‘Pokemon GO’ Is As Impressive As It Is Frustrating

Note: This preview is based on the most recent beta version of the game and may not represent the final product.

Despite being a huge Pokemon fan dating back to its North American debut in 1998, I’ve been very skeptical of Pokemon GO since its announcement. In the midst of the public’s seemingly universal excitement, I remember being left with more questions than answers. How would battles work? Is this going to drain your data usage? And how will the dreaded in-app purchases convince us to spend a few dollars here and there to catch that one Pokemon that continues to allude us? After playing the latest beta version of the game ahead of its rumored July release, I found the answers I was looking for. Make no mistake about it, Pokemon GO is a blast to play as long as you keep your expectations in check.

Much like the core games, you take up the role of a Pokemon Trainer who is tasked with filling your Pokedex by catching all of the Pokemon you come across. After being introduced to an unseen professor, you’ll create your character from a small range of customization options, (which I’m hoping will be increased in the final version, lest we have the majority of trainers looking nearly identical), be given a package of Poke Balls, and be on your way.

Using your phone’s GPS, built in fitness app and location tracking, your surroundings become your real life Pokemon world. Promising that terrains in real life would host Pokemon that you’d expect to see in these environments, living in the hot, dry areas of Southern California resulted in me finding numerous Rock, Fire and Ground Pokemon almost immediately. From the Onix that was right outside my doorstep, to the Vulpix and Growlithe around the block, the game didn’t hold out on the amount of popular characters they were willing to give me from the start. Limited to the first 150 Pokemon from the original Red and Blue games, it never took long to encounter a childhood favorite.

Pokemon encounters brought to life thanks to your phone’s camera inserting them into your surroundings.

To verify whether or not terrains really did matter, I took the game with me on a hike to the local park, expecting to find many of the forest bugs and mice that typically call these areas their home. Once there, results were mixed. While there was a definite shift in the frequency I was encountering some Pokemon, (such as being surrounded by Spearow and Tauros constantly), the Rattatas and Pidgeys I was constantly encountering in the city were very much a common sight here. Even more confusing was aside from frequent run-ins with Paras, there was not a bug to be found with the exception of one Weedle that was too far to chase down. In fact, I saw more Caterpie silhouettes on my way to the park than the park itself. Could the park be considered a similar terrain compared to the city? Or was I having a bad string of luck? I haven’t had a chance to test the game in vastly different areas like the beach, but aside from a random Omanyte I found in the street, I didn’t encounter a water Pokemon the entire time I played, so I’m guessing there’s some credence to the area making a difference. Either way, I can’t complain about the park too much when I found a Pikachu there.

With so many Pokemon to catch, what happens when you need more Poke Balls to catch them with? The boring solution would be to buy some at the store with in-game currency that the professor was kind enough to give me. In addition to Lucky Eggs, which grant more Trainer experience for winning battles or catching Pokemon over a certain amount of time, (your character is the only one who levels up in a traditional sense), Pokemon attracting Incense, bag and Pokemon storage upgrades, and a Lure Patch, that calls monsters to designated Poke Stops, (certain landmarks, art pieces or points of interest marked on the map), packs of 20 or 100 Poke Balls can be snatched up for a cheap price. Whether or not you’ll be able to continuously gather money or if you’ll eventually have to pay real cash for these goods in the final game is unknown, but as far as I can tell, you’ll never have to pony up for Poke Balls if you’re willing to put some work into it.

On the subject of Poke Stops, these marked areas are where you’re going to find all of the free items you need. By walking up to these spots, tapping them on your phone when they’re in your vicinity will grant you a set of random items, which almost always include Poke Balls. From Revives, Potions, stronger capture devices like Great and Ultra Balls, and even eggs that you can hatch, (given that you have an egg incubator to put them in and are willing to walk five kilometers each). These stops were my favorite features of the game, since they encourage you to walk around and explore your surroundings, giving new meaning to the statues and murals I walk by on a daily basis without giving a second to.

Trust me, you’ll be thankful that these sites refresh after a few minutes for return trips too, because catching Pokemon can be a real pain sometimes. Once you encounter a Pokemon, (which you’ll find in odd places, like my Diglett on a shelf of Nutella), there’s no way to battle with them or weaken then. Instead, you’re handed your stash of Poke Balls and have to swipe your screen to throw them. Your aim counts here, so if you miss, say goodbye to your Poke Ball. Holding your throw and waiting for a fluctuating circle around your target results in a “Nice” catch, which gives you a small experience boost if you’re successful, but I didn’t find that it helped with the actual capture rate. Because you see, some of the Pokemon are insanely frustrating to catch, and often with no rhyme or reason. Rare Pokemon that I would expect to be difficult to find, like Hitmonchan, were caught within a few attempts. Zubat on the other hand, which is everywhere all the time, (which is odd that a bat would be out in 90 degree weather on a sunny day in the city, but I digress), broke out of 30 Poke Balls before I finally claimed it. *30*! It doesn’t help that they can occasionally attack, (which makes them unable to catch throughout the animation,) jump to throw off your aim, or flat out run away, wasting all of your previous effort. When you do land a difficult catch however, it’s a highly rewarding experience.

So once you’ve caught a strong roster, it’s time to challenge the gyms. Each gym is similar to a Poke Stop, which is usually set in a highly populated landmark. As mentioned before, Pokemon can’t be leveled up in the traditional sense, but each one starts off with a certain CP level, which is a measure of their strength. Using Stardust and Pokemon Candy, the latter of which is specific to particular Pokemon, (i.e. Pidgey candy for the entire Pidgey line), you can raise their power so they can stand more of a fighting chance. Candy is also the only way to evolve Pokemon, which is easily the most tedious section of the game. They need A LOT of candy to evolve, with each catch typically giving you a single piece. Duplicate Pokemon can be released to the professor in exchange for another piece, but it doesn’t do much to help the annoyance. Using Pidgey as an example again, it needs 25 pieces to evolve into Pidgeotto. At worst, that’s 13 Pidgey’s that you need to catch while releasing 12 of them for one evolution. Now take that and imagine Sandshrew for example, which is harder to find and needs 50 pieces to evolve. Having to catch so many for a simple evolution for the most basic Pokemon is insane, and I really hope the requirement is balanced out more in the final version.

Good luck ever seeing an evolution in action.

Once at the gym, you have the option to either join it, where you’ll drop off the Pokemon of your choice and temporarily lose for as long as it’s stored in exchange for periodic boosts, or challenge it, where you fight a string of trainers who have claimed it as theirs for some big EXP rewards. Once you start battling however… You’ll find where Pokemon GO‘s biggest weakness lies. Each Pokemon only has two attacks, a basic attack and a super attack. Your basic move is used by tapping your Pokemon like crazy, so you can keep spamming your attack for huge damage. There were even cases where I would win battles against enemies that were much stronger simply because I tapped like a madman, which is not very fair, even if I came out victorious. Once your super meter is full, you’ll hold your finger on your chosen battler for about a second to unleash their stronger super attack, which deals much more damage, but can only be used sparingly. I never expected anything deep, but if you were going into this expecting battles that rivaled the main games, you’re going to be disappointed. At the very least, the type match ups and all 18 types are represented, which is further than I thought the game would go to be honest.

Outside of the battles and frustrating catch rates however, are a series of smaller issues that add up to become pretty big annoyances. The need to have your app open for anything to register is annoying, especially when out on long walks. It doesn’t make sense to me that the game reads off of your fitness app to help track steps, but your eggs won’t come closer to hatching unless the app is on while you’re walking. Couple that with the annoying music, which is on an infinite 30 second loop and can’t be turned off without shutting your volume down completely, you’re left with either trying to listen to your music or podcasts mixing in with the game’s soundtrack, or walking in silence, making your trip much more dull. Once the Pokemon GO Plus accessory is released, this problem will be solved for catching Pokemon, but it won’t do anything when it comes to the eggs. You can’t even leave it on in the background, move your phone into landscape mode, or lock your phone while it’s running, since chances are the game will crash when you try to load it back up. While we’re talking about sound, many of the classic Pokemon jingles are either missing, or sound off. I’m not sure if this was a design choice, or if Go couldn’t license the official music for some reason, but it’s noticeable for longtime fans such as myself.

But most concerning, is that the game completely stops working when outside of a service area. While this brings up a whole separate issue for people who aren’t fortunate enough to live in a large, connected area such as myself, even I ran into areas in the park where visible Pokemon and Poke Stops became unusable because the area couldn’t receive reception. What’s going to happen at beaches, which are notorious for dropping signals? Or hiking trails like mine? It’s weird, because the game is still placing objects in these areas, expecting people to be able to use them. So what’s going to happen when some locations render parts of the game useless?

Knowing this, the positives far outweigh the negative as long as you’re not expecting a full Pokemon experience. The game may eat through your battery, but is surprisingly light on the data usage, going up less than a half a gig for a week of constant use. With that concern out of the way, knowing that items are easily accessible for free, you’ll never be short on new Pokemon to discover, and that the app actively encourages you to explore your surroundings, I’m excited to check out the full version when it releases. Is it perfect? No. But let’s hope the main game irons out some of these issues and leaves us with a brand new way to experience the world of Pokemon.