Nineties Nintendo favourite makes global comeback in Pokemon Go… but it’s no fun to play
Pokemon monsters virtually appear in your location and you get to run around with your phone to find them
NINETIES nostalgia is experiencing a huge resurgence and nothing is greater testament to this than the current global craze that is Pokemon Go.
The first smartphone success from Nintendo, this mobile game has become the next big thing in the US — and it was a household name here before it even launched yesterday.
But is it any good? Based on our first few hours with it, we’re not exactly raving about it.
The game is one of the first big hits to merge smartphone gaming with augmented reality — an ambitious new technology that seeks to combine the real world with the in-game one.
It all means that Pokemon Go plays out on a map of your surroundings, and Pokemon will virtually appear around your location.
They are placed into your environment using your phone’s camera.
The game emphasises exploration above all else, encouraging you to get up off your sofa and walk around the real world in order to find and catch the cuddly creatures.
In theory, it’s every Pokemon fan's dream: The game allows you to become the greatest trainer to ever live and for the first time in the game’s history you really can catch ’em all — well, the 151 original monsters at any rate.
But in reality, the gameplay is too simple and doesn’t hold much long-term appeal.
To catch Pokemon, you simply walk around and hope that they appear on screen.
They’re certainly not worth real-money cost
When they do, you point your camera at them and swipe upwards to throw a Pokeball and hope for the best.
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After a while, this soon becomes routine and unexciting, and you’ll fall into a pattern of tapping and swiping aimlessly before long, without it being fun.
There are added gameplay features in the form of gyms — each player is assigned to a team, and you must fight for that team through Pokemon battles.
But in each of our attempts, the gym leaders were so overpowered that these fights weren’t fairly matched, and we were immediately wiped out.
Not the most enjoyable way to play.
Microtransactions are encouraged to let you lure Pokemon to you, but even these don’t make the game entertaining enough to keep playing.
The game is hampered by very slow load times and regular server issues (no doubt amplified by the huge demand for the game) and there is a lack of good instructions and tutorials from the developers.
Yet the game amounts to something that is admittedly compulsive to play.
The problem is, it’s not fun.
And considering the prestige of the Pokemon brand, which captivated children across the world for decades, that’s a disappointing reality.
Only time will tell if the game will hold its own, but it needs a lot of improvements to keep us coming back for more.