Pokémon Go
The Poké-phenomenon that’s consuming the nation.
Have you ever wanted be the very best, like no one ever was?
Have you ever attempted to catch them all?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, may I interest you in Pokémon Go?
Pokémon Go is an augmented reality game that will probably ruin my life.
There is nothing I ever wanted more in life than to be kicked out of my house at the tender age of 10, forced to wander the country while my flaming lizard engulfs other peoples’ pets in a raging fire.
So imagine my delight when my manager walked up to me at work earlier this week to tell me, “Dude, there’s Squirtle in Jenny’s office.”
Simply put, that sentence sums up Pokémon Go.
Through a combination of the camera on your phone, GPS and technological wizardry I could never hope to understand, the game puts pokémon into the real world.
Imagine going out for a night on the town, wandering around (possibly inebriated) and literally stumbling into pokémon to catch in the real world — a fantasy that us Pokémon fanatics could only dream of coming true.
Wouldn’t it be dope if one day you walked out of your car and ran into a Horsea?(The answer is yes: it is dope.)
Wouldn’t it be dope if you went to take a bathroom break to get out of doing your job, and a Weedle approached you on the toilet. (The answer once again is yes: it’s super dope.)
As dope as this app is, though, there are some serious problems:
- Not enough server space.
- Not enough instructions.
Man, Damian, Pokémon Go sounds incredible; So I just download it, log in and start catching Pokémon? That sounds way too good to be true.
Well, imaginary reader, you’re kind of right. Kind of.
Like I said, the first large issue with Pokémon Go is the servers. While taking my mother out for dinner at Carrabba’s, I noticed the person at the table next to me was showing off Pokémon Go to his family. (A Doduo was in their appetizer. It was at this point that I stopped paying attention to Mom.)
A conversation then breaks out in which me, our waiter and Doduo Guy explain Pokémon Go to my mom and grandmother, a conversation in which I shamelessly plugged this (shamefully-still-unfinished) article. The talk inspired me to open my app and catch some Pokémon right then and there. I was super pumped to log in and show my mother why I might get fired from teaching next year when I pause lectures to go catch ’em all.
However, I was unable to log in.
Due to overcrowded servers.
This is a common problem: One of the reasons I’m writing this article the week after Pokémon Go launched, instead of sometime last week, is because I wanted to actually use the app and not just write an article that said WE NEED MORE SERVERS. I WANT POKEMON. NERD RAGE.
Sometimes it gets ridiculous. I was once kicked off the servers while looking for a pokémon. (This really made me mad because the pokémon I was hunting was a Ghastly, which evolves into Gengar, a top-10 pokémon for me…)
Hell, Pokémon’s own website gets so much traffic now that I can’t even recover my account.
Even worse, any day I’ve been kicked off or cannot connect to the server, I’m basically unable to play for the rest of the day. If servers were the only problem with Pokémon Go, then this article probably would’ve been a short one complaining about server issues, but the app is also slightly difficult to use.
Here’s the way it’s supposed to work: Open the app, then it should tell you how close pokémon are to you. Next, as you search for said man of poké, the app should tell you that you’re getting closer with a little marker under the pokémon that shows how far they are in the format of steps.
Example: I opened the app at a friend’s house and saw a Wartortle somewhere in the vicinity (three “steps” away as the app would show). I then proceeded to wander around my friend’s neighborhood constantly checking my phone and never got any closer to the Wartortle.
Instead of finding a Wartortle and living out some of my greatest childhood fantasies, I probably just looked like someone casing the neighborhood on my phone preparing for a heist.
Later, I found this article that explained the process a bit more, but see, that’s the major problem with the app: It’s not easy to use.
At no point did the app explicitly explain how to find pokémon. Rather, you open the app, choose the starter, are told to wildly fling Pokéballs at pokémon.
End of tutorial.
To catch them is your only test
As much as I’m complaining about the app, I’ve had a ridiculous amount of fun with it.
I hypothesize that I’ve probably felt more enjoyment from my short time with Pokémon Go than I have with any phone game ever.
Pokémon Geaux is capable of fantastical highs, in which you live out some of your greatest Pokémon fantasies; The combination of nostalgia and discovery simply cannot be matched.
During The Great Wartortle Disappointment of ‘16, I found a Horsea, one of my absolute favorite Pokémon. Later on while waiting to record Lone Star Summit Show #63: NBA Trivia, I used an item called incense, and Pokémon summoned.
After a week with Pokémon Go, I’ve found myself frantically searching to find a Wartortle.
Alas, it’s been a failure thus far.
Perhaps more upside to this app than anything else is that the idea of having to find some of the rarer pokémon encourages exercise in its users. Go ahead and read that sentence again.
One feature is Pokestops, where certain monuments around your town or city will grant you gifts for visiting them.
Most of the time, the gifts are just a few Pokéballs (which you will be chucking like mad — more on that later), but Pokestops may gift you with eggs which you hatch by walking. As in, physical movement.
Incorporated, there seems to be a genius mechanism, depending on how you feel about exercise, where driving doesn’t register as steps. So you actually have to walk or run to hatch these eggs.
I’m not saying Pokémon Go will make me Usain Bolt, but I might take a stroll occasionally, which would be an improvement.
Pokestops and finding Pokémon are the two parts of this app that I actually enjoy. You fling a Pokéball, and, if you hit a certain area, you normally catch it.
Stronger Pokémon will need multiple attempts to catch them, and although there’s a system by which you get rewarded for better throws, the rewards are not that great.
Once you reach level five, you can challenge gyms and experience your first Pokémon Battle. The battle system consists of swiping your Pokémon left and right to dodge, and tapping your Pokémon to attack.
It isn’t anything special.
I battled once, and probably won’t ever battle again until a future update lets me battle my friends. However, this doesn’t mean the battling system is necessarily bad, it’s just not for me.
All in all, I don’t think I’ll ever be bored of finding new Pokémon until I truly catch them all.
In all my fantasies of living in the Pokémon world, I never battled them.
I just wanted to have sweet pets that could spit hot fire rivaled only by Dylan.
Pokémon Go is the closest I can get to that dream and, for now, I’m fine with not being the very best, the best there ever was.
But.
I will travel across the land searching far and wide, or I will die trying.
Or…just pay to win
The worst thing about Pokémon Go is that the progression is similar to almost every phone game, in that you have to devote almost every waking hour to it, or pay to win.
The currency in the game is given to you by beating gyms, controlling gyms or buying it. If you don’t like the battle system, you are very limited in your way to gain this currency, and thus will have a hard time buying more Pokéballs, or anything else.
However, the pay-to-win option doesn’t surprise me as this is a free game, and free games make their money by almost requiring you to buy their currency.
This concept is neither new to Pokémon Go nor exclusive to it.
Wait, Dam, you said you like it, but you’ve been complaining almost this whole time.
You’re right. I have indeed spent over half of this article complaining about Pokémon Go. Yet, that only proves how much I love it.
I wouldn’t waste my time trying to connect to overcrowded servers if I didn’t love this game.
I wouldn’t stop at every Pokestop I pass whenever I drive somewhere if I didn’t love this game.
I wouldn’t be complaining about the battling system if I didn’t love this game.
You complain and criticize the things you love because you expect better from them. I think Jesus said that.
Now excuse me while I catch this Rattata that just appeared on my laptop.
