I've been playing Pokémon GO since almost exactly a week after it came out. Within the first month or two, Niantic (the developer) made several important changes, including the breaking and then removal of the tracking system (which was basically "getting warmer/colder" tbh kinda hard to fuck that up but ok), as well as lots of constant backend changes in a desperate attempt to be able to release the game to more countries and make it more stable on older devices.
In the first year, the game didn't have a lot of content. There were Gyms (which were objective trash and unbalanced as hell btw), the general encounters in the wild (which haven't changed much tbf and only included Kanto Pokémon, aside from Ditto, Legendaries, and Mythicals), and honestly not that much else. Over time, they've made plenty of improvements.
Eventually, they began to add more. In February of 2017, they added every non-Legendary, non-Mythical Pokémon from Johto to the game, aside form the Baby Pokémon (those were added the previous December), Delibird, and Smeargle. Smeargle still has yet to be added, but Delibird was included in the Winter Holiday Event in 2017.
The first great piece of content was added in the summer of 2017. The Gym rework included the introduction of Raid Battles, where multiple players can gather to defeat a Pokémon with a level in the hundreds.* This brings me to the point of this blog - the music in Pokémon GO.
When Generation 2 dropped, Niantic added for the first time ever some new music into Pokémon GO. There were two songs added. I call them "Nighttime stroll" and "Midnight Encounter" - the nighttime themes for the overworld and wild Pokémon encounters, respectively. When Raids were added, they added a lot of new music. They added the Raid Timer, Boss, Encounter, Hatch, Defeat, and Lobby themes to the game. Timer is when you are in a gym waiting for a Raid to hatch, Hatch is the SFX for when the Egg hatches, either in a Gym, or over a Gym in the overworld. Raid Lobby is when you are in the lobby, picking your fighters and waiting for the Raid to begin, Raid Boss is when you are actually battling the boss, Raid Defeat is the SFX when the boss is defeated, and Raid Encounter is used on the actual encounter, as well as encounters from Field Research, aside from Mythicals.
I think that the music in Pokémon GO is one of the game's best features, and something that sets it apart from the main series in a great way. The music constantly references old generations, and even inspired some of the music of the Alola Region. My favourite thing about the music is that it often references the Hoenn Region. The first main series game I ever played was Pokémon Ruby, and I've played through most of Emerald so many times, I could probably do it blindfolded if I wanted. Hoenn is my favourite region, so it's nice that the wild encounter and Raid Encounter/Boss themes have so much of Hoenn in them.
Consequently, the music in Pokémon GO is very meta. Most of it is remixed version of existing music - the Raid themes use a lot of sampling from the Champion themes of Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, and Sinnoh, and the encounter themes take a lot of inspiration from Generation 3 in a nearly self-aware way. No other Pokémon game does this unless it is a remake, or a character's leitmotif, in which it literally just remakes and remixes that character's theme with new instruments and updated audio quality.
When I say the music is meta, I mean it. In the fall of 2017, Niantic did an amazing Halloween event, which included the first ever example of event-exclusive music - Lavender Night. Lavender Night is a remix of the classic and legendary Lavender Town theme from Pokémon Red and Blue. This music only plays during night, only during the Halloween events, which is why it is so important, since all three of the Halloween events Niantic has done included very well-boosted spawn rates for every Ghost-type Pokémon in the game. This year, we had the Gastly, Drifloom, Shuppet, and Duskull families, as well as Misdreavus and Sableye. Additionally, Lavender Night is simply good music.
The Mythical Encounter theme in Pokémon GO is one of the best encounter themes in the franchise, full stop. The intro segment sounds very similar to the Lake Guardians' theme, and the music itself is a remixed version of the Daytime wild encounter and Raid Encounter themes, with a lot of Kanto Wild Encounter mixed in. It is a super hype theme, and it serves its purpose well, which is to get the player excited about the encounter they are experiencing.
Overall, Niantic has done a great job with the game, at least with the music. Any logical fan can see that the music is objectively good, and anyone who plays with sound on can tell you that the battle themes are definitely worth talking about.
*I've calculated that it's about 325, but the HP of the boss is based on the Tier of the raid, not the stats of the actual species, which is why Magikarp is an actually viable boss to begin with, and so the CP is a bit awkward to calculate with. I made this calculation based on the knowledge that a level 40 100% Magikarp is 290 CP, and the boss form at T1 is about 1100+ CP, while also knowing that Mewtwo maxes out at about 4100 CP, and the T5 boss is 42000, while the T6 boss (ie the fall 2018 Kanto event version of Mewtwo) is 60,000. Other bosses scale differently, but most are more similar to Mewtwo than Magikarp.
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