"Better than nothing": Pokemon GO players react to Community Day background

Pokemon GO's December Community Day event introduced the playerbase to a new variant of the creature that can be found during these monthly celebrations. These new backgrounds may not provide these Pokemon with any sort of tactical advantage in combat, but the collecting community seems happy to have a new variant introduced to these occasions.

User u/ThyFuzzyBoy on the Silph Road subreddit shares their captured specimen with this new background, prompting many users to weigh in on these new types of creatures, with many sharing pictures of their catches as well.

Community Day Background byu/ThyFuzzBuzz inTheSilphRoad

These new variant of Pokemon with special backgrounds was confirmed to be a new permanent addition with news of their return for January's Sprigatito Community Day. However, the background for Sprigatito is confirmed to be themed around Dual Destiny, which means there will not be different backgrounds every month.

u/StatisticianLivid710 felt that the new backgrounds were a bit underwhelming, having this to say on the recent Community Day-exclusive variants:

Comment byu/ThyFuzzBuzz from discussion inTheSilphRoad

Players could encounter these new variants of creatures by completing various research tasks that were available throughout the Community Day weekend. This adds another level of rarity to these encounters, as they cannot be grinded as easily as wild encounters can.

Comment byu/ThyFuzzBuzz from discussion inTheSilphRoad

Some users like u/CreepyZuzet feel the new background is unappealing. While this is only the first wide-scale release of a special background, many feel that it could have been much better, with the biggest complaint being the massive Community Day logo at the top left.

Many players are content with the background, but have their complaints

The consensus on the new special backgrounds is that they are nice for collectors but are relatively average visually. Giving collectors a new variant will surely make many users happy, as the new grand prize from these Community Day events is a Shiny Pokemon with one of these special backgrounds.

Niantic could use some improvements on the visuals for these backgrounds, but the next background is confirmed to revolve around the Dual Destiny season, one revolving around the Unova region, Reshiram, and Zekrom, so this background will likely be much more appealing.

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Everything to know about Pokemon GO's January 2025 Community Day

January 2025's Community Day will feature the Paldean Grass-type starter, Sprigatito (Image via Niantic)

As mentioned previously, the next Community Day event in Pokemon GO, and the first for 2025, will feature the Grass-type starter, Sprigatito. Not only will this event bring Frenzy Plant to its final evolution, Meowscarada, but also its signature move from the main series, Flower Trick.

This event will also feature special versions of Sprigatito that can be found from completing research tasks. These variants will have special backgrounds themed around the Dual Destiny season. However, the event's purchasable research ticket will no longer reward users with each stage in the spotlighted creature's evolutionary line.

Instead, players will earn three encounters with Sprigatito instead. These Sprigatitos will be guaranteed to have this special background, but many users are a bit underwhelmed with this change to the research ticket. To make matters even worse, this ticket's price will be doubled to $2 USD compared to the standard Community Day ticket price of $1.

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For more information on the game, check out the articles below:

• Ditto disguises
• Sierra counters
• Cliff counters
• Arlo counters
• Giovanni counters
• Team GO Rocket Grunts