Posted in: Games, Mobile Games, Niantic, Pokémon GO | Tagged: Charizard, Niantic, pokemon, pokemon go, Pokémon GO Anniversary

Pokémon GO Event Review: 6th Anniversary Event

This past week, we celebrated the sixth anniversary of Pokémon GO with a special event in the game. The event focused largely on the sixth Pokémon in the Dex: Charizard, who is one of the franchise's most iconic species. Did this event live up to the majesty of this draconic fire breather?

What worked in this Pokémon GO event

• Ultra Unlock bonuses: I originally saw this as yet another Kanto event based on the original announcement, which would've been a letdown. However, the Ultra Unlock addition of Pansear spawns and raids and Unown E raids turned this from an almost skippable event into a must-play week of Pokémon GO.
• Party Hat Charizard: Party Hat Charmander was previously unable to evolve. This event unlocked its evolution and even had Party Hat Charizard encounterable in raids and in the wild. Further, Party Hat Charizard could be encountered Shiny, which made those raids and wild encounters highly desirable.
• Solid spawns: While spawn rates are a problem, which we will get to, the pool of spawns for the event was solid. Party Hat Charmander, Party Hat Charizard, Pansear, Litleo — all great encounters.
• An event within the event: The weekend portion of the event was spiced up by a wave of Team GO Rocket content with the Ultra Unlock: Battle Weekend event within this event. While it did feel odd to put this here considering we don't have another major event until the end of the month, it did give players quite a lot to do. This placement ultimately improved the week but did, in some ways, do a disservice to the Ultra Unlock: Battle Weekend content which could've easily been its own week-long event.

What didn't work in this Pokémon GO event

• Timing: The TCG event, which was unfortunately one of the year's weakest, lasted half a month. Meanwhile, this event was a blink-and-it's-over, not even lasting for a full week. Why? This should've been the bigger feature event both because of actual content and the fact that it's meant to be a big celebration.
• Pikachu spawn rate: Where was Pikachu? There was a time when an event-themed Costume Pikachu release was plentiful. It gave us a fair shot at catching the Shiny. That was very much not the case this week which has become a trend for new Costume releases and new Shiny releases. Say what you will about the pulling back of the bonuses in the game, but to me, this is Niantic's worst change.
• Starter tasks: The tasks would've been fun if they had Costumed Pokémon or Pansear, but instead, we had them loaded up with Starter encounters that I think most would agree the playerbase didn't need or want.

Overall

The biggest flaw of Pokémon GO's 6th Anniversary Event is that it was too short, continuing Niantic's trend of giving us short events with desirable content while events with virtually no new content are given ridiculously long run times.

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