Team Rocket GO are Mediocre, But I Love Them.
Every Pokemon game has some bad group that do bad things and you, the 10 year old player character, have to go and stop them. In Pokemon GO, we get Team GO Rocket, run by what I assume is a clone of Giovanni. It’s called Team GO Rocket, either way, but Team Rocket GO is cooler. Or I can just call them Team, Rocket, it’s all the same. Still, probably better than Team Star in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet. Team Star just seems to be filled with kids bunking off school or something.
Anyway, Team GO Rocket aren’t really much of a threat. They spend their time stealing items from Pokestops, which is a really crappy way of earning money. Most people know that Gyms have way more items in them, and their misbehavior is incredibly obvious as they turn Pokestops black while they work on looting them. Sure, the evil work ethic is there, they claim that Pokemon are only good for making money, but they’re kinda cute in their little berets and their bright pink hair. And frankly, by abandoning their Pokemon for us to catch, they’re probably making less money than if they had just spun the gym normally. Shadow Pokemon don’t grow on trees. Well, some of them do, but you get what I mean.
Even the higher ups are not much of a threat. Arlo is just a teenager who is angry, while Cliff seems to have genuine reasons as to why he works for Team GO Rocket, but that’s never really explained. Sierra on the other hand is an uppity woman who has a very punch-able face. Their boss, Giovanni, is a plank of wood mostly. But we so hardly see him that it doesn’t matter.
These guys are also pretty damn easy to fight. But before you mention that I’m level 44 (and have already completed the Defeat 50 Team Rocket Leaders task), it’s worth pointing out that these fights scale with your level. When I made an account to see how the game is as a newbie, I was already battling Team Rocket grunts at level 7. Sure, at level 7, you can’t battle the team leaders because their Pokemon do seem to have a set minimum CP, but basic grunts have weak enough Pokemon that you can battle them fairly easily, regardless of level.
What really makes Team GO Rocket any sort of threat is the fact that they can turn Pokemon into Shadow Pokemon. How they do this is currently unknown, but Shadow Pokemon are genuinely both cool and kinda overpowered. Most Pokemon end up as glass cannons though, as their defense is through the floor. Some however are super important, like Shadow Mamoswine and Shadow Metagross, who are just too powerful. The majority of Shadow Pokemon aren’t worth keeping, not even to purify them.
Then we have the Shadow Legendary Pokemon. Shadow Mewtwo is the strongest Pokemon in the game, perhaps even more powerful than his two Mega Evolutions. Giovanni has given us multiple Shadow Mewtwos. He’s also given us the Legendary Birds and Beasts, and is now working through the Regi-family. We had Apex Shadow Ho-Oh and Lugia too, which are supposed to be even more powerful, but they’re both defense-orientated too, so they don’t get much in regards to damage.
However, all these Shadow Pokemon can be ‘saved’ by us, by simply feeding the Pokemon some candy and sprinkling them with stardust. Not that we want to do that though, because Shadow Pokemon are simply better. All the work that Team GO Rocket put into making Pokemon shadowy is wasted as we so easily cure them. Alternatively, we send them to Professor Willow, who probably purifies them first before grinding them into candy.
At the end of the day, I love Team GO Rocket. Their schemes are stupid, they easily get their asses kicked and they abandon Pokemon which we can then rescue. All stupid things, but I love fighting Team GO Rocket anyway. Even if I am just essentially punching them with my team of Pokemon, at least they try to be scary, even though they are mostly harmless.
Really now, we’re the bad guys. We keep all these Shadow Pokemon as they are and exploit them for more damage. The good ones at least. All the others get transferred.