Recently, the MAGIC RAIN team had the opportunity to attend an official Pokemon Sun & Moon Launch Event. Organized by the same team behind Cosplay Corner and 3DS Corner, the event was held on the 19th and 20th November 2016 at KDU Damansara Jaya. It is the very first Pokémon event to be supported officially by Nintendo, the Pokémon Company and Maxsoft in Malaysia.
Upon our arrival on Day 1, participants flooded the ticketing booths eager to get their hands on some tickets even before the entrance to the hall was opened. Some freebies available to the attendees included an exclusive Genesect code for the Pokémon Video Game as well as a free Pokémon TCG Booster Pack. Without a doubt, this event, highly anticipated by many fans is evidence of the overwhelming hype and love that Malaysians have for the Pokémon franchise. Here’s what we thought of the event.
Highlights
There were definitely a lot of activities planned out by the organizers but here’s what we chose as the top three highlights of the event:
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The Point System
We felt that this system makes people actively participate in activities in order to get points to redeem exclusive merchandises. The system encourages some form of competitiveness among the participants that increases the overall enthusiasm of the event itself. We tried Pokémon Tretta, Pokken Tournament and even the Pokémon TCG. There were exciting merchandises to be redeemed such as the Pokémon Sun and Moon games, Alola starters plushies, Pokémon TCG Booster Packs, and more.
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Pokémon Tretta
Pokémon Tretta was the number one activity in the event due to the fact that it was the first time this particular game made its debut in Malaysia. We gave Pokémon Tretta a try and finally understood why it was so popular. After inserting the token, players are required to choose the most suitable area to encounter and capture rare Pokémon. From there, you’d have to battle three Pokémon with three of your own. After battling the Pokémon in your designated area, you’ll go into Catch Mode where you have a chance to capture all three Pokémons. If you’ve managed to catch all three, you’ll get to keep one of it as a physical Tretta chip. The only problem with this activity was the long queue…
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Pokken Tournament
Pokken Tournament is similar to the mega franchise, Street Fighters with the key difference being choosing Pokémons instead of fighters. We really enjoyed this game and even got the chance to use our favourite Pokémons of all time, Gardevoir, Charizard and Mewtwo. You could Mega Evolve your Pokémon as well as execute a special move unique to each Pokémon. The staff was also really helpful by providing us a very easy-to-understand tutorial.
For an event that was heavily promoted, we were disappointed with how small the event seemed to be. The venue was too small for the crowd. It was hard to find a place to sit inside the hall as most of the tables and chairs were used for the 3DS tournaments. The sound system has definitely improved from Cosplay Corner 2016 but is still lacking in terms of audibility. It also felt like the Pokémon Sun & Moon game was overshadowed by the other activities such as Pokémon Tretta even though it was supposed to be the main focus of the event. Furthermore, the scheduling of activities definitely needs more planning. We were irked by the fact that there was someone using the megaphone to address the participants of the 3DS tournament while the amazing violin performance by Luna Lorrain was going on.
Overall, the emcees were great, there were interesting activities planned, the Point System to make the guests more engaged, and lots of free gifts. For an event that was held for the first time ever, the event managed to achieve their objective of spreading awareness of Pokémon and the various sub-franchises under it.
