History YMMV / PokemonGo

* DifficultButAwesome: The Go Battle League. The potential to obtain tons of rare Pokémon and possibly the fastest method of accumulating Stardust in the game for essentially free is there... it just requires you to win reliably, which only grows more difficult the higher your ranking gets.

* FakeLongevity:
** The Celebi questline has a slew of this. One of the early objectives has you catch at least one Pokémon 3 days in a row. This essentially consists of waiting for 3 days, opening up the game at least once each day to catch a 'mon. In another objective you have to walk 10 km with an Eevee as your buddy, in order to evolve it into an Espeon. Not too bad, but then you have to do it ''again'' but for an Umbreon. One late objective takes the cake, though: spin a Pokéstop every day ''for 7 days''.
** Mew, similarly, has ''several'' LuckBasedMission objectives, like catching 10 Ghost Pokémon, battling in 10 raids (which you can do ''once a day'' unless you spend coins on Premium Raid Passes or take part in an event that gives out multiple passes each day), and landing an Excellent Curve Ball (which is ''far'' easier on some Pokémon than others).
** Meltan is another offender. It has ''nine'' sets of tasks that all involve catching or evolving specific Pokémon, and get rarer the later into the quest you get. Catching 5 Slugma or Gulpin is hard enough in some areas, but having to catch several Fossil Pokémon ''including an Aerodactyl'' just takes the cake.
** All-in-One #151, the special research offered as a bonus for Pokémon Go Tour: Kanto is probably the worst offender yet. Described as a longer-term research to take a while to complete, it immediately sets you off on the right foot by having one of the first objectives to be to catch all 151 original Pokémon, including all of the legendaries, Pokémon that appear rarely outside of raids such as Kangaskhan and Aerodactyl, and the aforementioned Mew. The next stage involves catching one Pokémon a day for 30 days, asking the player to play once a day for an entire month to progress. The final stage before the rewards-only stage includes the bonkers "Complete 151 Field Research tasks", which (generously assuming the player regularly spins four Pokéstops a day) could take even longer than a month to complete.

** The April 2024 update introduces new Trainer avatar models that is near-universally met with backlash for the drastic changes, with the body shapes made more androgynous/chubby, the hair and skin tones looking more desaturated, and overall veering close to the UnintentionalUncannyValley. On top of being released with overlooked visual bugs and without the option to change back to the old models, the [[https://twitter.com/PokemonGoApp/status/1780695265428599069 official announcement post on X]] accompanying the change added more disdain to its perception; the text "your avatar can now look even more like YOU!" coming off more as offensive to players who are unflattered by the new models.

** The April 2024 update introduces new Trainer avatar models that is near-universally met with backlash for the drastic changes, with the body shapes made more androgynous/chubby, the hair and skin tones looking more desaturated, and overall veering close to the UnintentionalUncannyValley. On top of being released with overlooked visual bugs and without the option to change back to the old models, the [[https://twitter.com/PokemonGoApp/status/1780695265428599069 official announcement post on X]] accompanying the change added more disdain to its perception; the text "your avatar can now look even more like YOU!" [[UnfortunateImplications coming off more as offensive to players who are unflattered by the new models]].

** The April 2024 update introduces new Trainer avatar models that is near-universally met with backlash for the drastic changes, with the body shapes made more androgynous/chubby, the hair and skin tones looking more desaturated, and overall veering close to the UncannyValley. On top of being released with overlooked visual bugs and without the option to change back to the old models, the [[https://twitter.com/PokemonGoApp/status/1780695265428599069 official announcement post on X]] accompanying the change added more disdain to its perception; the text "your avatar can now look even more like YOU!" [[UnfortunateImplications coming off more as offensive to players who are unflattered by the new models]].

** This isn't the first Mons game to use augmented reality -- that would be the [[UsefulNotes/PlayStationPortable PSP-exclusive]] ''VideoGame/{{Invizimals}}'' franchise, which began back in 2010.

** When compared to most of the rest of their ilk, [[Anime/{{Pokemon}} Jessie and James]] are somewhat of a joke. Sure, they still use Shadow Pokémon, but their stats are more akin to the final evolution of their line, not extremely bloated like most Grunts' standard-issue Shadow Pokémon. This may be due to the fact that you have to fight [[DualBoss both of them at once.]] [[FridgeBrilliance Rather fitting,]] considering that the duo are a pair of [[IneffectualSympatheticVillain Ineffectual Sympathetic Villains]] in their home media.

** Unlike Giovanni, the appearances of Jessie and James are pretty much unchanged from their ''[[Anime/{{Pokemon}} Anime]]'' counterparts - their relatively oversized heads and [[BigAnimeEyes eyes]] look very out-of-place in a game that uses a more realistic art style.

* JunkRare:
** Eggs can cause a lot of headaches, since a lot of effort (and potentially money as well) goes into hatching one, only to find out it was something unwanted.
*** Eevee used to be part of the 10km egg group, the rarest type of egg to find at Pokéstops and the longest amount of distance to hatch. All of the other Pokémon in that category are pretty rare in the wild, but Eevee is a reasonably common Pokémon in most places, and [[EnsembleDarkhorse while it's liked]] it's certainly not so rare as to justify such a placement. The only upside is that egg-hatched Pokémon start out with higher CP than those caught in the wild and hatching comes with a decent amount of candy and stardust, usually enough to evolve Eevee on the spot, so it's not a total waste. Eevee has since been downgraded to the more common 5km egg group.
*** Klink has taken Eevee's place as the hated JunkRare of the 10km egg group. It isn't known for being a particularly rare or sought-after Pokémon, and its final evolution Klinklang is quite bad, but if you're unlucky enough it'll end up being your most common 10km hatch.
*** In February 2021, the 12km Strange Egg eggpool was updated to add Corphish, Skorupi, and Qwilfish, three Pokémon not seen as particularly desirable for the game's meta in any form (especially compared to the majority of the rest of the Strange eggpool) nor particularly hard finds in their respective preferred weather conditions, leaving the playerbase baffled as to why Niantic chose to stick them in the game's most onerous eggs to gain and hatch. And as of July 2022, Scorupi still remains, which for some reason appears as frequently from eggs as the EnsembleDarkhorse Absol and the impossible-to-find-elsewhere Salandit.
** Unown is one of the least likely, if not the least likely Pokémon to spawn outside of specific events. But just like in the main series, [[JokeCharacter its stats and moves are terrible]]. Collecting the various forms gives you a medal, but like most medals [[CosmeticAward it doesn't grant anything to the player]].
** As with the main games, a shiny version of a weaker Pokémon falls under this. Just like in other games in the franchise, there's only a roughly one-in-8,000 chance of finding one (higher during certain events). However, its coloration has nothing to do with how effective it'll be. This is particularly true for anything that's an uncommon spawn - finding a shiny Luvdisc has odds on par with hitting the lottery, but about the only thing it has that other ComMons don't is pure [[BraggingRightsReward bragging rights]].
** During the month of November 2018, after making [[OlympusMons Suicune]] the Research Breakthrough reward for October, came Shedinja, an overall poor fighter and defender outclassed by many other Pokémon. This choice was done as Shedinja cannot be obtained through its normal method of evolving a Nincada into Ninjask, which would create a Shedinja afterwards.
** Pokémon in costumes or with special limited-edition hats/appearances, with some exceptions, are barred from all forms of evolution whatsoever due to their associated evolutions not also having the costume. They are typically unable to amass a CP in the thousands, and even if they can with enough candies and Stardust, you're better off spending the power-ups on an un-costumed evolution of that Pokémon instead. Ninatic would begin releasing the evolved forms of costumed Pokémon as time went on, however, many costumed variants (most notably those of Pikachu) are still stuck without any ability to evolve.

** A thing that players like to blame on Niantic are ugly shinies, such as dirt green Dragonite and shinies that are just those of deeper or brighter coloration such as Garchomp, Gengar and Leafeon. In reality, Niantic has no decision on the Shiny colors; Nintendo (Or Creator/GameFreak) decides them.

* GrowingTheBeard: While ''Pokémon GO'' had its heyday during its debut in 2016, the game itself was widely criticized for its plethora of dysfunctional, broken, buggy and grindy features. In particular, the first ''Pokémon GO'' Fest was lambasted as a poorly-run event that simply couldn't work properly with the app. However, over the next few years, the game has gradually improved greatly - not only by adding more Pokémon, but also fine-tuning and polishing its mechanics while adding new features and new ways to progress. Long-requested features such as the Buddy system, trading, and [=PvP=] battles were finally implemented as well. As of 2020, with the controversy surrounding ''VideoGame/PokemonSwordAndShield'', some fans will even argue that ''GO'' has ''surpassed'' the concurrent main series games in terms of quality and polish.

** The trading system introduced in June 2018. Unlike the mainline Pokémon games, you can't just transfer Pokémon freely and call it a day- you and your partner now have to pay Stardust based on if the Pokémon you're trading for is already in your PokéDex, if it isn't, and if it's Legendary, Purified/Shadow (the difference between the two being that Shadow Pokémon cannot be traded at all) or Mythical (the last of which cannot be traded for at all except for Meltan and Melmetal). It also puts a one-day limit on so-called "Special Trades" for Legendaries and Pokémon not in your Pokédex, limiting them to just one a day. Lastly, rather than keeping the stats of your Mon the same, it now randomizes their stats; if you're lucky you could get a much better Pokémon than the one you traded (and if the game feels like it, your Pokémon may indeed be tagged as lucky, which halves the Stardust powerup cost), and/or viceversa, however there's also the unfortunate chance of lowering the CP and IVs of the Pokémon being traded, completely invalidating their usefulness (if any) in battling.