Niantic is bringing out yet another Pokemon Go clone, this time built around Monster Hunter. I don't know why it keeps releasing the same game over and over with little more than a new coat of paint, but I do know that it got me to idly check my Pokemon Go account for the first time in almost a year. I used to play the game a lot, and I've kept up with the major news surrounding it since, but I was still completely unprepared for what awaited me.
Between 2016 and 2020, I played religiously, logging on multiple times a day, walking around catching critters. Over the next two years, that slipped away. Partially because of the pandemic, but even without that, I think I would have lapsed. My life has changed a lot since 2016, having moved house twice, changed gender and career once each, and the game grew stale. It moved from being a fun way to occupy yourself while out for a stroll into a microtransaction-stuffed PvE and PvP battleground where the aim was to grind raids to get candy and stardust to train up your highest IV 'mons to do battle with. I'll always be grateful to the game for getting me out of the house and active, for giving me something to fill up empty evenings when I was at my lowest, but I'm no longer there, and I have no more use for the game now.
Still, it's fun, right? I don't need to be super into it to have the occasional wander tossing out Poke Balls to catch whatever stumbles across my path. I haven't played at all in this new house either, so I could be near a hot spot, and I do have some nice walking spots nearby. No time to get back into it like the present. However, as soon as I opened the game, I remembered exactly why I had closed it in the first place.
I checked when I caught my last Pokemon, and it was in August of last year. However, the location for the 'mon revealed it was when I was on holiday, and it was one of only two I bothered to catch while lounging around the pool. I wake up very early on mornings when I'm in hotels, no matter how late I was up the night before, and generally don't sleep much anyway, so I'm usually the only person in the hotel down by the pool most mornings. In that time, I read my book, I think about what I'm going to do that day, maybe I jot some notes down, I check in with work because I have an unhealthy parasocial connection to TheGamer office life, and apparently, I play Pokemon Go. I don't remember doing this, and given I only caught two, I must not have done it very much. After that, my most recent catches were last May, so almost a full year.
But I had thought the game had grown stale, so I wasn't expecting much to change. How wrong I was. Apparently I had tapped out in the middle of a quest last time, wherein Professor Willow had been replaced by a robot of some sort. That robot is still there, waiting for me to save Willow (was that the quest?), but Willow is also back to give me two new quests. Schrödinger's Willow.
I also found that, in the daily quests, I was up to the weekly reward of getting to open the Pokemon box. What delights awaited me? What rare or Legendary Pokemon have become so commonplace in my absence that the game gives them away for free? Could this feast of delights enrapture my casual heart and pull me right back in? What could- oh. It's a Parasect. That was barely exciting in 2016. Reward boxes were bad when I was still playing, but this isn't even trying. It might as well be a broken down washing machine or an old shoe.
Perhaps the most disorienting though was the new purple and white balloons. Team Rocket balloons have been in the game for a long time, and I thought this might be another version of that. A new foe to battle, or maybe Sierra had upgraded her ride. But nope, it promised rewards. Except my bag was too full. I could always pay to upgrade it, but instead I did that old dance - like riding a bike, you never forget - and threw out my Nanab Berries, my Razz Berries (I have enough Golden ones), and my Poke Balls (I have enough Ultras). Then it flashed on the screen that I should follow Pokemon Go UK on Facebook, claiming to be a 'sponsored' balloon. But can you really sponsor yourself? The reward was just meagre amounts of Stardust and a single Super Potion too, which was definitely not worth the trade-off of throwing away my good berries for.
Maybe if I play it regularly again, I'll become immersed in Pokemon Go's world again, and feel like I understand how the game moves once more. Right now though, even with four years of commitment and two further years of dabbling, the world feels like a mess to return to. If Niantic continues to alienate players, they might never return. If they get the welcome back parade like I did, they definitely won't.