged catch rate. Three of us have spent the past 3 hours trying to catch it, but it wouldn't capture. Then each of us tried the top part of the area, and almost instantly caught it" (shown below).

Spread

On January 29th, 2022, YouTuber Viz posted a video in which he documented throwing 22 balls at the creature, including 19 Ultra Balls (the strongest ball available in the game) to no avail, gaining over 798,000 views (shown below).

On February 2nd, the Japanese support blog for the game reported that Cherrim was indeed bugged.^[3] "If Cherrim changes its form even once, it cannot be captured," the post reads. "This bug is scheduled to be fixed in the next update. You may be able to catch it by encountering a negative form of cherrim in the evening, at night, or in non-sunny weather."

As frustrations mounted with Cherrim, the fandom began creating memes about the Pokémon's aggravating elusiveness. On February 2nd, 2022, @OoCpokemon^[4] tweeted a joke showing Cherrim, saying "RT to scare pokemon legends arceus players," gaining over 6,000 retweets and 45,000 likes in five days (shown below, left). Redditor JaegersDescent posted an image of a frustrated Plankton expressing their frustration with Cherrim in /r/PokemonLegendsArceus,^[5] gaining over 60 points in a similar timeframe (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References