The Poke Ball Plus Plus might be the worst named gaming peripheral in the history of gaming peripherals. Just a simple Poke Ball Plus 2 would have sufficed, or even a Poke Ball Squared or something. What will they call the next one, a Plus Plus Plus? It’s got me talking about it, I suppose. The little disc functions with Pokemon Sleep, which is finally coming out(!), acting as an alarm but not a clock, and singing you lullabies in Pikachu’s voice to lull you to sleep. It’s a weird pitch, but the device’s Pokemon Go functionality may sway some players.
For those of you who don’t know, the Poke Ball Plus is an auto-catcher. You can keep your phone in your pocket, with Pokemon Go open, and it will click on every monster you pass, throw a ball, and move on. It will also spin PokeStops. This has its upsides and downsides. It means you don’t need your head glued to your phone while out exploring nature or enjoying a walk – you can socialise with friends or play the game while running errands, for instance. But, it will only throw Poke Balls, and the catch rate is pretty low. The Poke Ball Plus Plus changes things slightly, but will it be worth it for casual or hardcore players?
If you’re out of the loop, here’s what changes: the Poke Ball Plus Plus lets you switch from Poke Balls and instead automatically use Great or Ultra Balls to catch encounters. That’s it. I wonder if Niantic will announce more upgrades nearer the device’s summer release date – the trailer ominously says that “new functions that use your sleep data are coming,” after all.
If you don’t already have a Poke Ball Plus or another, unofficial auto-catcher, then this will be a good option. This is complete conjecture, but I’m expecting it to sell for around £40, which is quite steep if you’re a casual Go player. If you want to step up your game, however, this will be a great way to stock up on items and Candy without any effort on your part. You’re paying to keep your experience casual, while increasing the rewards. You’ve got to decide whether that’s worth the asking price, but it seems like pretty good value to me.
If you’ve already got an auto-catcher, on the other hand, it’s a more marginal upgrade. The ability to switch balls is handy, but hardly game-changing. I barely use my Poke Ball Plus, but when I do, I find it uses up my stock of hundreds of Poke Balls pretty quickly, wasting them on your bog standard Pokemon that mostly flee anyway. I’ve got three-figure stacks of Great and Ultra Balls to use when I’m actually concentrating on the game, so that doesn’t bother me, but only because I’m happy to waste the cheapest balls. If my auto-catcher was flinging out Ultra Balls left, right, and cenny like a malfunctioning tennis ball launcher, I’d be more worried about wasted resources.
If you want more Zigzagoon and Wurmple, and a better chance of catching them, then maybe the ability to automatically yeet Ultra Balls will be worth the cash to upgrade your current auto-catcher. Until I see more functionality, though, I’ll stick with old faithful.
That being said, the promise of a Snorlax wearing a cute little nightcap is hard to resist, and I’m certain some collectors will buy a Plus Plus just for the exclusive ‘mon. Overall though, it seems like an unnecessary upgrade, and I hardly think that anyone is going to be grinding Pokemon Sleep enough to warrant the device just for that. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe Sleep shiny hunts will become the next Twitch subathon meta, or the Poke Ball Plus Plus will grant every user boosted shiny rates in an attempt to shift unsold stock. Neither of those seem realistic, though, and it seems that two plusses might just make a minus.