Pokémon GO

The loop is catching and exploring, the fights are Gyms, Raids and Trainer battles, and the appraisal screen is where a collection gets sorted. What that screen is not is the whole answer to what you keep.

Catch, explore, battle

The core of Pokémon GO is encounter-driven. Wild Pokémon appear as you move, your device buzzes to say one is nearby, and what turns up depends on the environment — the help pages name parks and bodies of water as examples, and Incense can pull more into range. Catching combines throw timing with capture odds: the colour of the target ring tells you how hard the Pokémon is to hold, and Berries and better Poké Balls shift the odds.

Battles come in two flavours. Nearby battles need both players in the same place and a Battle Code scan; Friend battles can be sent remotely from the friend list, so the social side is not location-locked. GO Battle League takes the opposite approach and matches you globally from Trainer Level 10 upward. Raids use different passes for different ways of joining. A free Raid Pass from a Gym Photo Disc and Premium Battle Passes cover in-person raids; Remote Raid Passes let you join eligible raids from elsewhere. Availability and event bonuses affect how many raids you can fit into the free route.

The location requirement is a real one rather than a formality. GPS and Location Services appear on the supported-device list, tablets and Wi-Fi-only devices often have no GPS sensor at all, and the help centre says outright that a device meeting the listed criteria is still not guaranteed to work.

What the appraisal screen does and does not decide

Appraise gives you a star rating and a separate reading for Attack, Defense and HP, and you can swipe straight into the next Pokémon to compare without leaving the screen. Two things follow from the help text. Evolving or powering up will not change an appraisal, so there is no point spending Candy in the hope of improving the reading. Purifying a Shadow Pokémon will improve it, which is the exception worth knowing before you transfer a disappointing capture.

What appraisal is not is a keep-or-transfer verdict. GO Battle League runs capped leagues — 1,500 CP in Great League, 2,500 in Ultra, and no ceiling in Master — and each league takes a party of three that cannot include two Pokémon of the same species, so the biggest Pokémon you own is not automatically the right one for the ladder you are playing. Powering up raises CP and HP but is limited by your Trainer level and paid for in Stardust and Candy, and Hyper Training can later lift a Pokémon's stats — though not a four-star or a Shadow one, and the game warns you first when a stat increase would push a Pokémon past a league's limit. Read the appraisal, then read the league rules, then decide.

Favourites and tags: sorting without regret

The star on a Pokémon's profile is the safety catch: a favourite cannot be transferred away, and searching your inventory for favorite brings that protected set back. Tags are the tool for grouping by intent rather than by species, they unlock at Trainer Level 15, a hash in front of the tag name in search filters to that group, and a tag can be removed from a Pokémon's own profile or action menu if it lands somewhere you did not mean.

Buddy hearts run on a daily ceiling

Quick Treat is the low-friction way to feed a buddy without going into augmented reality, and a missed toss costs nothing because the Berry or Poffin is not consumed. The part worth understanding is the meter around it. Today's Activities shows grey hearts for what is still earnable and pink hearts for what you have banked, the cap applies per activity as well as per day, and once the hearts beside a category are all pink you cannot earn more there until the counter resets at midnight local time. Mood sits outside that: an Excited buddy shows double heart icons for the day, which raises the ceiling rather than bypassing it, and the extra unfilled heart slots disappear if the mood drops.

Should you play it

Yes, if you want a collection project that runs alongside time you were going to spend out of the house anyway. I would go in expecting the location to shape the session: in-person raids and nearby battles want you somewhere specific, while Friend challenges and the Battle League work from wherever you are, so an indoor session is possible but a narrower one.

Two things to weigh. This is an app with a device checklist rather than a promise, so check the GPS requirement against the phone in your pocket before committing. And the daily heart and pass ceilings are the design rather than an obstacle to argue with: short frequent check-ins suit the systems better than one long sit-down, and the Premium Battle Pass is there for anyone who wants to raid more often than the free daily pass allows.