What Pokemon Go is like in Pittsburgh

Growing up, I was never much of a Pokemon fan because I preferred Yu-Gi-Oh. I will admit, I watched a few Pokemon reruns to pass the time. For me, “Gotta catch em all” meant nothing, whereas my brain automatically followed up “Gonna catch em all” with “cause he’s Danny Phantom.”

My first time as a Gym Leader

In the months leading up to the release of Pokemon Go, I was thoroughly excited. Let me back up a little to explain. My entire family has been hating on handheld gaming for literally decades. The only handheld unit we ever owned was a single Game Boy to be shared by me and my three older siblings.

It all changed when my sister did an exchange program with a university in New York and met other (more) hardcore gamers. They introduced her to the Nintendo 3DS and took her to Nintendo World (now Nintendo New York). I went to visit her over the 2014 winter break, and within five minutes of seeing her 3DS, I was ready for the impulse buy of a lifetime.

I bought four games along with the special edition Super Mario Brothers 2 3DS that day, including Pokemon Omega Ruby to match my sister’s Alpha Sapphire. I fell in love with it more and more everyday, but especially got into it last semester. Naturally, when I heard a Pokemon phone app was in development, my anticipation hit an all-time peak. I ardently followed all news of the coming on-the-go game and dutifully chuckled at each and every meme predicting the realities of the app.

And then finally July 6th came, and I could download the app. Since I was in Memphis at the time, there were few opportunities to get the really good and rare Pokemon everyone else (New Yorkers) were managing to nab.

For that first month and a half, my excitement plateaued, and then fell dramatically, especially when I managed to hatch four Magikarp in a row (though it did occur to me that it put me a tiny bit closer to being able to evolve one into Gyarados).

Eventually, that time of year rolled around, and I made the trip back to Pitt for the fall semester. It wasn’t until I got to my new apartment that I made the ultimate discovery. I could hit three different Pokestops without leaving my room. To make it even better, because I live on the ninth floor of my building, and therefore the GPS confuses itself every five seconds, I can hatch eggs without ever actually having to move. I was able to hatch two with this method.

I’ve also gotten easy and regular access to over a dozen Pokemon that never appeared for me in Memphis or in Southaven when I attended a convention there, namely Sandshrew, Grimer, Onix, Drowzee, Rhyhorn, Electabuzz, and Aerodactyl. Speaking of Southaven, that’s where I first took down another team’s gym (Mystic), claimed the gym for Team Valor, and became a gym leader for a whole thirty minutes. However, later that day I took over the Bellevue Baptist Church gym and didn’t get my Flareon back for over a week.

Since I’ve been back in Pittsburgh, I’ve noticed the numerous gyms have a high turnover rate, just like in Memphis. Not to mention the Pokestops are as far as the eye can see. With several gyms literally within five blocks of my apartment, I fully expected one of them to be the first I took over here in Pittsburgh. But I actually ended up defeating a gym on the way to the Pitt vs Villanova game, right before Pitt defeated Villanova 28 to 7.

Overall, coming back to Pittsburgh has been great for my life as a trainer. The overabundant access to Pokestops and Gyms has led to my hatching at least one egg everyday that I actually open the app, and I level up so much faster than at home in Memphis. In fact, this Sunday I got to level 22, and now I need a whopping 100,000 XP to make it to level 23. Thankfully, I was able to get 8000 just by sitting around my apartment.