Glorified Stickers

This new Pokémon Go app feels like a glorified sticker-collecting game. Like, it’s not a real Pokémon game. You don’t pick a starter, go out in the wild and battle other Pokémon to train your own, you don’t have to weaken wild Pokémon in order to catch it, you (at the moment) can’t battle against or trade with other trainers. So, I was really against it when it came out. Also, from what I can tell, there are no stones for use in evolving Pokémon like Nidorino or Eevee. (Which begs the question: how does one get a Vaporeon, for example?) To evolve a Pokémon, you need to catch multiple duplicates and transfer them back to the Professor in order to receive Pokémon-specific candies. What happened to training and gaining experience points?? The gym set-up is so weird. That’s not how gyms really are. And finally, there are no PokéMarts or PokéCenters. Only PokéStops, which are stupid. The concept of the game is great, but I feel like it just isn’t genuine enough. Also, it requires constant data and GPS connections, which is not cool for people like myself who don’t have unlimited data, and it (along with the app needing to be constantly open) drains the battery. So, why has it caught on so well? Why are there accidents being caused by this stupid thing? And, why do I find myself wanting to just wander around Oneonta in attempts to catch them all? I get that it’s Pokémon, and it’s the closest I’ll ever get to being an actual Pokémon trainer. Regardless, the entire system just really irks me. It feels like a cheap knock-off and I feel like a sell-out by playing it.