Mushu's Rantbox: Pokewalker, WTF!?!

Or: I kinda hate you Game Freak

I just finished my finals and to celebrate, being the totally awesome adult that I am, bought Pokemon Heart Gold.  Because I’m balancing Gold with MW2, Halo, and Yugioh, I am not nearly as close to finishing the game as I should be, but I have played it and it’s pretty cool.  But this isn’t about the game itself.  I’m writing about the Pokewalker.

When I first heard about this device packaged with every copy of Gold and Silver, I was ecstatic.  I mean I was more into this than the game itself.  Aside from the nostalgia it brought back of the Pocket Pikachu, the Pokewalker allowed me to level up a Pokemon by simply transferring it to this little device.  Although I was curious as to how they leveled up (Do I have to battle?  Do they simply gain levels when I walk?) and how the EV point system worked when they did (Yeah, I went there), I couldn’t help but be excited.  From now on, it was going to be a breeze leveling up.

For those who aren’t subject to me in the world outside of the internet (lolwut?), I work out nearly every day.  I usually jog for half an hour in the morning and then work out in the gym.  You can probably see where I’m going.  In my head, I’m wondering how many steps it takes to level up a Pokemon and how far I should run for maximum efficiency.  On Thursday morning, I went for my jog, Pokewalker in my pocket, prepared to run 4 or 5 miles and level up my Lv. 7 Wooper at least 5 times.  About an hour later, I go to send my Wooper back and get this message: Wooper's level went up one from the Stroll.

What. The. F@#$!  One level!  I ran for an hour and leveled up once!  Needless to say I was kinda, and still am, pissed off.  Immediately after, I checked the instruction guide to see what it said: “The Pokemon that went out on a stroll will receive experience points and may even go up one level.”  Does that mean it can only go up one level and if I have 5000 steps on a level 7 Pokemon, isn’t that way more experience than it needs?  Then I start using the internet to see what other people say and apparently it can only level up once and only takes a few hundred steps to do it (and some aren't even willing to do that).

So I heard you can catch rare Pokemon and find items on the little device.  That’s cool I guess.  But I mean seriously, isn’t that just encouraging kids to stare at a screen outside more than they would if they were using the DS?  Thanks for encouraging obesity Nintendo.

In the end, yeah, I’ll still take it for my jog.  But all I really want to do is smash the damn thing.