Posted in: Games, Mobile Games, Niantic, Pokémon GO | Tagged: gyarados, mega raids, Niantic, pokemon, pokemon go

Pokémon GO Event Review: Mega Gyarados Raid Day 2022

This past weekend, Niantic hosted Mega Gyarados Raid Day. The event saw all Gyms in the game taken over by Mega Raids featuring this Water/Dark-type Pokémon, allowing Trainers to earn Gyarados Mega Energy while also hunting a Shiny-boosted Gyarados. This event took place during the maligned Evolving Stars event, which for my money was the worst event in Pokémon GO history. Did Mega Gyarados Raid Day manage to act as a reprieve during the weekend?

What worked in this Pokémon GO event

• Mega attention: I'm glad to see Megas getting more attention this fall. Previously, we saw Niantic enrich Mega Raids during Spring 2022 by making Mega Raids easier and changing how Mega Evolution functions, fixing both the raid style and mechanic. Megas went from a chore to a fun and useful part of Pokémon GO. And then, following that… we got a long stretch of repeats in Mega Raids. September saw two new Megas added, with yet another on the way this month, and now we have a Mega event. While the event itself was, unfortunately, a dud, I'm at least glad to see this newly fixed mechanic getting attention.

What didn't work in this Pokémon GO event

• Gyarados: Gyarados was simply a poor choice for this event's focus. Shiny Gyarados as the main goal is an incentive to very few players, as Magikarp was already the focus on perhaps the most hated Community Day in the game's history. Why this Pokémon that most trainers have in its Shiny form many times over was chosen when it could've simply been a standard Mega Raid rotation feature is something I can't quite understand.
• Timing: Niantic kicked off the event too early in other time zones. Their fix? Make this unwanted event longer for everyone, clogging raids on the day Shiny Xerneas is released.

Overall

While I'm happy to see Mega Raids getting attention, Gyarados was a bizarre fix and Niantic's handling of their time zone error made this already unwanted event even worse.

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