Pokemon Go Retrospective

[PizzaW0lf]

"Pokemon go release was the closest we came to world peace."

This thread is dedicated to remembering the summer of 2016.


View: https://youtu.be/xzY4GaLS0Ds


How did you experience Pokemon Go in 2016?
Any crazy conspiracies you came up with for this game and specifically this time period?
Why was it such a powerful phenomenon?
Was it unironically the closest we got to world peace?
Any favorite personal moments with the game?

 

[Jade]

At the time it released I was on a military base with horrible cellular data because it was a military base and they don't want satellites focusing on those areas
So the game barely functioned and I'd go for long walks throughout the area trying desperately to find even one pokemon
later on we went back to a more populated area and the game almost functioned as intended, but even though we lived in a city at the time it was a small city, so even then my options were limited
and also I found the game to be kinda boring after a while, aimlessly throwing pokeballs again and again was so mindless

 

[Orlando Smooth]

I cannot think about this game without cringing at "pokey-mon-go-to-the-polls!" It's hard to believe that was 7 years ago now.

When it first came out, I was spending a lot of time with my friends going to parks, main streets, beaches, and so on, trying to find and catch Pokémon. It always amazed me how many other people you'd see there doing the same and it gave me a lot of hope. The novelty faded pretty quickly though and I remember being disappointed that you basically couldn't do anything other than catch them, and that since different Pokémon were geo-locked it was impossible to get your favorites. By the fall I had deleted it from my phone. I still see people play it on public transport or while walking down the street so I assume it's gotten better since then, but I don't really have interest in spending more time on my phone for a franchise that's been reliably disappointing me for over a decade now.

 

[Remember_Summer_Days]

It's amazing that I remember pokeman go to the polls more than pokemon go itself. Goes to show how politically obsessed I was back then. I remember when it came out I was still somewhat into pokemon, prided myself that I stayed loyal to the franchise after my childhood unlike all those HS plebs with a life, and got upset when normies started flooding their lives with pokemon go spam. In retrospect, my contrarianism and everyone's obsession with GO made me quit pokemon. I remember my Catholic HS also had a bulletin board with a Pope Francis quote about Pokemon Go.

Honestly, the game was a great idea (if you ignore the freemium nature of the game), though the fad didn't last a lot of time, didn't it? I also remember there were some controversies about how the game tracked you, but idk I can't remember that shit. Is the game still around? Are there now pokemon that go beyond Gen 1?

 

[Remember_Summer_Days]

I cannot think about this game without cringing at "pokey-mon-go-to-the-polls!" It's hard to believe that was 7 years ago now.

When it first came out, I was spending a lot of time with my friends going to parks, main streets, beaches, and so on, trying to find and catch Pokémon. It always amazed me how many other people you'd see there doing the same and it gave me a lot of hope. The novelty faded pretty quickly though and I remember being disappointed that you basically couldn't do anything other than catch them, and that since different Pokémon were geo-locked it was impossible to get your favorites. By the fall I had deleted it from my phone. I still see people play it on public transport or while walking down the street so I assume it's gotten better since then, but I don't really have interest in spending more time on my phone for a franchise that's been reliably disappointing me for over a decade now.

I wonder how hard it would be to trick the game into thinking you're in another location to get those sweet region-locked pokiman

 

[GothMonk]

I wonder how hard it would be to trick the game into thinking you're in another location to get those sweet region-locked pokiman

If I remember rightly people found ways to do it pretty quickly. I remember someone getting a FarFetch'd within a few weeks in UK when it was a locked up in Asia.

 

[Vetusomaru]

Pokemon GO was great as an idea but awful in action because of the buggy gameplay, the crappy Pokemon catching controls and the greedy microtransactions. And instead of fixing it in future updates they make it worse. How in the world it keeps printining money despite the fact that its hype died quickly is beyond me. That's the power of mobile games whales for you. Then again Pokemon Scarlet/Violet also prints money despite being a huge piece of shit.

Pokewalker that came free with Pokemon HeartGold/Sousilver was a much better experience from all aspects: it was free, it didn't need internet connection, the controls and the game worked properly, it wasn't distructing like Pokemon GO that caused so many accidents and deaths from retards that were glued with the game while driving or walking outside and it was from the most accurate pedometers of its era.

 

[Jade]

Pokemon GO was great as an idea but awful in action because of the buggy gameplay, the crappy Pokemon catching controls and the greedy microtransactions. And instead of fixing it in future updates they make it worse. How in the world it keeps printining money is beyond me. Then again Pokemon Scarlet/Violet also prints money despite being a huge piece of shit.

Pokewalker that came free with Pokemon HeartGold/Sousilver was a much better experience from all aspects: it was free, it didn't need internet connection, the controls and the game worked properly, it wasn't distructing like Pokemon GO that caused so many accidents and deaths from retards that were glued with the game while driving or walking outside and it was from the most accurate pedometers of its era.

I found this comment under a video talking about pokemon scarlet/violet glitches and I think it perfectly sums up the general attitude towards pokemon these days.
Even MoistCritikal made a video talking about how adamant people were to continue consuming anything pokemon and going out of their way to ostracize people who were bashing the games for being jank garbage.

 

[JihyoParkXX]

This game got me to go out and explore my neighborhood, going places I've never went before despite being in close proximity for more than a decade.

I was never the same person since, I've developed a liking to walking and I'd always prefer to take my time and walk around to explore whenever I'm in a new area.

I wonder how hard it would be to trick the game into thinking you're in another location to get those sweet region-locked pokiman

When corona-chan hit my friend and I discovered that we could download a modded app with a warp function and a joystick, so we played the crap out of the game again joining raids in Sydney. Good times!

 

[Rikstah]

ahh that was alot of fun when it first game out, but it fell off the radar for me after 2016 (got bored of the gameplay loop).

I heard the game got better and better since then.

I have one mate who is still a diehard and you still see people playing it on public transport or walking around in public.

 

[№56]

I've never played the game, but all the talk surrounding Pokemon Go back when it first came out made it seem like you had to actually walk around and look through your phone's camera to find Pokemon that were superimposed onto the real world. Now when I see people playing it on the train it looks like they're just tapping on Pokemon that are within a couple miles of their current location and catching them by playing a simplified version of one of the Gameboy games. Did something change, or was the marketing all wrong? Can you play Pokemon Go without having to go anywhere? If that's the case it's a lot less interesting than it was made out to be.

 

[Vetusomaru]

I've never played the game, but all the talk surrounding Pokemon Go back when it first came out made it seem like you had to actually walk around and look through your phone's camera to find Pokemon that were superimposed onto the real world. Now when I see people playing it on the train it looks like they're just tapping on Pokemon that are within a couple miles of their current location and catching them by playing a simplified version of one of the Gameboy games. Did something change, or was the marketing all wrong? Can you play Pokemon Go without having to go anywhere? If that's the case it's a lot less interesting than it was made out to be.

It's called Pokemon GO for a reason. Lol.

 

[Vetusomaru]

I found this comment under a video talking about pokemon scarlet/violet glitches and I think it perfectly sums up the general attitude towards pokemon these days.
Even MoistCritikal made a video talking about how adamant people were to continue consuming anything pokemon and going out of their way to ostracize people who were bashing the games for being jank garbage.
View attachment 53511

As a Pokemon fan since first generation I consumed only the good Pokemon games. The main Pokemon games and their remakes used to be great till Sun/Moon. All main Pokemon games and the remakes at Switch are mediocre or trash besides Sword/Shield and the only good spinoffs are Pokken and New Pokemon Snap (both developed by Bandai Namco). Pokemon Sword was the last Pokemon game I ever bought (and the only one I bought at Switch) and the only one I want to buy at some point is Pokken.