This year's Pokémon Go Fest gets playing with strangers right

At this point, you know what you're getting from Pokémon Go Fest. It's become reliable, but in the right ways; if last year's event didn't confirm it, this third Go Fest has put to bed the question of whether Niantic can run fan gatherings without major network issues (as we saw with 2017's disastrous debut) while attendees will always walk away with an exclusive (for a while at least, anyway), never-before-seen Pokémon, plus a deluge of regional exclusives and Unown letters to take home.

Aside from a storm that temporarily evacuated the event on Saturday - an act of God even developer Niantic can't do much about, but still compensated players for - this past week's four-day event in Chicago ran smoothly. Between the eradication of queues to start playing (a lengthy wait for merchandise and PvP tournaments were another matter, mind) and plenty to keep people entertained on the day, it seems that everyone who attended walked away happy. What a difference a couple of years make.

Though at this point we know what we're getting from attending a Go Fest, this is not to say it isn't capable of trying new things. For example this year restrictions were lifted so you could easily trade Pokémon with strangers. Usually, you could only trade Pokémon with newcomers at a staggering cost, and do so once-per-day. Only by becoming in-game friends and interacting daily for weeks and months are these restrictions eased; it's a smart, well-balanced system, making those who want to shortcut their way to a complete Pokédex think twice about whether it's worth doing. But here, with those costs slashed and up to five trades possible, you could walk away with not only the rare Pokémon Niantic itself had on offer, but potentially much more thanks to fellow attendees.

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