Posted in: Games, Mobile Games, Niantic, Pokémon GO | Tagged: hoenn, Niantic, Niantic Labs, pokemon, pokemon go

Pokémon GO Hoenn Celebration 2021 Event Review

The Hoenn Celebration event is wrapping up in Pokémon GO. Let's take a look at what worked and what didn't work about this Generation Three event.

What Worked in this Pokémon GO Event

• The Raids: For the first time in a long time, the entire raid rotation was terrific. We had the ideal bosses of Kyogre and Groudon, the addition of Ampharos to Mega Raids, and Spinda as a spicy, albeit rare, Tier Three raid boss. Tier One was absolutely skippable, but that felt almost necessary in this otherwise stacked rotation.
• The spawns: Nothing too crazy here. The spawns weren't stunning but were fairly diverse, giving players a good amount of different species to hunt for the week.
• Timed Research: Finally, another Timed Research in an event, and it culminated in a Rayquaza encounter with the event-exclusive Charged Attack of Hurricane. That is a terrific way to enrich an event.
• Meteor Mash: Finally, perhaps the strongest aspect of the event was the choice to allow players to unlock Metagross's Community Day move of Meteor Mash by evolving a Metang up to Metagross during the event.

What Didn't Work in this Pokémon GO Event

• Shiny release: There was none. Love it or hate it, this is the first thing that most Pokémon GO players look for in a new event. "What's the new Shiny?" Including no new Shiny release in an event immediately makes it seem like filler.
• Lesser by comparison: Unfortunately, the current region-specific countdown event begs for comparison to last year's region-specific countdown event to GO Fest 2020. Leading up to that big summer event were four events based on Sinnoh, Hoenn, Johto, and Kanto that featured a new Shiny release, region-specific spawns, and a multi-page Timed Research that culminated in a Legendary Pokémon with an event-exclusive move. This series of events is so similar that it's impossible not to compare and see how this current run ends up coming up short, with the first two weeks featuring no Special Research and this week featuring no Shiny release.

Overall

Kyogre, Groudon, Rayquaza, and Meteor Mash Metagross saved this event, making up for the lack of Shiny release and putting it just a tick ahead of the other region-specific countdown events. Niantic will certainly have to improve these events if they want to match the hype set by 2020, their best year of Pokémon GO yet, but this was a fine week of gameplay.

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