PaigeFTW: A Hater’s Thoughts on ‘Pokemon Go’
Only those who live under rocks or the Spartan life of the Luddite could have missed that Pokemon Go took the world by storm last week. Immediately, our Facebook pages blew up with hype and excitement, as friends who had long since left Pokemon in their childhoods were able to rediscover the magic of catching ‘em all.
I tried it as well, of course. I had and continue to have a lot of connectivity problems, GPS glitches and other woes. My house sits between two Poke Stops that I can connect to while sitting on my couch or lying in bed, which is also how I caught five Pokemon. While the game is amusing (when it works), it has not revolutionized how I play games or given me a newfound appreciation of Pokemon.
I am a bit of a hater, yes.
Though I remind myself that Niantic — and not Nintendo — is chiefly responsible for how the game plays, I can’t help but be disappointed in the series’ stagnation over the years. From the magic of Red and Blue, and the high points of Silver and Gold, I have spent the intervening 20 years trudging through reiteration after reiteration of the same formula with minute differences and hundreds more Pokemon.
Pokemon Go could’ve been … well, great. It could’ve been like the Pokemon MMORPG the world dreams of — a fully fledged adventure that lets you catch Pokemon around you, raise them, battle them with your friends, and really become a Pokemon Master.
But instead we have a geocaching game that lacks any substantial multiplayer, that is coasting on nostalgia before players lose interest – because yes, it is fun to run around after Pokemon, but there are only 150 to catch right now. How long can that momentum last?
It has caught people’s attention and made them excited about Pokemon again. But will they be excited enough to re-enter the series when Sun and Moon come out this year? Somehow, I’m not sure they will.
