Video: Here's What Pokémon GO Looks Like in the Real World

Can't wait to do this! My biggest gripe with the game is and will remain only 151 Pokemon, but we should get more in future updates. Otherwise that'd be such a shame.

This looks awesome I can't wait to get my hands on it! Does anyone know when it's coming out in the UK? Surely it can't be too long?

Am I the only person that thinks this looks largely crap?

It looks like some cheap fan game or ripoff with a rubbish and generic avatar design, a crappy flat landscape that you awkwardly walk/slide across, AR sections where the Pokemon are just floating/sliding around on top of the camera footage (so they might as well not be overlaid on top of the real world footage at all), lots of overpriced and abusive micro-transaction junk . . .

The only thing that looks decent about it, to me at least, is the actual Pokemon models (which are generally fine) and getting to [sort of] throw a Pokeball at them yourself (it's a bit of novelty at least). And, I guess some people will find it fun wandering around outside and trying to find the Pokemon in real world locations. But, the whole thing could certainly be wrapped up in a much higher quality package than what we're seeing here.

@Kirk Well you know somethin your opinion SUCKS!

@AsianDomination Or, it doesn't, and some people are just easily manipulated sheep who'll allow Nintendo and Niantic to convince them that this is anything other than a crappy cash-in with a gimmick they'll probably get bored of after a few weeks. OR, it's so well built around simple gambling and addiction based systems—variable ratio reinforcement, compulsion loops, avoidance, etc.—that many people will end up playing it for months before finally realising it was largely worthless junk that they mostly didn't actually get any real joy or value from at all (but a few people will end up wasting a lot of money on), just like Miitomo before it.

Now, maybe this is actually a fun game/experience and I'm just being a bit harsh on it, it's is possible, but it absolutely does lack that level of polish and presentation that I personally expect from Nintendo—and that, at the very least, should be pretty apparent to most people.

@Kirk Totally with you there dude, it looks nasty.

@Kirk I don't think this is my type of game, but I think there are bucket loads of moby users that will love this! So, nice one Nintendo.

Yeah, this does not look good. Do you really just... Walk around until you find a pokemon, and then throw pokeballs at it, without even battling it?! And then you have to pay real money for pokeballs... Is there anything else to the game?

@Kirk This video certainly makes it look incredibly dull. Hopefully there's an actual game underneath it.

@chardir I think what you saw is basically it.

And, from what I saw the other day, you don't even get to battle the Pokemon you catch. You just throw out the Pokeball when you find them, then the game decides if they are likely to be caught based on a few variables, and that's about it.

Apparently there's some gym leader thing too, which possibly involves battling against other people, but I'm too sure about what that does or how it works.

Overall though, I'm just not impressed.

@mystman12 That's basically about it. And, I think there's something to do with battling other trainers at some point, but it wasn't clear in previous videos I watched how that worked.

Wow, this looks so bad. I'm not a Pokemon fan at the best of times but at least I can appreciate their cool visuals, but this game ruins that as well. The battles look bland and the menus look like they came straight from ios.

@RedeadLink Totally agree; the quality/level of presentation on show here, other than on the Pokemon characters themselves, is largely junk. It feels like another cheap, phoned-in, shopped-out, cash-grab attempt from Nintendo, imo. I honestly expect more than this from Nintendo, even from its iOS Apps.

I don't think this is aimed at us so chill out.

@GrailUK Who it's aimed at is completely irrelevant to my complaints. Quality is quality. Cheap, cash-in, phoned-in, shopped-out, cash grabs are mostly worthless junk, imo, and excusing junk just because it was made for people too [whatever] to see past that doesn't excuse it, not as far as I'm concerned. Yes, the App has a couple of interesting elements, but it's not exactly high quality stuff here, and I'm simply calling a turd a turd.

It constantly shocks me how little some so called "Nintendo fans" ask of the company.

@Bobb Yes, but why can't they do that AND make a genuinely high quality product* at the same time? The two things are not mutually exclusive of each other.

*In terms of presentation and overall polish.

It's Supah Defective!!!

@Kirk I'm with you on that ,it looks absolutely awful.

@Kirk This looks up there with Bloons and Candy Crush Saga!

Yay, an article by Alex! That was the exciting part right? :x Uhm... but yeah, as cool an idea of Pokémon GO may be, I'm just not with it, personally.

It's a neat idea. I just hope parents will remind their kids to stay on the sidewalk.

Yup this game is gonna cause car accidents and children getting killed

Doesn't look very fun to me, but then again, I'm not a huge Pokemon fan.

@Kirk I honestly believe it will be at least 2 or 3 more years until Nintendo comes out with an actual good, quality phone app. Nintendo has this weird idea that a phone game should not be like their console releases, and on top of that phones are a completely different ball game; from experience, you really need to minimize visual update calls to the phone because one misstep can lag the phone a ton. A phone is decently powerful, but it's not optimized for gaming, and actually, this app follows android's visual guidelines pretty well.

In addition...do you expect Niantic to make high quality maps for everywhere in the world? I don't believe that's entirely realistic.

It may look cheap...but I'm not sure what you'd want instead? I will agree the gameplay is lacking (which doesn't matter to me for a phone app), but I don't understand what you expect from the visuals.

Don't you guys realize it's in real world? If you're watching it on here it will look super boring. But it's not just a game you sit on the couch to play. You're going into real world, so watching a video won't do it justice. It doesn't look super crappy though. It doesn't look great but it literally just came out. And the phone version isn't even all of it. There's the watch, which is a bit pricey, but you guys gotta understand it's not necessarily for gamers.

@MasterWario Exactly! Is it stunning? No. But is it good over all? Yeah it is!

The phone won't deliver games that are as good as the 3DS ones, but so far I think Nintendo's doing a pretty good job for just getting into the industry.

I know tons of people who don't play Nintendo anymore, but are interested in this app. But I'm not sure they'd spend money on microstransactions

For those of you that already had the beta downloaded, they updated and now its the full game.

I'm surprised people are saying this looks bad. Ever since this was announced, it was confirmed the game would just be about finding Pokemon around the world and capturing them. It's always been less of a game and more of a collecting application. I wish it was more of a traditional Pokemon experience, but I never thought it was from the official information I have seen.

Maybe people should not condemn a game before they have actually played it?

Been playing this on and off today after downloading the apk for my phone, and having been enjoying it. The excitement at the moment comes in catching the Pokemon, finding your favourites. Leveling up your Pokemon and evolving them.

You don't have to pay to get pokeballs or other items if you don't want to. The Pokestops give you plenty of pokeballs 3-4 each time and they refresh quite regularly. You also get various upgrades as you level up.

I haven't gotten to gyms yet as I have only just got to level 5 but looks like you can capture them and try and battle to keep them. Looking forward to that bit.

It's fun to see what is around my local village and town where I live and the city I work in. Plenty of gyms to go to, Pokestops to pick up items and Pokemon to catch.

You get to take your Pokemon adventure into the real world, maybe a lot of people see that as a negative?

I say don't knock it 'till you've tried it, this game is good fun.

@Kirk you realize Nintendo didn't make this, and it was made by two completely separate companies right?

@Kirk Oh yes, we are being manipulated to playing a completely free game that is basically here just to test the water and see what can be done to improve this idea for the fututre. Oh my god i can believe i gave those companys all of that money I never spent becuase this game is free to play

It certainly looks very average.

I love the moonwalking trainer, very entertaining. This looks fun, but Pokemon GO isn't quite what I was hoping it would be.

Nintendo should make Pokemon Go for cellphones and the N3DS. I'd play that for sure, but I won't upgrade my phone for it...

@patbacknitro18 Oh how naive you are. lol

@russellohh The Pokemon Company is basically owned by Nintendo. This game is basically a Nintendo licensed game developed by an external developer.

@MasterWario I simply want a higher quality of presentation and polish all-round. The player characters just look bad compared to their equivalents in the main Pokemon games. The map is just generic meh, and while I don't expect them to fully model a whole world or whatever, I do expect more than this. Christ even the character's animation on the map could look better. The way the Pokemon float and slide around in the AR sections is just cheap rubbish. Lock them to the ground and let the player move around them with the Pokemon sliding around. Etc, etc, etc.

And the early trailer did appear to have the Pokemon locked to the ground.

@Kirk I see. I just watched the video again and I agree that AR section should be better. Do note however, that Image Processing has some of most difficult computer science problems in existence. It's part of the reason I say it will take a while for Nintendo to get mobile apps down. There is a whole new sub-set of problems with mobile that Nintendo is probably not used to.

For those interested, NA iOS is up.

This looks incredibly boring to me. You just throw the pokeballs? No battles, no evolutions, just toss a pokeball at everything you see?

@Kirk OH MY GOD!!! The game isn't the best formulated game!!!! Oh why couldent they have learned from the previous Pokemon Go. I mean ya they could of learned from that one to improve upon the idea in the future, but no they didnt take lessons from the first Pokemon go.................Oh wait

@Alshain01 Their are evolutions, their are battles, and ya just catch pokemon. Ofcourse its not godly amazing, but hey its their first attempt. they can learn from this try for future Pokemon Go development. Learning from failure as its called

@Kirk Well, it IS a mobile "game" and one from Nintando too.
And we all know how long Miitomo lived... So yeah.
I expect the initial hype to die pretty fast, especially if people realize that they actually have to their bum outside for it.

Its basically like any Street Pass shenanigans. Great on paper, everybody is hyped and then you find out that you have to run around tons and no body else does it.

The idea itself is pretty cute though. I generally have a sweetspot for AR nonsense. Now if it had actual Pokemon battles...that would be a whole new thing.
Picture it, THAT would be as close as you could get to actual RL Pokemon. Catch these critters outside, battle everyone who has their smartphone with them.

Oh well, gimmick it is.

@patbacknitro18 There are ? From everything i heard, its just about catching critters. Any info / source on this ? (Admittedly, i wasn't really on the lookout for this)

@Kirk It doesn't look overly that great but hey, it's the first of it's kind and we get to go and catch pokemon outside of a video game... well, kind of, more an interactive game with our own world. It is basically the closest we have had pokemon in our world so far.

@Einherjar Well When you play the game and catch a pokemon youll collect pokeball looking items. And to evolve a Charmander you need like 25 of those items. but to level, or power, it up you need like 3 and some other item. And you can battle other trainers you meet, but the battle is just real time attacking, you dont really have control. So its not perfected. but now that they do have the basics down they can now look out for things to improve in either future updates or a future pokemon Go.

@Kirk The problem with the whole Nintendo pretty much "owns" the Pokémon Company is that The Pokémon Company generally does their own thing.

The Pokémon Company is also owned by 3 different companies, one of them being Nintendo. Gamefreak and Creatures Inc. are the other two.

This is one of the primary reasons why you don't really see Pokémon advertisements for cross over games and generally only have Pokémon advertising purely Pokémon games. It's also why you don't see Pokémon in other Nintendo first party games like the Mario Kart series despite it having crossovers from other Nintendo series (like Zelda).

Judging by the actual visual polish in Miitomo compared to Pokémon Go, I'd say that Nintendo was only directly involved in Miitomo. Nintendo has also done some pretty neat AR stuff before, some of it included for free with 3DSs and some being built into their own games so I doubt the results would have been the same if they were actually involved in the development process. Pokémon Go is just another case of The Pokémon Company doing their own thing as part of their advertising duties.

More likely than not, Nintendo is stepping on eggshells trying to not piss off the other two holders. If Gamefreak was okay with it, I don't think Nintendo would really be able to say anything. Wouldn't want to piss off the developers of one of their biggest cash cows. The whole respect thing is also very big in Japan and Nintendo is an old company.

@patbacknitro18 Im sorry, but Pokemon is a 20 years old franchise and Nintendo is in the business for 33 years.
The "its their first time" argument is absolutely bollocks at this time.

The Pokemon main games have one of the most rudimentary battle systems found in RPGs. To emulate that in a simple smartphone game is no witchcraft.
And it doesn't need "a Pokemon GO sequel" for them to know how a Pokemon game works.

Just think about it for a moment. The main games already provide the necessary balance. All they would technically need to do is copy over the mons statistics, and not even in one single go, given the usual mobile game pace.

So yeah, im sorry, but those are just excuses for yet another lackluster mobile "game", just like MiiTomo.
And look at that, have they "learned from their mistakes" ?
Have they learned that an idle-app doesn't hold consumers for long ? Looks like they didn't.

Like i said above, without much to do, this will sink the same way Miitomo sank. Ungraceful, silent, lonely.

@Einherjar Heres what you dont get. This is their first time with a game like this. They have never made a game to this extent before. While making an actual Pokemon game is easy to proggram, this is MUCH MORE complex. As well as if you couldent tell the main focus is the AR system. They want to make sure this system is perfected before they work on other stuff. As you can see this game is very basic. You can catch Pokemon, evolve them, real time battle then, hell you can even make your own gym. This game is put down to the VERY basic ideas. and thats understandable. This is a HUGE project, so they wouldent want to work on the more complex stuff without getting a good grip on the basics. Yes they have made pokemon games, but now their trying to bring that into the real world, which is a VERY tall order to handle. I know that in the future they will improve on this idea

Also may i just say Miitomo and Pokemon Go have both been worked on around the same time. Their was no timespan for 1 to learn off of the other in terms of content.

@patbacknitro18 All true....if we would talk about Jimmy from next door, with a budget of 20 bucks and coding history of about a week or two.

Nintendo and the Pokemon Company are among the biggest heavyweights in the industry. Your defense makes it sound like they joined the fray with their very first game !

This is neither complicated nor a "huge project".
Its a throwaway mobile app that could have been more if they actually cared.

AR is an old hat and Nintendo has been playing around with it since the first 3DS. And it isn't nearly as groundbreaking or hard as you make it out to be really.

And lets be perfectly honest here:
"so they wouldent want to work on the more complex stuff without getting a good grip on the basics"
What you're saying is, that they don't already have a grip on how a Pokemon game works ?
You seriously believe that an industry behemoth like Nintendo / Pokemon Company has to put gameplay on hold because they need to figure out how to display 3D models on a smartphone ?

Please, Nintendo may not be the most technically advanced game dev out there, but this statement is simply ridiculous !
But still, i'd love to hear from you exactly how this is far more complex to make than an actual game.

@Einherjar Ok im gonna make this simple for you. This is their first time.......at making a project like this. Making a perfect Ar system for a vast amount of countrys is no easy task. DO NOT pretend that it is an easy task for them. I garentee you it took more then half of development to perfect that. And here is where you fail to understand. Making a normal pokemon game and Pokemon Go are on 2 VERY diffrent levels. Making a normal pokemon game with stats and a proper battle system is easy, becuase their dosent need to be much calculating. When you have over a million people basically on the same server calculation all the stats of said caught Pokemon would be extremely hard to program. And the battle system in the game is the best it could be withought the need for stats. A turnbased battle system withought stats couldent work mainly cause over half of the moves are used to lower or raise stats. And the battle moves themselves calculate Special defense, defense, power, special power, speed.I mean a normal pokemon game can calculate all of this easily becuase its just 1 person playing the game. With over 1 million people playing the same game, how do you expect such complex programing to work?

@patbacknitro18 That actually make me laugh
I too hope that we one day will have the insane technological power to play games over this internet thing.
Just think of the possibilities !

Jokes aside...have you never heard of MMO's before ?
Just take Wold of Warcraft for instance. That little 12 year old gem has the numbers you are talking about with a lot more variables going on than Pokemon could ever hope to achieve

That said: What YOU are talking about is game streaming.
Games completely run on the server, that simply streams the processed images over to you.
That's not how this works. These "calculations" you are talking about happen locally on your phone, you know, those little devices housing octa-core processors ?

And "millions of people on the same server"...
I cant help but chuckle about that one honestly, im sorry.
Even IF that would be the case, how do you think the general internet even works ?

Oh yes becuase 1 million people can play on the same server of Wow. oh yes we have advanced technology that far. I mean come on, its not like Pokemon Go has multiple servers. Everyone will be on the same exact server, just think about that. Millions of people on the same server, with the pokemon drop rate being all over the world. That alone is Extremly complex. So come back to me when you have a perfect running game that can hold over 1 million people, especially more since it branchs into countrys like Japan and Australia.

@chardir Nope there isn't! There are lot of reviews up already saying the same thing. It's a very barebones low quality game, focussed on Micro transactions!

In other Words, just another mobile F2P crap junk game. /shrug

Seriously dissapointed in Nintendo, allowing garbage like this to be launched under their name.

PS. Just look at some videos in how quickly you run through your pokeballs and that 20 pokeballs cost $1,50. This game can become very expensive very quickly! Just blatant cash grab!

And also yes their would be millions of people on the same map, the same server.

@Kirk I'm sorry, but you really don't understand. If you had actually played the game you would see that a lot of your complaints don't hold water at all.

First off, this isn't a 'game' in the traditional sense. If you were expecting a full fledged Pokemon game, well, I don't know where you got that from as Go has never ever been advertised as such.

This is an app you use throughout your usual day. If you're walking down the high street, or to the train station or whatever, it's gonna be a pain if you have to stop and battle everytime you come across a Pokemon. It would be a huge inconvenience and incredibly annoying. I do a two mile walk on my lunch break; during which yesterday I encountered several Pokemon. Flicking a few Pokeballs is no interruption; stopping to battle them would be. If you want to battle wild Pokemon, go play one of the numerous Pokemon games that already exist.

You talk about it looking plain. Well, this shows that the developers actually have done some research on how mobile phones are used in real life. Again, this isn't a game on a dedicated handheld system. Highly detailed graphics would

a) Drain battery (much quicker than it already does)
b) Take up limited storage capacity with unecessary bloat
c) Use more data
d) Take longer to load

Niantic clearly have experience of developing mobile games and know how those devices work and what people want from mobile games. Tip; fancy graphics aren't one of them. For the reasons listed above, I am glad Pokemon Go looks the way it does.

I can't be bothered to type anymore, but please, before you and others slag off a game please actually try to understand it first. It's not difficult.

@Mogster Look, stop wasting your breath; I fully understand the complaints I'm making. The game simply doesn't look very polished and lacks the level of presentation I expect from Nintendo games. It's that simple. I don't need to have ever touched it in my life to tell you that; I can see it with my own eyes from all the footage that's been shown.

@patbacknitro18 Or, how about learning for the literally millions of other mobile games out there, and possibly even their own 40+ year history of making and polishing video games. And, if we're just talking the Pokemon Company and not Nintendo, the same applies but just with a slightly shorter history.

@MasterWario Well, I've seen plenty of AR games/Apps that have done it way better.

@Kirk le sigh if you actually understood the complaints you're making, you would realise that they aren't valid complaints. There is a reason for all of them, and the reason is it's a mobile game designed to be used in the real world NOT tethered to a phone charger or wifi connection.

The complaints are only valid if taken completely out of context.

@Mogster What has the game graphic to do with your net connection ? Models are rendered on your phone, location is calculated by your GPS module, maps are probably also borrowed from your respective systems map app.

@patbacknitro18 Its almost astonishing how little you know about the web
Lets have a little thought experiment here:
If there is only one server for the whole world (which is insane enough), and the game comes in different languages (Japanese and English at least), those informations are more than likely stored inside the app already, thus, locally.
In order to for the app to display the proper model, it simply needs to draw a number and the respective coordinates from the server and poof no further server access required.
Coordinates relative to your own GPS position can be calculated by your device, monster stats, models etc are stored on your phone. Whats the next thing the server needs to know ?
If the monster was caught, e.a. if that entity exists. That's literally one single byte of info.
Next step ? Link one number (that of the monster) to another number (your profile).

Same goes for every other interaction of this app.
The server only communicates persistent changes in that case. Everything else would not be useful when dealing with mobile connections.

I have no clue where you got all this nonsense from, but a mobile MMO is not a technical marvel, not by a long shot.
There are countless games out there doing the exact same if not more than Pokemon Go.

@Einherjar try actually reading my comment rather than twisting it just so you can write a snarky know-it-all response.

No where did I say better visuals would use up data. Processing more detailed visuals would use up more battery, which is toxic to a game that is supposed to be played on the go.

A little reading comprehension goes a long way.

@Mogster I've seen pudding with thicker skin mate, jeeze.
Most of his complaints were in regards to the games looks, your response also mentioned the device being hooked up to a wifi system, which actually needs more battery depending on your phone model (mine certainly does, not to mention that wifi triggers all kinds of push messages, updates and other shenanigans)

How about not sh*ting your pants the next time someone replies to your comment with a question that wasn't 100% directed at exactly what was going on in your noggin.

No reason to get overly defensive about nonsense like that.

@Mogster Again, you really seem clueless as to the complaints I'm making. lol