When it first came out in July of 2016, PokemonGO felt like the revolution in mobile gaming that my childhood self would have absolutely lost his mind over. Niantic had proven their concept of a GPS-based mobile game with their work on Ingress in years prior, but now were combining that experience (and likely location data) with the world of Pokemon.

If you were there in the beginning, whether playing or not, I don’t need to tell you just how huge it was. Hell, studies were done on the effects of people distracted by playing PokemonGO. However, here in 2024, the hype has slowed and the game feels more like a grind-fest begging for your money than the true Pokemon trainer experience it could feel like. So, as requested by no one, and with zero years of game development under my belt, allow me to tell you how I would go about fixing the experience that is PokemonGO.

Overhaul the battle System

The first step I’d like to see taken is an overhaul of the battle system PokemonGO uses. Pokemon games aren’t exactly known for their real-time combat, they’ve always used a turn-based system (variation based on speed and such, but for the most part turn-based) and it seems silly to trade in that strategy for a “tap the screen a lot and maybe you win” system. I would, at least in trainer battles, shift to a turn-based, move-selection battle system that involves some sort of strategy beyond tapping a ton. Let players put emphasis on their strategies and building their battle team.

Postcards

If you’re like me, you’ve probably spent much of the game ignoring the post cards that you get from other players when they send you gifts. We will touch on gifts from other trainers again later, but let’s talk about some things they could do to really flesh out this postcard system into something at least SOME of us could care about.

The first time you receive a postcard from another trainer, that card should be automatically saved to your album, don’t trust that I’ll remember to hit that pin button before tapping my way through the tedium that this process has become. This not only creates a cool collection of postcards for each trainer, showing the places in the world that others have sent them gifts from, but it can also function similarly to how the 3DS Street Pass used to build a map of “players met” from different states (if you’re in the US) or countries.

From U-Haul sticker collections to state quarters, stamps, and ACTUAL FRICKIN POSTCARDS, people have been collecting things from different places for AGES and the postcards included in the gifts with PokemonGO just feels like a lost opportunity that I would love to see become something more.

Unlimited Generic Items

I get that you want to sell me more backpackle space for all of the very good items I’m getting, Niantic, but there are some things that just shouldn’t count against me, like generic pokeballs. Pokeballs are a necessity to further the game, and in the early days, I recall running out of them frequently. It’s nice that they’ve fixed that by supplying them at every turn now, but taking up 100+ slots in my inventory for pokeballs just feels bad, man. Same idea with potions, especially when you start getting better potions and, dare I say, better balls. To fix this, I would start by not having pokeballs (at very least, if not basic potions as well) not count against your total inventory space.

Trainer Gifts

On the topic of inventory, perhaps gifts to and from other trainers could be something of more use than pokeballs and potions. At least the ziggy stardust that you get from other trainers can pile up until you have a heaping mountain of it since it doesn’t count against your inventory and you can have a near infinite amount (at least I haven’t found a limit yet). The way it stands currently leaves me clearing out my gifts from friends, forgetting to pin postcards (not that they do anything currently anyhow), and then opening my inventory to delete hundreds of pokeballs and potions. Let’s skip the middle man, shall we?

Questicles

I think the quests and challenges is a great concept with poor execution. It at least FEELS like someone put a lot of time into thinking up what little story is involved with the various dialogue and tasks the player is being asked to do, but they’re so numerous and generic that I find myself just skipping most of the dialogue anyhow. I actually have several suggestions for fixing that:

The simplest way would likely be to simply cut down on the number of tasks that are coming out. If I have less field research to do I’ll likely actually take the time to read what’s going on and appreciate the work that the devs put into crafting what I hope is a good narrative.

Another option would be to really lean into the handheld vibe with either a pokedex UI or even just a simple messaging app with the contact picture for the professor or whoever is talking at you. The scenes are great and all, but having messages broken down, not only into easy-to-digest chunks, but also in a way that makes you feel like you’re truly communicating with them seems like an easy way to improve immersion.

Let’s be real, who didn’t want a pokedex when they were growing up (assuming you were coming of age during the Pokemon craze, that is)? It seems like a super simple tie-in to make the trainer’s phone feel more like a tool in the Pokemon world than just another app. That’s about all I have for gripes there, though.

Regions

Ok, so I know that PokemonGO does have some region-exclusive Pokemon that you can only catch in certain parts of the world, which I feel is a good move when your game is based on real world location, but I feel like they could have done a bit better of a job of dividing it up. This could just be a me-complaint, but part of what I loved about the old Pokemon games on the Gameboy, GBA, DS, and 3DS was traveling to new regions and getting to discover new Pokemon specific to that region. Sure, we’ve got some exclusive to the southern/northern hemisphere, some that are exclusive to particular countries, and some to particular halves of entire continents, but with 10 currently available named regions in the Pokemon universe and 7 continents here on planet earth, it feels like there could have been some more reasonable separation.

Granted, there are plenty of places I wouldn’t travel to, no matter how rare the Pokemon may be. Perhaps I’m being too harsh and the region-exclusive Pokemon as they currently are is something people really enjoy. However, I think it would be fun to see some more variety as I travel around in the types of Pokemon I encounter. At very least, the region-exclusive or variation between locations hasn’t been communicated well enough for me to understand it and I need more education on the topic, in which case please feel free to tell me all about it.

Conclusion

These may be the delusional ramblings of a mad man that just wants to be able to ENJOY playing PokemonGO, but it feels bad to be so disappointed in a game that my childhood self dreamed of being a reality. I hope the team that’s working on PokemonGO continues working to improve the game and maybe makes it more enjoyable to people that feel the way I do about it.

For the record, there are some things I really do like about the game. The capture system is fun, at least I find it to be, trying to get a perfect curve throw. The concept of AR with Pokemon has a lot of potential, but it doesn’t seem to work terribly well for much currently and may be better as a sort of “photo mode” feature to place Pokemon into the real world for photos that you can share with your friends. Oh, and incubating eggs while you’re out walking is a nice system and allows me to feel like I’m making progress even when the game isn’t open (assuming I’ve given it the permissions to track my steps in the background).