Ah, Pokémon GO. The app released in early July 2016 and has had quite a darn wild r🅷i෴de ever since.

T꧙here are a couple of different schools of thought about the blockbuster app. Firstl🌊y, there are those who rode the hype train up to release, with images of roaming the real world and being the very best (like no-one ever was), only to quit in disgust shortly after launch. It was super shonky and glitchy back then, after all.

Then there are those who stubbornly stuck with the game, the overriding feelings of Poké-nostalgia making up for all manner of technical shortcomings. That’s me, incidentally. After all, early in GO’s life, I saw a huge 🌃tattooed guy with arms like Henry VIII’s Christmas hams shriek with girlish glee, because he’d found a rare Dratini. You can’t put a price on that sort of spectacle, friends, let me tell you.

The thing about that first group is, it’s never easy to be an early adopter. If a game, console or another piece of technology has issues early on, those issues are going to hit you right between the eyes. Once they have, even if they’re fixed somewhere along the line, it can be tough to jump back on board. To trust again. Remember how long it took to get back in the water after watching Jaws? It’s kind of li💎ke that, only with Xboxes with red rings inst🐷ead of sharks with sharp, bitey teeth.

Regardless, though. While there’s a lot that can still be done, GO is not the same app it was back then. To illustrate that point, settle in for a rundown of things that people still get wrong about Pokémon GO.

30 It’s Much More Stable Now

There’s no doubt that the app suffered from an awful Grand Theft Auto Online-type issue on launch. Namely, the entire planet (and the whole bizarre, lumpen alien populations of Mercury and Venus) were trying to log in at once straight away, and the whole infra🌃structure collapsed. It was a soggy mess of bugs, glitches, and crashes, and it was 100% uncool.

Quite under🔜standably, this turned many players off, but everything’s much smoother now. Not perfect, true enough, but no service like this ever will be. It’s a much less frustrating experience, from a technical standpoint.

29 The Tracking System Is (Arguably) Infinitely Better

At the heart of the whole thing, naturally, is the ꦯconcept of being a real-life Pokémon trainer is the real-life real darn world of real-ly realness, through the sorcery that is AR.

Central to that is the ability to track Pokémon, to know which species are around you and exactly where they are. During the launch period, this was one of the major criticisms, as tracking was completely unrelꦿiable or simply didn’t work. If you’ve been out of the loop, you’ll be glad to know that this is no longer the case.

Niantic has implemented several differ🦹ent tracking mechanics, but the current one (essওentially, which Pokémon are near this PokéStop) is simple and effective.

28 The Battles Are Not Just Mindless Mashing

Oh, yes. I hear you, friends, I definitely do. This one’s debatable for certain. As far as I’m concerned, though, there’s more to GO’s battles than meets the eye.

On the surface, yes, you just p🍸oke and poke and poke and poke at the screen like a demented finger-y woodpecker, as fast as you humanly can.

You’ll want to be careful with it, lest you aggravate any old Track and Field injuries you might have sustained back in the day. Nevertheless, you’ll also want to physically swipe to have your Pokémon move out of danger (defense is just as important as offense, when there are charge moves coming your way) and react on the fly with 🐻Pokémon switches to retain advantage. You know, just like the main games.

27 Sadly, No, You CANNOT Change Teams

Early in your Pokémon GO career, you’ll remember, you’re given the choice of joining one of three teams: Team Mystic, Team Valor or Team Instinct. You’ll want to give this some thought, of course, but you may not have realized just how much thought. This is freaking Sophie’s Choice right here, friends.

As of right now, Over two years later, there is still no way at all to change teams, other than by starting an entirely new account.

Something to bear in mind, if you’re just starting your GO journඣey (in which case, where in heckola have you been?🌞).

26 Pidgey And Rattata Actually Have (Some) Use

Let me guess.🅰 Very early on, you nabbed a couple of Route One lame ‘mon to evolve for the Pokédex, then spent the next two years griping about how they’re still freaking everywhere? That’s the whole community, rightꦬ there. If we were Eminem, we’d have written a whole album full of Pidgey and Rattata diss tracks.

The fact is, though, evolving these easy-to-find ‘mon with EXP boosters active is an excellent way to level grind early on. Not only that, but some of these otherwise-worthless Pokémon co🐎nceal Ditto, which was a canny move on Niantic’s part. Suddenly, they were desirable again.

25 Legendary Pokémon Aren’t Actually All That Tough To Catch

If there’s one thing that the Pokémon fran🎃chise is often lambasted for, it’s the irritating RNG associated with capturing legendary Pokémon. Generally speaking, they’ll happily bust out of dozens of balls before deigning to join you, evenও under optimum conditions.

While GO isn’t about to give you any freebies on that score, it certainly does make things a bit more manageable. With the fact that legendary Pokémon won’t flee from you, and the ever-convenient Golden Razz berries (which dramatical𒅌ly boost your chance to make a catch), it’s still difficult, but less frustrating. Well, in theory.

24 Legendaries Definitely Aren’t Guaranteed To Be Super-Strong

Often, players who are a little less well-versed in the Pokémon world tend to think that legendary Pokémon are so🐷me sort of insta-win ticket. You’ll see Battle Spot teams comprised oꦕf Kyogre, Groudon and the like, with their freshly-caught movesets and other shonky stuff going on.

It doesn’t work that way in the main games and it doesn’t here either. Once you’ve actually taken down that raid Pokémon, you’ll see its CP take a nose♒dive down to a more reasonable rate before you’re given the opportunity to catch it. The trouble is, it goes all the way down to 1500 or so.

23 Slaking Isn’t The Powerhouse You Might Think

As we saw in our countdown of the strongest P🙈okémon in the game by CP, Slaking currently rules the roost.

It can reach an absurd maximum CP of 4,548 as of right now, which is around 500 higher than Groudon and ಌKyogre (in joint second place, with a max of 4,074).

You’ve probably seen this thing in several gyms, taunting you and giving you the leisurely Poké-finger with its great power. It’s the strongest thing that can be left to defend gyms (more on that later) by a long shot, but there’s a caveat: its onl꧋y Fast Attack is Yawn, which means it must charge its other move before dealing any real damage.

22 Egg Hatching Isn’t Quite As Much Of A Chore As You Might Think

As players will know, you can find eggs at PokéStops as well as items, and you hatch them by💞 walking. As per the main games, they’re hatched by walking a certain distance, and that distance is shown in real-world kilometres on each egg.

There are four different varieties at the moment: 2km, 5km, 7km, and 10km eggs.🅷 The latter in particular can be daunting, What you may not know is that the in-game store offers Super Incubators, which will cut down that distance nicely. A 7km egg, for instance, becomes a 4.7km, which really saves time if you’re hatching several at once.

21 You CAN Catch ‘Em All… Eventually

Back in the height of late-90s Pokémania, there was no life achievement as impressive as catching them all. If you completed the Pokédex in Pokémon Red and Blue, you wereℱ the envy of the whole school. Of every school in the entire world. You were the ruler of everyone and everything; you wielded the power of Thanos with that fancy magical Michael Jackson glove of his.

Fast forward two decades, and there are almost 1000 diffe⛄rent Pokémon. Catching them all has become an even more impossible feat. With the events and a♔dditions that Niantic are gradually trickling out, though, it looks like we will all have a chance to finish… if we’re determined enough.