TMOG posted...
I assume it's for narrative purposes, since one of the side missions during that tutorial phase introduces the concept of Alphas to the player.
Yeah, I guess that's the reason. I wanted to get a Shiny Alpha Pikachu to give to the NPC for one of the three side missions, but it's impossible to hunt one during this tutorial, so I grabbed one from a discord trade bot instead
Dunno why I didn't think of just doing that since the start, it's for an NPC anyway.