Pokemon Go, the augmented reality game that’s coming to smartphones, sets up some awesome possibilities if you’ve ever been a fan of the series: Imagine walking home and discovering a Pikachu or a Snorlax hiding right in your neighborhood. Prior to this, each chapter of the series focused on catching Pokemon in a specific region. This mobile game lets you catch them all over the real world.
This massive project combines the talent of Nintendo, The Pokemon Company, and Ingress-developer Niantic, and changes the rules of Game Freak’s mainline RPGs series for a smartphone audience. We gave you our brief impressions based on 30 minutes with the game. IGN got access to the closed beta, so we assembled an awesome elite foursome to spend a week catching and collecting Pokemon. Read on as Andrew Goldfarb, Kallie Plagge, Miranda Sanchez, and Jose Otero share their experiences in the Pokemon Go Field Test.
Jose Otero, Editor: From the moment I started Pokemon Blue roughly 18 years ago on the Game Boy, I was hooked by the collection aspect of this series. I guess it’s no surprise then that I invested most of my time capturing pocket monsters to fill out my Pokedex. Surprisingly, I finished the Pokemon Go beta with roughly 60 unique Pokemon in my collection.
The process of capturing and collecting Pokemon is just as addicting as ever, but I need to stress how the rules have changed in comparison to the core Pokemon RPGs. First, you don’t have to battle wild Pokemon with your party of six in order to capture them. In Pokemon Go, you capture Pokemon by simply tossing Pokeballs (from regular ones to Ultra Balls) at the creatures you find. Special Razz Berries will increase your chances to nab them before they escape. It’s a cool minigame that requires a surprising amount of skill (since each bad toss will subtract from your inventory of Pokeballs) despite its simple swipe mechanics.
Pokemon Go’s graphics don’t look bad either, even when I took pictures of these animated augmented reality creatures hanging out in real-world locations. The simple 3D models have just the right amount of detail and lighting. I don’t play a lot of AR games because of the creaky technology typically involved, but my solid experience with Pokemon Go sold me enough that I’d be willing to try more of them.
I woke up and left the house early on a Saturday morning just so I search for Pokemon and I spent the entire day outside. I never a game would get me to do that. And that tells me that Pokemon Go’s collection mechanics are on the right track.
Kallie Plagge, Editor: I remember playing Pokemon Crystal on my Game Boy Color in a park as a kid because my mom made me go outside. This time, I made myself go outside! I wasn't as focused on catching lots of different Pokemon so much as catching as many Pidgeys as humanly possible. Catching a Pokemon gets you a “candy” for their species, and having a lot of candies for that species allows you to power up a single Pokemon or evolve it. So, naturally, I wanted to get a Pidgeot and decided to just farm Pidgeys.
I wasn't able to get a Pidgeot in the short amount of time we had, but I can imagine I’d have been really proud of myself. This method of evolution is a little irritating at first, but it does take the sting out of seeing the same few Pokemon around my apartment all the time.
Andrew Goldfarb, Executive Editor: It’s crazy how tempting this makes it to venture just a little bit out of the way to get that extra Pokemon. My apartment is infested with nothing but Pidgeys, but the first day I started playing, I found some more interesting Pokemon a block or two away. By the second day, I went a few blocks out of my way on the way home from work to find a few more. By a few days later, I was doing a 15 minute lap in the wrong direction just to see what I could find and check out some gyms.
My apartment is infested with nothing but Pidgeys
I agree with Jose that the AR is really charming. Even while catching Pokemon, I had a lot of fun waiting a few extra seconds to get the perfect screenshot in front of a funny background before I ultimately put that pocket monster in its tiny ball-shaped prison. It’s really fun seeing Pokemon in real-life environments.
Miranda Sanchez, Editor: I didn't spend much too much time outside for this, but I did leave the house just as I walked in so that I could get a Jolteon. Playing your own games of "Who's That Pokemon?" is exciting, especially when you see the silhouette of your favorite Pokemon show up in the bottom right corner. I never really went out of my way to farm for Pokemon, but I caught repeats as I found them at home or at work.
Kallie: In addition to walking around trying to find new Pokemon, I also think walking in general is rewarding in Pokemon GO. I’ve been living in the same neighborhood for over three years, and the short blurbs about some of the PokeStops near my apartment taught me things about the area I wouldn’t have known.
PokeStops are real-world locations based on data from Ingress, Niantic’s previous GPS-based game, and they're usually (but not always) interesting or important locations in your city. You get items like Poke Balls and Potions from them, and I also feel more like a local! I now know more about a mural I pass by every single day, and I went out of my way to walk by a gorgeous church near me. I’ve always thought it was beautiful but never really took the time to walk on that quieter street before; I was always in a hurry. This time, I literally stopped to smell a rose. It made me appreciate my neighborhood more, when in the past, I didn’t care for it at all and actively avoided exploring.
Andrew: I definitely agree that this game promotes exploration, but I’m curious to see what that means for a game that’s primarily aimed at kids. And don’t get me wrong; I don’t mean that in a pejorative way. I’m an adult (kind of) and will pour dozens of hours into this game. But for kids, it’s a very different proposition to wander into new areas to try to take down a Gym or catch a Pokemon that popped up at the edge of the map a few streets over. For that matter, even for adults, wandering around with your phone out and exploring streets you’ve never been on can lead to all sorts of problems.
It’ll be interesting seeing how Niantic addresses this stuff. There’s a splash screen when the app first loads that reminds you to be aware of your surroundings, and you have to enter your age to use the thing in the first place, but it’s a fascinating new frontier to have to consider so many real-life situations.
Miranda: You can definitely put yourself in weird places while playing Pokemon Go. The gym I took over was by a highway entrance. I ended up standing by a nearby crosswalk for about 20 minutes, and that was a little awkward, but not entirely unsafe.
Some of the PokeStops are in odd places too. I found two in a barbecue restaurant, but in order to get the stops I had to walk along the back of the building. I felt a little strange doing that, but those were the closest PokeStops to me at the time and I really needed a revive. Exploring with Pokemon Go does make for a great opportunity to drag significant others, roommates, and family out of the house and out for a walk. Find items, be safe, and bond with a friend or family member while doing it!
Jose: My neighborhood in the East Bay didn’t have nearly as many PokeStops as San Francisco, but I still found them fairly regularly. I was able to stock up on items.
Andrew: With such a focus on collecting, gym battles offer a much-needed break. Battling has always been my favorite element of Pokemon, and Niantic has added their own unique twist to make it unique to mobile. Rather than the turn-based battles you’d expect in core Pokemon games, GO battles take place in real-time and offer a limited moveset: a simple, weak move by tapping the screen, and a more powerful, limited move by holding down on the screen. Using your simple move will charge the more powerful one, and you can avoid enemy attacks by swiping in either direction to dodge.
On paper, this system makes a lot of sense and is well-suited to the platform. In practice, I had a lot of trouble understanding exactly what I was doing. There’s no tutorial, and real-time battles move FAST, so, especially after I made the mistake of challenging a particularly strong gym, my Pokemon were generally knocked out before I even had my bearings.
The dodging system could use a little bit of work, but overall the battling is fun...
Miranda: The dodging system could use a little bit of work, but overall the battling system is fun. It feels even better when you take down a gym. I found a gym around my level, defeated all three trainers, and set my prized Jolteon there as its new guardian. I’m a little sad that I left my best Pokemon there, but it’s gratifying to see my Pokemon standing on top of the gym pillar.
Jose: Gym battling in feels a lot like King of the Hill to me. I took down a gym in the East Bay (for the Blue Team!) which was fun, but I had a hard time choosing which Pokemon to leave behind to defend the gym. I didn’t want to give up anything too powerful behind, but leaving a weakling meant we could lose the gym. When you drop off a Pokemon to guard a gym, it’s still technically yours. But i wanted to keep my stronger Pokemon so I could take down the powerful gyms by the office.
Kallie: Like Andrew, I had a lot of trouble with the battle system. I’m very entrenched in competitive battling in the main RPGs, and this is just so different — not that that’s a bad thing, but I felt like I had very little control over how well my Pokemon did in battle regardless of how well I tapped and dodged. I probably got a bit too ambitious and challenged too hard a gym, and I think it probably would have been more fun to grab a few friends and challenge a gym together than standing on a street corner doing it alone.
Miranda: Pokemon Go is by no means a replacement for the core Pokemon games, but it could still learn more from them. In the main games, your Pokemon team come to feel like a family, but the Pokemon in Pokemon Go feel a little too distant. There's not a good way to interact with Pokemon outside of catching them and training at gyms. Seeing a random Pokemon in my living room or around the corner from my office was cool, but it would be even cooler to see Pokemon I've caught projected into my world using the camera. Miitomo has a fun photo mode, and I hope Niantic sees the success people had sharing those photos and lets Pokemon Go utilize it's AR capabilities for more than catching Pokemon.
And what about player customization? The initial clothing items aren't very diverse, and it'd be nice to be able to unlock special items at PokeStops and gyms. Becoming a gym leader is rather difficult, and I think it’d make sense for your trainer to receive some sort of item that shows off your victory.
There are also many different kinds of PokeStops; parks, pieces of art, trails, and sometimes weird items in restaurants or apartment complexes. It'd be fun if different types of PokeStops had a chance to drop special customization items. That would make me want to explore for collectibles more than I already do.
Jose: I want to see player vs. player battles in Pokemon Go. The Pokemon RPGs present a world where people from all walks of life collect, trade, and battle each other. I mean, how fun would it be to ‘lock eyes’ with a trainer in real life and drop a challenge.
Kallie: I love the idea of PvP, and I also want to see a robust trading system. Pokemon show up based on the relative ecology of your area, so it would make sense not to encounter all kinds of Pokemon without leaving your city. I want to trade Horsea and Slowpoke for Doduo and Kangaskhan with my friend in a landlocked town. And I think trading really enforces the social, interpersonal aspect that Niantic seems to be going for with Pokemon GO. Go outside, trade those Pokemon, make friends.
Andrew: Trading will definitely help the social elements here, which I think is an important missing piece. I’d also love to see a way to practice battles, either against friends or even bots. I haven’t visited many Gyms, and when I do I get destroyed pretty quickly, but I think that’s as much about familiarity with the battle system as it is about the strength of my Pokemon. I’d love to have a venue to practice my technique, even if it’s just a simple tutorial mode.
Andrew is IGN’s executive editor of news and wrote the rest of these signatures. You can find him rambling about Persona and cute animals on Twitter.
Jose Otero is an editor at IGN and can often be heard remarking how handsome Andrew is. You can find him bragging about his Rhythm Heaven Megamix ratings on Twitter.
Miranda Sanchez is an editor at IGN and is jealous of Andrew’s Persona collection. You can find pictures of her cute kittens and Dota 2 couriers by following her on Twitter.
Kallie Plagge is IGN’s resident Pokekid and really needs to play Persona 3. You can find her killing everything that moves in Doom by following her on Twitter.
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