Meltan's sudden appearance in
Pokémon Go was met with surprise from its player base, who quickly went to social media websites such as
Twitter to express their confusion over what exactly they had encountered in-game. As the company behind it did not respond initially regarding its appearance and several other glitches occurred, some players assumed it was a bug in the game.
Bleeding Cools Gavin Sheenan was critical of its appearance, stating "by all accounts, this looks like a creature that didn't get finished in the design phase" due to what he perceived as a mishmash of elements. Though Niantic did clarify the matter three days after its initial appearance, Yuma Yamamoto of
Gizmodo.jp found the whole event to be an exciting experience for the game, not only providing a sense of entertainment but also tension. Yamamoto compared it to the discovery of
Mew, the series first Mythical Pokémon, and how players found it in the first games in the series by manipulating the games' code. He observed that Meltan's sudden appearance coupled with the real-world interactions of
Pokémon Go as a game created a different atmosphere for the reveal, and coupled with the company's silence allowing the internet to come to their own conclusions not only made for a good gaming experience but a memorable one tied to the "cute" character. Israel Mallén of
MeriStation meanwhile felt that it helped bring back some the sense of wonder players felt upon initially discovering Mew's existence, allowing one to "recover the innocence of yesteryear" and some of the mysticism that surrounded Mythical Pokémon in the franchise as a whole. Emma Schaefer of
EGMNOW made similar observations, finding that the air of mystery around the character helped it immensely. Though she noted early teaser reveals of Pokémon were not uncommon to the franchise, often showcased in anime or film media prior to their debut or in Japanese magazine previews, the community had come to expect them and would instead quickly dissect and document the information. As a result, she felt a lot of the major element of discovery that brought players to the franchise and was a significant part of its charm had been lost. She cited an example with the Pokémon
Zeraora introduced after the release of
Pokémon Sun and Moon, observing that while it had a strong design and was popular in fan communities, due to
data mining it had been discovered in the games long before its debut, and by the time Nintendo did reveal it "nobody cared". Meltan's sudden reveal by comparison not only created confusion, but interest and attention for the game over the "weirdest-looking, most expressionless Pokémon we’ve seen yet", and as a result not only did it become far more popular than Zeraora but Schaefer felt it made players look forward to the upcoming games it would appear in. In 2018
Pokémon Gos revenue saw a 37% increase, which
Variety felt Meltan's debut significantly contributed to.
IGNs Dale Bashir in a retrospective of what Pokémon impacted the franchise the most described Meltan as "legitimizing"
Pokémon Go "as a valid way of playing
Pokemon" by its exclusivity to the game, and was special in that unlike previous Mythical Pokémon in that anyone could access it. Gavin Lane of
Nintendo Life felt it helped broaden the franchise's audience by how it linked
Pokémon Go to the
Lets Go series of games. Martin Wood of
Game Rant on the other hand lamented that it was omitted from
Pokémon Scarlet and Violets introduction of "Paradox" Pokémon, Pokémon representing variants of existing creatures in the series as they appeared in the past or future. In particular he pointed out how Meltan and Melmetal's lore indicates that both are very ancient, but to him their modern hardware nut design contradicted it and a Paradox variation could not rectify this, but provide players with a different means to acquire Meltan. After its full release,
Comic Book Resources writer Aaron Fentress felt that Nintendo was still intentionally vague regarding the character, particularly in regards to what region of the game world it originated from. This in turn caused confusion within the gaming community, which often defined each "generation" of games by the region they were set in and release date, and as a result it is debated as to whether it should be associated with the seventh or eighth generation of
Pokémon games. Fentress suggested this vagueness might have been intentional, comparing it to fan reactions to Mew or the
Red and
Blue glitch
MissingNo., and that the lack of an official answer may have been Nintendo's way of keeping discussion regarding Meltan active. ==References==