The Pokémon GO Fest 2024 is over. MeinMMO author Paul draws a personal conclusion and has an opinion on the development of Pokémon GO events.
This weekend, Pokémon GO was all about the global GO Fest 2024. The biggest event of the year once again shone with all kinds of content that was made available to trainers.
I will explain to you how I experienced the event as a ticket holder, what my personal highlights were in the event, what I was most pleased about and what bothered me about the event.
Lots of shinies and candies
Shiny Pokémon: I was able to get a total of 8 shiny Pokémon at GO Fest over the 2 days. In addition to Pokémon like Emolga, Castadri and Piccolente, I was especially happy to see Umbreon with a scarf as a shiny one.
And the absolute highlight for me: My first raid on Sunday was immediately rewarded – with a dazzling Necrozma!
Lots of candies for strong Pokémon: I was able to get hold of a few Pokémon for which I still need candy. These include Capuno, Balgoras and Gummalat. Even though I already have stronger copies of the latest evolutions, I still need some candy for more strong copies.
GO Fest 2024 was great for this, because I was able to collect some Pokémon, most of which even gave me double the amount of candy on Saturday. I tagged these so that I could send them out next Tuesday for more candy.
Regional Pokémon: There were also some regional Pokémon at this year’s event. For me personally, Corason was the absolute highlight. This Pokémon has been the last Pokémon I’ve been missing from the Johto Pokédex for years.
By securing this Pokémon in the event, I was finally able to complete this regional Pokédex.
Necrozma: I was also happy about Necrozma, which I was able to get as a shiny, as mentioned above. As the ticket holder, I was able to choose one of the two potential fusions directly.
Here I chose Lunala to later fuse Necrozma into Morningwing Form, which I think is the better fusion form of Necrozma.
Criticism of the event
Fusion energy: While I was able to obtain one of the two fusions through the ticket without any problems, I was denied the second fusion. The sheer number of raids that were necessary to obtain enough fusion energy was simply too high for me.
By the way, I wasn’t the only one who felt this way. There were also frustrated voices from the community regarding fusion energy.
Pay barriers: Without using Incense, the number of Pokémon spawns encountered in the wild was comparatively very limited. There was a noticeable difference between the times I had Incense activated and the times I didn’t have it activated.
If you didn’t have any smoke in your bag and no coins to buy smoke, things looked pretty bleak. At the same time, there were several exclusive monsters that could only be obtained with smoke. This excludes players who invest less time in the game and/or don’t want to invest any money from an exciting part of the event.
Speaking of exclusion, players without a ticket also had no access to some of the most basic features in the event. Marshadow, a guaranteed fusion for Necrozma, and the increased shiny chance were all only accessible to players who purchased the ticket.
Conclusion: Personally, I had some things I liked about GO Fest 2024. Nevertheless, I am critical of the development.
Players who want to invest money in the game should of course also receive benefits from doing so. However, locking the basic content of an event behind paywalls is a path I do not approve of.
In my opinion, Niantic should be careful and consider where to find a good mix so that both players with and without tickets can enjoy a great event in the future.
What do you think about it? What did you think of the event? Did you buy the ticket or did you start the event without the ticket? Feel free to write us your opinion in the comments and exchange ideas with other trainers here. You can of course also find an overview of the other events in July 2024 in Pokémon GO here.