Day One of GO Fest was Fun

I bought a ticket for GO Fest. I’d enjoyed the previous GO Fest events in previous years, so I thought I’d enjoy this one. GO Fest 2023 was a mostly simple but fun event. Was it worth a ticket though? Let’s find out.

Just like previous GO Fests, day one of GO Fest 2023 was split into four biomes, which rotated throughout the day. The biomes in GO Fest 2023 were based on minerals, and the main theme was crystals and gems. The Pokemon behind GO Fest was the mythical Pokemon Diancie, a rock/fairy Pokemon that, well, makes crystals and gems. Alongside the biomes, we had a special research to complete, which rewarded players with not just a Diancie of their own, but enough candy to be able to Mega Evolve said Diancie. The Diancie was part of the GO Fest ticket, and a research for everyone else to get Diancie will most likely come out in the following months.

Back to the biomes, each one was colour-coded. The first biome was mostly pink Pokemon, the second was sandy and grey or yellow Pokemon, the third was heavily green and the fourth was mostly blue-ish Pokemon. The selection of Pokemon for each biome wasn’t exactly equal, with the blue biome having stuff like Bagon and Beldum, while the green biome kinda didn’t get anything special except for Ferroseed. The pink biome teased Heracross, because its shiny is pink, however, no one in my (very small) group managed to find one. But each biome was definitely unique.

There were also lots of raids to be had, but they were very focused. In 1-star raids, we only got Goomy and Pikachu with a tiara. We saw the return of the 2-star raid, featuring Carbink. The rest of the raids consisted of Primal Groudon and Kyogre, with no shadow raids to be had. Rayquaza raids are only on Day 2 of GO Fest. I don’t know why we couldn’t have both the Primals and Mega Rayquaza. The raids weren’t affected by the biomes, and were pretty constant, with fast egg hatching and shorter time to raid. The best thing though was that Groudon and Kyogre were made easier to catch during GO Fest, meaning you could actually use Pinaps on them and actually have a chance of catching them.

Speaking of powerful Pokemon, Diancie’s research was also pretty easy. It was your standard set of tasks, and had some somewhat okay rewards. It had a task to hatch 2 eggs, but the research gives you two incubators on the stage beforehand. And, thankfully, it didn’t involve routes. That being said, there is actually a route in my home town now, but I couldn’t get it to work, and the start of the route was at a church where a wedding was taking place. But I’ll probably give it a go some other time when things are less busy.

The shiny rates were higher for people holding GO Fest tickets, and I think I managed to nab some good shinies. Almost right away I caught a shiny Audino, but the shinies always seemed to come in bursts, with long droughts in between. My biggest prize though was a shiny Groudon I got from a remote raid. This Groudon ended my legendary shiny drought that I’ve had since February 2023. Was it really worth €15 to get more shinies? Probably not, but the Diancie was nice, and I enjoyed the freedom of being able to do lots of raids, thanks to the 9 orange raid passes we got for the event.

Overall, I had a great day 1 of GO Fest, and I’m sure I’ll have fun doing Day 2 as well.