Pokemon Go Fest 2022 Review

July 3, 2022 at 7:44pm
By Jason Stettner

This is the third global digital special event hosted by Niantic being the special Pokemon Go Fest 2022 event. I was once again able to check it out, being generally excited to do so. It’s a once a year type of festivity, and it gets players all out working together. A sight that’s become rarer over time, but hopefully as things get more normal it’ll be busier once more.

I once again did prep work stocking up on balls and other items that might have been helpful. This was a two day event on June 4 and 5, 2022. The time zones went from 10am to 6pm in whatever local time you’re in.

I spent quite a few hours across both days taking in the festivities in what I believe is the city’s most popular spot, that being Prince’s Island. It’s an area littered with Pokestops and creatures to collect. I went in with very average expectations and was overall rather disappointed by the end of it.

I once again brought a guest to come catching with me, and that was helpful for seeing how much you could get out of this. It was sort of a split this time though, I tackled the first day by myself whereas I had the plus one for the second day. I’ll start first by saying I was extremely disappointed by my shiny Pokemon results. I ended up with only two, the person I went with got three.

It was not a good time in that department, particularly since I had put in so much extra into catching as many as I could this time around. I believe I was about eight or nine hundred I had caught during the event. I also didn’t really get anything new, as the diversity in general was rather lackluster. You could also get a cool exclusive option that I’ll be talking about in the next section as I go over what the festivities did end up providing for activities to partake in.

The events you took part in this year felt far less ambitious and interesting in comparison to the year prior. It felt more balanced between the two days for what you had to do, but there were long portions of time where I was doing absolutely nothing but waiting for the next hour to roll by. The last event, Johto had a good amount of activities and last year’s Fest had so much to do. It felt very minimal goals wise.

There were also hourly rolling Pokemon types to work towards in high numbers with incense being highly suggested. Then there were what I call Bingo cards on the far left of your quest tab to collect so many unique Pokemon from the various different hourly slots. I like these, but at this point they’re also just something I’m used to.

When it came to raiding I wasn’t too thrilled by the options that were present. It seemed to be the same six or so options, just truly minimal and not at all varied. I did very well with raiding last year and felt I got a ton of new options. This time I really wasn’t too interested in doing any of the raids. I did do a few of them since so many were nearby playing, but I was unlucky for catching. That aside, it didn’t matter too much since I already had the legendary options and knew I wasn’t getting anything shiny there.

I really do look forward to the event each year, but I must say that I was quite disappointed by the offerings here. Johto was a good time, the Fest last year was great and this just felt like something to do. I wasn’t really going out to do anything and that took away a lot of the enjoyment for me. I felt like light busywork as opposed to having a purpose and set of objectives to get done over the days.

I did like the more balanced options on both days, but at the same time I want more to work towards. The Pokemon types weren’t all that interesting either, so I was just sort of partaking just to do so. I play the game fairly heavily throughout the year on walks and for something that’s supposed to be the ultimate event of the year it didn’t really feel like it was worth it.

Between minimal goals and terribly shiny rates I did question how much time I had spent on this event in comparison to what I got out of it. I hope we see something better next year as I’m going to really re-consider how much time I actually spend on it that time around. With that, there’s a spots to catch guide below, and the Pokemon Go hub for further game coverage.

Read our Pokemon Go Calgary Best Spots to Catch
View our Pokemon Go Hub