The Better Half Of Pokémon GO's Holiday Year-End Event Starts Today | Trending News

I still don’t quite understand why
Niantic went with a two-part even
this holiday , but today is the point of
inflection where the event goes from
being halfway decent to hopefully
great.
As you may recall, the first half of
this event revolves around getting one-
time use incubators every day which
players can use to hatch eggs that
have a great chance of producing Gen
2 baby Pokémon. Now, we’re kicking off
a period where Lures last 60 minutes
and there’s an increased chance of
starter Pokémon and their evolutions
appearing in the wild. This second half
of the event goes through January 8 th,
but for some reason, the first half has
a few days of overlap with this new
phase and lasts until January 3 rd,
meaning there are still a few free
incubators up for grabs.
Why is the second half of the event
probably going to be “better”? The egg
event has…sort of produced mixed
results for fans. Some are complaining
that they’ve barely received any Gen 2
Pokémon from eggs despite this
“increase,” and others that have
hatched them have quickly realized
that for the most part, they don’t want
to keep hatching them. For instance,
I’m happy I now own a Smoochum, but
if another one hatches from any future
10 km eggs, I’m going to be a little
disappointed, given what else I could
be getting.
The problem with baby Pokemon like
Cleffa, Igglybuff, Pichu, Elekid,
Smoochum and Magby are that once
you have one, you’re never really going
to want another one, given that they
all evolve into stuff most avid players
already own. Togepi is really the only
interesting one to hatch because it has
its own unique Gen 2 evolution that is
now technically the rarest Pokemon in
the game, Togetic.
But starting today (the event
supposedly kicks off this afternoon,
PST) the unleashing of Gen 1 starters
may actually be the most “valuable”
event the game has produced yet. I’m
not quite sure if starters will flood the
map like what we saw with Cubone/
Ghastly/etc during the Halloween
event, or they might just be sort of
common like Santa Pikachu. But
regardless, any increase in appearance
means that players may be well on
their way to getting Charizard,
Venusaur and Blastoise for the first
time.