As someone who grew up in the heyday of Pokemon, I hadn’t played any Pokemon games until Pokemon Go took the world by storm in the summer 2016. That’s right, despite being the prime age for cartoons when the Pokemon anime was debuting, or being surrounded by highschooler friends who would rather trade across their Black and White games than get up to trouble, I had never touched a Pokemon game. I had a DS Lite and everything, I thought I had avoided the fad entirely.

Fast forward to Pokemon Go, I was initially reluctant to even download it. I knew zippo about Pokemon, other than that I could spam my down special as Pikachu to annoy everyone I played Super Smash Brothers with. But when the PoGo release hit Canada, I had no choice but to download it- everyone else was playing it, and it’s not like I had to shell out money for a game cartridge. And then I was instantly hooked. I had the opportunity to discover the Pokemon world for the first time the way it was intended: outside, on my feet, surrounded by friends and friendly trainers.

Following the initial download, my partner and I took to the local park where a small summer fair was taking place. I already expected it to be packed- it’s not every day that it’s actually nice to be outside in Southern Ontario, but this wasn’t the same bustle surrounding the fair in years prior. Since there were Pokestops everywhere in the park, everyone was out and on their phones trying to hit them all. I ran into several friends all out and about, living their childhood fantasies of becoming trainers.

At first I didn’t get it. You walk around, you swipe your finger, you get the cute little monster. I caught my starter (a Squirtle!) a few Pidgeys and Zubats and Gastly. It was the same stuff everywhere. Until, I saw something different. “What kind of Pokemon is that?” I asked, “And why is everyone storming over there to get it?” It was a Golduck. It looked cool, so my partner and I went to go catch it. He missed, I didn’t. Apparantly that was an evolved pokemon, so I just saved myself a lot of luck by getting it right away instead of collecting 16 or so Psyducks for candy. Awesome!

And that’s when my competitive side came out. It was a race to catch every type. Suddenly, I was very interested in this. Gotta be the very best. Gotta catch ’em all. From then on I was in the park every night, sometimes with my own friends, sometimes meeting people from the community. It wasn’t just college students like my group, there were families with children, adults of all ages, and even some senior citizens camping out on benches near gyms. I used to avoid talking to strangers at all costs; it’s not safe to go out alone at night, you never know what the other person’s intentions are. Yet with the glowing screens and clusters around Pokestops, that fear was minimized. They’re here to catch the Gengar and swap notes with the trainers doing rounds of the park! There may or may not be footage on an acquaintance’s phone of me in the middle of the park crying that I missed the Lapras. Very few onlookers judged me for that, it was pretty reasonable on Day 4. I eventually caught a Lapras on Day 6.

Up until that point, I had been pretty indoorsy that summer. Outside was humid and buggy, and inside was air-conditioned and you didn’t need sunblock or bug spray. My coworkers and I would stay inside for breaks and lunch, and after work we would hang out at someone’s house. No longer. We would walk across town to the park, or go on a drive and discover hard to attack gyms (while hatching some 10k eggs, of course). It was one of the most social summers I had ever had. Maybe outside wasn’t so bad.

Fast forward almost 2 years. The game has evolved (no pun intended) from its initial release. There are now three generations of pokemon, quests, an improved gym system, and even legendaries. Raids have added a welcome refreshment of the social element, which has admittedly waned since the initial hype. Yet, I still see people of all ages coming together at libraries and other popular gym localities to get the most out of raid passes and lure modules. I’m also quite pleased at the weather update helping refresh the Pokemon that are naturally around so it’s not 90% Pidgeys, as well as some of the focus events helping players catch and evolve specific types. I’m still not quite done the Kanto pokedex (curse you, Alakazam!), but overall the game still has enough to keep me going.

The game certainly isn’t perfect. It still crashes some times, drains too much battery to make walking eggs efficient without a Go Plus, and still thinks I’m going to fast when I walk through a part of town with too many wifi locations to pinpoint where I am. But all in all, I wouldn’t trade it for anything else. I want to thank Niantic for giving me a great summer, an intro to the world of Pokemon, and most importantly, a sense of wonder and drive to explore.