Pokémon Go Sinnoh Tour 2024 Wrap-Up

Despite a few glaring holes in the Pokémon lineup, this year's Pokémon Go Tour was a raging success, full of unique encounters and rare spawns.

Written by King Gabagool (@kinggabagoo)

In case you missed it, the entire Pokémon world was in a frenzy leading up to Pokémon Day with their crazy and exciting theories, hopes, and wishes for what would be announced. During the entire weekend of February 24th and 25th, players couldn’t contain themselves in anticipation of the announcement of a new mainline game. But while all of the hype was building and boiling over, the Pokémon Go community was in a frenzy of their own. 

February 24th and 25th were the dates for the Sinnoh Tour: Global event, and I have been dying to talk about it. I was able to get out and play like my life depended on it, and I have some thoughts that I need to get out there. Fair warning: you better buckle up…

What Is a Go Tour?

If you are unfamiliar with the concept, a Go Tour event culminates an entire generation of Pokémon in Pokémon Go. All of the Pokémon are highlighted for that specific region into a massive event that players can enjoy in many different ways. Back in February of 2021, Pokémon Go introduced the Pokémon Go: Kanto Tour! This event was huge, and trainers worldwide rejoiced at the new hunt they could embark on. Niantic offered a paid ticketed experience that included many exciting new bonus features.

The notable ones were a shiny boost for many Pokémon through wild encounters, exclusive special research tasks, and a special research story that ended with a shiny Mew encounter (I know, such a cute, lovable flying mouse thing). For those of you who are not familiar with Pokémon, a shiny is an extremely rare Pokémon with an exclusive trim. Mew is usually a pale pink, but Shiny Mew is a light blue. 

After the Kanto Tour, Niantic continued the trend each February with new regions. The Johto Tour debuted in February 2022, the Hoenn Tour in 2023, and this year's Sinnoh Tour in 2024. Each tour featured new and exciting Pokémon releases and full Pokédex shiny releases. In most trainers’ eyes (mine included), these Go Tours rivaled the hype of Pokémon Go Fest and brought a lot of excitement and anticipation to the game. 

Loaded up on Legendaries

Roaring Raids

The Sinnoh Region has some phenomenal legendary Pokémon. This Pokédex included the literal god of Pokémon, the maker of the entire realm that we all love so much. It would be incredible to finally see it in Pokémon Go, right? … Right????

Unfortunately, Niantic decided to keep a few Pokémon to themselves for the first time ever during a Go Tour. Manaphy, Phione, and (most importantly) Arceus were not released during the Sinnoh Tour. Trainers were extremely disappointed by this. That said, this is my only real complaint about the event. I understand the reasoning for not releasing Arceus. Niantic is a gigantic company, and Arceus isn’t just a Pokémon to them; It’s an enormous sack of money that they are waiting to cash in on. Instead of releasing it during this tour, they’ll make a separate event, from which they can make even more money. It is what it is. 

We did get some brand-new releases, though. Origin Forme Palkia and Dialga made their debut and did not disappoint. These beasts were found in 5-star raids all weekend long, and they came with new adventure effects that provided players with new advantages. Dialga could know Roar of Time, and Palkia could know Spacial Rend. These are game-changing elements that are so much fun to use. Roar of Time pauses timers on the game's lucky eggs, incense, star pieces, and other timer-based items. This allows more Pokémon to be caught and more experience and stardust to be earned. Spacial Rend extends the spawn radius around the player, which helps more Pokémon to be seen, interacted with, and caught. These are features that trainers have been dreaming about for a while now, so seeing them actually being implemented was unbelievable. 

Wild Spawns

On top of great 5-star raid bosses, we also encountered the Lake Guardians in the wild globally. These encounters were so much fun for a few different reasons. First, these legendaries are usually region-locked. Azelf can only be encountered in the Americas, Uxie in Asia, and Mesprit in Europe. But during the Sinnoh Tour, all three Pokémon were available together. Their spawn rate was also boosted immensely. Typically, the Lake Guardians only show up once a day or so in their respective regions. Finding one is usually virtually impossible, but they spawned regularly throughout the weekend. I constantly saw them popping up on my radar and caught a bunch myself. This was a really refreshing feature, as it gave trainers something to hunt down in the wild while all of the different habitats were active.

Research

One thing I think is greatly overlooked in Pokémon Go is the story, and the research during the Sinnoh Tour was quite interesting. Before the Tour, an event called “Road to Sinnoh” was held. During this event, it was revealed that Professor Willow, the main NPC that players interact with, had vanished. During the actual Sinnoh Tour, the leaders of Team Go Rocket took over Professor Willow’s job. They asked to form an alliance to find him. It turned out Giovanni (the leader of Team Rocket) had also disappeared.

At the end of the research story, you saved both NPCs from a tear in time and space. Giovanni announced that his plan was to lure you into keeping him so he could battle you and steal your brand-new legendary Pokémon. This research story rewarded the player with an encounter with Shadow Regigigas, a pretty useless but exclusive Pokémon. It isn’t often that we encounter legendary Pokémon for free, so this was a cool twist. Mine has some of the lowest individual stats possible, so I hope everyone else had better luck than me. 

Along with this special research, we also got a lot of great timed research. If you encountered any of the Lake Guardians in the wild, you could take a snapshot of them to earn an extra encounter with them that was a guaranteed catch. This is such a great feature because if you put in the work to hunt them down, you will come away with at least one of each. On top of this, there was a timed research relating to party play. If you joined up with a friend and completed 3 challenges together, you earned another encounter with Regigigas. Believe it or not, my second Regigigas… still has terrible stats! The challenges were easy, though, so I have no complaints about these research tasks. 

Final Thoughts 

All in all, the Sinnoh Tour was an amazing event. I really liked how Niantic stretched out the features and touched upon different aspects of the game. The experience was fun and stayed fresh over the whole weekend, which allowed me and my friends to play at our own pace without feeling any burnout. If we got tired of raiding, we focused on field research. Then we went and hunted the Lake Guardians. After we had some of those encounters, we tackled party play tasks. The variety was fantastic, and I hope Niantic continues to put this much effort into events in the future. 

Looking ahead, March is building on the Sinnoh Tour hype with fantastic event announcements and the launch of a new season. Get those Pokéballs ready, trainers, because we have plenty of hunting to come!