It’s no secret I like Pokémon GO. I’ve attended multiple in-person events, and I have been playing the game since it launched on July 6, 2016. When Pokemon Go Tour: Unova – Los Angeles was announced to happen at the Rose Bowl once again, I knew I had to attend. I went for the Saturday session, and I bought my own ticket for the event, and I played across the entire eight-hour play window on Saturday.
So, what did I think about this year’s Pokémon GO Tour event where forty-three thousand Trainers showed up to the event itself as 253,000 people caught 21 million Pokémon across the entire Los Angeles and Orange county areas in total? Read on to find out!
As I checked out each of the four areas themed after each of the four seasons – plus the un-themed Rose Bowl – a single thought kept coming to my head: Niantic must REALLY love Pokémon Black and White and their sequels. Each of the four main biomes had a giant structure anchoring them. For Autumn Masquerade, there was a giant harvest festival themed setup, complete with scarecrows and a cornfield behind it. For Spring Soiree, there was a giant (fake, unfortunately) flower wall structure set up as a triangle so each team color could get its own wall.
What was most intriguing was for Winter Caverns and Summer Vacation. For Winter Caverns, there were three snowpeople outside, each dressed in their teams’ colors in front of a mountain with trees. But when you went into the inside cavern, Niantic recreated the inside of Chargestone Cave. The walls glowed, the air was truly chilly, and it was hard to believe I was not inside the Pokémon world for just a few moments. I cannot overstate just how AMAZING it looked, inside and out.
This was my favorite biome structure by FAR. It was so well done. (Photos by author).
If you’ve played Pokémon Black or Pokémon White, then it is impossible to forget riding the Rondez-View Ferris Wheel in Nimbasa City with N. I was therefore absolutely surprised to see this moment made in into Pokémon Go Tour: Unova – Los Angeles. Niantic hired a third-party vendor to run a full Ferris wheel at the outside edge of Summer Vacation (unfortunately, not with a view of the San Gabriel mountains that overshadow the Rose Bowl itself). I ended up riding it with a stranger in a first-come-first-serve queue. There were also a bunch of carnival games set up in tents outside of the Ferris wheel, too. You could play various games like ring toss, milk bottle toss, and a dice roll game where you had to roll doubles to win. Unfortunately, none of these games handed out prizes – but they were still a bit of Nimbasa City flavor added in.
Outside of the four structures, there was a spot where you could meet ‘Notable Trainers” such as ZoëTwoDots, Couple of Gaming, PokéDaxi, and more. While I did not meet anyone myself, I could see they were all really taking the time to talk with and take photos with anyone who wanted to stop by to meet them. There was also a small station to plot out where in the world you came from for Pokémon Go Tour: Unova – Los Angeles, quite a lot of food stands, an opportunity to meet some of the game’s artists, a couple tents where you could answer trivia questions to win prizes, a couple photo ops inside of the Rose Bowl itself…And that was about it.
I was surprised at the lack of other blow-up Pokémon photo opportunities besides the Unova starter set and the Pikachu meet-and-greet inside the area. Unova absolutely is rich with characters and lore – the area was the focus of two entire video games after all – and it was surprising that there weren’t giant cutouts of Kyurem, Reshiram, or Zekrom to take photos with as well.
I also wish we could have conducted Pokémon Battles inside the Rose Bowl itself in a fun tournament fashion, even if you aren’t obtaining points towards the Pokémon World Championships. There was certainly enough space inside the Rose Bowl to make it happen.
While there was PLENTY of merchandise to buy if you preordered it online when you bought your ticket early on, I was surprised to see that not much was held back for purchase at the event itself on each of the days. I got into the Rose Bowl at around 8:30 AM, and I made a (Com)bee line straight to the merchandising area to see there was only a limited assortment left. I was also surprised that when I picked up my preorder, I was not given a clear bag or SOMETHING to haul it all around in if I didn’t preorder the $24.99 event tote bag. I know the Rose Bowl had bag restrictions, but it was ridiculous that I would have been expected to awkwardly carry stuff around all day otherwise.
As for the food and bathroom options? There were plenty available, everywhere, with only a short wait in line for both. They were also scattered around the event space, so it didn’t feel like you were ever truly TOO far away from something at any given time. The activities in the two tents were fun too. They did Pokémon-themed trivia challenge and then did a “Do you have this particular Pokémon” challenges. I won myself a pin by naming as many water Pokémon as I could, and I saw another person win a pin for having a 42 CP Metagross. Why someone would keep a 42 CP Metagross, I have no idea. But they sure did win because of it! It felt like pretty much anyone, no matter how much or how little they knew, could win a pin or a keychain.
One thing I will say that I did exceptionally miss were the little signs you could fill out and hold up on what Pokémon you have and were looking to trade for. There were SOME people who were running around with pre-printed and pre-laminated sheets of wanting a shiny Straw Hat Pikachu (from the Kumamoto Prefecture Reconstruction Campaign in July 2019) to wanting a shiny Cowboy Hat Snorlax. But those were few and far-between, unfortunately. I was personally hoping to fill out my Unown PokéDex, as I am only missing a few letters, but I was stymied by this. I really hope these signs make a return for Pokémon GO Fest 2025: Jersey City.
Of course, you’re at Pokémon Go Tour: Unova – Los Angeles to catch Pokémon in Pokémon GO and do exclusive story content that you simply can’t do anywhere else. And that, with some exceptions (that I’ll talk about below) went extremely well.
In what has been a trend going since the Halloween 2023 event, there was a real focus on the Timed Research versus the Special Research. In last year’s Pokémon Go Tour: Sinnoh – Los Angeles, there was a heavy focus on the Special Research aspects, you were required to visit all of the habitats and spin three PokéStops or Gyms in each area in order to progress. The Special Research this time, titled “The Tip of the Iceberg”, wasn’t very deep lorewise, unfortunately, but it didn’t force you to run all over the place if you didn’t want to in order to complete it. Instead, there were three Timed Researches that required you to find special designated PokeStops scattered all throughout the Rose Bowl and the four biomes in order to complete it. (I am not addressing “Masterwork Research: Glimmers of Gratitude”, as that is separately purchasable through the online shop as part of the otherwise free Pokémon Go Tour: Unova – Global event).
The reward for doing these Timed Researches? Landorous, Tornadus, and Thunderus in their Incarnate Forme. I LOVED the fact there was a solid, tangible reward for going into each of the different areas and exploring the PokéStops in detail to try to fulfill each Timed Research requirement. Additionally, if you plugged in the three additional Timed Research codes as well that were released online, you could catch one more of each of those tree in their Incarnate Forme. While I do wish we could have gotten their Therian Forme as well, I was thrilled to have a tangible, (in my opinion) worthwhile reason to roam around to the far reaches of the Rose Bowl arena.
The PokéStops were scatted all over, and I worked with others to find them all! (Photos by author).
The focus of the event was clearly on catching Kyurem and turning that Pokemon into Black Kyurem and White Kyurem through fusing it with a Zekrom and Rashiram (respectively). The raids were almost completely for Kyurem, with only a handful for Zekrom and Rashiram. I do wish that there was a better balance of Kyurem and Zekrom/Rashiram raids, though, as it felt like there were too few of the latter compared to the former.
I found myself constantly spamming Kyurem raid after Kyurem raid, trying to catch a shiny. In the eight hours that I played, from 9 AM to 5 PM, I only caught two shiny Pokémon. I was a little surprised at how difficult Kyurem was to catch, as raid would often be over in around 30 seconds, but I would often end up throwing 14-16 balls trying to catch the Pokémon afterwards. I wanted to spend more time raiding and finding new Pokémon to catch instead of just watching Kyurem continually hopping out of the Pokéball even after being placed on a steady diet of Golden Raspberries, and I don’t remember it being that low of a catch rate at prior events. At times, I almost just wanted to skip out of catching the Kyurem anyway once I got the Volt and Blaze Fusion energy items that Kyurem drops once you defeat it on a raid – these drops are necessary to unlock the White Kyurem and Black Kyurem fusions.
Fusing Kyurem with Zekrom and Reshiram to obtain Black Kyurem and White Kyurem! (Photos by author).
Overall, though, I genuinely enjoyed catching and I was surprised to see how much of an absolute time suck it was for me to run around and catch as many Kyurem as possible. The Los Angeles city backgrounds are really cool too, and I was thrilled that both of my shiny has the Pokémon Go Tour: Unova – Los Angeles special background!
All of the walking around dovetailed nicely into egg hatching. I was thrilled to hatch Maractus (located in the very southern United States down through South America and the Caribbean), Sigilyph (found only in Egypt and Greece), and Bouffalant (only in New York) in the 10 kilometer eggs. Not to be undone, I also hatched Heatmor (Eastern Hemisphere) and Sawk (Europe, Asia, and Australia) in the five kilometer eggs! I came prepared with a lot of incubators that I’ve been saving up for this event, specifically, so that I could hatch as many eggs as possible. I unfortunately did not get any shiny Pokémon from an egg, though. It is also worth noting that out of ALL the eggs I hatched across eight hours, I only got one Larvesta – but having only one is just what I need to evolve it for my PokéDex!
One thing, a minor thing really, that I really wished for was the return of random Legendary Pokémon spawning throughout the event. There was a certain thrill at last year’s event to finding one of the Lake Trio from the Sinnoh region randomly popping up while I was out catching Pokémon. I was hoping the Swords of Justice from the Unova Region (Cobalion, Terrakion, Virizion, and Kaldeo) would pop up in the same way as a last-minute in-event surprise, but I was disappointed to find out it wasn’t so. This is only a minor problem since all but Kaldeo (who hasn’t appeared other than ONE ticketed event so far!) will be appearing as part of the Road to Unova event on February 25th.
Of course, the ultimately question is, as always:
Was Pokemon Go Tour: Unova – Los Angeles worth attending?
If you’re a fan of Pokémon GO, then yes. I can confidently say I was never bored, and I somehow managed to do everything (including riding the Ferris wheel!) within the eight-hour window of the event. I was able to catch the Pokémon I wanted, hatch the eggs I wanted, and do all the fun little things that they had available during that time slot. Pokemon Go Tour: Unova – Los Angeles was well worth the money for attending, even with the issues I listed above, and I have already bought my plane tickets and booked a hotel room for Pokemon GO Fest in Jersey City this June. I just hope Niantic, Inc., takes the feedback they’ll receive for this event to heart for their upcoming event.
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