Pokemon Global Go Fest 2023

In a previous post I had stated that the Digging for Gold event was the most fun I have had in Pokemon Go. Unfortunately for it, the title has been passed onto the recent Global Go Fest 2023 event! Honestly at this point no event has even come close to this year's Go Fest. To preface, shiny Pokemon are effectively the main reason I play this game in the first place. Previous major events such as Hoenn Tour and Go Fest 2022 both had 'boosted' odds of shiny Pokemon appearing, with the latter being a paid feature. This year's event was also a paid event but the difference between this event and last year's is as stark as the difference between night and day.

Day 1:

The first day of the event had separate habitats of different spawning Pokemon each hour. With four different habitats appearing twice each over the course of the eight hours the event ran for. The first habitat titled 'Quartz Terrarium' I would consider to be my personal favourite. This habitat featured Pokemon that included Audino, Foongus and Shiinotic, Pokemon that come with an increased amount of stardust for each catch. With stardust holding such importance in the game, I focused on catching as many of these Pokemon as I could and thankfully they were everywhere! 

The other habitats were fine with the fourth one, 'Aquamarine Shores' being my least favourite at the time but that's probably because I was getting a bit tired by that point. I also did a couple raids throughout the day of both Kyogre and Groudon and managed to snag myself another purple whale! Wasn't super into grinding either though since I planned on going hard for Mega Rayquazza tomorrow. 

I got tired towards the final few hours and started to head home, stopping for food on the way. Decided to eat it at a local park and just as I finished, some family members appeared with our dog so naturally I joined them for the walk. That took up the majority of the last hour and I caught a few more shinies both during, before and after the walk with my autocatcher. The shiny Tympole was the last shiny/relevant Pokemon I caught on the day, with my autocatcher catching it on the drive home!

Speaking of shinies I ended up with a mind-blowing 34, with most of them being amazing shinies to boot! I started off with a Luvdisc from my auto-catcher on the drive there and then another soon after I arrived. I had a small drought for the next hour or so, before the flood gates opened. My favourite overall probably being Pawniard with it's stark blue colouring! I have an obsession with the colour Green though, so Marill is automatically up there as well! Wurmple, Diglett and Shuckle are also quite nice. Oranguru was a shiny released with this event so it's great to have them since they'll be quite rare for awhile. Finally, Unowns are a pain to find shiny so it's thrilling to add one to the collection. I don't think I'm going to try and get the other 25 though! 😂

Also imagine me typing this with anger but my darn shiny event Pikachu luck continues to cause me endless suffering. I personally like to add my shinies to Pokemon Home (Which will take years to transfer them all 😟) but I'm unable to transfer event Pokemon such as the Pikachu found in this event... I got three in last year's Go Fest (where the shiny rates were nowhere near as high) and this year they decide to torture me further by granting me six more of these darn rodents! 

 

Day 2:

The main focus on the second day were Mega Rayquazza raids. Which were appearing for the first time for everyone who hadn't attended one of the non-global events. I started off this day by completing a few raids in my local neighborhood. The first couple I used PokeGenie to fill my lobby. However, in one of the raids a random family appeared and helped take it down which was cool. Once I drove to my city's main spot I pretty much exclusively chased down most Rayquazza raids I could find. One big problem I faced with these raids were that they didn't last very long at all, and it wasn't even a guarantee they'd even be the raid boss featured. With a few other semi-irrelevant Pokemon also being in the raid pool. This combined with most gyms having at least a five minute walk between them meant that it was pretty difficult to do multiple Rayquazza raids in decent succession. One positive though is that today was mostly overcast as opposed to yesterday's direct sunlight, which made is somewhat bearable to move quickly between raids.

My shiny luck wasn't exactly thrilling with it taking 27 raids to finally receive a shiny Rayquazza (Which I suppose is close enough to the 1/20 rate). I honestly wasn't actually aiming for one though since I got one in the event just before Hoenn Tour. It did however, mark the end of my journey in Day 2 as I soon headed home after catching one. I defeated a few raids remotely once I was at home and hilariously managed to catch two more shiny Rayquazzas, with only one normal one in between the two. The main goal for these remote raids was to get enough XL candy to max a Rayquazza. It took 44 raids in total over the day, but eventually I was able to. I maxed out one of my 98% Rayquazzas I caught.

 

My new strongest Pokemon!

In terms of shinies, today was just as insane as yesterday. I was able to once again net another 34 (36 if you include the remote raid Rayquazzas). I find it impressive I was able to hit this number again given I spent most the day raiding. My favourite today is easily Bagon with it's absolutely amazing vibrant shade of green! Carvanha is another favourite for a similar reason but I also enjoy Audino's and the Helioptile line! If you're wandering why I don't mention other shinies like Beldum, it's most likely because I have already caught them so I have no reason to form a connection to the newer ones. Anyway, the wildest part of the day was when I caught a Joltik and Barboach one after another followed by a Hippopotas two catches after. It was absolutely crazy and it felt like they were just handing out shinies by that point.

 

 

Final Thoughts:

Overall, the event was an absolute blast. With the amount of shinies I caught I don't think I could rank it as anything other than number one. The only thing another event did better was Hoenn Tour and the higher amount of high IV/perfect Pokemon I got from it. That is however, pure chance and as far as anyone is aware, Niantic doesn't alter IV rates. I also gained a bunch of new in-game friends using the friend invitation feature after raids which was nice. Honestly the only real problem with this event is that I don't think the next couple events will feature such a high shiny rate. Which will leave them perpetually second fiddle.