Oh, you play Pokemon Go!? Well congratulations. You know, that's probably why you clicked on this article. And I know! I know! Who am I to criticize one of the most popular apps of 2016? I'm just a 17-year-old high school senior from a little town in Pennsylvania that is known for the E in the Great Lakes acronym "H.O.M.E.S."
But do me a favor: read my subtitle. If you don't know what that is or where that is, it reads "Umbreon would not approve." Umbreon is, and has been for over ten years, my favorite Pokemon of all time. If you know who Umbreon is, then you'll know how awesome it really is. If you don't and you claim to be a big fan of Pokemon, then you're the reason I'm writing this article.
That's why Pokemon Go! is making me so mad. People are claiming to be big fans of the franchise and are dedicating themselves to going out and capturing these little pocket monsters, but when it comes to naming any Pokemon not from the first generation, they completely stumble. There are more Pokemon in the world than the original 151. In fact, with the exception of the ones from the new games coming out in November, there is a total of 721 Pokemon. Try getting anyone who plays Pokemon Go! to list any five Pokemon from generations 2-6 (starters and legendaries do not count).
My main problem is, more than half of my generation probably grew up playing Pokemon but after a while, it kind of died down and everyone stopped playing except for a handful. I was in that handful. Call me a nerd, or a geek, but I genuinely find the games fun and it helps me to connect with some of my friends and my little cousins who are starting to like the franchise. Three months ago, if I told someone I liked Pokemon, they would've laughed and poked fun at me. Now, if anyone even mentions the word Pokemon, everyone around them goes crazy and asks what team they're on. Growing up, the only teams I knew were involved in Pokemon were Team Rocket, Team Aqua, Team Magma, Team Galactic, Team Plasma, and Team Flare. And if Pokemon taught me anything, teams are the bad guys.
Not to mention that the system of levelling up and training Pokemon is completely broken in Pokemon Go!. In the original games, you levelled up by battling and gaining experience to grow and mature, kind of like in life; you have to gain experience to develop. But no, in Pokemon Go!, you sacrifice your Pokemon that are weaker to get candies to make your stronger Pokemon evolve. In the originals, you could release Pokemon if you wanted to, but I never did because I would feel so bad. But in this game, it's completely acceptable to basically turn your Pokemon into candy to feed to another Pokemon. The last time I checked, cannibalism was frowned upon.
As if that wasn't bad enough, the battle system makes no sense. In the originals, battling was formatted in a turn-based style, your Pokemon going first if they had more speed than their opponent or if they used a priority move like Quick Attack or Aqua Jet. In Pokemon Go!, you literally just tap the screen aggressively to get the most attacks in as possible. I like taking turns to use an attack, because it quite literally taught me that you have to wait your turn sometimes, but no! This version completely throws that out the door. And the gyms make no sense. You basically take over a gym if you beat it and then leave a Pokemon there to defend it? How does that make any sense? If I have a strong Pokemon, I'm going to want to keep it with me to defend myself and knock out any enemies who get in my way. Plus, there are things called Gym Leaders who you have to beat in order to progress through the game. The Gym Leaders are actually cool people and make great additions to the games. Some of their characters are so out there that I can't help but like them (except for Whitney and her Miltank. I can't even tell you how many times I lost to her.)
Call me old fashioned, but I just love the old Pokemon games and to see Pokemon take such a drastic change isn't really okay with me. Anyone who is a fan of the old games probably agrees with me in one way or another. So when people ask, no, I do not have Pokemon Go! downloaded onto my phone and no, I don't plan on getting it any time soon. I think I'll just stick to my old black DSi with a Lugia sticker glued onto the front.
