I’m so glad that Pokémon Go doesn’t just rip off the tired Pokemon formula

Everywhere I look right now I see people playing Pokemon Go.

That isn’t hyperbole. The other night I was hanging near the beach, staring into my glowing phone, and a stranger asked me, out of nowhere, whether I’d caught anything good. Earlier that night at Maccas I saw at least 3 trainers searching for ‘mons. I grabbed my free water, caught a Rattata, then left.

In a slightly small town this is kind of a bizarre thing to see. Hundreds of people playing one game. It’s like something you’d hear about in a press release or a launch trailer, not something you’d see in real life.

And frankly I’m still not 100% sure what exactly I love or hate about Pokemon Go yet. It’s a weird game, and some people on the internet have already come to the conclusion that it’s a bad game. The mechanics are foreign and it feels like Niantic forgot to include an instruction manual for the thing.

Though I disagree with anyone saying that Go is bad, full stop. Pokemon Go is the best Pokemon game in years, and that’s because it’s an original take on that incredible world.

Pokemon’s portable formula is stale. New fans might enjoy the classic series, and I can still pick up a Pokemon game every few years and play it all the way through, but it is a bit boring.

By comparison Pokemon Go is the first new Pokemon game in forever. It might seem strange at first, even gimmicky and light on gameplay. Though for at least as long as this launch-hype continues to exist, the best part of Pokemon Go is the fact that Niantic actually broke away from that traditional RPG-like Pokemon gameplay. It reminds me of playing Pokemon for the first time, rather than playing another damn 3DS game with slightly different graphics. It feels like I’m actually catching Pokemon, not just grinding through another refreshed Game Boy title.

So if your first impression of Pokemon Go isn’t super positive, give it time. I hated it at first, but it gets better. And seriously, there’s never been a better time to be a Pokemon fan than right now.