Pokémon GO

“Your very own Pokémon legend is about to unfold. A world of dreams and adventure with Pokémon awaits!”

This famous line from the intro of the Pokémon franchise is too good to be true, but this year, it has become reality.

First announced last September 2015, Pokémon GO, ever since its creation, has become a very interest­ing topic for people all over the world, especially for those fans of the game who are there supporting the franchise all the way from its first releases.

Created by Niantic for the Android and iOS, the aim of the game captures the fundamental gameplay of the original Pokémon series. Its goal is to capture, train, and battle with Pokémon but with a twist of making its play­er actively look for these Pokémon based on their locations. By using their smartphone’s built in GPS feature, players can now walk out of their homes and start their jour­ney.

It currently has all the original 151 Pokémon from the first generation of the game. It starts off with a tutorial that is clear and easy to understand for players who have not played a Pokémon game before. Its graphics are top notch, and its interface is smooth. Somehow, it makes repet­itive gameplay of the older games seem fresh and dif­ferent by letting the players catch the creatures manual­ly.

The game also does a great job of motivating the people to go outside and look around. This is a great feature of Pokémon Go for it provides us with some exercise that we wouldn’t get from just lying down. The application makes us search for the Pokémon hidden all around us and lets us stop at checkpoints called Pokéstops, which are based from real-life lo­cations where one may re­ceive all sorts of items from Pokémon eggs to Pokéballs. This is how the game re­wards its players for go­ing through the trouble of walking to a certain area. It makes the game more fun. There are also places that, again, are based from real life locations called gyms; this is where players battle each other for supremacy of their teams using the crea­tures they’ve gathered to wage a great confrontation against rival gyms. At level 5, it lets you choose between three teams: Valor, Mystic, and Instinct. Each team em­bodies a certain philosophy and rewards its players with a certain boost may it be to egg hatching or leveling up. The teams give players a sense of teamwork and representation which adds a layer of friendly competi­tion to the games.

Despite these, there are still some cons to ad­dress. The game motivates players to go outside and search, which is a relatively dangerous task. Although, current updates have included warnings and notifications telling players to be aware of their sur­roundings, but accidents still do happen. The servers are also still sub-standard and need more improvement to avoid game interruptions caused by high numbers of players.

The gameplay is prov­en tedious since it requires players to move around a lot. Pokémon GO hinges on your location and many players are inconvenienced by the location of certain Pokéstops and gyms. There is also a huge problem for tablet and iPad users espe­cially if it doesn’t support LTE (Long Term Evolution; your device can connect to cellular networks) and so the players are always stationary. There have also been claims of being able to hack the game and cheat through it which makes it unfair to those players who really make efforts in ad­vancing through the game.

Overall, Pokémon Go is a great game to all and should be downloaded by those who are a fan of the franchise. A great combination of a timeless classic with a mod­ern touch, it adds depth to its own gameplay and ful­fills a person’s childhood dream in becoming an ac­tual Pokémon Trainer. The game is absolutely free and is highly recommended to those who want to expe­rience a different kind of a Pokémon adventure. So don’t just sit there, grab your devices and get ready to catch ‘em all!

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