Pokémon GO Kanto Event Review

With the Kanto Event officially over I have to say I’m pretty happy with how things ended up.  I’m curious as to what this means for the future of Kanto spawns in the game.  Are they going to be strictly limited outside of events?  At the release of Gen 4 there will be nearly 500 Pokémon available in the game.  Divided equally that will seriously dilute the Kanto pool.  Will grinding for Starly be the new grinding for Pidgey*?

*I had to look that up as I have no clue about Gen 4 at this point.

Here are some of the highlights and regrets about the event now that it’s over.

Kanto Event Highlights

The 7km Egg Hatches

7km egg hatches were exciting for maybe a week when they were first released as you had a chance to catch the Alolan forms for the first time.  They quicky became stale as there were really only four Pokémon that you could hatch that weren’t spawning int he wild.  After you hatched them all the thrill was gone.

Having 7km eggs have the prospect to contain something more interesting (the regionals) they became more exciting.  The prospect of getting the never before released regionals was exciting as well and that it was dependent on this new friendship system was very cool.

I ended up with seven Kangaskhan, six Mr. Mime, and ten Farfetch’d.  I have no idea on how many Tauros as I transferred all but one.

Now with my Kanto Pokédex finally complete I can move on to simply waiting for the release of the missing Pokémon or eventual release of the other regionals I am missing from the Hoenn region.

Building Up Candy

It seems like they have made Pokémon from outside your normal biome spawn in increase numbers.  I have never seen a Doduo or a Sandshrew in my neighborhood but they’ve been out in huge numbers for two weeks.  Still that hasn’t been enough to entice me to catch either as they are not really relevant to the meta.

I have, however, been able to add thousands of candy for the the Kanto starters even though I already have tons from Community Days.  I have also gotten thousands of Machop, Geodude, and Rhydon candy which are all incredibly relevant for battling so that’s been great to stock up on, not knowing when they’ll be out in such numbers again.

Chansey, Chansey, Chansey!

Like most players I’ve encountered a tiny number of Chansey since the game launched and it was truly my last Pokémon to get in the original Kanto Pokédex excluding regionals and my own stubborn need for a good IV Dratini to evolve.

This event started off with a bang for me.  I caught six Chansey on the first day, something I normally don’t catch in six months.  Then things slowed considerably.  Here’s the total count:

September 14: 6
September 15: 1
September 16: 1
September 17: 1
September 18: 1
September 19: 2
September 20: 0
September 21: 0
September 22: 0
September 23: 0
September 24: 2
September 25: 1
September 26: 0
September 27: 0
September 28: 0
September 29: 0
September 30: 0

Total: 15

That’s 90 Chansey Candy, bringing my total Chansey Candy to 473 as of the end of the event.

Most importantly I finally got my first Chansey with Great IVs:  98%.  The only problem is its CP is 153.  To max it out will cost 348 candies and 268,400 stardust.  Normally I just bring Pokémon up to level 30 (which would cost a mere 251 candies and 118,400 stardust) but with a near perfect Chansey it may be hard to resist maxing it out.

I’m also planning on trading for some lucky Chanseys so who knows?  Maybe I’ll get a higher CP Chansey with similar or better IVs!

Overall this has been a great event.

Kanto Event Regrets

Where is Snorlax?

I didn’t encountered a single wild Snorlax!  I’m not complaining about the Chansey but I haven’t seen a Snorlax in the wild since January.  It would have been great to catch a few during this event.

Third Tier Evolutions

There really weren’t any third tier (or even second tier) evolutions spawning during this event.  I have only encountered a wild Dragonite once in this game.  It was nice having Dratini as a raid boss but it would have been cool if they upped the possibility of running into a Dragonite, Charizard, or Poliwrath even a little.

Overall Rare Spawns

The first few days, even week, we saw Tangela, Porygon, Hitmonlee, Hitmonchan, and Chansey popping up.  These are Pokémon that many players could easily be missing.  It makes me wonder why we didn’t see more overall diversity in the spawns.  I didn’t see Clefable, Scyther, Kabutops, Onix, or any number of rare spawns that could have made given the event a little more excitement.  Imagine running into a wild Muk or Vileplume.  They’re useless in the meta and I’m not hurting on candies for either but it would certainly be fun to see them out and about.

Shiny Disappointment

Two new shiny Pokémon were introduced for this event: Grimer and Geodude.  I managed to catch a Grimer but came up empty on the Geodude.  I missed out on Omanyte a few months back and the likelihood of catching them outside of the spawn rates of an event is pretty tiny.  I’ve caught hundreds and hundreds of Geodudes with no luck.  Growlithe was released shortly before this event and no luck with a shiny on that front either.

I Almost Forgot!

This event was so good at building candy and stardust for meta relevant Kanto Pokémon that I almost forgot we had a Community day in the mix as well!

I only hunted for Chikorita for a little over an hour but came away with seven shinies.  The spotlight was stolen by a new Pokémon which we learned, days later, is named Meltan.  They dominated the end of the event but, sadly, all transformed immediately into Dittos after being captured.

It appears that this is a tie in to the upcoming Nintendo Switch games “Pokemon Let’s Go Pikachu!” And “Pokemon Let’s Go Eevee!”

I’m a father of three in his forties so, naturally, this got me super pumped for this release!

Gotta catch ’em all*!

*Before your midlife crisis is over!