Pokemon Go Fest 2024 – 13-14 July 2024 – Necrozma along with Dusk Mane and Dusk Wings reign with Marshadow

Another year, another Pokemon Go Fest. This time around the festival focused on legendaries and psuedo legendaries from Aloha, Necrozma and the Ultra Beasts along with the Mythical Pokemon Marshadow. The tickets were A$22.99 for the two day event over 13 and 14 July 2024. The Pokemon Go Fest is usually an opportunity to collect rare regional Pokemon, along with Shiny and Legendary Pokemon. The event is available to all players, but ticket holders are given additional features. And if you purchased the ticket from the online store, you were entitled to receive an exclusive Necrozma T-shirt for your avatar.

The day starts at 10:00 am on Saturday with the first of four rotating habitats along with the release of the habitat’s collection challenge.

What happened on the day

On Saturday, there were four unique habitats that rotated throughout the day:

Dawn Meadow: 10:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. local time, notably Axew, Ducklett, Ferroseed, and regional exclusive Maractus (with Incense)
Shining Day: 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. local time, notably Hisuian Sneasel, Jangmo-o, Dunsparce, and regional exclusive Corsola (with Incense)
Creeping Dusk: 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. and 4:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. local time, notably Eevee, Phantump, and Rockruff (with Incense)
Darkest Night: 1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. local time, notably Amaura, Crabrawler, and regional exclusive Vullaby (with Incense)

I was keen to add Maractus to my collection, since it’s a regional exclusive Pokemon.

Each habitat came with a Collection Challenge and awarded a badge, 1 Incense, a set Pokemon encounter (a Pokemon from that habitat) and some experience for completing them. The awards for these challenges had to be collected before the last hour of the habitat, not the end of the day, otherwise they disappeared. (I didn’t finish the Shining Day collection challenge…)

While the notable raids on Saturday were all the Ultra Beasts and Necrozma, with all the Ultra Beast and Necrozma except Stakataka and Blacephalon having shinies. Buzzwole and Guzzlord’s shinies were highly sought after given their cool colour variant. The Special Research task eventually unlocked a Marshadow on Saturday.

Throughout the day there were costumed Pokemon that spawned, including a Pikachu with either a sun or moon crown and both Espeon and Umbreon wearing a scarves.

This event released new shinies for Buzzwole, Pheromosa, Xurkitree and Necrozma as well as Jangmo-o, Emolga, Crabrawler and Ducklett.

On Sunday, all of the Pokemon that were available on Saturday spawned throughout the day. The major event was the introduction to Dusk Mane Necrozma (a fusion of Solgaleo and Necrozma) and Dusk Wing Necrozma (a fusion of Lunala and Necrozma), along with Special Research tasks that allow players to get their own Necrozma (without needing to raid) and either (your choice of) Solgaleo or Lunala.

Unfortunately, like last year, there were barely any remote raid passes rewarded throughout the day. To have to pay 195 coin for one pass or 525 for three passes felt like a rip off. For me, I ended up heading to Chadstone Shopping Centre to be able to walk around the centre to complete raids without having to fork out money for the remote raid passes.

Experience

As noted above, ticket holders, during the relevant habitat on Saturday or all-day Sunday, had the following Pokemon attracted to Incense:

Event Espeon or Umbeon (with scarf)
Maractus
Corsola
Rockruff
Vullaby
Unown

The other perks for ticket holders included increased shiny chance, receiving up to 9 raid passes per day, exclusive special 7 km eggs, up to 6 special trades per day and access to the Special Research tasks (for Marshadow and Solgaleo or Lunala).

In terms of shiny Pokemon collected during the event, I was able to catch all the following Shiny Pokemon (in order) on Saturday:

Axew
Volbeat
Rockruff
Gible
Teddiursa
Gligar
Teddiursa
Solrock
Teddiursa
Lunatone

On Sunday:

Corsola
Inkay
Hoppip
Necrozma (from raid)
Amaura
Necrozma (from raid)
Necrozma (from raid)

Overall, I managed to do much better with capturing shiny Pokemon this year than last year. I think it had in part with our dedication to the event, despite having two kids, and picking Chadstone Shopping Centre as our destination. Chadstone had relatively close Gyms, as well as many Poke-Stops, and a bunch of people playing (so there was no shortage of people during raids).

I completed so many raids during this event and caught 32 Necrozma (with 3 being shiny)!

I also managed to fuse my Necrozma with both Solgaleo or Lunala with the 1,000 fusion energy. This required about 10 raids each against Dusk Mane and Dusk Wing, because completing each raid only rewarded between 80 to 110 fusion energy of the respective Pokemon.

Although I didn’t get a shiny Ultra Beast, my wife managed to capture a shiny Buzzwole (which looks incredible), I felt like it was a good event.

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