The Honest Opinion - Pokemon Go
As most nerds are more than aware, Pokemon Go has finally seen it's release in the United States. For anyone who hasn't come out from under their rock and has yet to discover anything about this game, it's an augmented reality game that uses the GPS in your phone to let you hunt and find Pokemon in the real world. Yeah, that's right, you finally get to live your childhood dream and become a real life Pokemon Master. The app sends out a ping radius with your GPS and anything inside that radius is accessible.
You can find Pokemon that will spawn randomly around you, and have the chance to hurl Pokeballs at it until you catch it. There's also Pokestops, select locations that will give you random items and reset after a few minutes. From these locations you can obtain more Pokeballs, potions, revives, eggs and incense, and all of these items work just as they do in the games.
Hatching the eggs works along with an internal pedometer in the game. You place an egg in the incubator, and it hatches based on a set distance you must walk.
All in all, this game has been talked about for so long and I'm going to chronicle my first week with the app and see how it holds up. Will it live up to the hype?
Day 1
My first day with this app was spent trying to reach level 5. The majority of the game isn't really accessible until you reach this level. Until then all you are able to do is catch any Pokemon that cross your path. The main screen of the app is a cartoon overlay of a GPS map with your trainer in the center. A small circle pings out from your trainer every few seconds, displaying the area in which you can interact with things.
Capturing a Pokemon is a simple process. When one appears you tap on it and the screen switches to your camera which you have to use to locate the Pokemon. Once located, you can fling Pokeballs at it until you hit it and capture it. Each Pokemon captured nets you some experience points, with a bonus if it's a new one being entered into your Pokedex.
You also can gain experience by stopping at Pokestops to collect items. Each time you activate one of these nets you 50 points towards leveling up. Each new level you reach gives you more Pokeballs, with the other items coming once you reach level 5 and each successive level. The same goes for the stops, these will only give you Pokeballs and eggs, but once you cross level 5 you'll start finding potions, revives, and incense at these locations.
Now, I haven't had a chance to try the battling yet, or any of the other items other than the incense. But I can say that the incense is a great help. This will display a purple smoke cloud in a circle around your character for 30 minutes, attracting any Pokemon that may be nearby.
Day 2 - 3
I spent the second and third days testing out the battling mechanics as well as some more collecting and exploring and getting used to the actual hunting of the Pokemon.
The battling doesn't work quite the way it does in the handheld games, but it is still pretty similar. Battles can only be done at gyms, and how many you need to do is determined by how many levels there are at the gym. A number of players can add Pokemon to the gym for defense if it is already held by a member of their team. If more than one Pokemon are at a single gym, what level they are on is determined by their CP (Combat Power) level. The Pokemon with the highest CP is at the top of the gym, followed by the one with the second most, and so on.
The battles themselves take place in a small circular arena. The Pokemon that is at the gym is in the center of the arena with yours on the outside. You have two options during battles : you can tap the screen to trigger an attack, or you can swipe to the left or right to dodge in the respective direction. Once you defeat the Pokemon protecting the gym, you advance to the next level until you have taken over the gym. However if you are defeated, you will advance to the next Pokemon in your list. Just like in the games, you get six you can use during battles at the gym. Once all of your Pokemon have been defeated or you run out of time, you lose the battle.
Before battling, you can power up and evolve your little friends. This is done with the use of Stardust and candy, which are both collected each time you catch a Pokemon. The candies are specific to each evolution cycle. So Weedle candies can be used towards Weedles, Metapods, and Beedrills. The number of candies and the amount of stardust needed to power them up will vary based on how powerful they already are. To trigger an evolution all you need is the candies, but it's a decent amount of them. To evolve Weedle only costs 12 candies, but to turn your Metapod into a Beedrill is going to cost you 50 candies.
The rest of my time was spent hunting and catching Pokemon and discovering how to do it to earn experience faster. What I found was the following. When you first begin the capture mini-game, a white circle appears around the Pokemon, while a smaller, colored circle appears inside of the white circle. The colors for this latter circle vary between green, yellow, orange, and red. Green means they will be easier to catch, with each of the other colors becoming progressively more difficult. Before you throw it, if you hold your finger down on the PokeBall, the colored circle will begin to shrink in size, the mechanic being that the smaller this circle is the higher chance you have of catching the Pokemon. If the circle is small enough you can trigger a "Nice" or "Great" response which will each reward you with a bonus in experience earned. Lastly, you can make circular motions to make the PokeBall spin, eventually making motion lines appear around it. If you throw the ball with these lines, the ball will curve and arc towards the Pokemon (but generally away from it until you've gotten the practice of this down. But if you can make it work you'll earn another bonus for the curveball.
Day 4 - 7
With nothing new left to explore in this app, I spent the remainder of the week honing the skills used for the rest of the area. Where I live has a PokeStop right next door that I can reach from within my house, so yay for unlimited supplies. My fiancee and I have messed around with hatching the eggs as well as using the lure modules on the PokeStops.
Hatching the eggs requires the Pokemon Go app to be on and open (unless you have one of the devices that connects to the app through bluetooth). Also, your egg must be placed in an incubator. You are given one that has unlimited use and you can buy or earn other ones that have a finite number of uses. Your GPS signal is tracked and the distance you cover in the real world. However you can't move too fast (sorry, can't speed-hatch your eggs by driving down the highway). People have experimented and discovered that jogging/running, biking, and skateboarding will work. Some people have also found some hacks for this like attaching it to your dog's harness, and apparently someone got it to work by placing their phone on a record player and tying it to a ceiling fan. No matter what way you do it, once the distance is completed your egg hatches and yay your very own baby Pokemon.
The lures work just like incense except they must be attached to a PokeStop instead of your avatar. Normally this would mean you have to hang around the Stop for a half an hour to fully enjoy the benefits of your lure module, unless you live within spitting distance of a PokeStop (cough). Either way, they work extremely well. With just one lure (my fiancee's), we managed to make almost a dozen Pokemon pop up within the half hour, catching the majority of them. So if you find yourself in possession of one of these, use it because it will be more than worth it.
Other than this, I just did some basic hunting in some different areas and got to see how and where the game generates the Pokemon. It seems like they tried to keep it true to the game where water-types all spawn near water areas, grass-types spawn near wooded areas, and dark-types spawn at nighttime. I also like that they incorporated the day/night cycle as well, that certain ones come out in the daytime and certain ones come out only at night.
Final Thought
This app is great. It's not the first time that Nintendo tried to get their Pokémon players out and about. They released a special Pokémon pedometer that would level up a players monsters based on how many steps they took, but it was easily worked around by finding a way to shake it and trigger the steps without going anywhere. They tried pushing battles in public with the nearby feature on the DS which mostly just got used with friends battling each other whenever it was convenient. However, Pokémon Go is the first time it's seemed to really work, and it works great.
This game is a ton of fun and it stays true for the most part to the games. Unfortunately the only way you can do battle is at the gym, but that doesn't mean they won't try to update it in the future. With the huge success it's already had, there's no way they won't try and keep the players pleased.
So if you have a smartphone and you loved Pokemon growing up, you definitely need this app. Even if you were more passive with your love Pokemon, you will experience many nerd squeals while playing. While I used my lure on the PokeStop one night, it spawned a Horsea for me and there was definitely an excited "Ooooo" from me as I sat up and tried to catch it. (Thankfully I did).
The only downside comes from the Pokemon outsiders constantly bashing and putting down the players. Constant comments about it being "stupid" and a "waste of time" and things of that nature seem to be popping up everywhere. But they pale in comparison to all the positive outpouring the game gets. It's been getting people out, socializing, and helping so many mental health issues. This game has been as much of a blessing as it has been fun. So while there will be negativity against it, what in this world doesn't get some degree of negative attention.
Download the app, have fun with it, and don't pay attention to the haters. Go out there and be the very best, like noone ever was.
You can find Pokemon that will spawn randomly around you, and have the chance to hurl Pokeballs at it until you catch it. There's also Pokestops, select locations that will give you random items and reset after a few minutes. From these locations you can obtain more Pokeballs, potions, revives, eggs and incense, and all of these items work just as they do in the games.
Hatching the eggs works along with an internal pedometer in the game. You place an egg in the incubator, and it hatches based on a set distance you must walk.
All in all, this game has been talked about for so long and I'm going to chronicle my first week with the app and see how it holds up. Will it live up to the hype?
Day 1
My first day with this app was spent trying to reach level 5. The majority of the game isn't really accessible until you reach this level. Until then all you are able to do is catch any Pokemon that cross your path. The main screen of the app is a cartoon overlay of a GPS map with your trainer in the center. A small circle pings out from your trainer every few seconds, displaying the area in which you can interact with things.
Capturing a Pokemon is a simple process. When one appears you tap on it and the screen switches to your camera which you have to use to locate the Pokemon. Once located, you can fling Pokeballs at it until you hit it and capture it. Each Pokemon captured nets you some experience points, with a bonus if it's a new one being entered into your Pokedex.
You also can gain experience by stopping at Pokestops to collect items. Each time you activate one of these nets you 50 points towards leveling up. Each new level you reach gives you more Pokeballs, with the other items coming once you reach level 5 and each successive level. The same goes for the stops, these will only give you Pokeballs and eggs, but once you cross level 5 you'll start finding potions, revives, and incense at these locations.
Now, I haven't had a chance to try the battling yet, or any of the other items other than the incense. But I can say that the incense is a great help. This will display a purple smoke cloud in a circle around your character for 30 minutes, attracting any Pokemon that may be nearby.
Day 2 - 3
I spent the second and third days testing out the battling mechanics as well as some more collecting and exploring and getting used to the actual hunting of the Pokemon.
The battling doesn't work quite the way it does in the handheld games, but it is still pretty similar. Battles can only be done at gyms, and how many you need to do is determined by how many levels there are at the gym. A number of players can add Pokemon to the gym for defense if it is already held by a member of their team. If more than one Pokemon are at a single gym, what level they are on is determined by their CP (Combat Power) level. The Pokemon with the highest CP is at the top of the gym, followed by the one with the second most, and so on.
The battles themselves take place in a small circular arena. The Pokemon that is at the gym is in the center of the arena with yours on the outside. You have two options during battles : you can tap the screen to trigger an attack, or you can swipe to the left or right to dodge in the respective direction. Once you defeat the Pokemon protecting the gym, you advance to the next level until you have taken over the gym. However if you are defeated, you will advance to the next Pokemon in your list. Just like in the games, you get six you can use during battles at the gym. Once all of your Pokemon have been defeated or you run out of time, you lose the battle.
Before battling, you can power up and evolve your little friends. This is done with the use of Stardust and candy, which are both collected each time you catch a Pokemon. The candies are specific to each evolution cycle. So Weedle candies can be used towards Weedles, Metapods, and Beedrills. The number of candies and the amount of stardust needed to power them up will vary based on how powerful they already are. To trigger an evolution all you need is the candies, but it's a decent amount of them. To evolve Weedle only costs 12 candies, but to turn your Metapod into a Beedrill is going to cost you 50 candies.
The rest of my time was spent hunting and catching Pokemon and discovering how to do it to earn experience faster. What I found was the following. When you first begin the capture mini-game, a white circle appears around the Pokemon, while a smaller, colored circle appears inside of the white circle. The colors for this latter circle vary between green, yellow, orange, and red. Green means they will be easier to catch, with each of the other colors becoming progressively more difficult. Before you throw it, if you hold your finger down on the PokeBall, the colored circle will begin to shrink in size, the mechanic being that the smaller this circle is the higher chance you have of catching the Pokemon. If the circle is small enough you can trigger a "Nice" or "Great" response which will each reward you with a bonus in experience earned. Lastly, you can make circular motions to make the PokeBall spin, eventually making motion lines appear around it. If you throw the ball with these lines, the ball will curve and arc towards the Pokemon (but generally away from it until you've gotten the practice of this down. But if you can make it work you'll earn another bonus for the curveball.
Day 4 - 7
With nothing new left to explore in this app, I spent the remainder of the week honing the skills used for the rest of the area. Where I live has a PokeStop right next door that I can reach from within my house, so yay for unlimited supplies. My fiancee and I have messed around with hatching the eggs as well as using the lure modules on the PokeStops.
Hatching the eggs requires the Pokemon Go app to be on and open (unless you have one of the devices that connects to the app through bluetooth). Also, your egg must be placed in an incubator. You are given one that has unlimited use and you can buy or earn other ones that have a finite number of uses. Your GPS signal is tracked and the distance you cover in the real world. However you can't move too fast (sorry, can't speed-hatch your eggs by driving down the highway). People have experimented and discovered that jogging/running, biking, and skateboarding will work. Some people have also found some hacks for this like attaching it to your dog's harness, and apparently someone got it to work by placing their phone on a record player and tying it to a ceiling fan. No matter what way you do it, once the distance is completed your egg hatches and yay your very own baby Pokemon.
The lures work just like incense except they must be attached to a PokeStop instead of your avatar. Normally this would mean you have to hang around the Stop for a half an hour to fully enjoy the benefits of your lure module, unless you live within spitting distance of a PokeStop (cough). Either way, they work extremely well. With just one lure (my fiancee's), we managed to make almost a dozen Pokemon pop up within the half hour, catching the majority of them. So if you find yourself in possession of one of these, use it because it will be more than worth it.
Other than this, I just did some basic hunting in some different areas and got to see how and where the game generates the Pokemon. It seems like they tried to keep it true to the game where water-types all spawn near water areas, grass-types spawn near wooded areas, and dark-types spawn at nighttime. I also like that they incorporated the day/night cycle as well, that certain ones come out in the daytime and certain ones come out only at night.
Final Thought
This app is great. It's not the first time that Nintendo tried to get their Pokémon players out and about. They released a special Pokémon pedometer that would level up a players monsters based on how many steps they took, but it was easily worked around by finding a way to shake it and trigger the steps without going anywhere. They tried pushing battles in public with the nearby feature on the DS which mostly just got used with friends battling each other whenever it was convenient. However, Pokémon Go is the first time it's seemed to really work, and it works great.
This game is a ton of fun and it stays true for the most part to the games. Unfortunately the only way you can do battle is at the gym, but that doesn't mean they won't try to update it in the future. With the huge success it's already had, there's no way they won't try and keep the players pleased.
So if you have a smartphone and you loved Pokemon growing up, you definitely need this app. Even if you were more passive with your love Pokemon, you will experience many nerd squeals while playing. While I used my lure on the PokeStop one night, it spawned a Horsea for me and there was definitely an excited "Ooooo" from me as I sat up and tried to catch it. (Thankfully I did).
The only downside comes from the Pokemon outsiders constantly bashing and putting down the players. Constant comments about it being "stupid" and a "waste of time" and things of that nature seem to be popping up everywhere. But they pale in comparison to all the positive outpouring the game gets. It's been getting people out, socializing, and helping so many mental health issues. This game has been as much of a blessing as it has been fun. So while there will be negativity against it, what in this world doesn't get some degree of negative attention.
Download the app, have fun with it, and don't pay attention to the haters. Go out there and be the very best, like noone ever was.
