Sweet Lord Arceus, The Harvest Festival Event Is Boring

Lackluster bonuses, overused spawns, and not much diversity in Field Research encounters. Other than that, it's fantastic.

At least Sunflora is having a good time.

I concede that not every Pokémon GO event is going to be an absolute thrill ride. Every weekend can’t be a GO Fest or [INSERT REGION HERE] Tour. This notwithstanding, the Harvest Festival event seems tame even by the game’s recent standards.

The promotion evokes the Olive Harvest Festival as celebrated by the town of Cortondo in Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet (these main-series games are the spiritual foundation for Pokémon GO: Max Out), so there is at least a semblance of a narrative direction for the roughly five-day affair and a tie-in with the larger Pokémon franchise. Does it succeed on its stated merits, though? Allow me to take a more detailed look into this event and give you my thoughts on what it means for the player experience.

---

As we are wont to do on The PoGO Journal, let’s visit the companion page on the official Pokémon GO website and engage with the advertised highlights within:

Event Bonuses

• 2x Candy for catching Pokémon.

• Increased chance to encounter Shiny Pumpkaboo.

• Mossy Lure Modules will attract different Pokémon during the event, such as Alolan Exeggutor, Snorlax, Pumpkaboo, and Smoliv.

OK—we’re starting with the bonuses. 2x Candy is better than 1x Candy (and certainly better than 0x Candy), but it’s not as sexy, shall we say, as 2x Stardust or increased chances of XL Candies for Nice, Great, and Excellent throws. Eh. From a casual player’s perspective, an increased Shiny chance is always welcome. Without peering into the game’s code, we can’t know just how increased the probability is of nabbing a Shiny Pumpkaboo. Again, however, a theoretical boon.

Having Snorlax attracted to a Mossy Lure Module seems like a nice perk owing to the big fella’s relative rarity as a wild spawn, even if it feels like a bit of a “one of these things is not like the other” situation next to the named Grass-type encounters. Across the board, nothing spectacular, but as is the PoGO Trainer’s way, we take what we can get.

Wild Encounters

Put a pin in this section. I have, ahem, some thoughts.

Field Research Task Rewards

The big draw of this event is that Smoliv, the Olive Pokémon, can now be Shiny. We already know there is also a higher likelihood of encountering a Shiny Pumpkaboo during the Harvest Festival. So, yeah—it’s these two Pokémon exclusively. If you’re looking for imagination, you’re not exactly going to find it in abundance herein.

Paid Timed Research

For US$2.00 (or the equivalent pricing tier in your local currency), you’ll be able to access event-exclusive Timed Research. Timed Research rewards include the following:

• Two Mossy Lure Modules

• One Incense

• One Lucky Egg

• Encounters with Smoliv

This feels like pretty standard fare as far as the $2 event tickets go. Being free-to-play, it’s hard for me to ascribe a sense of value to such a bundle, but I don’t see a great deal of it for the Lure Modules unless A) you plan to be in one place for the duration of them being active or B) you find yourself in a closed circuit with multiple Lure Modules active. Then again, I am usually playing by myself, walking by my lonesome. Just me and my thoughts. Yup.

Collection Challenges

Catch some event Pokémon, get some Smoliv encounters. If you play Pokémon GO, you know the drill by now. Easy peasy (olive squeezy?).

PokéStop Showcases

I am two top finishes away from the PhD Pikachu pose—stay away from my PokéStops—I mean, uh, have fun out there, Trainers!

Pokémon GO Web Store

Guys, it exists! Just in case you didn’t have enough fun with your Mossy Lure Modules!

Wild Encounters (revisited)

Thanks for the use of your pin, Reader. Much obliged.

If you saw the title of this piece or, like me, you continue to grin and bear it as a member of the PoGO player populace, you probably understand where I’m going with this. Broadly speaking, the Harvest Festival spawns, in my estimation, are boring as shit. True, they all have the potential to be Shiny. That’s about the best thing I can say about them, however. Don’t believe me? Let’s look at the list Pokémon by Pokémon and see whether you reach the same conclusions.

To aid you in your appraisals, I’ve provided a Boredom Rating for each encounter ranging from one to five Sleeping Face emojis (😴). The scale runs something like this:

• 😴: Attractive from a PvP (player-versus-player)/PvE (player-versus-everyone, i.e. Raids) perspective as well as for its relative infrequency. You are looking to catch this Pokémon as well as Shiny check it, and you might even consider going out of your way to encounter it.

• 😴😴: Attractive from a PvP (player-versus-player)/PvE (player-versus-everyone, i.e. Raids) perspective. You might consider catching this if even if you have enough XL Candies to max out this Pokémon.

• 😴😴😴: Attractive for its value as a potential Shiny encounter, but not necessarily attractive from a PvP (player-versus-player)/PvE (player-versus-everyone, i.e. Raids) perspective. You might not catch this, but you’re likely Shiny checking and doing the Field Research tasks, if applicable.

• 😴😴😴😴: Not attractive from a PvP (player-versus-player)/PvE (player-versus-everyone, i.e. Raids) perspective. You might catch this if weather boosted or if you have an abundance of Poké Balls, but you’re unlikely to go out of your way for this.

• 😴😴😴😴😴: Not attractive from a PvP (player-versus-player)/PvE (player-versus-everyone, i.e. Raids) perspective. You might not even catch this if weather boosted or if you have an abundance of Poké Balls, and you’re not going out of your way for this.

Oddish

Groan. Oddish, much like Growlithe or Spearow, is one of those Pokémon that, season after season, just seems to keep coming back like the weed it is. Already depressingly common, Oddish doesn’t need to be featured here. It already got its own Research Day. Its various evolutionary forms are all but useless from both a PvE and PvP standpoint. No. Just no.

BOREDOM RATING: 😴😴😴😴😴

Exeggcute

Like Oddish, pretty dang useless, as there are better options among Grass-type Pokémon. Chiefly because it’s not Oddish, though, I’ll give it a better Boredom Rating.

BOREDOM RATING: 😴😴😴😴

Hoppip

Again, not Oddish, so it’s got that going for it. More significantly, Hoppip’s final evolutionary form, Jumpluff, is now meta relevant in GO Battle League with the buff to Fairy Wind. It also has been depressingly common at times and got its own Community Day at one point, so I can’t give it top marks, but I can certainly ascribe value to it.

BOREDOM RATING: 😴😴

Sunkern

Joining Exeggcute and Oddish on the Island of Useless Pokémon, Sunkern gets some points for Sunflora’s relevance to Artazon in the main series (which isn’t Cortondo, mind you, but it’s a Grass-type and in the ballpark) and for being a little cutie. That’s about it, though.

BOREDOM RATING: 😴😴😴😴

Miltank

To me, this is the real prize of the Harvest Festival event owing to its scarcity under normal circumstances and newfound relevance in GO Battle League with the buff to the move Rollout. With this in mind, Miltank is a reason to grind as a potential PvP build, both in terms of Individual Values and XL Candies. Plus, the Shiny looks dope AF. Congratulations, Miltank. You’re at the top of the Poké-heap on this occasion.

BOREDOM RATING: 😴

Zigzagoon

As a Linoone stan, I support Zigzagoon’s inclusion whenever possible. However, and bear in mind that I’m no Pokémon expert, I’m not immediately sure what it’s doing in a Harvest Festival. Is it because, in the main series, it gets the abilities Pickup (which allows it to pick up random items) and Gluttony (which makes it use a held Berry earlier than usual)? Maybe I’m just a dum-dum, but I also don’t feel like I should be thinking this hard about why Zigzagoon is a part of this event.

BOREDOM RATING: 😴😴😴😴

Bunnelby

Bunnelby is spared a lower rating on this list because Diggersby is relevant in Great League. Personally speaking, though, I’ve already built one Diggersby—which is powered to Level 50 and required 296 XL Candies, mind you—and I still have enough XL Candies to build another. This is to say I wasn’t clamoring for more Bunnelby, and I’m not sure how many people are if they don’t do PvP.

BOREDOM RATING: 😴😴

Pumpkaboo

The page lists all of the differently sized Pumpkaboos as separate items, but come on, Niantic—they’re the same damn Pokémon. They may change slightly as far as stats go, and there’s the obvious visual component, but they’re pretty much a novelty from both a PvP and PvE perspective. Also, we just had a whole two-week Halloween event featuring Pumpkaboo—and these versions don’t have the fancy costumes. Boosted Shiny chance? Fine. But again, we don’t know how much that stands to improve our luck. Yawn.

BOREDOM RATING: 😴😴😴

Smoliv

At least on paper, Smoliv is the crown jewel of the Harvest Festival and the most thematically appropriate inclusion in this lot. It’s also sadly pretty useless, and odds are that you’re not going get a Shiny for your troubles. But it’s new!

BOREDOM RATING: 😴😴😴

---

By my calculation, that’s a total of 28 Sleeping Face emojis across nine Pokémon for the Harvest Festival, averaging to roughly three emojis per Pokémon—and I feel like I was a bit charitable with my ratings for Bunnelby and Hoppip. It’s not abjectly terrible, but it’s not a highly motivating collection either. From my vantage point, Miltank is the only Pokémon for which I don’t have enough XL Candies to max out, and Smoliv is the only Pokémon of which I don’t have a Shiny version because it got released a week ago. Aside from any incidental random Shiny encounters, that’s the sum of my excitement for the whole shebang. Not great.

Maybe I’m expecting a lot coming out of the aforementioned two-part Halloween in-game event. As I said from the jump, not every Pokémon GO event is going to be an absolute thrill ride. Still, even from last year, it feels less inspired. During 2023’s Harvest Festival, in addition to Exeggcute, Pumpkaboo, Smoliv, and Sunkern, we got the likes of Combee, Cottonee, Flabébé, and Sewaddle. Heck, I’d even take Bellsprout over Oddish for a change! The wild encounters and the Field Research encounters both offered a more diverse assortment of Pokémon. Then again, the event bonuses then were similarly lackluster, and the Timed Research was US$5.00 (!), so maybe the decline isn’t that precipitous in 2024. It’s a decline, nonetheless.

---

Please—make it stop.

In a departure from my usual meditations on the slop that is Pokémon GO these days, I opined about the 2024 U.S. presidential election prior to Election Day, in doing so expressing my fears that the result would be a reprise of 2016’s categorical catastrophe for the Democratic Party.

I encourage you to read the full piece if you haven’t, if for no other reason than I spent a heck of a lot of time writing it. From the piece:

PoGO is obviously not the cultural force it was back at its apex eight years ago, and Kamala hasn’t said anything as remotely “cringe” as “Pokémon GO to the polls” this election cycle, but once again, Trump is the head of the Republican Party presidential ticket, and once again, there is real concern that a smarter, more qualified female candidate will come up short despite their rival being a modernized version of Adolf Hitler with a fake tan and a hair transplant.

I don’t take any pleasure in noting that these fears were more than justified. Despite roughly a billion dollars at her disposal, Kamala Harris and her campaign came up way short in her bid to keep Donald Trump out of the White House. Not only did she lose every battleground state en route to a defeat in both the popular vote and Electoral College, but her party lost control of the Senate and, at this writing, appears unlikely to flip control of the House. Overall, it was a debacle for Democrats, who face an uncertain future amid an apparent crisis of leadership.

With any hotly contested political race, there are bound to be umpteen takes, hot or otherwise, about why events unfolded the way they did. In the wake of the past week’s historic outcome, to be sure, professional pundits and armchair analysts alike have been rendering their opinions to any and all who will listen. Joe Biden didn’t get out of the race soon enough. The Dems should’ve had an open primary. The campaign went too “woke.” It was those dang third-party voters again. Liberals need more podcasts. Where’s the Left’s Joe Rogan?

Of course, all presidential post-mortems are not created equal. Blaming Jill Stein and other candidates outside the major party duopoly, for instance, is not a reasonable position when considering the margins of defeat in those ever-important swing states (plus, it’s pretty shitty anyway given the litany of advantages the Democratic and Republican Parties have in American politics). And while there’s no single reason that Kamala faltered, certain factors loom large, not the least of which are related to so-called “identity politics.” As an African American woman, Harris was already playing on Hard Mode. Even if not the be-all and end-all, racism and misogyny were undoubtedly factors in why she didn’t garner enough votes to win. They’re woven into the very fabric of our society. That voters would deem her less capable of holding the nation’s highest office despite her serving in all sorts of public capacities would only seem to prove that point.

So, yeah—there were certainly matters beyond Kamala’s control informing what many onlookers would characterize as an upset victory for Trump. This does not absolve her and her advisers, meanwhile, from strategic misfires, miscues that lamentably are way too indicative of errant Democratic thinking over the years. I touched upon this in the aforementioned post:

Dems have apparently conceded that the unbounded optimism of Barack Obama’s first campaign was little but a dog-and-pony show, a product of a bygone era, and that after Hillary Clinton’s epic collapse in the latter days of the 2016 presidential race, the solution is to double down on the same “safe” strategy of appealing to suburbanites/moderates, playing not to lose rather to win and inviting disaster when her opponent, a clownish septuagenarian with his own cognitive warbles, should at least in theory be easy to beat.

The “safe” strategy, in this instance, didn’t work either. I bring the subject up again amid real feelings of disappointment, fear, and sadness for scores of Americans because, while their gravity is clearly very different, playing not to lose rather than to win in business comes with its own quantifiable risk. At this point, you’ve probably already guessed the segue that’s coming.

With bland events like the Harvest Festival, Niantic is unmistakably taking the “safe” route. They’re banking on their primacy within the AR mobile gaming market to carry them while they string players along, offering a steady trickle of novelty in the hopes of stretching out content for another 10 years or longer. However, as voters, many struggling financially even as the economy continues to perform at a high level, rejected a Democratic Party platform largely devoid of specifics on how a Harris administration’s policies would materially benefit them, so too might John Hanke & Co. be relying too heavily on its biggest spenders, risking losing casual players to sheer indifference, if not those same concerns about money. Niantic’s convoluted efforts to drive user engagement rather than simply creating and maintaining a good game may yet come back to bite them.

Until that happens, though, it appears we have more in-game promotions in store which will reach the upper ranges of the Boredom Rating index. In other words, there’s Oddish in them thar hills, Trainers.