Posted in: Games, Mobile Games, Niantic, Pokémon GO | Tagged: 2022 Pokémon World Championships, Niantic, Pikachu, pokemon, pokemon go

Pokémon GO Event Review: 2022 World Championships Event

The 2022 Pokémon World Championships tie-in event is now wrapping up in Pokémon GO. Let's see how this battle-themed event fit into the summer's festivities.

What worked in this Pokémon GO event

• Costumed Pikachu… kind of: Listen, I'll always take a new Costumed Pikachu. Niantic's reliance on costumes is often criticized, but I personally love it. It's a way to add content to the game without giving us a constant avalanche of new releases and Shiny drops, leaving nothing for the future. I totally get it. However, keeping this Pikachu relegated to raids only was such an unusual move. I would've preferred it as a wild spawn, as it would've been the only interesting spawn for the event.
• Galarian Farfetch'd raids: These raids made sense! Galarian Farfetch'd has a boosted, raid/Egg-only Shiny rate and is next to never in raids, so this actually gave us something to do this week. My one quibble is that these were far too rare.
• Battling Trainers at stops: I'd love to see this more, and I appreciate any event that does it. That said, there needs to be a better indicator of which stops have a trainer rather than a slight vibration. Why not turn them, say, green the way Rocket Stops turn black?

What didn't work in this Pokémon GO event

• Spawns: This event had some of the driest spawns all year. The focus on Fighting-types that have been largely common encounters and frequent event features made this event a slog. Seeing Croagunk every now and then was fine, but there was virtually nothing to hunt in the wild unless you missed many, many events.
• Many small flaws build toward a bad event: Every positive aspect of the event had a major drawback. Pikachu being raid-only, Galarian Farfetch'd raids being rare, and trainer battles being difficult to spot made this event more annoying than anything else.

Overall

I hate to say it, but I'll be happy when it's over. Let's come with our a-game next time we step into the ring, Pokémon GO.

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