Pokemon Go brings many of my friends a lot of joy. It’s honestly really cute when they all get together. For all of them, a group of 4 or 5 30-somethings, Go is their one entry into the franchise and video games in general. One got a Switch during lockdown and tried Let’s Go but did not like the parts that weren’t like Go and sold her Switch after a month.
I think it’s pretty cool that this game does something so right that these friends have had many years of fun. It seems like what they like about it is at least partially outside “traditional gaming mechanics,” a canon very much in a wild state of flux for this young art form.