It’sPokémon GoFest 2025 Global time, and with it, this special research asks you once again to carve out a path for yourself through a handful of options. But which is the best to pick?
In the GO Fest 2025: Hero’s Journey Special Research tree, you’re tasked with choosing to go down the Crowned Sword Journey or the Crowned Shield Journey. Picking either of these tasks will help you to get one of the two Crowned Pokémon of either Zacian or Zamazenta, but it doesn’t lock you to only one, as you can get the other via doing raids throughout the weekend.
In my opinion, there’s one choice worth going for more than the rest of them, but let’s first show you what the choices are, and then I’ll direct you where I think you should go.
Is it better to go Crowned Sword or Crowned Shield in GO Fest 2025: Hero’s Journey in Pokémon Go
Dearest Trainers, are you ready?#PokemonGOFest2025: Global awaits!pic.twitter.com/QZ1FaHwaA7
Choosing theCrowned Sword Journey will have you focus more on ZacianinPokémon Go, while choosing theCrowned Shield Journey will have you focus on Zamazenta. The main changes this makes to the rewards you get are mainly related to Candy around the two Pokémon, with all of the rewards remaining the same.
Choosing the Crowned Sword journey will have you focus on Fairy-type Pokémon for some of the tasks, whereas the Crowned Shield focuses on Fighting-type Pokémon instead. So the choice comes down to you.
Look at what habitat you are in. If you are getting Fairy-type spawns, maybe go down the Sword Path if you want to speedrun the tasks to get them out of the way. But in my opinion, the tasks are better suited to personal circumstances.
If you only plan to play Saturday, for example, you’ll miss out on Zacian raids on Sunday, so choose the Crowned Shield path to get what you need for the Zamazenta raids currently spawning that day.You don’t get a Zacian or Zamazenta encounter when doing all the tasks, so you don’t want to pick a path for a Pokémon you won’t be able to catch, unless you already have one.
Either way, picking either option won’t have you miss out on much if you plan to play the whole weekend and go all in on raids to try to find enough Energy to change the forms of both Pokémon. So take whichever path you like.
So honestly, pick what you want, but if I had to choose. I’m going to go the Crowned Sword Journey path so I can get both Crowned forms of Zacian and Zamazenta on the same day and enjoy my Sunday focusing on Shiny Pokémon. But you might have different goals from mine.
TL:DR; Picking the Crowned Sword path focuses on Zacian and gives you 1000 Crowned Sword Energy, while picking the Crowned Shield path gives you 1000 Crowned Shield Energy and focuses on Zamazenta.
