It finally happened. Niantic released the first two legendary Pokémon into the game. Pokémon Go Fest started in the early hours of the morning here in Australia and I was very excited to see what Pokémon would be announced. I’ve never been a massive fan of Legendary Pokémon. I always want to catch them for the PokéDex but I would never put them in my team. That said my absolute favourite is Lugia.

So I found it incredibly exciting when Lugia was announced at the end. I sat there in the morning and watched my raid group organise a plan of attack for the day. Reports starting popping up that Lugia was spawning in the city. With the shocking catch rate I had no desire to drive so far for a low chance of coming home with one.

Instead I waited and a few hours later an Articuno appeared in my local area. I was uncertain about going as I just wanted the Lugia but a couple of friends went so I joined in too. I was surprised to see how many people were there. It was the third group of people to beat Articuno and there was still people who couldn’t get into the group as it was full.

Sadly I missed out on the Articuno but we ventured ten minutes down the road to a second ongoing raid. We made it there and we tried again with a much smaller group as the previous group had just gone. Again we beat it but I was unsuccessful in catching it. We were alerted that there was yet another Articuno ongoing ten minutes back the other way. I made my way there and we beat it once more. This time I caught it with the first ball. I was so excited.

After all of the effort getting an Articuno only one Lugia had spawned. We made our way to the next town over and there was a decent amount of people there. We made a second team and went in. I couldn’t believe how much bigger Lugia was than Articuno when we were versing it. I swear in Pokémon The Movie 2000 it wasn’t that big of a difference. We beat it successfully and I only received 6 balls. I was incredibly nervous as I had already decided that this was my last raid of the day and Lugia was the one I really cared about. Luckily I caught it on the fifth ball.

The other perks of the Pokémon GO Fest it that the bonuses unlocked are quite nice. Because of the double XP gained I cracked open a Lucky Egg and evolved a tonne of Pokemon. I ended up evolving 15 new evolutions which was exciting. So on top of those I added 19 new entries to my PokéDex today.

Now that I have joined a group who are incredibly friendly and go raiding quite often; I am enjoying this game a lot more. It only took a little bit of initiative on my part to find people to play with. Now that I can take part in these events I am really enjoying the game and I can’t wait to see what’s in store in the future.