Posted in: Card Games, Games, Pokémon TCG, Tabletop | Tagged: Litleo, Lunar New Year, Niantic, pokemon, pokemon go

Pokémon GO Event Review: Lunar New Year 2022

Pokémon GO's annual Lunar New Year event is wrapping up. This 2022 edition saw the release of Litleo in its Shiny form. Let's see how this past year measured up to the fandom's high hopes.

What worked in this Pokémon GO event

• Shiny Litleo: A Shiny release! Litleo was the perfect choice not just to enrich the event, but also because it was the subject of a Spotlight Hour during the start of the Lunar New Year festivities. I could but wrong, but I don't remember a single other event where the new Shiny release was the Spotlight species during the event. This move felt quite generous from Niantic, making Litleo Spotlight Hour the most exciting Spotlight event in quite some time.
• Raids: My favorite feature of the event was the availability of Espurr in raids. Though there was a related drawback, a chance at raiding Espurr while it was also in the Research Breakthrough was an unexpected bonus. Also, the rest of the raid rotation was quite strong, with the rare and welcome presence of Shuckle in Tier Three raids.
• Research: Every event should have Research, and this one came through with two questlines. Though, I do sympathize with some Trainers for whom trading is impossible, as there was a trading task. That is an aspect of Pokémon GO, though, so you can't say it's not fair play. I think, though, the better option would be to have any trading-based research classified as Special Research rather than Timed Research to remove the limited aspect of it.

What didn't work in this Pokémon GO event

• Raid rarity: My one issue with the event is that Espurr raids felt quite rare. It reminded me of times when Niantic featured Gible and Unown in raids during past events, keeping them difficult to find in order to maintain the long-running rarity of these species. For a species like Espurr that could become a longterm Tier One enrichment like Shinx, Klink, and Timburr, that was disappointing.

Overall

Overall, the Lunar New Year 2022 was a great event with varied opportunities to chase after exciting catches.

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