Terrific Experience Terrible Game
With the release of Pokémon GO, the Pokémon world has been brought to ours and our childhood dreams seem to have been brought to reality. Now we can finally find and capture Pokémon in our own backyards. The game itself however might not actually be any good.
Going outside and collecting Pokémon is of course the star attraction of Pokémon GO. There is a very real thrill in scouring real locations in search of fantastic creatures. There is excitement when you find them, and there is heart wrenching suspense as you throw the Pokéball and watch it rock back and forth, wondering if that Charizard you've been tracking might slip from your grasp after all. Throwing Pokéballs, though it seems very simple initially, does take just enough skill to keep the repetitive action engaging over numerous encounters, even when catching Rattata. The Pokémon species are distributed in environments that make sense for them, and since the Pokédex doesn't have any location data for the Pokémon, players must use their intuition and explore in order to catch them all. Pokéstops, where players replenish their supplies of Pokéballs and other items are placed at points of interest, which enhances this sense of exploration. Players might find interesting things in their own neighbourhoods they had not noticed before.
Beyond this, however, Pokémon Go isn't much of a Pokémon game. Training Pokémon is almost completely unviable. Stardust, the currency used to level up one's Pokémon, is hard to accumulate and very quickly spent. Moreover, the power of wild Pokémon varies greatly and it's not uncommon to find Pokémon many times stronger than your own, especially early in the game. As such, it's always much better to look for powerful Pokémon rather than to train them up. Your starter Pokémon, which would likely play a starring role in your team in the main series, is rendered utterly useless some thirty seconds into Pokémon GO. And in order to evolve, Pokémon need candy, but they can only use candy dropped by Pokémon from the same evolutionary line. Progressing one Pokémon through its evolutionary stages then requires capturing dozens of the same species. All this means that players are left to constantly replace and discard their Pokémon. In a series that has always emphasised the bond between a trainer and their Pokémon and had the game mechanics reflect that, these are really strange design choices indeed.
In Pokémon GO players can join one of three teams and compete for control of gyms. An MMO style turf war seems a fine idea, but this is let down by the lacklustre gym battles. The turn based tactics of the main series have been replaced by real time button mashing. Pokémon type weaknesses and resistances still apply, but even so the battles have the scope and depth of a teaspoon. Each Pokémon only knows two moves and only one of them can be reliably used, and so the vast majority of battles consists of nothing more than tapping the screen.
Inexplicably, Pokémon trading is completely absent at launch. The developers have indicated that this feature will be added in a future update and that it should improve the social experience greatly, allowing players to trade for Pokémon that are rare in their area.
As things stand, Pokémon GO is a great experience and a poorly designed game. There is very little actual content and thus far it fails to deliver on training, battling and trading - three of Pokémon's four core elements. The one element it does deliver on though, it delivers brilliantly.
Aadiyat is an aspiring biologist and is consequently terrified of social interaction in every form. Please don't contact him at [email protected]
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