Last Sunday, everything revolved around “catching art” in Pokémon GO. While the event received some praise, there was also some frustration.
What kind of event was that? The catching art event took place on Sunday, March 5, 2023, from 10:00 AM to 8:00 PM.
There was plenty of time to engage with the special event spawns. These primarily included:
- Machop and Hitmonchan in the wild
- Slakoth in the 7 km eggs
- And Hitmontop from research
The catch was that you received double XP when you caught monsters with great, excellent, or fabulous curveballs. This made the event a good opportunity to improve your XP account. Additionally, there was supposed to be an increased shiny rate.
Now the event is over – and the feedback is mixed.
Praise and criticism for the catching art event
Looking around in the Pokémon GO community, it’s noticeable that the event was able to excite some trainers while heavily frustrating others.
This was praised: Among other things, there was praise for the long time slot of 10 hours that players were able to use on Sunday to play the event. This was highlighted by user Uunikana (via reddit) – as especially the short time windows, such as during community days, have already caused annoyance for many players. The XP collection opportunity was also praised.
Moreover, the principle itself was well received – the mix of wild, research, and egg spawns received positive feedback: “That was a refreshing event format, and I hope Niantic will implement it with more Pokémon lines in the future,” said user “Jerb22” (via reddit): “I don’t understand why people are complaining about it, except that Hitmontop is hard to catch.”
But that seemed to annoy some trainers a lot. Or as one user summarizes in the Pokémon GO subreddit “TheSilphRoad”: “Great event format, but terrible Pokémon” (via reddit).
This receives criticism: In the subreddits for Pokémon GO, the selection of event Pokémon has been criticized. Particularly Hitmontop, which could be obtained up to 40 times in research, apparently frustrated a whole bunch of trainers. The constantly dancing Fighting Pokémon turned out to be quite tough and difficult to catch. Some posts in the Pokémon GO subreddit are particularly dealing with Hitmontop and the frustration over this monster. Some trainers call it useless and claim it costs just too many PokéBalls to catch it (via reddit).
“I failed to catch Latias four times, but since today I really hate Hitmontop. Stay still, you idiot,” summarizes one trainer (via reddit).
Moreover, other trainers pointed out further criticisms. Some simply called the event boring, while others criticized that it would be more interesting with more useful monsters. Additionally, some were annoyed that they didn’t get a shiny in the event – even though the shiny rate was increased.
How did you perceive the event? Were you able to relate to the “catching art” Sunday, would you like to see more such events? Or was it not for you at all? Tell us in the comments!
After the catching art event, the next events in Pokémon GO are already on the horizon. We have summarized the most important ones here: 4 must-attend dates in March 2023 that you should not miss in Pokémon GO
