Posted in: Games, Mobile Games, Niantic, Pokémon GO | Tagged: GO Fest 2022, Niantic, pokemon, pokemon go, Pokémon GO Fest 2022

Pokémon GO Fest 2022: Global Remote Event Review

This past weekend, Niantic Labs hosted Pokémon GO Fest 2022 as a global, mobile event. This is the third year in a row that the event has been remote, but the first since Niantic added back real-world, on-location versions of the event that will follow later in the summer with their own new content. Did this year's GO Fest live up to previous years?

What worked in Pokémon GO Fest 2022

• Day One: Rotating habitats, new Shinies, Shaymin in Special Research, and finally a chance at hunting Axew made the first day of Pokémon GO Fest 2022 an especially strong outing. I've been a huge fan of these remote events since Niantic started them and I'm happy to see them continue even as the company gets back to on-location celebrations. I found the first day of the event on par with previous years and had about as much fun as I've ever had playing during event hours. Sunday, though? Read on.
• Incense: Putting Incense back up to one spawn per minute regardless if Trainers were stationary or not was the correct choice considering the ticket price. While I was on the move and racking up my KM throughout the full event, it was great to be able to take breaks and explore lures without worrying about missing exciting Incense spawns.
• Axew: The star of Pokémon GO Fest 2022! Axew was in Tier One raids and featured as a rare spawn in the wild. The event also saw Axew get it's Shiny released just in time for what was truly the first real chance any of us has gotten to hunt this rare Dragon outside of grinding 10KM Eggs. With about 60 raids and fifteen wild encounters, I was able to catch four Shiny Axew which makes both Axew's availability and potentially its Shiny rate stronger than last year's Deino feature.
• New Shinies: While we didn't get a ton of new Shinies, the ones that we did get were strong choices. I found myself with something exciting to hunt during each habitat.
• Shaymin and Special Research tasks: I found the tasks to be strong, as they were challenging but doable. I felt challenged to get back out into the world and, despite a sunburn I could've prevented, I had a lot more fun than I would've had playing from home. I recognize that this isn't true of everyone, but the enjoyment of getting the game back to the original mode of exercise and exploration was definitely part of the conversation I experienced at the parks I visited. Better yet, I was excited to catch Shaymin on what had to be the best Pokémon GO Fest encounter animation so far. I can't wait to see what they do with Sky Forme Shaymin.

What didn't work in Pokémon GO Fest 2022

• Day Two: This is the second year in a row that Niantic has followed up Day One with a less exciting Day Two. Last year, Day Two was raid-centric and featured every (kind of, no special Formes) Legendary in Tier Five raids. Cool idea? Yes. As exciting as Shiny hunting? Most players would say "no." I thought it was a shame that Niantic didn't offer any actual new content, and was excited by the idea of things changing this year. Day Two featured the arrival of Ultra Wormholes and the first Ultra Beast, Nihilego, which you can see up in the "What worked" section. I thought it was great! However, Pokémon GO Fest is supposed to be the Comic-Con of events. It's meant to be the most intense and exciting weekend of gameplay all year. A single new Tier Five raid boss and nothing else does not take up a full day of gaming. This could've been a standard event rather than part of GO Fest.
• Tier Three raids: Every Tier Three raid was both unnecessary and subpar. This was the case on both Saturday and Sunday. The great problem with Sunday, though, is that the number of unnecessary raids increased. Rockruff and Druddigon are normally great options, but that's during normal gameplay. Raids should've been Axew and Pikachu in Tier One through the entire event and the Legendaries on Saturday and Nihilego on Sunday.
• Team GO Rocket gets snubbed: I was thrilled by the prospect of the Team GO Rocket content that was advertised. While Niantic didn't say what we'd get, they hinted at Rocket activity which brought to mind the exciting Team GO Rocket-themed Pokémon GO Fest 2022 that had one of the best-ever Special Researches, second encounters with the Shadow Legendary birds, the debut of Shadow Mewtwo, and a chance to get previously featured Shiny Shadows. This time around, all we got was more frequent balloons. I don't know if Niantic was attempting to limit the amount of content offered in order to play toward a younger audience, but Saturday set an exciting pace that Sunday brought to a screeching halt.
• Value for ticket price: Comparing the free content versus the content offered to Trainers who paid was alarming. I strongly defended ticketed events in the past, as I found events such as the Regigigas and Genesect ticketed events to be worthy of the price. However, with so much offered for free and so little to paid players, I was left wondering what exactly did Niantic find so valuable? There needs to be more conversation between Niantic and the player base about what the community values.

A note on Shiny rates

Poor Shiny rates were part of the discussion of this year's Pokémon GO Fest 2022. I personally did not find the rates to be lower than previous years. I marked in previous GO Fests that the Shiny rates did not live up to the rates featured in the 2020 remote Safari Zones, and that's true, but I won't compare the game's 2022 state to three limited events in 2020. Compared to previous GO Fests, both judging by my own gameplay and that of my various communities, I found this to be on par. I did, though, note that few Shinies were released, but I found myself satisfied with chasing the new releases as well as Binacle which had been egregiously rare during its recent release event.

Overall

Pokémon GO Fest 2022 was an undeniably fun outing with elements that harkened back to the glory days of the game's launch. However, a surprising lack of new content on Sunday ended up not living up to the exciting mystery of the early teasers. While I think anyone who played the event would have at least an enjoyable time, I'd suggest Niantic strive to better understand what Pokémon GO players find valuable.

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