Too Many Pokemon Go Events?

Lately, there has been a HUGE number of Pokemon Go events. Or at least it feels like there has been a huge number of Pokemon Go events. Last week, we had the Pokemon Day event which spawned Kanto Pokemon in huge numbers and finally introduced shiny Rattata and Pidgey. Before that we had the Valentines Day event which felt like it lasted forever. During the end of the Valentines Day and the Pokemon events, we had the Latias raid boss spawning. Just as all of that finished, we got a couple of days of quiet before being suddenly pummeled by the appearance of shiny Machop and Mankey in the wild, and on top of that, Rayquaza is going to have a raid boss weekend, the same way Latias did.

Honestly, at first, this sounds amazing. Constant mini events mean that you have a specific Pokemon to focus at any one time. I mean, I always wanted a shiny Rattata and I know aabicus absolutely LOVES the little rat Pokemon. So the Pokemon day event meant more Rattatas. It also meant more Kanto spawns, meaning we could grab some candy to power up our starter Pokemon maybe. The new event means I can get some more Machamps, because I’d gone and deleted some of mine when I ran out of inventory space, and Machamp is always a useful Pokemon to have (apparently? Frankly I’ve only used him against Tyranitar and Dialga…) and a chance for a shiny one is always nice. No one really cares about Mankey since it’s a fairly common spawn at the best of times and Primeape 1. isn’t very good and 2. doesn’t look great as a shiny, but still, for all those shiny collectors out there, they can continue filling their Kanto Pokedex.

Then there’s catching up with legendaries. I haven’t had a chance to catch Rayquaza yet, and Latias, as much of a pain as she was, is still a pretty cool Pokemon to finally catch. At some point I assume we’ll have a Latios day thrown at us as well.

It does seem though that there’s a huge amount of… catching up going on? Like there’s a sudden hurry to get all these Pokemon out of the way?

I suppose that makes sense. It’s been ages since we could get Rayquaza. It’s been ages since we could get Latias as well. The Three Regis (Regirock, Registeel, Regice) have been gone since the summer as well, but they came back in research breakthroughs alongside the Legendary Doggos (Raiku, Suicune and Entei) which everyone is sick and tired of. It seems even stranger to have this sort of catch up period now when there are still a bunch of unreleased Generation 4 Pokemon. I mean, Electivire was released, but not Magnetron? Both are electric Kanto Pokemon with evolutions in Generation 4, but Magnemite is feeling left out.

Actually, speaking of Generation 4 Pokemon, there were supposed to be a bunch of new Pokemon out, Pokemon like Shieldon and Cranidos. I’ve seen a grand total of 2 of those since they were released, I haven’t seen a Combee and most people on my friends list are walking these Pokemon because there’s no other way to get the candy to evolve them. Shinx at the very least has the decency to appear in raids and Starly is somewhat common, but everything else has been pushed aside for events.

The events are nice though. Keeps the common spawns churning, so you’re not looking at mountains of Zigzagoons and Swellows. In fact, now that they have shiny forms too, they have some sort of value.

On the other hand though, with so many events that all appear at such a short amount of time, it’s nigh impossible to keep up with everything. The Pokemon Day event started at 11pm on the 26th for me, and I couldn’t go out on the 27th, meaning I had literally a couple of hours on the 28th to try and catch some Pokemon. Annoyingly, I saw a Vapreon, a Jolteon and a Flareon all spawn in the wild and it turned out they didn’t have flowers on their heads. The Valentines Day event lasted a while but the Latias one was going to be incredibly short until it was extended to March 1st.

It seems that Niantic have learned their lesson, since they announced their Treecko March Community Day in advance, but the Rayquaza event has only given us a week in advance and lots of people want Rayquaza.

Still, at least all these events keep us on our toes…