Alolan Meowth Community Research Day?
On the 10th of October, there was a community research day that I very nearly forgot about. This event involved doing research tasks. Lots and lots of them. And the reward? Alolan Meowth. With a potential to be shiny. A simple event, easy to do and with an okay chance at a normally rare shiny.
Simple, but repetitive.
The event went as follows: Do research, get Meowth. The research tasks are a set order, which repeat once. There’s about… 20 tasks which repeat… so 40 tasks total? A lot of them are the same and all of them include “catch 3 Pokemon” so it’s easy to lose track. The tasks get slightly more difficult as you go along, but you can do pretty much all of them sitting on your ass, if you have spawns nearby. If you don’t, well, you’ll just have to use an incense.
The research tasks were all fine mostly.
They weren’t too difficult. Not at all. The only really difficult task is probably battling another trainer, but there’s nothing saying you have to win the battle. Getting great throws in a row depends on what Pokemon spawn nearby. Somewhat east on a bunch of Zigzagoons, much trickier if the only Pokemon nearby is something small and jumpy.
Luckily, we had PLENTY of time to complete the research. Previous events like this have been very, very short. This time round, there was plenty of room for error.
We randomly got normal and Galarian Meowth in the middle.
One stage for some reason is just different. Right in the middle, you get three tasks, one of which is to catch a normal type. This stage gives you a normal Kanto Meowth of each of the three tasks. The final encounter gives you a Galarian Meowth. That’s nice, I guess. Does seem rather random though. I would have expected more Kanto Meowth, actually, because it also has a shiny form. Which came out after the Alolan form.
All in all, a pretty good event.
I can’t complain at all, really.
The only real problem is that the shiny chances aren’t as good. Even with increased chances, you don’t get as many tries as you would on a community day. But it’s… not supposed to be a community day? If the goal is for everyone to get a shiny, then this isn’t the way to do it. That being said, the other rewards – 30 of each kind of berry – are pretty nice, as is the 500 free stardust for each stage.
Still, it’s a vast improvement on events where you had to spin Pokestops for research.
Why Alolan Meowth though?
This is the big question. Why Alolan Meowth? Why Meowth at all? As a Pokemon, Meowth has been in a LOT of events. Okay, it’s never really been the spotlight Pokemon (aside from a few Team Rocket events), but it’s common. The Alolan and Galarian Meowths aren’t that sought after either since they are common in 7km eggs.
Previous events released Pokemon that didn’t have shinies in the past, or introduced new Pokemon entirely. The Snubbull event was at least tied to its regional event. Alolan Meowth though? I have no idea.
Oh well.