The Bidoof Event was Fun
For the end of June, we had a very silly event in Pokemon GO. Now, most events aren’t particularly serious, but most of the time things are pretty normal. All you get are different spawns, maybe some research and eggs. When the Bidoof Breakout event was announced, everyone just assumed it’d be a normal event, with increased Bidoof spawns.
Well, we were… kinda right.
Niantic seemed to go all out for this event.
Rather than just plonking down some spawns, we actually got a rather odd, general increase. The event started off with just a handful of Bidoof scattered around normal spawns, plus a x2 exp catch bonus. As the event continued though, more and more Bidoof would spawn. A Team Rocket Grunt with Bidoof also became more common too, and there was sporadic research, catching 3 or 5 Bidoofs and getting Bidoof as a reward. The catch bonus also increased, from a x2 bonus to an amazing x4 bonus, which could be doubled to x8 with a Lucky Egg.
Of course, Bidoof’s shiny was released as well. I lucked out and got one on the very first day. Sure, it’s 40CP but hey, a shiny is a shiny. Not like you can ever really use Bidoof anyway.
That being said, Bidoof did get random moves for this event. It got a different move each day. Shadow Ball, Ice Beam, Thunderbolt and Super Power appeared as charge moves on Bidoof. All kinda useless (aside from Super Power in a little league) but it’s amusing to see.
We then got a day of pretty much nothing but Bidoof!
Bidoof Day was the final part of the Bidoof Breakout event. During Bidoof Day, the majority of spawns were Bidoof, all Team Rocket fights were Bidoof and we got a special research called BIDOOF. The research task consisted of nothing but Bidoof encounters and berries as rewards, and all you had to do was catch and take snapshots of Bidoof. The end of the quest rewarded you with a Bidoof encounter and a Bidoof hat. Can’t really complain about that, to be honest.
EVEN THE RAIDS WERE BIDOOF. Okay, some raids had normal Pokemon in them. But almost all the raids were Bidoof. Not just level 1 raids though. Bidoof appeared in level 3 and LEVEL 5 raids! It was a fucking legendary raid!
In fact, the Bidoof level 5 raid was soloable – but only just. With weather boost, you can beat it solo pretty easily, assuming you have a bunch of high level Machamps (2800CP or higher). But I underestimated just how bulky Bidoof was, and finished with 5 seconds to spare. Still, my army of Machamps did great work beating down that massive Bidoof.
“But why Bidoof?”
It’s mostly a meme Pokemon these days, but Bidoof’s always been pretty amusing. Sure, the shiny isn’t amazing, its stats aren’t great and there’s not much to say about Bidoof. But Bidoof is a harmless meme that’s gone on for years, so why not make a silly event around it?
If anything, I think Niantic should do these silly events more often. Not all the time, not at all, we’d get bored of that. But maybe once every six months or so. Just to have a laugh and shake things up a bit.