Pokemon GO: Day One

As many people know Pokemon GO has released in the United States, New Zealand, and Australia. It is already the #1 Free App on iTunes and everyone has been talking about. And why not? It is the first major Pokemon Mobile game and its premise is intriguing to say the least.

It’s a game that basically uses google maps to track where you are and place Pokemon that you can catch with the swipe of a finger (or a few swipes depending on the Pokemon). It is seemingly every fans dream, as it is augmenting our reality to put Pokemon in it.

I have been playing this for a full day now and wanted to tell you all about my experience with the world’s #1 free mobile game.

The Good

As a child I literally dreamed and prayed that Pokemon would be real. I wanted to be a 10 year old kid and go to Professor Oak’s lab to grab my starter. In that sense this game is as close as you may ever get outside of some really advanced virtual reality.

At first look one can see that the ability to walk around and catch Pokemon in your neighborhood and at Walmart is awesome. That part is absolutely fun. Catching Pokemon that you can see in your surroundings is just, well a dream come true.

By catching Pokemon in the wild you will gain candy that is specific to each evolutionary branch. For example if you catch a Caterpie, in order to evolve it to a Metapod you have to keep catching Caterpie. This continues up to Butterfree. Once your Pokemon can  no longer evolve you must up its combat power. This can be done by using candies and dust. Starust you can get from stops, catching Pokemon, beating gym leaders and leveling up. Candy you obviously get from catching more Pokemon on the line of that particular species.

Oh, and for all of you people out there who only like Generation one (Red, Blue, Yellow), either because you’re stubborn or have never played a Pokemon game outside the originals, you will be happy to know you can only catch the original 151 for right now.

Landmarks have been changed from just buildings or other interesting sites into PokeStops and Pokemon Gyms. I find this concept to be very intriguing. The stops allow you to basically spin their pictures and get rewards like pokeballs, eggs, and other items to help you with your journey. These are crucial if you are going to have enough pokeballs and other items as you go through the game. Or at least, they seem to be crucial, again it has only been out for a day.

The Gyms are interesting. Essentially people take over the Gyms by placing their Pokemon there to defend it. If you are on the same team as your friends you can stack your toughest Pokemon together. Once that has been done people can go and challenge these Gyms. To take them over for yourself or your team you have to continuously battle to take down the defenders Pokemon. There are Gyms placed sporadically, no longer just the 8 gyms in a region.

Also when battling you have to tap quickly for normal attacks and hold your finger down for special attacks. This allows there to be some strategy. Also you are able to swipe left or right to attempt and dodge your opponents attacks.

My last positive is this is a game that will make you exercise to be successful. Yes, you can drive and get Pokemon, but that takes a lot of the fun out of it and is very dangerous. I just got my first egg from a Pokestop and I have to walk 5 Kilometers to hatch it. This is a wonderful thing and I think a true first for a major game like Pokemon.

The Bad

I have been tweeting about it and so far I think my tweets have held up, this was not the game everyone was hoping for. It is like Battlefront was for Star Wars fans. It is a decent game but, not what we were hoping it would be.

When I originally heard about this game I was about as hyped as one could be. I thought to myself “They (GameFreak/Nintendo) have been making us wait long enough for a Pokemon MMO. This could be worth the wait”. So far it is not.

While this game has interactions at the Gyms with other trainers that is it. Being on a team may prove that to be untrue but, so far there is little reason to play this game with friends outside of walking around with them. You cannot trade with them because too many Pokemon just aren’t that rare and there is literally no possible way to (yet).

There is also no direct battling. WHAT?! I can battle someone at a Gym, but not my sister or cousin who are sitting right next to me? That makes zero sense to me.

Both trading and battling are the two major parts of Pokemon. I guess catching them all is too, but you can’t even do that because you cannot trade. If Pokemon really are only available in certain parts of the country or maybe even world then how are you supposed to catch them if: A. You are a kid with no means to travel or B: You’re too poor to travel.

This game is marketed toward children, while big children like myself still play it, we are not the target market. How is a kid expected to catch different Pokemon if they can only go to their neighborhood, friends house, school , and occasional vacations? After a few weeks they will run out of things to do. This seems to be a major flaw and I am curious to see how or if Game Freak and Nintendo will fix it.

Back to battling for a second. I do not like that I cannot level up my Pokemon or catch Pokemon by battling, only simply catching them. What is the point of having a starter if you cannot battle to train it? I have yet to even see another Squirtle. This means that it could be forever useless as it will fall behind in levels to my other Pokemon. Also Gyms could seemingly be overrun and take forever to beat. If people just grind it out and have very high level Pokemon there then it will be nearly impossible for newer trainers to have any chance.

In the Pokemon Handheld games gyms were level tiered to combat this problem. I hope that Game Freak will eventually do this in order to keep it fun for newer fans. Otherwise again they could lose interest.

Also if for some reason your regional server has not gone down today or if you haven’t had a Pokemon glitch away right as you catch it then you must be literally one in a million. This has been a major problem and annoyance all day. While I understand today is the launch I would have expected something more, well, polished from Game Freak.

My last and biggest complaint is PokeCoins. WHY?! I know they need to make money on this but, why just why make it so that paying gives people who do such a huge advantage? It makes it so they can skip actually walking around and catching anything. It makes it possible for them to pay to own gyms essentially once they hit level 5.

Again I know they need to make money but, why not have just had us pay for the game or put annoying advertisements? Anything but pay to get a huge advantage. I am not saying pay to win, because I do not think there is a true endgame.

Conclusion to Day 1 as a Real Life Pokemon Trainer

All of these are my opinions and what I have experienced on day 1 of the game. I understand that I am only level 5, I would be higher but…servers, need I say more? I also understand that there may be more that I have not seen as well as more that will come with updates. So far this game is addicting but, overall a little bit of a disappointment.

Being able to catch Pokemon while walking around and seeing them on your phone as if they are in front of you is amazing. Some of the concepts make sense but are not traditional to what fans have had in the past.

Not being able to battle your friends seems like a major flaw in this game. Adding that I don’t think would be super hard (you’re able to do it against people at Gyms). Also I think it would make this game exponentially better.

Also the in app purchases make me so mad that I want to scream! I think that the fact that I can pay money to get an advantage is infuriating and I wish they could take it out. I know they won’t, that is fine, I just wish they could.

Overall this game seems like it will be addicting for a little while because of the hope for more down the road. If that ends up not being true I believe that the game will fall flat on its face in a couple months. This will be because of lack of, well, anything to do outside of catching the same Pokemon in your region over and over again. Also the lack of truly being able to test your strength against your friends makes me wonder why not just play the handheld games?

These are my Day One impressions and thoughts! What do you all think? Please feel free to comment below, tweet at me @roberthaness, or go to our new forums and we can discuss it all there!