Addendum Review: Pokemon Go, Two years Later

At the time of Pokemon Go's launch, while I was interested leading up to the release, even talking with people who were participating in the Beta here, the early launch period soured my interest quite drastically. At the time, my phone couldn't handle the game, the Google Play store outright refused to let me download it. What also lowered my interest in the game was the limitation of just Kanto Pokemon, and not even all of them as, from what I've heard, more unique pokemon like Ditto were missing at launch. Even when I got a new phone, one that could play Go, I just wasn't motivated enough to start it, only officially starting it late last year while I was killing time waiting for an event that I was working at to end, and only catching my starter, Squirtle.

So what inspired me to actually give it a chance? A number of factors actually. The first being the upcoming Let's Go Games, and how they're trying to marry the Go catching mechanics to the core RPG world design. The other? My broken foot. Throughout all of the winter this year (remember Northern Hemisphere people, down below the equator, June, July and August are the winter months), I was housebound healing a broken foot. A friend of mine on Twitter recommended I use Pokemon Go as my rehab of sorts, to help build up my leg and foot strength again, and I'll admit that it has done that quite well, I'm now back to full mobility in my leg and foot with no pain. As a result of it though, it has meant that I've had a lot of time with the game, and I figured it might be time for an Addendum Review, covering some of the changes that have happened since then.

Community Day Spawns are a bit insane at times...

The best way to describe Pokemon Go's gameplay is that it's an Augmented Reality MMO of sorts. No major progression, but a number of small achievements to get you from grind to grind. Like with the core games, your goal is to catch all the Pokemon and complete the Pokedex. Unlike the core games though, you need to walk around out in the real world to do that, using your phone's GPS system to track your speed and distance, scattering wild pokemon around the place for you to try and catch. Overall, this works well, though one complaint I personally have is the Pokemon tracker built into the game. The tracker shows pokemon in one of three ways. Pokemon found near a Pokestop or gym, normally tied to some form of landmarks that you can find all over the place, or the ambiguous "sightings", which gives no indicator of where it is, other then it's somewhere (I will come back to the third option in a moment). I really hate the sightings option, because it tells you nothing about where the pokemon is, and if it's a pokemon you need for your Pokedex, a little more information other then "It's close" would be very helpful. Even if there is a distance calculator that helps you get a better feel for where it is would drastically improve this feature. A problem I've been having with the tracker though is that there have been times when the tracker has said that a Pokemon is no longer near the Pokestop when in actuality it is still there, and the auto-refresh made it hidden. There was one day when I was going up and down a hill, torn between going home and getting a Luvdisk because the auto refresh kept flipping between the Luvdisk being near a Pokestop on a walking trail near my home, and not being there. Another issue that I have with the tracker is the limit of Pokemon it will show you. It will only give nine Pokemon at a time, with the higher priority being to Pokemon close to Pokestops and Gyms (not that I'm complaining about that one because that gives me a better idea of where something is then "It's nearby"). If the nine pokemon aren't of interest to you, then you'll be walking around aimlessly waiting for the auto refresh to give you another batch of nine. If you're in an area with only a few Pokestops and Gyms, this would be fine for you, but if you're in a city where there are multiple pokestops around every corner, it tells so little about what's around you that it can make you feel blind while playing the game, just in terms of what's around you.

No seriously, it's insane. No that's not photoshoped, I really did get 7 Shiny Beldum during that event.

While it looks to be changing now, at the time when I started playing, the Weather greatly impacted the type of Pokemon you'd find in the wild, how strong they'd be, and would (from what I've seen) affect Evolution, and how strong a Pokemon would be when it evolves. I love this mechanic in theory and would love to see it implemented into a Core RPG game, in terms of execution though, it's hit and miss, mostly due to the fact that it's relying on the real world weather, and how quickly the game can update to accommodate the changes. To give a basic rundown, Sunny weather boosts Grass, Fire and Ground types, Partly Cloudy boosts Normal and Rock types, Cloudy boosts Fairy, Fighting and Poison, Rain boosts Water, Electric and Bug types, Snow boosts Ice and Steel-types, Fog boosts Dark and Ghost-types, and Windy boosts Dragon, Flying and Psychic. To go over the first flaw with the system, mostly because it feels like a system made by a team that is often exposed to all of those weather patterns often, what happens if you live in a part of the world that doesn't get some of those weather patterns often, if not ever. Where I live, for example, I have never seen it snow near where I live, and Fog is somewhat rare, and only ever in the early mornings of winter. It's the main reason why I think this kind of mechanic would be great to bring into the Core RPG's, in an environment where you can control the weather (in terms of the development side of course). What's weird though is that it didn't seem to affect Pokemon spawns often because, to go into its other flaws with an example, "Why am I running into Spheel on 25 degree sunny days?" I am surprisingly close to getting a Walrein for someone who lives in an environment that has never seen Snow and started properly playing in the tail end of Winter. I've also noticed that the weather tracking isn't as accurate as what would be ideal, I've had the game say it's partly cloudy when it looks closer to a storm, claiming it's cloudy when there isn't a cloud in the sky. I just wish it would say it was Snowing on a hot day, sadly it's not that broken. While the weather problem I can accept, if you're going all in on such a mechanic (which they aren't anymore according to pre-gen 4 news on the game), you need to go all in on it, especially when it's an odd thing to be split on when you have Region Exclusives.

The tracker be fiddly at times. At the time this picture was taken, I was sitting at a train station, not in the middle of a river.

Regional Exclusives. Oh, how I hate thee. I hate how you're handled now, I hate where you're going with this, and I know that you're going to be the bane in my existing one the game gets to the Kalos Pokemon. What are Regional Exclusives? They are what they sound like, pokemon species that only appear in specific parts of the world. The only way you can get them legally is to travel to that part of the world and find them. While they have done events that let you get the Kanto Region Exclusives (Mr Mime, Kangaskhan, Tauros and Farfetch'd), all the other region exclusives are still only obtainable in those regions and if you missed that event, you're out of luck. I am not a fan of this at all due to the fact that there are many people who can't travel far for a number of reasons, and to lock them behind those regions is frustrating to no end, both in the form of being unable to find the pokemon where I live, but also not being able to give spares I find to friends who live overseas. I would gladly trade my spare Zangoose for a spare Seviper, or some spare Chatot for a Pachirisu or Carnivine. Online trading though isn't a thing in the game, and it looks like there are no plans for it either. What's also frustrating is that there is a way to handle them that keeps them as region exclusives, but makes one part of a mechanic more fleshed out, encourages getting to know people around the world, and more. In fact, they've done it already, but limited it to a special event and only to the Kanto Pokemon, the 7 km eggs.  I know this is a bit all over the place, but I'm trying to structure this logically.

The Eggs then, there are four variants of Eggs, each one having rarer pokemon in them then the last. 2 km Eggs, featuring many pokemon like Swablu, Zigzagoon, Pidgy, and other really common Pokemon, 5 km Eggs that have rarer pokemon like the starters in them, 10 km eggs which have very rare pokemon in them such as Larvitar and Trapinch, and the 7 km Eggs which, unlike the other three that you can find in Pokestops, can only be obtained by giving gifts (another thing from Pokestops) to people on your friends list, and right now only have Alolan forms in them. Not all of them mind you, as those who have played Sun and Moon know, some Alolan variants do not have a basic form to them. During a recent event, 7 km eggs had a chance of giving players a Mr. Mime, Kangaskhan, Farfetch'd or Tauros, a perfect way to get the region exclusives if you can't travel to America (Tauros), Europe (Mr. Mime), East Asia (Farfetch'd) or Australia (Kangaskhan). While some pokemon have been known to migrate at random, it's not a reliable way to get them and if there are really no plans to incorporate trading (something that's far more complicated then it really needs to be for the record), then adding them to the 7 km eggs would drastically help improve the chances of getting them. It doesn't need to be a high chance, but having that as an option would help. If anyone's curious as to why I'll hate the Region exclusives even more once Kalos comes to the game, Vivillon's why. Calling it now, one of the region exclusive Pokemon for the Kalos region's going to be the Vivillon patterns.

There's another gym to the right, and another pokestop to the left of here.

The final ways to get Pokemon in this game are Raids and Research tasks. The Research tasks are mini goals that will get you items, pokemon and experience depending on the reward and if you complete enough, you'll have the chance to get a normally inaccessible Pokemon like one of the Legendary Beasts (So far I've gotten Entei and Suicune), or a Mythical Pokemon by going through a sidequest of Research Tasks. A Mythical Discovery will lead you to a Mew, while A Ripple in Time will lead you to a Celebi. I have no issue with the Research Tasks, the Raids, on the other hand, are a mixed bag for me because while I like their execution, it does make some pokemon inaccessible if you don't have any friends to play with. For around an hour, random Gyms will host a Raid Pokemon of random strength. Your goal is to knock it out before the timer runs out, and then catch it with a number of Premier Balls that you obtain depending on how well you did in the raid and who you did it with. These can range from a Magikarp, all the way up to a Mewtwo and even a Deoxys if you're invited to special raids happening at specific gyms. This would have been a great thing to have at the launch of the game, but the game has dwindled in popularity since then, so it's harder to find people who will help you in the raids.

I consider myself lucky with my spot, this is a screenshot from a friend of mine overseas. According to her, there's a pokestop further along that road, past the gym.

One big problem the game has though is the disconnect between the developers and the community. There have been several stories on this already, and one thing that doesn't help them is the rollout of content. To say that the game is drip fed is an understatement, as the game can go months, closer to a year before getting new content from what I've heard. What's weird though is that I don't see where the development time goes. "Oh, it goes into making all those Pokemon models" I hear you say. From what I've seen though, it doesn't. Those are the models from the core games, I recognize animations in some pokemon, and I know the models Game Freak made for Gen 6 are 1080p quality models, made to be long-term models because who in their right mind would remake all those models and animations every time a new game came out unless they had to? With how many pokemon exist, it's a safe bet they've probably optimized the implementation of new Pokemon for almost all of them. There will be the odd cases every now and then, though Ditto was probably the hardest of those to implement in. The only other one I could see being a potential problem is the Zorua line, assuming they're going to treat their Illusion ability as something like Ditto's Transform. Kecleon's not as hard as people make it out to be thanks to the game's lack of abilities, the Nincada line could have been handled with two Evolution options of varying candy amounts, and those are just two I know of from the first-hand experience. I do find it strange though that they're not making adjustments to older content based on the newer content. It's getting harder and harder to do some specific achievements thanks to the changes made to Pokemon spawns since launch, some of which I find surprising because one would think it would be easier to find Dragons if there were more then just the Dratini line. I can't imagine things like the Community Days would take up that large of resources, and there are still missing pokemon, including several Gen 3 Legendary Pokemon from what I've seen and the remaining Gen 4 Pokemon (though that generation only just got implemented so I'm willing to let that slide). So again, where's the development time going?

While it's not a problem I have, I do have to bring up the difference between living in a city and living in a rural area when it comes to this game. Where I live, I have access to a weird middle ground between the two. Near my house, there are a decent amount of pokestops and even three accessible gyms, but when I go to work in the City, I'm never a minute away from a pokestop. It's genuinely obscured how many of them there are, and goes back to how awkward the tracker is. It's the main reason why I find it aggravating why there isn't any form of online trading... alongside the whole "Let me unload all these Kangaskhans and Chatots that I'm finding all over the place". I have eight Kangaskhan's at the moment, the weakest I've kept has a combat power (this game's equivalent of the level of a Pokemon) 1013, my strongest being 2032. I know Marissa's got her own equivalent of Ash's Tauros', again, pokemon we'd love to offload to people who can't get them without travelling overseas, not to mention it's a lot easier to get specific pokemon in the city then it is in rural towns, and vice versa. The main reason I have a Torchic and two Combusken is that of 5 km eggs.

"I must protect the Spheel..."

I know I'm going on way too long in terms of the mechanics without covering the main mechanic, how to catch pokemon, along with the visuals, but truth be told, there's not much to say really on either front. To catch a Pokemon in this game, you have to slide your finger to replicate throwing a Pokeball (though on a side note, I don't think anyone would mind some more variety in the Pokeball department other than regular Pokeballs, Great Balls and Ultra Balls. Not calling for Master Balls, but perhaps Quick Balls, Dusk Balls, Net Balls and other similar Pokeball types?) into a target reticle. Better the accuracy, better the chance of capture. It's ok and does work a lot better than the AR+ capture mode where you have to try and sift through grass, keep an appropriate distance between you and the pokemon to try and keep it from running away, among other unnecessary complexities to the capture system that optional update brought. The base mechanics work at least. Nothing complicated, but for the platform, it's on, and the target audience it's aimed at, it's fine. I honestly have nothing to say about the exclusion of things like held items and abilities because of how little of a role battling plays in the game, and how basic the combat is, to begin with as fights just boil down to how quickly you can tap the screen.

In terms of the presentation, the best way I can describe it is that it's bland at best, and forgettable at worst. The overworld is a less detailed GPS that doesn't factor in things like slopes (something you really notice when you live in a hilly area and still rebuilding leg strength), and the music feels completely nonexistent. It's there, but if you were to ask me to point to a specific song, I wouldn't be able to, it's that forgettable. Considering the sources it's pulling from, that feels extremely lazy, especially as the reason it's probably like that is that people prefer listening to their own music while playing. What makes it frustrating is that the Pokemon games, both core and spin-off, do have great songs in them, so to see so little effort in Go's soundtrack gives it the feel of laziness, especially when combined with the whole "where is the development time going?" thing.

There are things Niantic need to fix, but probably won't. The split between City and Rural trainers, the cost and tedium of getting regional exclusives, the time between content releases, communication between them and fans, especially if they intend to release a new pokemon that many believe is still a glitch they're trying to claim was intentional (I am honestly one of them, I was out and about when the Meltan Ditto started appearing). I'd personally like them to rebalance achievements now that gen 2, 3 and 4 pokemon are in the game, especially the Magikarp achievement. Give more options for getting Alolan Raichu and Alolan Marowak other than raids, the region exclusives. I think you get the point though, two years in, and there are still some big problems to fix. On its own though, it's fine, but playing Go has not quelled the concerns I have going into Let's Go Pikachu and Let's Go Eevee in three weeks. Between then and now though, there is the time when all things go bump in the night, and for this All Hallow's Eve... I'm reviewing Children of the Corn... Does this count as progress?

To those curious, what the convinient pokestop locations look like for the writer of the previous Pokemon Go review.