Pokémon Go Community Day, 1/7/2023

It's a new record: with this month's Community Day for Pokémon Go being today, it is the earliest ever Community Day in the year yet. That's a pretty impressive feat, but then Community Day has always been impressive in different capacities, not the least of which is being able to draw Trainers from different groups or backgrounds into a single meeting and even if that meeting isn't completely independent. That makes the event always attractive to be covered as its own post, which brings things to today.

For this very early edition of Community Day, the featured Pokémon is Chespin, which means that the sixth-generation starters have been broken out, starting with this one. Predictably, as it's the Grass type starter, it gets Frenzy Plant as its exclusive move when evolved fully to Chesnaught. Meanwhile, the main bonus is quartered Egg hatch distance, which serves well those who have plenty of Eggs. The extra paid Special Research is titled "Quality Quills" and discusses the characteristics of this spiky species family, hosted by Professor Willow as normal. The standard bonuses of extended Lure Modules and Incense plus photo bombs, as well as the expanded bonuses of doubled Candy, doubled Candy XL chance, discounted trades, an extra Special Trade, on-site post-event Quilladin raids (the middle evolutionary form) with extra appearances, and commemorative stickers are a given.

Not much was different about the execution of this Community Day where I am. There was the local meetup for a good time (at the same location as with a few previous editions) with others and to bring together as many different Trainers as possible, exactly as I had stated at the beginning. There were a couple of differences, though: the person manning the merchandise had delegated responsibilities due to family matters, and... in fact, there was none for the present time, since this early edition coincided with the break for Niantic and therefore most of the usual selection of merchandise could not be furnished. Remnants of old ones were still distributed, and so it is that were handed out to those who hadn't gotten them.

Different photo spot, same great results.

Merchandise or not, some surprises were still to be had, including near-perfect ones. I myself evolved the usual assortment of ones that are desirable - the best one, a Buddy one, a Shiny one, two Lucky ones (one of which was the Shiny one), and one for possible use in the Great League and Ultra League in case some odd format or changes to the Pokémon warrant usage of Chesnaught. After Community Day, there was also one final surprise that involved a true Pokémon adventure from one PokéStop to another, but this deserves to be expanded on another occasion. This present one is (or was) still quite adventurous enough.

This early edition of Community Day is (and was) different enough, but that does speak to the power that those differences may have. It brought out the first of the Kalos starters and a host of different people in my local meeting - as it should be for others - plus some surprises throughout. Many impressions are still to be gained, in particular for having the first one of the year organized and paving the way for the rest.

One year ago: A Movie-Watching Dream

Two years ago: Previous Plus One

Three years ago: The Substitute Being (or Doll)

Four years ago: Family Affairs

Five years ago: Rethinking Salt

Six years ago: Tournament: Local Friendly, 1/7/2017