I was there the day the phenomenon began. It was July 6, 2016. I was in my early twenties and recall the hot sun beaming through my bedroom window as I eagerly watched Pok\u00e9mon Go download on my phone. As a lifelong fan, I had been anticipating this day; little did I know that soon 232 million others would join me on this journey to catch \u2018em all.<\/p>\n
If you weren\u2019t there, or have somehow missed the Pok\u00e9mon Go hype train, this title is a location-based AR mobile game that tasks you with venturing out into the world around you to catch different types of Pok\u00e9mon. On the way, you can spin Pok\u00e9Stops to receive items, battle in raids with your friends, or take on the Team Rocket Go leaders for a challenge, among other things.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s a very surface-level explainer, so let me go into a little more detail about my favorite aspect of the game, collecting things. I\u2019ve played Go casually every single day since launch, and outside of a regional exclusive or two, I\u2019m only missing a small handful of the available \u2018mons. However, if you want to really catch \u2018em all, you\u2019ve got to consider picking up all of the shiny, shadow, purified, lucky, 100%, and size variants, which, despite maybe feeling a little impossible, is part of the game\u2019s charm.<\/p>\n