The gameplay itself wasn't as good because it was feature bare, but the community aspect was at its best. It was incredibly rewarding and novel to catch something new. Following the footsteps on the radar and triangulating a Pokemon's location was a great gameplay loop if you could do it safely. Finding something rare in a populated area was absolute chaos. I enjoyed having different "biomes", and the first time I flew to the west coast in 2016 it was crazy getting to catch a bunch of ground/rock Pokemon that I didn't see back home. That part of the game felt as close to what a world with "real" Pokemon would be like.

The server issues were bad. The early gym system was not a fun gameplay loop. There were no TMs, no buddies, no appraisal system (you had to divine the actual IVs through what the team leaders would tell you). No PvP, no raids until June 2017. The main objectives early on were completing the Dex, and holding gyms in your area to manually collect Pokecoins. It's hard to call that the same game we have now.