The Pokémon GO Tour: Hoenn – Global event occurred over the weekend, as you all know, and there were some large talking points about the event.
I asked trainers for their opinion on the following questions:
- What did you like about the event?
- What did you dislike about the event?
- How could the Hoenn Tour have been improved?
This article will feature the community’s responses based on the above questions. Let’s get this started with the positives:
Pros:
Wild Legendaries
First introduced last year with the Legendary Beasts during GO Tour: Johto, people enjoyed the concept of Latias and Latias appearing in the wild.
One trainer wrote to me “Something I liked about Hoenn Tour: The guaranteed Latios/Latias from the research when you snapped a photo, just in case you didn’t catch the wild one(s)”. Another said that “Catching legendaries in the wild was a nice touch”. I couldn’t agree more and I hope to see more of this in future major events.
Primals Debut
Primal Kyogre and Groudon debuting was very interesting for Pokémon GO and an unexpected thing to see – I say this because a few years ago we had no idea if we would ever see Megas, let alone Primals in the game. Hopefully Mega Rayquaza and/or Mewtwo will be added soon too.
The availability of them was also commented on frequently with messages such as “I liked the frequency of the primal raids” and “That there were a lot of Primal Raids even in smaller cities”.
Many also added that it was cool to see Precipice Blade and Origin Pulse available as exclusive moves, a nice touch indeed.
Community Aspect
I was delighted to hear that many people came together in their local communities. “People went out and drove for raids; really gives me hope for the community” said one player, “I liked the community aspect. I was travelling with like a group of 20-25 people” said another.
The community aspect is always a main purpose for events like these so its great to know that so many people got together and had fun!
Global Unown
Another addition that was commonly mentioned was the global availability of Unown. Usually Unown would be locked to special events including In-Person and Ticketed events only. However, this time they could be caught by everyone on Incense – and could be shiny!
“Caught my first Unown and got my Johto platinum medal” and “The free Unowns on Incense” were popular replies. This was something I didn’t really consider but was a great feature for trainers to finally get their hands on an Unown.
Free to Play
Numerous trainers relayed to me that it was great to have an event of its importance available for everyone without a ticket required to play. Some trainers expressed to me that they would’ve preferred having a ticket and higher shiny rates, but it was still refreshing to see that everyone could participate in a major event and get the same features.
However, it is considerable that whatever trainers could have spent on a ticket was likely purchased on other features regardless.
Cons:
Low Primal Energy
Primal Raids only gave between 50-90 energy for each Primal Raid completed during the event. This means trainers needed to complete between 5 and 8 raids to get enough to Primal Revert their Pokémon. This just seemed odd given that Mega Raids give up to 300 energy.
Also notable that there were very low Premier Ball amounts upon completion, leading to high flee rates of Kyogre and Groudon.
Primal Difficulty
Hard-to-defeat Raid Bosses have become a slight pattern recently with Mega Latias & Latios, now the Primals. Some trainers let me know that Primal Raids were simply “too hard to beat” or they “didn’t have enough people in rural areas”.
We have never seen anything near the 92860 CP they had, so this is totally understandable. Luckily with remote raiding though it became a lot easier. This makes me interested to see how difficult Mega Rayquaza and Mewtwo will be. Could they have an even higher Raid Boss CP?
Research Rewards
Something that was widely agreed on was the “disappointing” rewards from research, specifically the Chasing Legends research. Not sure if I entirely agree on this one, but apart from the 200 Primal Energy they were a bit lacking considering they were quite difficult to complete.
Trainers also spoke about the Spooky Cipher tasks being too difficult. However, I think they were an interesting and unique feature that fit well with the Ghost-type rewards.
How it could have been improved:
Extra Bonuses
It seemed bizarre that there were no bonuses this year. Previous Tours had bonuses of quartered Hatch Distance, free Raid Passes, extra Special Trades and bonus Hatch/Catch Candy. An addition of any of these would have added more incentive and better gameplay experiences.
Collection Challenges
Though there were Collection Challenges during the event, it was pointed out that they were very dissimilar to previous Tours. Many trainers said they enjoyed the challenges where you had to collect all Pokémon from the region, which were featured in the Kanto and Johto Tours.
Regionals in 3-Star Raids
Relicanth, Torkoal and Tropius were only available in 10km eggs during the event, resulting in long walks to get them. In previous tours the Regional Pokémon of each generation were in 3-Star Raids – including Kangaskhan, Tauros, Mr. Mime & Farfetch’d for Kanto, as well as Heracross and Corsola for Johto. It would have been a great feature if Hoenn followed the pattern with Relicanth, Torkoal and Tropius in 3-Star Raids too.
Community Day Moves
I was surprised that this feature was not added. GO Tour: Kanto and Johto both had the availability of previous Community Day exclusive moves via Evolution, but Hoenn did not. Considering that Hoenn has had the likes of Meteor Mash Metagross, Hydro Cannon Swampert and Outrage Salamence, it makes zero sense to not add this feature.
My Personal Opinion
In my opinion, the event was great. A few things could have been added or improved but overall it was enjoyable. In future, if there happens to be a Sinnoh Tour, I hope we get an event similar to the Kanto & Johto Tours with more of the mentioned improvement features. Catching new shinies, Wild legendaries and the Primals were all great features, just a few parts lacking that could’ve been improved this event even better. I really liked designs of the Costumed Pokémon with Pikachu’s Brendan and May-inspired costumes, they were very cute. I caught 11 shinies (4 new to my collection), and overall enjoyed GO Tour: Hoenn. If I had to rate the event I’d give a 7/10.
I hope you all enjoyed your weekend and had some fun in the spirit of the game!
