At time of writing, the Pokémon GO Road Trip has begun its journey, starting off with its very first stop in Manchester, UK with new Pokéstops, field research, raids and a few in person events/rewards as well as getting to see the big bus itself.
A few members of the B3 team, and friends, travelled up for the day, which began with the sun beaming down on us as our group left the hotel to head towards the Arndale shopping centre — which the Pokémon GO Road Trip bus was located just round the corner from. Despite arriving a little early, there was already a large crowd of people waiting for the events to kick off as my group decided to get some early pictures and see if any of the stops had started spawning anything.
As soon as the hour hit 11am the summer flair Pikachu raids were let loose upon the crowds and everyone jumped into them, immediately knocking the 1 star raids over in mere seconds in the hope of the elusive background shinies that were on offer. I, myself, didn’t actually manage to get any from raids but one member of my group mentioned that they were available from field research so my hunt shifted to those, I personally thought the rates were better (and it didn’t cost a raid pass to get).
After the initial raids had ended we looked at the map, which had begun to glow with a purple hue to show the area that was in play for the event, however, unique stops were found littered around the nearby parts of the city, giving Road Tour postcards.
Following on from the initial raids and spins we moved onto travelling around a little bit and trying to work our way through the “Trade a Pokémon” stops research to better our chances at some of the backgrounds. I managed to get one on my second task which set the bar for me for the rest of the day, with a total of six obtained this way throughout the day.
Moving down from the bus and trying to reach the stops a bit further afield, someone had posted on the Pokémon GO Campfire app about a potential perfect Alolan Geodude to which we made a move to find it. At first we couldn’t see it, but I happened to catch it without noticing and it was shiny making it my very first Shundo, which was great.
Most of the rest of the day consisted of walking around the highlighted areas on the map and trying to catch some of the Unowns that were appearing, the T managed to escape me but I did get a shiny R as well as around 15 other assorted shinies throughout the day which helped me to flesh out my shiny Pokédex.
At times, especially when heading a bit further out in the highlighted area, I did notice that some of the stops that should have been event ones weren’t actually giving event tasks which led to a lot of unnecessary tasks giving non-event rewards — making hunting those Pikachu’s just that bit harder.
After a spot of lunch, we headed back out in search of more Manchester Pikachu and any shiny Pokémon that might show their head, with mixed success across the group. We did miss the Pokémon Quiz that was being held at the bus around lunch but we made it back for the photo opportunities with the hundreds of people in the park.
There was a real sense of community at this event, with lots of people coming together to enjoy a day in the park and try to get some of their favourite Pokémon and it really was the best day for it with near perfect weather and a great atmosphere.
Near the end of the Pokémon GO Manchester event we had the Terrakion raid hour. There was a “raid train” which consisted of some of the local leaders taking people around to hit the raids but it ended up going the wrong way and ironically missed the majority of stops at the beginning. In the end our group had enough to do the raids on our own and seemed to be more effective doing so.
Overall, for the event, it was fun. However, having travelled quite a long way to partake in this particular one it was exhausting for something so short. There were a few physical goodies such as a team-based keychain and some code cards to give you a few raid passes which kept you going, but there wasn’t much else to keep your attention consistently and some of the spawns throughout the event were a bit lackluster for the amount of hype that it was receiving…. but it was still a fun day out, best enjoyed with friends.
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