A man stands at a train station, holding his phone in one hand and a pot of hummus in the other. All three are soaked in rain. Large raindrops fall from the clouds, onto his waterproof hoodie, before dripping from the top of the mountain onto his device, which he quickly presses with his thumb. I know this man is playing Pokemon Go because of his repetitive movements. I know this man is playing Pokemon Go because this man is me.
Tap, tap, tap, scroll, tap, tap, tap, tap. The man quickly locked the phone, wiped it on his wet pants, and continued the ritual. Tap, tap, pause.
Pokemon Go
This pause is the only thing that tells me he's playing a Dynamax battle, not a Raid. Raids are nonstop tapping, with maybe a little sliding involved if you're one of those people trying to dodge the boss's brutal attacks. Still, at this point, most players have enough of the monsters to power up, so taking damage isn't a big deal. Raid bosses are easy to play right now, or at least they used to be, until Niantic bumped up the difficulty in a recent update to push players towards a new, more polished version of community battles.
Dynamax battles felt fresh and new when they first came out. I compared them to playing Strand, and I stand by that assessment. However, after just a week of playing with the system, I realized that the battles were just assaults. We were starting from the bottom again, facing Wooloo and Skwovet instead of Kyogre and Groudon. I don't know why they were just as good.
You can only use Dynamax Pokemon in Dynamax battles, which means that every Pokemon starts at the same point, whether they're level 10 or 50. It also means that the whole system is locked down. Your old Pokemon won't be able to be used here. Spend more Candy, more Stardust, power up new Pokemon, pay for new moves, or even use Elite TMs to get Blast Burn on Charizard to deal with those naughty Beldums. It's all designed to get you to play more, spend more, but beyond the mechanical explanation, the system is fun.
The man at the train station fought his way to the end. His pulse was slow. He wasn't sweating. This wasn't a game that was going to invigorate or excite him, it was part of the fight. But when he looked up from the giant Charmander that filled his screen, from behind the curtain of water pouring from his hood, he smiled.
While getting a good Charmander doesn’t feel as good as catching a 100% Legendary — we’ve all done that before — it’s still satisfying. The Beldum fight was tough, something I’ve never felt before in a raid. Choosing monsters to Dynamax was a bit of a strategic play. It wasn’t all that different from a raid, but it felt refreshing to start from the beginning.
I play Beldum solo with two Charizards and one Blastoise. It's easy.
I never knew that all Pokemon Go needed to do to get me back was reset the game, but now it's almost working. I don't think I can play as much anymore, but now I can play a little bit. That's good too.
The man at the train station, soaked in the rain, was taking off his coat. He was home now. His phone was a little heavier from the new monster stored in his memory. It wasn't the same anymore, but it got him out of the house on a day he probably wouldn't have gone out at all. This wasn't 2016, but it was Pokemon. It might have been a raid by another name, but it was fun. What more could the man at the train station want?
