A Nice, Calm First Day of GO Fest

I won’t lie, I’ve been looking forward to GO Fest for a while. For the small price of €5, I can catch a ton of Pokemon and get early access to a new Mythical. Last year’s GO Fest was rather hectic, so was the Kanto festival earlier this year. This year’s GO Fest, at least the first day, was much calmer.

Four biomes, varying spawns

Just like previous GO Fest expeditions, the 2021 GO Fest was split into four biomes of an hour each. Last year, they were kinda based on emotions, because it was about Jirachi. However, despite this year having a musical theme, the biomes were all rather… biome-y. We got a cave biome, a jungle biome, a desert biome and an ocean biome. All of which had unique spawns of their own. Alongside these biomes were Pokemon with a musical theme scattered around. The most common of which was Jigglypuff, and there was also a Pikachu with a Meloetta hat.

Tied to each biome was also a collection challenge. Unlike the Kanto festival though, these collections were easy. You could easily do it with incense at home, but spawns were also plentiful.

Best Biome was Cave Biome

Although the biomes were all pretty unique in their own rights, the Cave biome was by far the best. With Deino, Gible AND Beldum all spawning in the wild, Cave biome completely blew the other biomes out of the water. A distant runner up was the desert biome, but mostly because it contained Larvitar.

But the other biomes weren’t bad. They all had a variety of Pokemon in them. It’s just really hard to beat three pseudo-legendary Pokemon all spawning at the same time.

We had a very easy special research as well.

This year’s mythical release is Meloetta, and, like Jirachi beforehand, she was tied to some special research. Funnily enough though, this research was actually very easy. Aside from using a lure or hatching an egg, there were no difficult tasks. No PVP and only 2 battles against Grunts. Which makes a change. The hardest task, ironically, was making a new friend. This special research actually had branching paths – you could pick what Pikachu you wanted. You also had to choose between Galarian Ponyta and Galarian Zigzagoon, as well as Gardevoir and Flygon. I chose Rock Pikachu, Ponyta and Gardevoir because, well, I like them the most.

In fact, the research was so easy that I actually finished the research within 4 hours. I’ll be honest though, I totally skipped through the story. I just did the tasks as quickly as I could. Of course, my Meloetta was a 2* Pokemon, but eh, it’s not like we’ll ever get much use out of Meloetta.

Plenty of shinies to be had

Well, at least, there were plenty of shinies for me. I didn’t get a shiny Deino but I did get a lot of new shinies I didn’t own previously. Somehow, I also stumbled across TWO shiny Gibles

Most importantly though, I FINALLY found a normal, shiny Scyther. I’ve wanted one of those for ages and I finally got one. The rate of shinies was wholly random. I got a lot early on my brother got most of his towards the end and the guy we were playing with had basically all the luck. On day 1 alone, I managed 28 shinies, although I did trade for a shiny Larvitar, because that has always eluded me.

I only have one complaint.

Honestly? Everything ran pretty smoothly. At least, from my perspective. But Incense was a bit of a pain in the ass to use. With barely a minute between spawns, it was very easy to miss Pokemon because they’d spawned between other Pokemon. On a community day, this problem isn’t as apparent since all the Pokemon are the same. But in GO Fest, with so many other spawns, it can be a real pain in the ass.

But overall, everything was pretty pleasant. Which makes a change.

Day 2 on the other hand is all about raiding.

Almost every legendary released so far will be part of Day 2’s raids. That includes everything from Mewtwo to the various Trios, all the way down to Heatran. Fingers crossed it won’t be too chaotic…