Pokémon GO: 10 Reasons To Start Playing Again

Be honest, you kind of miss it anyway.

Pokemon Go Pikachu
Nintendo

Nintendo’s mobile creation was a cultural phenomenon in the summer of 2016. With gentle hype built from its pulse-pounding teaser trailer the year before, people even started region-switching their phones, just to get the game before official release - which is the kind of crazed need reserved for when Ben & Jerry’s goes on offer.

And then the bubble burst. Not that this should be unexpected given the rapid turnover of popular culture, but considering the godlike heights the game reached upon launch, with almost everyone in even my quaint little market town with barely five figures of people calling it home, it was the kind of drop that would draw justifiable Titanic references.

But not all this lies on the shoulders of a fickle fanbase, but on the developers for being too trigger happy, releasing a game that was, although addictive and quite excellent, half-baked with a limited shelf life.

Time heals all wounds though, and Pokemon GO is on an upswing with a far shinier product than its original.

What, you don’t believe me? Well sit down children, because here’s ten reasons you should delete FaceApp from your phone to start playing Pokemon GO again.

10. The Radar Is Fixed (And Improved?)

Pokemon Go Pikachu
Niantic

Probably the first and still the biggest blow the game took was its original radar system, that let you know what Pokemon were nearby and roughly how far away they were, glitching out and becoming completely useless, which rendered the game, in many people’s eyes, completely unplayable.

After all, when you’re business model relies on getting millennials to leave their hours and wander outside all day with no assurance something will happen, you are

Starting in August of 2016, weeks after the initial glitch, a replacement feature started to roll out. While it was a little too late to prevent the hemoraging of players, it’s now a steady and reliable way to track down Pokemon day to day, as the tracker highlights creatures guaranteed to be found at nearby PokeStops.

Players don’t have to walk blind anymore, or worry about heading in the wrong direction as could be an issue with the original tracker.

Now it’s just a case of getting your Domino’s fuelled butt three streets over for your thirtieth Pidgey of the day.

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Contributor

Freelance writer in Gaming, Film and prose fiction. I did an MA in Creative Writing so I could talk about Pokemon. Notorious for wearing burgundy shirts.