Not a month goes by without a slew of things to do in Pokemon GO, and March 2021 is no different. Niantic has detailed the huge lineup of content for March on the way, and you can get the full details below.

We hope you’re prepared for a month of exciting Pokémon encounters and bonuses!

Incoming: New Team GO Rocket Special Research!

It appears that after a few months of rest, Giovanni and his Grunts are up to no good once again! What’s worse, they’ve obtained more Shadow Pokémon—including Shadow Legendary Pokémon! Early investigations into Giovanni’s movements suggest he’ll be using these Shadow Legendary Pokémon at different times.

March 2021: Shadow Articuno
April 2021: Shadow Zapdos
May 2021: Shadow Moltres

Starting on Sunday, February 28, 2021, at 12:00 a.m. local time, play through this Season’s new Team GO Rocket Special Research to earn a Super Rocket Radar and take down Giovanni! There will be other opportunities to earn Super Rocket Radars at the beginning of each month this Season, so stay tuned for more information!

March Research Breakthrough encounter

From Monday, March 1, 2021, at 1:00 p.m. PST (GMT −8) to Thursday, April 1, 2021, at 1:00 p.m. PDT (GMT −7), you’ll encounter Gible in Research Breakthrough encounters.

Featured Pokémon in five-star raids and Mega Raids

The following Legendary Pokémon will be appearing in five-star raids throughout March.

Incarnate Forme Landorus will be appearing in five-star raids from Monday, March 1, 2021, at 8:00 a.m. to Saturday, March 6, 2021, at 8:00 a.m. local time. If you’re lucky, you might encounter a Shiny one!

Incarnate Forme Tornadus will be appearing in five-star raids from Saturday, March 6, 2021, at 8:00 a.m. to Thursday, March 11, 2021, at 8:00 a.m. local time. If you’re lucky, you might encounter a Shiny one!

Incarnate Forme Thundurus will be appearing in five-star raids from Thursday, March 11, 2021, at 8:00 a.m. to Tuesday, March 16, 2021, at 10:00 a.m. local time. If you’re lucky, you might encounter a Shiny one!

Therian Forme Thundurus will be appearing in five-star raids from Tuesday, March 16, 2021, at 10:00 a.m. to Tuesday, March 30, 2021, at 10:00 a.m. local time.

Therian Forme Tornadus will be appearing in five-star raids starting Tuesday, March 30, 2021, at 10:00 a.m. local time.
In addition, the following Mega-Evolved Pokémon will be appearing in Mega Raids.

Mega Blastoise, Mega Pidgeot, and Mega Ampharos will be featured in Mega Raids from Monday, March 1, 2021, at 8:00 a.m. to Tuesday, March 16, 2021, at 10:00 a.m. local time.

Mega Houndoom, Mega Abomasnow, and a surprise Mega-Evolved Pokémon will be appearing in Mega Raids starting Tuesday, March 16, 2021, at 10:00 a.m. local time.

Every Wednesday in March will feature a Raid Hour event from at 6:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. local time. Raid Hours will feature the Pokémon appearing in five-star raids that week. A bonus Raid Hour will be taking place on Monday, March 15, 2021, from 6:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. local time. As a reminder, when the Season of Legends begins on March 1, 2021, you can gain extra XP for completing five-star raids!

Stay tuned for the April events blog for more details on the next Pokémon to be featured in raids.

Pokémon Spotlight Hours

In the month of March, Pokémon Spotlight Hour will take place every Tuesday at 6:00 p.m. local time, and each of these will spotlight a different Pokémon and special bonus!

Tuesday, March 2, 2021: Krabby will be in the spotlight, and you’ll earn twice the Candy for transferring Pokémon.
Tuesday, March 9, 2021: Drowzee will be in the spotlight, and you’ll earn twice the XP for evolving Pokémon.
Tuesday, March 16, 2021: Voltorb will be in the spotlight, and you’ll earn twice the Stardust for catching Pokémon.
Tuesday, March 23, 2021: Surskit will be in the spotlight, and you’ll earn twice the XP for catching Pokémon.
Tuesday, March 30, 2021: Slugma will be in the spotlight, and you’ll earn twice the Candy for catching Pokémon.

March Bonus Hours

We will be testing Bonus Hours throughout the month of March. These tests will take place on the listed Thursdays at 6:00 p.m. local time, and each one will feature a unique bonus!

Thursday, March 4, 2021: GO Rocket Hour — Team GO Rocket Balloons will be appearing more frequently. Be on the lookout, Trainers!

Thursday, March 11, 2021: Mega Bonus Hour: Candy — You’ll earn more Candy when you catch Pokémon that share a type with your active Mega-Evolved Pokémon.

Thursday, March 18, 2021: Mega Raid Hour — Mega Raids will be happening more frequently.

March Community Day Featuring Fletchling

Join us on Saturday, March 6, 2021, from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. local time for a fiery Community Day featuring Fletchling. Evolve Fletchinder (the evolved form of Fletchling) during the event or up to two hours afterward to get a Talonflame that knows the attack Incinerate. For more information, be sure to check out the blog here.

Upcoming new events

Look out for more details coming soon for these events.

Searching for Legends—From Tuesday, March 9, 2021, to Sunday, March 14, 2021, join us as we begin our journey to search for Legendary Pokémon! And what better way to sniff out these Legendary Pokémon than with the Compass Pokémon, Nosepass? Who knows—if you’re lucky, you may even encounter a Shiny Nosepass!

Incense Day: Psychic-Type and Steel-Type —We are hearing reports that on Sunday, March 14, 2021, more Psychic-type and Steel-type Pokémon will be attracted to Incense, including Beldum!

**Charge Up!**—From Tuesday, March 16, 2021, to Monday, March 22, 2021, get amped for an event where Electric-type Pokémon will make their Pokémon GO debut!

Weather Week—From Wednesday, March 24, 2021, to Monday, March 29, 2021, experience a whirlwind of weather-themed Pokémon appearing in the wild and new avatar items, all to celebrate the Therian Formes of Tornadus, Thundurus, and Landorus coming to Pokémon GO.

A Special Raid Weekend event featuring Legendary Pokémon will take place on Saturday, March 27, 2021, through Sunday, March 28, 2021.

Stay tuned for more details on each of these events!

Weekly free bundles

Every Monday in March, a free one-time bundle containing 10 Ultra Balls, 10 Razz Berries, and a Remote Raid Pass will be available in the shop.

Quality-of-life updates

We’re excited to share some updates to Candy XL that will help acquiring this resource in Pokémon GO be more fun and accessible.

Trading Pokémon will have a chance of rewarding a Candy XL for the Pokémon you’ve traded. The chance of receiving a Candy XL will increase the greater the distance between Pokémon catch locations is.

Walking with your Buddy Pokémon will now have a chance of earning you a Candy XL.

Catching Legendary, Mythical, or evolved Pokémon is now guaranteed to reward you with Candy XL.

RPGs in general are quite big in Japan, and they have been for years. In an interesting new survey, parents who played countless Famicom RPGs back in the day were asked to name their top picks for Famicom classics they'd like their kids to play. The results of that survey can be found below.

1. Dragon Quest III (1988, Enix)—16.3%
2. Momotaro Densetsu (1987, Hudson)—10.3%
3. Mother (1989, Nintendo)—8.7%
4. Final Fantasy III (1990, Square)—7.3%
5. Dragon Quest IV (1988, Square)—7.0%
6. Final Fantasy II (1988, Square)—6.0%
7. Tenchi wo Kurau II (1991, Capcom)—5.0%
8. Metal Max (1991, Data East)—4.3%
8. Dragon Quest (1986, Enix)—4.3%
10. Dragon Quest II (1987, Enix)—3.7%
10. SD Gundam Gaiden: Knight Gundam Monogatari (1990, Bandai)—3.7%
10. Sweet Home (1989, Capcom)—3.7%

Want a little more insight into why some of these games made the list? You can read comments from some of the parents below.

#1 Dragon Quest III

“It’s like watching a whole movie. It’s my favorite RPG. I would certainly love to play it together with the kids.” (Male, 40-years-old)

Most titles tied to the Ghosts ‘n Goblins franchise are known for insane difficulty, but there might not be a more punishing version than the NES port. That wasn't by accident either. In an interview with Game Informer, series director Tokuro Fujiwara discusses the plans to crank up the difficulty for the home port, which led to him being unable to beat the game all these years later.

“The arcade version had a reputation for being difficult, but there was a demand to make the NES version even harder since it was thought the game would be too easy for those who already played it at the arcade. We thought, ‘OK, let’s make it a little harder’ but as we made further and further adjustments, it ended up becoming the hardest game in the series. To this day, I don’t even have the confidence to beat the NES version of Ghosts ‘n Goblins. But, if you have the chance, please give it a shot and experience the ultimate difficulty.”

After a bit of miscommunication from Nintendo yesterday, we finally have the official release date for Gnosia. While we originally thought it would be launching in February, turns out we'll have to wait until March 4th, 2021 to get the game. Thankfully, that's not far off at all! For a recap on this award-winning title, check out details below.

The crew of a drifting spaceship, facing off against a mysterious and deadly threat known as the “Gnosia” and having no idea who among them is really the enemy, formulate a desperate plan for survival. The most suspicious among them will be put into “cold sleep” one by one, in an effort to rid the ship of Gnosia.

Gnosia is a Sci-Fi Social Deduction RPG in which you will engage in discussion with a variety of unique characters, with the aim of identifying the Gnosia among the group. Players will have to use what information they can gather during the discussions to ascertain whom they think is Gnosia and then vote to put them into cold sleep. As you progress, your abilities will improve - but so will those of the crew.

As the numbers of crew members, Gnosia, and various “roles” increase, it will become increasingly difficult to determine who is telling the truth. Work in collaboration with or against other crew members to ensure your survival until the end.

・Repeatedly play through “loops”, triggering special events to unravel mysteries in a uniquely original narrative. Certain events will unlock new commands for you to use during discussions.

・Step into a variety of roles to develop different character builds. Your stats will determine how effectively you can sway the group’s opinion or lie, and will also affect your likelihood of being selected for cold sleep.

・Engage with an engrossing and eclectic cast of characters and experience randomly triggered events, each one unique to its subject. Character events will reveal information about your crewmates in the form of special “Notes”.

Legal Dungeon is a game about organizing Police Investigation Documents. The player must review and provide an Investigation Verdict on reports ranging from petty theft to murder, in eight different criminal cases. Weigh the value of people’s lives to unlock all the collectables.

Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit Remastered is getting a considerable update tomorrow, and it introduces the new Wrap Editor feature. Get details on that an the full patch notes below.

This patch introduces a brand new feature that has not been in the original Need for Speed Hot Pursuit game: A Wrap Editor!

Optimised autolog reporting functionality

Both Neko-sama no Yamagoya-kara no Dasshutsu and Neko-sama no Oyado-kara no Dasshuts have been updated to Version 1.0.2. Unfortunately, we don't really have details on what these updates provide. The only notes from the developer say that multiple bug fixes were included. If more details are shared, we'll be sure to add them to this post.

We're mere hours away from the launch of Ghosts ‘n Goblins Resurrection! Need something to hold you over while you count down the final hours? Why not check out a new batch of screens? Capcom has shared one last batch before the game goes live, and you can find them here.

We're still a month out from the North American and European release of Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town, but we at least have some new screens to enjoy while we wait. You can check out the latest batch of assets here.

A major patch is being released for Turok 2: Seeds of Evil tomorrow. The patch will include, among other things, online multiplayer! Check out the full patch notes for this impending update below.

- Online multiplayer
- Re-enabled German audio localization
- Support for gyro for some third-party controllers such as the Hori Splitpad in handheld mode
- Stability