Pokemon GO Players Are Split on the Rediscover Kanto Special Research

An event currently ongoing in Pokemon GO seems to be disappointing a lot of players who were hoping for more. Specifically, the Special Research in Pokemon GO‘s Rediscover campaign seems to be a little too mundane for some players.

Pokemon GO was released almost eight years ago, and it initially saw mass appeal as one of the first major successful augmented reality games, having its players wander around the actual, physical world in search of new Pokemon to catch. While it’s still a popular mobile game, developer Niantic recently launched a new Pokemon GO campaign titled Rediscover GO, seemingly in the hopes of attracting back old players by bringing the game back to its roots, starting with missions centered around the original 151 Pokemon. The Rediscover Kanto portion of the campaign started on April 17 and will wrap up on May 7.

While two of the three Special Research tasks in Rediscover Kanto seem pretty standard — using 151 berries while trying to capture Pokemon and earning 15,100 Stardust — the third and final goal initially sounds a lot more daunting, asking players to capture 151 Kanto Pokemon. However, as some players have pointed out on Reddit, that doesn’t necessarily mean capturing one of each type from the Kanto Pokedex, and that monotony and lack of challenge has left some players a little deflated, with some going as far as proposing self-imposed challenges like catching every Kanto Pokemon in order. “To be fair, I genuinely expected a repeat of the Kanto task ‘catch the entire Kanto dex’, so I’m ok with anything else!” commented Reddit user elspotto.

Players Have Mixed Feelings About Rediscover Kanto

While there has been a lot of griping about the Special Research tasks, not all players seem to share that sentiment. Some players have shown appreciation for the generous XP rewards offered by meeting each of the goals — 15,100 XP apiece — which should help even high-level players in advancing their rank, especially if they’re taking advantage of the XP multiplier boost from a Lucky Egg. That’s not to mention the Incubator and 10,000 Stardust a player gets for completing the final set of tasks. Even the person behind the original Reddit post complaining about the event admitted lower in the comments that they were happy the event allowed them to catch some of the Kanto Pokemon they’d missed in the game’s earliest days.

The end goals of the Special Research line aren’t the only things that have been divisive in the game’s recent updates. Changes to Pokemon GO players’ avatars, which were also introduced on April 17 in the Rediscover Yourself Update, seem to have drawn mostly negative reactions from the game’s more vocal fans, giving avatars shorter necks and less-defined bodily features. But even the avatar updates have garnered some praise, as they now also incorporate a wider variety of skin tones.

Pokémon GO

After a test run via an April Fools’ joke on Google Maps, Pokemon GO was released to the public in the summer of 2016. The AR mobile app saw unparalleled success and continues to be one of the largest mobile games in the world, pulling in billions for developer Niantic.

Released

July 6, 2016

Genre(s)

Augmented Reality