Pokémon GO! Does anyone play?

Sheep

I've been a GO player since day one (albeit with a year-long break around 2017-2018). Does anyone play GO? What do you do in the game? What level are you?

Darren

Sheep I was obsessed with Pokémon GO for many years, and loved it! I have so many great memories that I should really put together a feature at some point.

But in recent years I haven't been a huge supporter of the way Pokémon GO has got greedier and less transparent.

The changes the game made to adapt to COVID-19 so that everyone could continue playing, despite staying at home, opened the game up for so many more people who couldn't normally get out, due to their physical or mental health. When things began to ease, they stripped them away again. That for me was unforgivable.

So it left a bad taste in my mouth after that. However I do appreciate what it did for my own mental health, and occasionally I do switch the game on to see what's happening. It's very different these days though so I'm quite lost!

MissingnoMaster

Been playing GO since day one over here. Currently level 48, but if I was able to do more trades I could have hit level 49 a while ago.

I do dislike how the Covid changes got rolled back once the pandemic started ending, but I've never really felt like the game became unplayable. Limiting remote raids was the closest they came to chasing me off, but I'm still playing. One of the big things I use GO for is getting cool Pokémon for the main series- mainly as an additional avenue for Shiny hunting, but also to more easily identify XXL and XXS Pokémon, which in the main series as of SV are eligible for special marks that give them exclusive titles when sent out into battle, like "Snivy the Great" or "Cosmoem the Teeny". And yes, those are two examples taken straight from my PC boxes. 🙂

I'm also bracing myself for if GO ever announces its end of service, and preparing for the eventual mass evacuation of my Pokémon into the main series. I have my Let's Go Pikachu save file absurdly well-stocked on all manner of Poké Ball, so the Kanto mons won't be hard to evacuate at the very least. All my Shinies already go into the main series as I get them, so those wouldn't be a concern.

And of course, I power up Pokémon for use in raids and the like, though that does go back to the point about using GO for getting cool Pokémon for the main series, since a lot of the time this does require catching raid bosses. But at the same time, I do still enjoy GO itself, so I got no problem playing the game just to play it and have a good time.

tkarispe

I was a long-time GO player ever since the game came out, but I've stopped playing for the time being. I used to live in a large city with a lot of PokeStops and Gyms (I even lived within range of a PokeStop, which was a nice unlimited supply of Poke Balls while just sitting on my couch, haha) where I could play GO just about anywhere I went. But a couple of years ago, I moved to a much smaller city in a rural area, so opportunities to play GO have been really few and far between. I finally ended up uninstalling the game, because attempting to make any sort of progress in events or quests was just an exercise in frustration.

I've also been a bit frustrated with some of the features implemented with an eye for real-life multiplayer experiences, such as the party system, because I don't know anyone else in real life who plays GO, and it was bothering me that there was an entire quest line I couldn't complete because the game doesn't let you assemble a one-person party.

So yeah, I'm not playing GO right now, but if I ever move someplace that's got more going on, I may pick the game up again. I miss getting digital postcards from all over the world.