Pokémon GO: 10 Reasons To Start Playing Again

To mitigate the necessity of levels when evolving Pokemon, but retain the tedious grinding that came with them, we were given Candy.

This is actually a good mechanic as it encourages player to always be searching for and catching Pokemon, making repeat spawns worthwhile rather than the prescription headache they are in the rest of the franchise. The problem of course, is that certain Pokemon are significantly rarer than others, meaning it would take far longer to accrue the necessary candy to evolve and later power them up.

The new Buddy mechanic is a bespoke method of farming specific candy; you’ll get one for walking a certain distance determined by the Pokemon’s species.

For instance, a common Pokemon like Pidgey gets a candy every kilometre while something rarer and of a higher tier like Dratini (and its evolutions) have to wait FIVE BLEEDING KILOMETRES to get even one sweet treat. Still, for the dedicated trekkers among us this is well worthwhile, and with crossing large distances already expected by players to hatch their eggs, the mechanic breaths easily in to the game by sliding into existing gameplay.

Thumbs up, Niantic.