Pokemon Go
Welcome all readers for another article purely to sate your gamer geek needs! If the title doesn’t give it away then here it is - this new addition will revolve around the mobile game sensation taking phone activities by the storm since its release: Pokémon Go. Made only for the Android and IOS devices, this addicting game is NOT created by Nintendo believe it or not. It was created by the software company Niantic.
For those who have not yet had the pleasure of testing out this game, it shares similar elements to the traditional pokémon. At the beginning of the game, players can automatically customize their avatar to their own unique specifications. They also have the option of choosing their allegiance to one of the three factions: Team Mystic, whose mascot is Articuno (best team!); Team Instinct, Zapdos; Team Valor, Moltres. Once the avatar is made, the player jumps right into the game in Niantic’s unique movement system where the avatar moves along with the player covering distance across the map match by real life locations in real time. By changing locations from one spot to another, the avatar will move along with them and different locations will contain different pocket monsters. Neat, right? That’s not all, the tall grass system applies as well, where players can randomly encounter pokémon. The difference there lies in the capture system.
Fans nostalgically remember the battle sequence where trainers and their team fight wild pokémon and fling their pokéballs at them when they’re weak enough or something of that ilk, correct? In PokémonGo, there is no such combat epicness that sparks such childhood memories…against wild pokémon anyhow. Instead, the player can go right ahead with catching the pokémon throwing pokéballs with a swipe of a finger. This part of the system feels similar to that of a mini-game where the trick lies in aiming. As bland as that sounds, this unique play on “hit-or-miss” has captured both interest and time from app users around the world. It really is quite addicting.
To get back on the battle system, it was mentioned that players cannot battle wild pokémon. While there are rumors that that feature may be added to the game in the future to follow similar lines to the original series as closely as possible, Niantic has made no such promises yet, but it makes up for that by having trainers battle each other. Throughout the area within the players’ proximity are hotspots and they come in two forms: Pokéstops, where players can swipe on the location icon to refresh items such as potions and pokéballs, and Gyms, every die hard pokémon fan should know what these are. Rather than premade AI trainers with a set pokémon team, PokémonGo users can battle each for dominance. If the gym is white, it means it’s empty; blue for Team Mystic, yellow for Team Instinct, and red for Team Valor. Any player can take over the gym for their team and the longer they maintain their holding on it, the more benefits they have. The battles themselves are not turn-based like the traditional games; on the phone, it follows a tap-and-swipe system where the player will play against the rival team’s pokémon to attack and dodge continuously. For the moment, there is no real-time battle system for this app so players can only battle another’s AI.
At its release, PokémonGo made the charts as one of the hottest apps and was the most downloaded program in its first week. The amount of users were rising to explosive numbers due to the franchise and statistically more people were becoming increasingly active because of its unique mobile features. In the one of the hearts of California, players would be out on the Santa Monica pier well into the early morning hours, many not leaving until around 3am. Pokémon trainers clearly don’t need sleep!
Unfortunately, the app based around such an iconic series has been on the receiving end of bad reviews, critiques, technical errors, and overall pitfalls of users. On the first month of its release, there were numerous complaints on the app’s buggy gameplay from the lagging capture system to the point where most users cannot even get past the loading screen.
Another flaw is their level up system for each pokémon. While the process is simple: use currency to make your monster more powerful. Easy. The currency comes in two forms: pokémon candy and stardust, both which are acquired by catching pokémon constantly. While it is easy to farm both, the level system demands high amounts of stardust which most users do not have enough of from capturing pokémon. The purpose of these two currencies is to make their team stronger so that that can take on gyms; however, when it became too frustrating to grind for these two things, many players called it quits as the rival trainers continued to get farther and farther ahead. It was near impossible for players to catch up for a chance of getting their own gym bonuses.
Adding to this, people were growing restless and tired of catching Rattata and Zubat constantly as was the joke of many of the game’s memes. So when several parties became interested in seeking ways to find better, rarer pokémon, they created apps that overrode the in-game’s tracking system. Numerous apps for the game surpassed the system by showing the exact locations of certain pokémon on the map as opposed to the creators’ purpose of keeping the spots and encounters random and spontaneous. Another cheat was when people began to grow lazy from the game’s walking system and decided to download an app where they can move their avatar anywhere without the player themselves taking a single step. While it certainly made it more enjoyable for those players, Niantic would have none of it. To counter this, the company removed the tracking system entirely and only displayed what pokémon were nearby (instead of how close they were as its original design) and created a monitoring program that detects whether or not a player is moving too fast by normal means of travel and will thus disable the wild encounters if it appears so. Niantic would then post on social media sites to discourage cheating on their app. While it certainly trumped most of the cheaters, it made a huge impact on the rest of the users. Because of these updates, many players quit because at that point PokémonGo was “no longer enjoyable”.
To continue onto the battle system, this one had problems in both the loading and the gameplay where players frequently have to restart their app in order to get it working properly. It wasn’t too long where it became a chore for the three factions to display their team pride when they can’t even load into the battle properly. Or even more frustrating to go on a winning streak only for the game to completely freeze on the spot right before the finishing blow.
When user rating was dropping to a critical low, Niantic attempted to fall back into the good graces of its app users by updating the game that better fitted player preferences. The company made it easier to accumulate currency, a unique buddy system, and brought back a new and improved tracking system that shows the location of the desired pokémon themselves. In addition, Niantic added the 2nd generation pokémon to the wild encounters just recently on Monday, December 12 (more disappointing than it sounds). Thanks to this more people are returning to the game and new users are bringing themselves to the mix of the Gamefreak hype. If the readers here wish to give the game a shot, it should be remembered to be careful going out and about while playing but also remember to have fun with this sensational and unique app despite all of its flaws. Below are several links on the game as well as tips and tricks for those who come across a little snag.
Sources:
http://pokemongo.nianticlabs.com/en/
http://kotaku.com/pokemon-gos-new-update-just-isnt-enough-1790051208
http://www.ign.com/wikis/pokemon-go/Bugs,_Glitches,_Freezes,_and_Fixes