An Honest Review of the Galarian Mr. Mime Ticketed Event

This weekend we had what has proved to be one of the most controversial events in Pokémon GO history, the Chill Tunes Galarian Mr. Mime event, and more specifically, the ticketed aspect of the event. In the interest of fairness, I paid for the event ticket (with my own money) so I could experience it and give my honest opinions on the ticketed portion of the event.

The Spawns

First up, let’s talk about the spawns! Oh wait… there were no spawns. The whole event required incense, even the ‘free’ portion of it, which in my book, makes it not a free to play event. Incense did last for three hours instead of one hour which is great, but it would have been good to have seen some level of wild spawns for this event.

In terms of the spawns from incense, they were very limited, but adequate to make sure you could easily complete the Special Research.

Spoink Solosis Woobat Jynx
Cubchoo Swinub Vulpix (Alola) Sandshrew (Alola)

Of the eight different Pokémon appearing on incense, all but Jynx and Solosis can be shiny. Alolan Vulpix and Sandshrew are always welcome additions to wild spawns, and for shiny hunters, this is a much more accessible way to hunt for them rather than 7km eggs. They all seemed to spawn fairly regularly, but I did feel like I saw a lot more Jynx than anything else, with less Alolan spawns. Cubchoo did spawn frequently which was great because often the new event shiny can suddenly become quite rare during its event release.

I’d have liked to have seen some of these spawns available without incense, maybe restricting just the Alolan spawns to the ticketed event incense spawns. For those in the Southern Hemisphere, they won’t be seeing any of these Pokémon as natural spawns right now, giving the Northern Hemisphere in winter a slight advantage with their shiny Cubchoo hunt.

The Special Research

Galarian Mr. Mime Special Research Tasks and Rewards

The actual research itself was fairly achievable within a short period of time, provided you have access to spinning a Pokéstop or gym for the second page of research. Not everyone is allowed to go outside right now because of strict lockdowns in some places, so this task may have restricted some players ability to complete this research from home.

From talking to other players in my community and online, most have easily completed this research within one hour. For US$7.99, that is a pretty expensive ticket for an hours worth of game play! I’d have liked to have seen a few more steps, or something that would have taken a little longer.

In terms of the actual storyline, I really enjoyed it! It was well written and cute, and your interactions with Professor Willow were fun. I know not everyone reads these, but it is well worth it in my opinion, and I think the writers did a great job with a funny storyline for this Special Research.

The other thing I would have preferred to be different for the research, was that you were forced to evolve your first Galarian Mr. Mime into Mr. Rime, and then given a second Galarian Mr. Mime after completing that stage of the research. This could mean you’ve been forced to evolve into a trash IV Mr. Rime, and are stuck with a hundo Mr. Mime you don’t want to evolve so you have your living dex. It would have made more sense to be given both Mr. Mimes first, before you had to evolve, so you could evolve your preference of Mr Mime, rather than be forced to evolve the first one.

The Rewards

In terms of the actual rewards you got through completing the Special Research, I think it is a little stingy. In terms of items, you are given 3 rare candies, 30 pokéballs, 3 incense, 3 battle passes, 1 poffin, 2 glacial lures, 60 Mr. Mime candy, 3 super incubators, 3 star pieces, and an exclusive Mr. Mime pose for your avatar, along with XP and stardust.

For the price, I don’t think these are great rewards, especially when you compare them to the rewards we just had from the free research for the December Community Day 2020 event, and the US$0.99 December Community Day 2020 research. In the US$0.99 research we were given a rocket radar, several Sinnoh stones, an Upgrade, a variety of berries, pokéballs, ultra balls, incense, both a fast and charged Elite TM, 3 rare candy and a poffin. For the free portion of this you were given pokéballs, great balls, ultra balls and an Elite TM. Really fantastic rewards!

Elite Fast TM and Charged TM in Pokémon GO
Elite Fast TM and Charged TM in Pokémon GO

Adding in a rocket radar and an Elite TM could really have improved the rewards for this Special Research, especially when you compare them to the recent free rewards, and US$0.99 rewards.

The Pokémon rewards could also have been improved to make it more worthwhile. Rarer Pokémon such as Lapras, Smoochum, Galarian Darmanitan, and even Alolan Sandshrew could have replaced the likes of Whismur and Jigglypuff and would have been much more appreciated.

Why Galarian Mr. Mime and Mr. Rime?

Mr Rime and Lapras chilling in the snow
Mr Rime and Lapras chilling in the snow

The choice to put Galarian Mr. Mime and therefore Mr. Rime behind a paywall is one we can’t quite get our heads round. We’ve had Special Research previously with new Pokémon as rewards, but they have been much more significant or special Pokémon than Galarian Mr. Mime. We saw this with Regigigas and Genesect, both of which we knew would be coming to EX raids at a later date. Both of these events provided a lot more in terms of event content, but also provided us with Legendary and Mythical Pokémon. Galarian Mr. Mime isn’t a Legendary or Mythical, and nor it is a Pokémon most people would consider to be particular special or rare.

We’ve also had brand new Pokémon released through free Special Research, including the Mythical Pokémon Meltan, Yamask, and Spiritomb. Yamask and Spiritomb are only ever available at Halloween, making them very rare, and the research Meltan has been the only way to get a Meltan in game without interacting with either Pokémon HOME or Pokémon Let’s GO. If a mythical Pokémon like Meltan could be released through free Special Research, that took much longer to complete and gave us more game play time, why is Galarian Mr. Mime behind this rather expensive paywall?

We also have had no communication about whether or not Galarian Mr. Mime will be available in the future like the other Galarian forms in 7km eggs, or if it will be region locked, or when it will ever feature again. With both Genesect and Regigigas we knew we were paying for early access and a fun event, and in the case of Genesect, we also knew it was an opportunity to get a Great League CP eligible Genesect. With Galarian Mr. Mime, we know nothing, so the risk was don’t buy the research, and potentially never have access to this Pokémon, or buy it, and a week later find it is in 7km eggs for free. More transparency please Niantic!

Conclusion

This ticketed event was a pretty short, and not all that great event. It was entirely focused around incense, meaning that even the free to play aspect of it, required a premium item. Shinies seemed hit and miss, I didn’t get a single event shiny on 6 hours of incense, but I know others in my community who got several from one incense so were happy. Maybe if an event like this is held again in the future, the ticket could give increased shiny rates, comparable with a Safari Zone or GO Fest to make it more worthwhile, especially as the actual research aspect was so short.

The Pokéstop research tasks gave from a pool of Pokémon, Lapras, Jynx, Cubchoo and Woobat. It would have been great to see Jynx removed from this pool because it isn’t shiny eligible. It was quite disheartening to spend the time getting 10 great throws in a row, to be given Jynx as a reward.

The price for this event was very expensive for what it was, especially for countries which have suffered from terrible conversion rates like in South America. We’ve discussed this issue in detail in our article about paid events here, and hope this is properly addressed in the future. If this event had cost US$0.99 or even US$1.99 many more people would have been likely to buy it and participate, but at US$7.99, many people skipped out on a paid Pokémon GO event for the first time.

We are concerned this will set a precedent that other Pokédex entries could be locked behind paywalls in the future, and that isn’t something we want to see, especially with Pokémon that aren’t meta relevant, or particularly special. (Unless Mr. Mime and Mr. Rime are your favourites, we know they’ll be someone’s fave!)

Author & tags

kittypokemonsalot
kittypokemonsalothttps://www.kittyramblesalot.com/
Turtwig obsessive, real life Psyduck, Pokémon GO AR Photographer, found footage horror fan and Pokémon GO Hub AR Queen

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