Step by step this mega-popular game gets new cool features. One of them, called Buddy System, was added with 0.37.0/1.7.0 update. It is very interesting, and we have decided to find out all the details.
So, the Buddy System – is the possibility to make one of Pokemon our companion, or buddy. It obviously was taken from the Pokemon anime series, where Pikachu refused to go to Pokeball and always travels near Ash. The same we can do with any Pokemon from our Pokedex. As this is the Augmented Reality game, we can see the buddy Pokemon on the smartphone’s screen – he appears near a virtual character. It is quite exciting, isn’t it?
And that’s not all of the Buddy System! While our buddy Pokemon walks with us, he earns candies for his evolution. One candy after 1, 3 or 5 kilometers – the distance depends on the buddy. Also, all the Pokemon are divided into four types: shoulder, middle, big and flying. This parameter doesn’t have any meaningful influence – it just shows in which image the Pokemon appears on the screen.
To make a Pokemon our buddy, we should tap the trainer picture in the lower left corner, then open menu from the lower right corner, tap the Buddy menu and just choose a buddy!
The Buddy system of Pokemon Go has an interesting Easter Egg: we can have Pikachu on a… shoulder of the trainer - the same as Ash and his best buddy Pokemon! To do so we have to walk with one Pikachu as our buddy 10 km. Then he just jumps on the trainer’s shoulder.
Check the types of Pokemon and their walking distance to get a candy in our full lists of available in the game creatures:
