Ahoy, it's been a while since I posted! I did play during GO Fest, but I left on vacay the Monday morning right after, so I didn't get to posting about it. So without further ado I'll get to writing a recap of my GO Fest 2021 Day 1.
This year GO Fest took place worldwide again thanks to a ticket you could buy in the shop which gave you access to all the parts of GO Fest. It started on July 17 at 10 am local time through 6 pm local time and again on July 18 from 10 am through 6 pm local time.
Day 1 was focused on Catching Pokémon and bringing together a Band. With Day 2 more focused on Raids with still several wild spawns, just no hourly habitats.
Throughout Day 1 we had 4 different Habitats, starting off with Jungle Habitat, then Desert Mountain, followed by Ocean Beach and finishing with the Cave Habitat. These were all one hour, and after the fourth hour they repeated again so all habitats passed by twice. All four of these Habitats had a Collection Challenge. All of these habitats had several Pokémon spawning in the wild and a few Pokémon appearing only on Incense. This included a lot of final stage evolutions like Flareon, Vaporeon, Tyranitar, Flygon, Gardevoir, Gyarados.
Just like last year there were Unown spawning on Incense too. This year they were the letters G and F from "GO Fest". Last year we had the letters G and O. The Unown F was a new letter for me. So I received 5 medals throughout the event. One for catching my 10th unique Unown and then 4 medals for all the Collection Challenges.
For the Special Research "The Melody Pokémon" we were tasked with bringing together a Band of Pokémon before Meloetta would perform. This Special Research had a few different branches to choose from. We had a test a while before GO Fest during the Bidoof Takeover where you were given choices during the Special Research.
The first Pokémon we had to choose between was Rock Star Pikachu and Pop Star Pikachu. Later on we could choose between Galarian Ponyta and Galarian Zigzagoon with a Meloetta Hat. The last options to choose between were Gardevoir and Flygon with a Meloetta Hat. The next step in the Special Research after picking a band member always led to an encounter with that choice. You can see the options I chose in this photo along with the encounters.
Yep, that is a Shiny Galarian Ponyta with a Meloetta Hat that I received from the Special Research encounter!
Taking snapshots after finishing the Special Research could lead to 2 more encounters with the Pikach of your choice. I don't think there were more than 2 additional ones, at least my next snapshots attempts didn't lead to any encounters. On the second day the snapshots would lead to encounters with Flygon/Gardevoir with the Meloetta hat based on your choice.
I was still missing the other bands members. Galarian Zigzagoon and Galarian Ponyta with the Meloetta Hat were in level 1 Raids during the first day. So because of my choice for Galarian Ponyta I did one Galarian Zigzagoon Raid to get that one. A friend chose Pop Star Pikachu, so I traded one of my Rock Star Pikachu from snapshots for one their snapshot Pop Star Pikachu. On the 2nd day another friend who chose Flygon had some extras from Incense and the snapshots and I traded a Gardevoir for it. This way I was able to get all the other band members. I'll show them in this next photo.
After picking all the band members, the Special Research continued a bit more and then I was granted an encounter with Meloetta, the Melody Pokémon. The encounter started with a curtain with the Pokémon GO Fest 2021 logo on it and some musical notes underneath. Then it opened and I saw Meloetta go on stage making a performance. Once the performance was completed I was given the chance to capture it. In this photo I put together some screenshots of the performance.
One thing I found kinda unfortunate was that they didn't have the other band members play in this animation either. It feels like we didn't really have any reason to pick the band members because they never showed up here. I get that there's a few different choices and they'd have to make that based on your choices, which are a total of 8 different ones. But imo with their resources Niantic should've been able to make that animated. So that was a bit of a letdown.
After catching Meloetta I registered it in the Pokédex. Here are screenshots of the Pokédex registry and its stats.
Trainers who did not attend GO Fest should be receiving The Melody Pokémon Special Research later this year as was the case with Victini last year's GO Fest. Trainers who did buy a ticket likely receive it too but with Meloetta Candy as a reward of another encounter.
During the first day I walked together with 3 other friends most of the time. We ran into other people regularly too and stopped for a chat with them while catching the Pokémon there. This GO Fest also featured a few regional Pokémon. Chatot, the Music Note Pokémon could definitely not be left out due to the musical theme. Other regional Pokémon were Throh and Sawk. Where I live we have Sawk spawning in the wild, so Throh was a new Pokémon for me as well as Chatot. Here are their Pokédex registries.
A bunch of new Shiny Pokémon were added to the game with this GO Fest. Starting off with Audino, Chimecho, Tympole and Whismur and the evolutions of Tympole and Whismur. The regional Pokémon Throh and Sawk also had their Shiny added to the game. Since Sawk spawns where I live, it was mostly Throh that I would be after to get its Shiny from those two. Luckily I managed to do get lucky and get one Shiny Throh. From the other new Shiny Pokémon I also managed to get Audino, Chimecho, one Whismur and two Tympole. Hippopotas, Alomomola and Alolan Geodude were some new Shinies for me too. I caught 23 Shinies in total during the first day. In this next photo you can see them all.
A really good Shiny haul overall, especially with all the Shinies that I didn't have yet.
Unown G and F were supposed to be Shiny too, but none of the 3 friends I walked around with encountered any Shiny Unown at all. So it feels like the chance for them to be Shiny was quite small.
One thing I didn't like about the habitats was that it seems like Incense kept attracting Pokémon from the wild as well. It was already pretty short having each habitat last for one hour (and repeated a 2nd time in the next cycle) and with that habitats wild spawns also appearing on the Incense it really reduced the amount of Incense-only Pokémon we could encounter. One example is that I didn't even encounter a Gyarados on my Incense during either of the two occurences of the Ocean Beach habitat. Last year this wasn't the case with Incense.
Overall I did have a good time during GO Fest 2021 Day 1.
How was your GO Fest? Did you get any new Shiny Pokémon?