It was probably inevitable that eventually Pokémon GO would get the ‘Honest Game Trailers’ treatment. With the game’s massive popularity, insane server issues at launch, lack of features, and laundry list of controversies and headlines, it only became even more inevitable since the game launched. Well, that day has finally come, and the resulting trailer is not only uproariously funny if you have any love for Pokémon at all, it’s viciously, terribly honest and, depending on how much you’ve been enjoying the game, may actually manage to make you feel a bit ridiculous for playing it.
The trailer starts by touching on the fact that Pokémon GO’s popularity and ubiquity is largely due to its huge departure from traditional Pokémon games, and the fact that the franchise has finally gone mobile, summed up succinctly as the extraction of “most of the parts that make it a video game.” The game’s play area, “Outside”, is touted as being more than twice the size of Kanto, the region where Pokémon Red, Blue and Yellow took place, and boasting a ton of features not found in any other Pokémon game, such as “billions of NPCs” and “an unforgiving permadeath system”. Calling the game a mashup of “light cardio, Google Maps, and Paper Toss”, the trailer goes as far as lampooning gym battles as “color-based gang turf wars”. Sure, there’s no physical violence, no movie-esque subplot, but, in essence, Pokémon aligned with different teams fighting over control of gyms fits this description surprisingly well.
In essence, the trailer boils down everything Pokémon GO currently is and shoves it into the harsh light of objective analysis, though it doesn’t touch on incoming updates with things like 1 on 1 battles and training, nor does it mention that the Pokémon have detailed stats hidden away, just like in the third generation of original games and onward. In any case, if you were ever a fan of Pokémon before GO came out, are a Pokémon GO addict, or just love seeing full-on cultural phenomenon get the ‘honest’ treatment, the three and a half minute video is included down below for your viewing pleasure.