Niantic’s free-to-play, location-based augmented reality game, Pokemon GO has been one of the most talked about game as of late, since its release last July 6, 2016. People have been roaming around the streets, running around, finding more wild Pokemon to capture. However, with only selected countries getting their hands first, the Philippines had to wait a lot longer until it was released yesterday (August 6, 2016), Niantic has finally opened their servers (legally of course) to our local shores and off we ran to catch as many Pokemon as we could. While Pokemon GO may fall short especially to those who followed/played the old Pokemon games due to the lack of some features, there was still some pretty good experience to be had.
The game itself is pretty straightforward, download it from your respective applications store (Google Playstore for Android users, and the App Store for iOS users), register via Google or the Pokemon Trainer Club, and you’re good to go. You walk around your area in a more colorful representation of Google Maps. After slightly customizing your trainer, the first thing you’ll notice though is that there will be three (four if you “wait and walk” for a few minutes) of the generation 1 starter-Pokemon, namely Bulbasaur, Charmander, Squirtle and Pikachu (not really a generation 1 starter but hey, it’s an easter egg!), you may choose one of those Pokemon to capture and swipe your screen to throw a Pokeball to it, and basically that is how the game is in a nutshell. This is also where I got pretty disappointed, Niantic does not allow you to “fight” wild Pokemon, once you see it on your screen, you could just attempt to catch it until you do it successfully or you fail and it runs randomly, I am not sure whether this feature would be added in but as how the game looks right now, it does seem very unlikely.
After capturing your first Pokemon, you may now walk around and hope for the best as a handful selection of Pokemon may randomly appear. Some Pokemon only appear in certain areas, forests usually house bug-type Pokemon, rivers usually has water-type Pokemon, etc. some Pokemon are also region restricted which means, that there are Pokemon that surely wouldn’t be obtainable in the Philippines. While I was walking around I seem to have a random spawn rate near my area but as soon as I went to a more populated area like the local mall, the spawn rate increased a lot, I found this troubling as while it does help me try to “explore” the area around me more, I also found it a bit boring and irrirating when you’ve walked almost all the areas near you and could only get a very small number of Pokemon appear. Pokemon also appear whether you’re in buildings which was pretty awesome in itself as usually, they would just appear on the road, which is great as it does get pretty hot outside in the Philippines most of the year so, trainers would probably have to stick to some “cool” place to take a break and still catch some Pokemon.
Evolution and making your Pokemon team strong is also handled differently in this game, every Pokemon you catch, gives you Stardust and a Pokemon-specific candy (eg. Charmander Candy, Eevee Candy, etc.) these items are “fed” to your Pokemon to make them stronger and make them evolve. I felt that this was pretty much the “grind” of the game as every spawn is something that you needed to catch, you need tons of these items, in my case, my Pidgey needed 1 pidgey candy and 200 stardust to get to a higher level while I needed 25 Pidgey candies to make it evolve, the good news about this is that if you are trying to evolve a Pidgeotto to Pidgeot, you don’t have to catch a ton of them as Pidgey-candies work as evolve candies, same goes to other species with three or more evolution stages. The bad news? If you do get very little spawns of the Pokemon you like (like my Charmander 🙁 ), its gonna be a pretty long wait.
There also Pokemon eggs which can be obtained through Pokestops and does require an in-game Incubator item and varying distances of walking (Three groups: 2KM, 5KM and 10KM, all of which have different and random (and by random I mean even Pokemon that aren’t normally obtainable in our country) can be obtained through eggs. While it is pretty random, there is a reason why there are three groups of eggs as Pokemon that can be obtained through 10KM eggs CANNOT be obtained on 5KM and 2KM eggs and vice-versa.
Pokemon Battles are done by finding a fellow trainer or by finding a gym once you get to level 5 (which is also the level you pick whether you’ll join Team Mystic, Valor or Instinct), in a “faster-tapper-wins” battle that is once again very, disappointing considering how battles are one of the best parts of playing Pokemon. Gym are huge towers found in maps and can be captured if no one owns it or by defeating the Pokemon guarding the gym left by the previous winner. Another point here is that while Pokemon GO in the Philippines has just been released it is obvious that those who played “earlier” through hacking already got most of the gyms and it is pretty obvious when everyone around you only has 2-digit CP pokemon and you see a gym with 3-4 CP digits, which is also pretty disappointing. I just hope Niantic bans these people just as they promised.
You are equipped with a limited number of Pokeballs, more can be obtained by visiting Pokestops which are basically landmarks that are usually present in Google Maps, or by spending real money to buy Pokecoins which could in-turn be used to buy Pokeballs and other items. While Niantic has tried to ease up on the “Pay-to-win” segment of the game, people who have very little landmarks will have a really hard time getting supplies.
In terms of In-App purchases, as I said previously, Niantic tried to keep it to a minimum, not a problem for those living in highly-populated areas as usually there would be a ton of Pokestops nearby, but for those people who don’t well, we are forced as there are no Pokeballs that can randomly be found on the streets, you may get some when you earn achievements, but if you do run out of Pokeballs and the next achievement you could get is to catch X-type Pokemons, well I don’t see just how that would work for you. As of this review 20 Pokeballs = PHP46.91 (w/o tax), so either get some form of credit card (Globe’s GCash Card, Smart’s Smart Padala Card, and Paymaya) to link to your Apple ID or Play Store account if you run low on supplies and get Pokecoins which can be used to buy supplies/items.
The items sold on the item mall are:
Pokeballs – used to catch Pokemon
Incense – lures wild Pokemon to your location for 30 minutes
Lucky Egg – earns 2x EXP for 30 minutes (Not to be confused with a Pokemon Egg)
Lure Module/s – used to attract Pokemon to a Pokestop for 30 minutes, benefits everyone near the Pokestop
Bag Upgrade – increases the max number of items you can carry by 50
Pokemon Storage Upgrade – increases the max number of Pokemon you can carry by 50
With Pokemon GO still being continuously released to other countries and Niantic promising more features to come (such as trading, lets hope for a Wonder-trade system!), the game is still in a very “primitive” state, with the absence of some core features that will surely disappoint those who followed the previous Pokemon games, sometimes I even wonder if this is really a game or just another reason to use my phone or bring it when I (try) to jog, travel and go on out-of-town trips. However, Niantic has done well to improve upon augmented-reality being used to a more “known” brand and helping the genre blend with something more relatable than Ingress was, to the masses. I also liked how Pokemon GO encourages people to walk outside and take a breather and get together (as evidenced by some teens, walking around the mall as well trying to search for more Pokemon), with more Filipinos joining in the fray I can only hope for more people showing up on Pokestops and trying to outdo each other in private battles or taking over gyms.
I also used an iPhone 6 with a Pocket wifi and just managed to get around 3-5 hours before I reached 25-30% battery level, while the game doesn’t eat much data, it does hit your battery levels a lot. Better bring a powerbank if you’re gonna be playing for an extended amount of time as the Battery Saver option has been removed, and please DO NOT TRESPASS and walk around alone at night.
PS.
Thank you Ingress players for helping Niantic improve their system so it can be used for Pokemon GO.
3 Comments
a game with so much imbalance due to late release, bots and fgps users. Not safe in ph to play and poor internet stablilty in ph.
Larong INGRESS naman to e, binago lang skin, masaya kung lalagayan nila ng pokemon battle, huli lang nmn ng huli ….masaya kung may levelling up din yung huli mo tulad nung laro sa DS.
Di ka nasasayahan? Eh di wag maglaro.., simple lang diba?