Pokemon Go Fest 2023 Review

August 26, 2023 at 5:06pm
By Jason Stettner

This is the fourth global digital special event hosted by Niantic being the special Pokemon Go Fest 2023 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 within the natural world, particularly with that whole pandemic thing a couple years back so it’s nice things are more normalized.

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 August 26 and 27, 2023. The time zones went from 10am to 6pm in whatever local time you’re in. There are rotating zones and events to take part in during these two days of time.

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. More so than last year.

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. This time around I was able to bring a guest along for the first day which was pleasant. Whereas the next day I’ll be opting to head out solo should the event’s activities be enticing for a trip.

I’ll start first by saying I was extremely disappointed, but on my expectations with my shiny Pokemon results. I ended up with only two, the person I went with got four. A third person I got a ticket for ended up with one, but they played briefly during their work break opting to tackle more the second day. It wasn’t the best of times in the shiny department, but I’ve gotten somewhat used to that. I was more peek catching as well since it didn’t seem like there were dozens of Pokemon everywhere like usual which was odd.

Usually this event is stuffed with options, felt more fine combed. The particular regions were also a tad odd limiting my desire to gather a wide variety. For new Pokemon options I did find myself the Carbink which was plentiful. Also for the first time a Pachirisu and Carnivine. The highlighted research addition was Diancie which looks rather neat and crystallized. 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 again, far less ambitious and interesting in comparison to the years prior. Which was surprising as last year felt tame as well. I had a lot of down time waiting for the next hour to hit and I was completely done my timed research well within two hours of play. They weren’t any branching paths or dynamic elements and it was really just straight forward. So I didn’t feel the need to spend the day out like usual.

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 just being available regularly throughout the year.

When it came to raiding I wasn’t too thrilled by the options that were present. It seemed to be the same four or so options, just truly minimal and not at all varied. I did very well with raiding a couple years back and felt I got a ton of new options. This time I really wasn’t too interested in doing any of the raids, and mostly doing them since the player I was with required them to reach a higher level. I did do a few of them since so many were nearby playing, and got them easily since they were rather basic. 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 truly do look forward to the event each year, but I must say that I was quite disappointed by the offerings here once again. Johto was a good time the last year, the Fest two years ago 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. It felt like light busywork as opposed to having a purpose and set of objectives to get done over the days.

I did like that for some this would be easy going to complete, but at the same time I want more to work towards. The Pokemon types weren’t all that exciting either for me, 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 again, maybe less so.

Between minimal goals and low but normal for me at the event 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’d like to spend more time taking in the event thought I was prepared to adjust this 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