The Very Sudden December Raid Event

All of a sudden, not only did we suddenly get a whole weird evolution themed event, centered around Pokemon who evolve with items or in other strange ways, but we also very weirdly got a three hour raid event, on Saturday the 7th. This raid event featured not Pokemon who evolve with items, nor Pokemon who evolve in other weird ways, but… just the Kanto Starter Pokemon and their evolutions. So we had Bulbasaur, Squirtle, Charmander (in level 1 raids), Ivysaur, Wartortle, Charmeleon (in level 2 raids), Venusaur, Blastoise and Charizard (in level 4 raids) popping up on all applicable gyms.

As to what gym got what raid, it was all random. Where I play, it was mostly Bulbasaur and its evolutions, although both Bulbasaur and Charmander and their grown up forms were all weather-boosted in the sunny weather we have in December in Cyprus. I did a total of 9 raids, 6 of which were with free raid passes (you can get one extra free raid pass if you already have a free raid pass before the day of the event), starting with a Venusaur on an EX gym and ending with a Bulbasaur. There weren’t many people this time round (there’s been fewer people in general playing around here lately) but that doesn’t matter because you can do the level 1 and 2 raids with one account and the level 4 raids aren’t too hard to do either. And because these are all Pokemon with shinies that already exist, there’s not a huge panic to get these Pokemon before they disappear, like with shiny Legendaries.

What is surprising about this event though is that all Pokemon in these raids had the potential to be shiny. Not just the starters, but the second and third evolutions too. Which meant, if you were lucky, you could catch a shiny Charmander, shiny Charmeleon AND shiny Charizard all on the same day. My luck wasn’t that great, but I did catch a shiny Charmeleon, and that’s still better than brother’s luck – he did the same number of raids on his main account and got no shinies, but he did get an Ivysaur on his second account and a shiny Onyx and a shiny Gligar on his main account.

But yeah, shiny evolutions. The only other times we’ve had this was the initial release of shiny Nidoqueen (where you could catch shiny Nidoqueens in the wild alongside shiny female Nidorans) and one other raid event, when shiny Gengar was released and shiny Gastly was released not long after. After this event ends though? It’s back to base forms and baby forms being shinies.

In fact, the only Pokemon who break this rule are shiny Roselia (which existed before Budew even came out) and Pikachu, who blatantly ignores all rules because it’s basically a god. Oh, and Mr Mime, but he’s only available in Europe. Except for Cyprus.

This raid event though, with the shiny evolved Pokemon, it should be the norm! All Pokemon with a shiny form should be able to be found as a shiny, regardless of their evolution stage! Shiny Pokemon are rare enough as it is, why not make it so these rare evolved Pokemon spawns can also be shiny? If all Pokemon can be shiny, then players might actually want to do raids that aren’t level 5 raids because of those shiny chances.

Okay, to be fair, shinies in general are far more common than in the normal games, but that’s a topic for a different time. Pokemon Go’s core gameplay is vastly different from the main games.

But yeah, I really hope we get more events like this. A laid back raid event that anyone can do with a bit of patience.