Pokémon No Go
Review
Pokémon GO,
Niantic (iOS)
Abstract: Pokémon GO by Niantic is one the most engaging mediocre games in recent memory. Behind the worldwide Pokémon GO sensation is an experience that’s
riddled with problems. Pokémon GO is
not a good game: it has scarce gameplay, unexplained mechanics, boring monotony
and poor optimization. Pokémon GO is
also not a good Pokémon game: terrible battles, frustrating candy systems, and a combat power rating that both obsoletes your catches and transforms Pokémon
into lifeless numbers. Yet I can’t help but be excited when I find a Pokémon
I’ve never seen before. Pokémon GO is something special. I just wish it
were special AND good. It’s not.
Pokémon GO is a hit. A global sensation. In
the span of only a few days it became one of the largest trending topics across
old media and new. Its release was momentous. In one day, it
skyrocketed Nintendo’s shares by 25%, the largest one-day increase since
the release of the Famicom in 1983. An jump that increased Nintendo’s
market capital by $9 billion. Data shows that Pokémon GO is likely
earning over $2 million a day for Nintendo and developer Niantic. Just the
other night, a Pokémon GO
Twitter account tweeted that server issues were due to nearly 48
million users try to log on simultaneously. Regardless
of what I write in this review, it won’t change those facts. Pokémon GO is a titan of a release,
something to a degree we’ve never quite seen before. My duty, however, is to
separate myself from Pokémon GO the
cultural artifact and look at Pokémon GO
the game. Unfortunately, that’s where everything begins to fall apart.
I wanted to
like Pokémon GO. No, more than that.
I wanted to love Pokémon GO. Like most children of the
90’s, I grew up catching Pokémon. My nostalgia runs deep. Pokémon Blue is among the first games I can remember playing start
to finish. I sat diligently plugging away at my translucent Gameboy Pocket, Pokémon Blue cartridge in tow, catching
them all and defeating gym leaders. It was one of the first games I got really
deep into. I remember writing up prospective team compositions, moves I wanted
my favorites to learn, and strategies to tackle the Elite 4. It wasn’t a
passing phase for me either. I have played every Pokémon generation to date: Blue to Silver to Ruby to Diamond to
White to X. If Pokémon GO could deliver an experience even a
fraction of what I enjoyed before, I would be happy. After playing, I’m not
very happy.
 |
| If only Pokémon GO were a little more like this. |
Let’s first
get into what Pokémon GO is. Pokémon GO is a location-based Pokémon
catching game that mixes traditional elements of the monster collecting
franchise with augmented reality. Like all Pokémon games, you start by selecting your trainer, speaking with a
professor, and catching your starter Pokémon.
Catching is done by swiping your finger upwards, throwing a Pokéball that
must collide the Pokémon. Using the camera, you can have the
monster appear “in the real world” right in front of you—sitting on your coffee
table or at your work desk or at the park. Seeing the nicely rendered 3D models
of classic Pokémon appear in the real world is great. It’s fun to whip your
phone around to see where the little critter is hiding. Even 20+ hours
in, I still get joy out of seeing a Zubat hovering on top of my stove or outside
my lab’s window. Catching and collecting isn’t great, though. Thrown Pokéballs
don’t always follow the trajectory of your swipe, resulting in wasted throws.
Unlike in the Pokémon games
themselves, there is no real strategy to catching wild Pokémon. You just throw
the ball and see if the Pokémon decides to stay in or not. There is a timing
mechanic, in which you are asked to throw the ball in the middle of a colored
circle that expands and shrinks, but at best this marginally affects capture
rate.
 |
It's fun to see a Pidgey behind my laptop
at work, even 20+ hours in. |
After
collecting your starter, you’re off to the real world. There is where Pokémon GO shines the brightest.
Following the model of its spiritual predecessor Ingress, Pokémon GO plops
you down on a simplified map based on your current location. Pulling from
Google Maps data, you can see the buildings and streets and rivers nearby.
Certain real world landmarks play important roles in Pokémon GO. Some locations are Pokéstops, places where you can
check-in to receive in-game items like extra Pokéballs or potions/revives.
Other locations are gyms, places where you can do battle with other players
(kind of). Everything else is open space in which to hunt Pokémon. Pokémon
spawn in real world locations. A menu shows Pokémon with the closest proximity
to the player. Some will be right next to you, others further away as denoted
by 1 to 3 footprint symbols under their picture. You can then run, walk, bike,
drive, whatever, to get close enough to the Pokémon to capture them. There are
common and rare spawns, each lasting for an undisclosed but fixed period
of time. The location-based nature of Pokémon GO is fantastic. I love checking
in on where I am in the world and seeing what creatures are lurking nearby. Pokémon GO has fun design choices too,
like water type Pokémon appearing more often near real world bodies of water, or
rock type Pokémon appearing by mountains or deserts. Pokémon GO does a great job at encouraging people to get up and
moving, to explore new parts of their city, and to chase their next catch.
 |
Exploring the real world in a Pokémon GO
lens is by far the game's best feature. |
As much as
I like Pokémon GO’s premise, it fails
in so many fundamental ways as a video game. From a gameplay perspective, there
is little to nothing to actually do while playing. You walk around in the real
world, see a Pokémon, throw a couple balls at it, it gets caught or it doesn’t, and then you rinse & repeat. Collection, Pokémon GO’s central mechanic, is
nothing but luck and persistence. The game requires no skill whatsoever, so
that even the rarest captures can feel unrewarding. When not catching Pokémon you have a precious few things to do. Candies can be used to evolve your
Pokémon. You receive three of that species’ candy with each capture, and one
from transferring (deleting) that Pokémon away. To evolve a Pidgey into a
Pidgeotto, for example, you need to catch 4 separate Pidgeys. You can also
power up Pokémon using candies and Stardust—a resource that’s gained with each
capture. Powering up a Pokémon increases its Combat Power, or CP, but I’ll get
to that more in a bit. The moment to moment gameplay in Pokémon GO is deeply repetitive. It’s a slow, relatively
unrewarding slog.
To make
matters worse, Pokémon GO never
explains its gameplay nuances to players. From capture experience to
differences in a Pokémon’s base stats to gym battles, nothing is told to players. Perhaps this was intentional, designed to get players
socializing, but it comes across poorly. Speaking of socializing, for a game
that encourages players to interact with one another, Pokémon GO has
absolutely no social features built in. No friends lists, no messaging, no
leaderboards, no trading. Some of these are allegedly coming in an update, but
the launch version of Pokémon GO is devoid
of any such feature. Moreover, Pokémon GO
feels so poorly coded. Server issues aside (which are maybe excusable due to
the gargantuan demand), Pokémon GO
just doesn’t run well. I need to hard close the app after nearly every use. I
get stuck on loading screens constantly. Sometimes I’ll catch a Pokémon only to
have it never appear in my box. The location services are finicky at best. My
avatar will pop around a map as it searches, or I’ll be greeted with a giant
red bar stating ‘GPS signal not found.’ Trying to actually play Pokémon GO is frustrating, and when the
game you’re treated to once everything loads is astonishingly lackluster, it
makes the experience all the worse.
 |
| Yay it's working! For now. And only kind of. |
The issues
don’t stop there. Pokémon GO is not
only a poorly designed video game, it’s also a bad Pokémon game. Strategy, a centerpiece of the franchise, is replaced
with luck and persistence in all facets of Pokémon
GO. The candy-based evolution and powerup systems work against the core of
what Pokémon games accomplished:
forming a connection between you and your monsters. I can still remember by Pokémon Blue team. The Blastoise I
raised from the beginning, the Aerodactyl I got from a fossil, the Moltres I
found on Victory Road. But in Pokémon GO,
every new catch is a checkbox. You need to catch 4 Pidgeys to get one
Pidgeotto, and then another 17 to evolve Pidgeotto into Pidgeot. The trademark
line of Pokémon is “Gotta Catch ‘Em
All,” not “Gotta Catch Several Dozen Of The Same Boring Ones You Already Have.”
New catches become numbers on a screen, losing the life and personality of the
distinct Pokémon.
 |
You can't see the bottom of this list, but trust
me, it's all Pidgey's and Zubats. |
Battling is
by far the worst part of Pokémon GO. For
starters, battling in Pokémon GO can
only happen at gyms. After claiming a gym for the first time, Pokémon GO players can choose one of their
Pokémon to stay and guard it. Other players can then come in and do battle
against the incumbent gym leaders. Battles are asynchronous, meaning that the
Pokémon and trainers you’re fighting against are controlled by A.I and not players.
The tried and true turn based battles are replaced instead by real time tap fests. Tapping the screen causes your Pokémon to use its basic attack,
swiping can (sort of) be used to dodge attacks, and once your power meter
fills, holding down on the screen for a second or two unleashes your big
attack. But really, and I’ve seen this in person too, it’s just tapping on your
screen as fast as possible hoping to do enough damage before your Pokémon is
knocked out. (I should mention, none
of this is explained to players, you’re just dropped in). Battling requires no
skill, no thought. It is unfun in the worst possible way. What determines
victory more often than not is a Pokémon's Combat Power (CP) rating. Perhaps
unsurprisingly by this point in the review, CP is another thing I took issue
with.
 |
| Battling your Pokémon is irredeemably awful. |
Each
Pokémon you catch has a set CP number. This number can be increased by powering
them up with candies and Stardust, or by evolving them. As I just mentioned,
aside from exploiting type weaknesses, CP is the biggest determinate in which
Pokémon will win a fight. Finding
high CP critters is critical. The issues with CP are multifaceted. First, the
lifelessness and disconnect you feel with your team is compounded by always
looking for the Pokémon with the highest CP. As your profile levels
up, you start to find higher CP Pokémon in the wild. That means that those
Pokémon you spent candies and Stardust on just the other day quickly become obsolete. Pokémon GO discourages you from evolving
Pokémon until your account is a very high level, but that unfortunately means
there is even less to do while playing. Pokémon GO has you in the role of a Pokémon
catcher, not a Pokémon trainer. I got excited the first time I caught a leveled
up a 230 CP Pinsir (a rare find), only to be bummed two days later when I
caught a 279 Clefairy and a 240 Pidgey. CP also makes it so that only the most
devoted players can control gyms. I’ve tried exploiting type weaknesses and specifically tailoring
a team to take out a nearby gym, only to get soundly defeated because the gym’s
leader had a 1300 CP Lapras that annihilated my 540 CP Jolteon. Battling is a
steep uphill climb I don’t want to make.
 |
Exploiting type weaknesses won't matter - I have no
chance to win. At my level, I can't even get a 1000+ CP Pokémon. |
So if Pokémon GO is neither a good game nor a
good Pokémon game, why am I still
playing? Why did I feel a rush of excitement today when I came across my first
Vulpix on my morning walk to lab? Pokémon
GO has an indefinable appeal. I want to collect ‘em all. I want to see my
trainer be a gym leader for a day or two. Gameplay, design, and coding missteps
aside, Pokémon GO offers something so
unique and clever I can’t help but suffer through it (for the time being). Pokémon GO is one of the most engaging
mediocre, bordering on bad, games I’ve ever played. At times my frustration overrides the novelty
and I doubt I’ll still be playing a few weeks from now, but for the moment,
I’ll keep going. I wanna be the very best, after all.
Pokémon GO
2/5
