Pokémon Go Community Day, 7/8/2018

Community Day for Pokémon Go this month returned, and this time it had some surprises. First up is the schedule of the event: if Community Day is typically held closer to the middle of the month, this time it was held closer to the beginning of the month. Thus the preparation that usually happens within a comfortable few weeks just after the previous one is cut by about a week. At the same time, thanks to the Water Festival event a month ago, the preparation was helped somewhat. A minor note is that Community Day was back on Sunday, which makes it somewhat clear that there is a bi-monthly cycle of the Community Days being on Saturdays and Sundays.

The reason that the Water Festival helped prepare for today is that this Community Day featured the Pokémon Squirtle, the last of the three first-generation starters that haven't been in one. Since the Bulbasaur and Charmander Community Days featured their "super moves" as exclusives for their final evolution forms, it wasn't hard to guess the move for this month, which would be Hydro Cannon for Blastoise. This comes along with the bonus of reduced Egg hatching distances, as well as Shiny forms and extended Lure Modules as usual.

This time, things were also a little different. In addition to the Shiny forms, some Squirtle caught during the timeframe of the Community Day wore sunglasses, in a nod to the Squirtle Squad of the anime - though the sunglasses remarkably looked like normal round glasses instead of with jagged edges. In particular, these Squirtle were obtained through research tasks, which changed: instead of "catch-3", they became "catch-5", with the reward being said Squirtle; some research tasks also weren't "catch-5" for added variety. Thus, there were now four forms to look for, which were normal Squirtle, normal with sunglasses, Shiny Squirtle, and Shiny with sunglasses.

The changes in details really benefited those who sought quests and walked, as in the case of a few of the past Community Days I participated in. The plan was thus no different than those: spread Lure Modules, walk, catch Pokémon, seek research tasks, hatch Eggs. It was quite fun this time around too, as there was an even larger group of people participating, helped by recent inclusions into my raid group. The nature of the Community Day, though, led many to scatter before meeting up again, which seems to be fine. Aside from a few hiccups midway, the event also seemed to progress just fine, which meant no extensions were necessary. I wasn't able to catch just a plain Shiny Squirtle, but I did catch many of the other three, managing to evolve four into Blastoise with the exclusive move.

With all of the things involved in this month's Community Day, they show that the event is surprisingly expansible and can be made to be more worthwhile. It's hard not to expect that the same things may be included in future editions to make them even more so. In the meantime, I'm happy with my stock of starters from this and the other Community Days featuring them, and the others stand to feel the same way with good participation. The next ones should be great as well, if not greater.

One year ago: Pursuing Shiny?