'Pokémon Go' Buddy Pokémon Explained: Niantic's Android, iOS Update Offers Faster Starter Evolutions, Combat Power Boost

The Pokémon Go team is in the process of rolling out the highly anticipated update for “Pokémon Go.” They announced over the weekend that players are getting version 0.37.0 for the Android platform and version 1.7.0 for the iOS platform soon.

The “Pokémon Go” update is being expected by players worldwide, since it has long been rumored to bring the Buddy System that will enable players to walk with their Buddy Pokémon. In a blog post, The Pokémon Go team confirmed the implementation of the Buddy Pokémon System, but did not reveal a lot about this new feature.

Fortunately, iDigitalTimes shared some helpful things about the update that is being slowly rolled out to the Android OS without word yet on when it would arrive on the iOS ecosystem. The gadgets and gaming news website found out that the Buddy System does more than just providing Candy for walking around with a Buddy Pokémon for a certain distance covered.

According to the website, the Buddy System also opens the doors for Trainers to obtain species-specific Pokémon Candy. Since players get to choose which Pokémon they will assign to be their Buddy, they can opt to use one that still needs more Candy to evolve.

Starter Pokémon are the ones that are usually hard to find. With the “Pokémon Go” update’s Buddy System, players can collect more Candy to evolve Bulbasaur, Charmander and Squirtle to their respective evolved forms.

The Buddy System is also useful for players with pre-evolved forms of rare Pokémon or any Pokémon in general that has yet to evolve into its other forms. For example, if one is stuck with a Geodude and is struggling to catch a Graveler and or a Golem, just assigning Geodude as the Buddy Pokémon could increase the chances and hasten the process of evolving the Rock/Ground-type Pokémon.

Another benefit of using the Buddy System is it gives Trainers the chance to strengthen certain Pokémon by raising their Combat Power. This is of course provided that the Trainer has enough Stardust.

To assign a Buddy Pokémon, one should go to his or her Trainer profile upon updating the “Pokémon Go” app. On the profile page, the menu options should include “Buddy” with the logo of two adjacent smileys.

Upon clicking the Buddy menu button, the window showing all of the Trainer’s caught Pokémon will be shown and the Trainer can freely select one to be his or her Buddy Pokémon. However, this is restricted to Pokémon that is not assigned to a Gym or one that has fainted.

While the Buddy System only equips one with a single Pokémon at a time, Trainers are capable of switching their Pokémon at any point. However, any progress made with the previous Pokémon would be lost.

For players who are assigning Pikachu as their Buddy Pokémon, IGN reports that they will get a special “Pokémon Go” surprise, and this involves Pikachu hopping on top of the Trainer avatar’s shoulder after the two have walked a distance of 10 km.

Finally, The Pokémon Go team noted that the “Pokémon Go” update would bring fixes to certain issues, improve performance reliability when players switch networks and provide support for Pokémon Go Plus — the standalone peripheral that enables users to play the game without the need of looking at their smartphone’s display the entire time.

As of late, the “Pokémon Go” update for Android is slowly rolling out, with Forbes reporting that there have only been very isolated reports of users getting the 0.37.0 update without the APK.