Terrible: Flying Blind

Update: April 10, 2017: I hate this app so much. It makes no sense that I cant battle with my Pokémon to gain experience and evolve them that way. I cant choose the moves I want them to learn, and Im unable to find enough Squirtel in my home town to evolve to a Worturtle. My Pokémon are weak, and cant gain XP in battles so they cant grow and evolve. The buddy walking system is a joke. I had to walk miles just get a single candy for my Bulbasaur. Fire Pokémon are almost non-existent, and there is still no Pokémon center for healing the Pokémon whos energy you exhausted in the gym battle (all for no XP and no real pay-off). I also dont understand why the opponent Pokémon at the gym can attack several times but my Pokémon has to hold for several seconds without being hit in order to deliver its special attack. This is crap. I thought all of this was being fixed? I dont even want to have to physically travel in the real world - its distracting and having my face shoved in a phone in public is embarrassing. I want this kind of environment in a touch-screen Pokémon game. Let us roam the map freely and give us a virtual world within the app or let us use the mapping system that is in place. I drive to get around anyway, as my area literally has no Pokémon outside from normal and occasional water types. This isnt reflective of a traditional GameBoy game, as so many of us wish it was.

Update August 9th: Im also fairly certain that Niantic is now paying people to post FIVE STAR reviews for this crap app. Most of the reviews dont even make sense. 1-3 Stars are usually people with real issues.

Update August 8th: Okay, so this is pathetic. Theyre so busy changing the game animations and the looks of the Pokéballs (which now look terrible, by the way - less shiny, dull, and with a HUGE ugly button on them, barely visible black locking bar going around the ball) that theyve neglected to address the issue of only common Pokémon still spawning in rural areas, if any Pokémon spawn at all. Its incredibly annoying and frustrating knowing that just people some people live in larger cities theyre now on level 24 and 25, because the have the appropriate resources to play the game. They can get PokéStop items with each and from that can level their Pokémon up even further without much effort. We literally have to DRIVE to play this game, theres no walking to it. We wouldnt see anything if we walked. Im serious. Im just frustrated that theyre busy changing the look and the design when there are SERIOUS game flaws that arent being addressed. Maybe its taking longer to work out, and this was an easy fix, but really... the new Pokéballs have this cheap look to it. Id downgrade if I could. :-/

Well, I was very disappointed with the initial release. The Pokémon are just treated as "throw aways" and there is no achievement in leveling them up with gym battles or wild Pokémon encounters. You want people to exercise with this app? Make it a requirement to battle down the Pokémon and catch them with a PokéBall (one to THREE maximum) and then allow them to walk with them around other trainers to battle and earn Gym badges within 8 Gyms in their area, about 1/2 hour within each other. Make the state Capitol the Pokémon League or offer an online access version to it and then use your trained and leveled-up Pokémon to battle against the Elite Four. Find Thunderstones, Moonstones, Waterstones, and Firestones in areas around town. Allow for them to appear on the map like Pokémon. Give users the ability to evolve their Pikachu if they want and allow for their Pollywhirl to evolve when they want to with a Waterstone. How cool would that be? Also, we need a Pokémon Center to heal them without using potions galore. Have Niantic even played the original games? Im serious. This is NOT how Pokémon should be. But even more so, this app and game have just become a joke. No tracking, no excitement, and when your tracker when be zero you punished the players by taking away their online tracking maps. Do you know how exciting it was to find something other than a Pidgey or Zubat and hurry over to it? I live in a rural area, and got excited to go and drive 10 mins into town to get that Pokémon! It expired by then, but it was enough fun that I hung around to play for another three hours on my own. This game needs a lot of improvement. Ive spent over $20 and right now I cant do anything but hunt aimlessly for Pokémon. That gets old after about the first week.

Brendon Léon about Pokémon GO, v1.31.0