Hoenn Tour Day 2

Well, it turns out there wasn’t much difference between days one and two. That’s okay. In the Johto and Kanto events, a lot more was going on. Day one would be habitats and catching, while day 2 would be more of a story/adventure sort of thing. Kanto Tour had the shadow legendaries for example. But for the Hoenn tour, things on day 2 are mostly the same as day one.

Frankly, I like this. Having to do collection challenges and research can be quite tricky if you don’t have much time on your hands. After all, not everyone can play from 11am to 6pm when the event ends. Two days of the same stuff means you’re not rushing around trying to complete everything before the event ends. That being said, the primal research does require some rushing around as there are specific stages where you need to catch a Groudon and a Kyogre.

Some people have been rather underwhelmed about this, and that’s fair enough. The spawns aren’t particular interesting, and the big raids all required at least 6 competent players to beat. There were only two special research tasks, one to do with Groudon and Kyogre, the other being a €6 ‘masterwork’ ticket for shiny Jirachi. Sure, everything in the event can be shiny, but the shiny chances aren’t really boosted, except for specific Pokemon. This meant that people didn’t come away with as many shinies as they did for the other tours.

One of my more major complaints is the incense. Sure, we get lots of spawns while walking, but it would have been nice to have the incense do more. In the previous tours, incense would still spawn Pokemon if you weren’t moving, and the Hoenn tour should have had the same thing. Instead, the Hoenn tour forces you to walk around. This was compounded by the fact that some of the best Pokemon of the event, the ones that people were genuinely looking for, were all stuck inside 10km eggs. I was very lucky to get Relicanth, the one Pokemon I needed, but it was only a 1/3 chance of getting it.

There is also something that the Hoenn Tour missed. None of the Hoenn Pokemon with special moves were available. Sure, Groudon and Kyogre got theirs, but the Kanto starters, Beldum, Bagon, and more, none of them could evolve to get their special moves. This was a big downside because most of those moves (especially ones like Meteor Mash and Outrage) are vital on these Pokemon, and it would have been nice to have a chance to evolve them.

Another complaint was that, well, the Hoenn Tour was a tad boring. Aside from the primal Pokemon, there wasn’t really anything new. Primals are just more expensive Megas, the spawns weren’t great and the best stuff was locked into eggs. There wasn’t anything special on the two days either, nothing separating them.

The way I see it, the Hoenn Tour was a cool event, considering the fact that it was free and anyone could get involved. However, if this had been a paid ticket event like the other tours, I would have said it was a waste of money. For the small price of free, I can’t complain too much. Well, I can. That is literally what I’ve just done. But eh, it was alright…