2 out of 5
PokemonGO! Review
I have had such a turbulent love/ hate relationship with Pokemon GO the likes of which haven’t been seen since Ike and Tina, Cher and Sony Bono, or Brock and Misty! The highs of PokemonGO make you feel as though you are on your own personal Pokemon safari literally out to catch ’em all. The lows, however are constant app crashes, laggy location tracking and a lack of actual content. PokemonGo makes you feel as though Pokemon are real but the immersion is often short-lived and shallow.
If you want to catch-up on what app actually does and how it works you can read my first impressions. Since then I have achieved 5 more levels and have experienced a few gym battles that have left me wanting more. However, if you don’t know what PokemonGO is by now you probably aren’t reading this article. It has infiltrated every aspect of the media from constant Reddit posts to people finding bodies (so, so many bodies). Even my mom asked me how it is. She’s thinking about playing it because some of her church friends are. It is everywhere.
This type of phenomenon is a rare occurrence in gaming. That in itself is exciting and has awesome potential for PokemonGO moving forward as it has built a following of users that are doing what gamers are usually made fun of for not doing; leaving their houses. The app has created a community around it that has led to many peeking out of their Squirtle shells and communicating with their fellow trainer. Never have I ever gotten off a train to talk to strangers in front of Chinese restaurant at 11:30 at night to talk Pokemon catching tips. Pokemon fever is at all time high, spreading faster than measles at an Anti-vaccine PTA meeting.
Other times I have been mid capture of a Pokemon only for the app the crash while the Pokemon is in the Pokeball forcing me again to restart the app and hope that the Pokemon reappears on the map. Sometimes it’s just gone. It happened to me while I was trying to catch a high-level Eevee and it sent me into a wild cursing fit in the middle of a busy street. People stared, I was embarrassed, it was PokemonGO‘s fault. This type of app inconsistency is unacceptable by most app standards why should PokemonGO be off the hook because it tickles my nostalgia bone? Fix the crash issues, Niantic Labs. (At the time I am writing this the servers are down because of the rapid expansion of an unstable app to 26 other countries. Way to learn some lessons guys.)
The lack of anything to actually do besides throw poke balls becomes readily apparent after only a few hours with the app. All the Pokemon that you catch can’t be interacted with in any meaningful way and take away the aspect of actually getting attached to a Pokemon because you raised it and trained it. Instead, you are constantly on the hunt for stronger versions of the Pokemon you already have and any new ones that might pop up, making any connection with the Pokemon non-existent and easier for you to grind them up transfer to the Professor for candy to feed to your stronger Pokemon.
This brings me back to the Gyms which are an actually neat concept, like Pokestops they are spread out in the world: you travel to them and use them. You can take over rival gyms after beating the Pokemon stationed there. When you start you have your choice of three teams to join and every other team becomes a rival squad, the teams are Valor, Instinct, and Mystic, red, yellow, and blue respectively. At a teammate’s gym you can battle their Pokemon to raise your experience level and train. Yet the battle system in so unintuitive as you tap the rival Pokemon to attack and swipe to dodge, pressing and holding on the opposing Pokemon to unleash a special attack after a visible meter is filled with successful attacks. Most of the taps and swipes have to be entered in the same faulty servers that run the game often leading to lagged attacks or all the inputs to be entered at once and your knocked out in an instant. There is usually not an in between. Most of gyms near me are filled with Pokemon that 3-4 times stronger than my Pokemon’s level so it doesn’t even make sense for me to try to battle them. The fact that I can’t change my Pokemon’s level by doing anything other than swiping to other Pokemon is not only frustrating but becomes boring and repetitive.
This leaves me in a strange place with this game. I want to find more Pokemon while on my morning commute when it works, and keep interacting with a community that is vibrant and interesting. Yet, I can’t see this lasting for too long until there are more features and more stable servers. Here’s to hoping that one day this game actually works and even then it would still be only mediocre. Until then all we have is this floundering Magikarp of an app that I hope evolves into a powerhouse Gyarados.
I’m still watching for the LOLs.
So according to a graph released by Crunchyroll the other day, a good portion of the Midwest loves ‘KONOSUBA’. And I guess I don’t understand why. Thank goodness my home state likes ‘Saga of Tanya the Evil’. Because at least that’s a decent show.
Maybe I should give the first season of ‘KONOSUBA’ a shot. Maybe watching that will change my opinion of it. But I doubt it. I’m still watching this for the sake of laughing out loud at stupid stuff.
But this episode tricked me this time, because it wasn’t as ridiculous as some of the other episodes are. There’s actually a decent villain, and, even though he has a somewhat stereotypical plan, he’s interesting all the same.
And of course, it’s none other than Aqua’s fault for there being new monsters in Keele’s Dungeon. Actually, when is it not one of the girls’ faults for there being trouble? I feel like the only actual troublesome thing Kazuma does is steal girl’s panties. Just saying.
Anyway, we’re introduced to Vanir, one of the Devil King’s commanders. He possesses Darkness, but through her strong will and addiction to masochism, our protagonist is given the opportunity to defeat Vanir once and for all by blowing Darkness up. No, seriously. That’s what happens.
With Vanir defeated and Darkness saved, the town is overjoyed and to repay them for their efforts, Kazuma’s huge debt is paid off and he’s given a big reward on top of that.
Which, in my opinion, this battle wasn’t that terrific or anything. Maybe I’m just used to long and drawn out battles, but whatever. It took him five episodes, but Kazuma’s paid off his debt. Hooray. Now what? Who knows and really, who cares.
I’m sorry if you enjoy ‘KONOSUBA’. By all means, if you love this show, then go for it, more power to you.
But for now, I’ll actually boost my rating to a 2.7 out of 5. I found the villain in this episode interesting enough, and I’m glad that we’re finally past the “must get debt paid off” arc.
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