Wednesday, July 13, 2016

What do I think of Pokemon Go?

I cannot believe it, but PokeMania is back and it is bigger than ever, all thanks to a smartphone game known as Pokemon Go. For those unaware, Pokemon Go is an augmented reality (or AR) game developed by Niantic, Nintendo, and The Pokemon Company with the concept of catching Pokemon in the real world. Essentially, the game plays similarly to the main series of games available on Nintendo's line of handheld consoles, but through the use of a smartphone's camera one is able to see a computer generated image of a Pokemon to capture right before your very eyes, which I find to be absolutely amazing. I downloaded Pokemon Go the very moment it was announced to be available in the United States, and I have played it in short bursts daily for almost a week. To be completely honest with all of you, this is actually something I have been hoping and wishing for since childhood, and I am hoping that someday, a similar feature is added to the main series of games. I enjoy this game, and it is exceptionally rare for me to enjoy a smartphone game, the only exceptions being this and the iOS ports of the Ace Attorney games (on a side note: Capcom, when are you going to release an iOS port of Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney and the Investigations: Miles Edgeworth spinoffs?). Catching Pokemon is a bit addicting, and while I do enjoy it, I  have a complaint or two to address. Catching Pokemon is easy, almost too easy for my tastes. Unlike the main series of games, you do not need to weaken the Pokemon to capture it, you simply need to throw a Pokeball at it and you essentially have it captured. The Pokemon you capture as you play are essentially underused, which is my next complaint. The Pokemon you capture are used to sacrifice for evolution candies. I felt bad sacrificing many Pidgeys and Rattatas to evolve their respective species fully. Why couldn't evolution and leveling up Pokemon be more like the main series games, where you use them to traditionally battle other trainers and wild Pokemon, which allows them to gain experience and evolve. Also, the selection of Pokemon (and it may just be the area I am in) is limited to Weedles, Pidgeys, Zubats, and Rattatas. In a future update, I would like to see a wider variety of Pokemon in my area, maybe some from Johto, Hoenn, Sinnoh, Unova, and Kalos, and I would love to see a more traditional battle system similar to the main series of games. Nintendo, Niantic, and TPCi, you are off to a solid start and I enjoy the product that you released. However, you still have a long way to go before this game is perfected and a smartphone/mobile device seller. I offer you some advice as a conclusion, improve the servers and the GPS, work on the bugs in this version, add more Pokemon, and bring back a traditional and complex battle system similar to the main series of games. If you can achieve this and fix these issues, then Pokemon Go will be even more successful than it is now, and people will be flocking to download the app for years to come. For those who are debating on downloading this game, I would suggest waiting until a properly stabilized version with more features is readily available.

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