Rejoice, "Pokemon Go" trainers! Now players don't have to grind in the game and catch a lot of the same Pokemon just to earn the necessary candy.
"Pokemon Go" developers Niantic Labs has finally updated the much-criticized game, rolling out the Buddy Pokemon feature earlier than expected. This much-awaited update enables the player to travel around with one of his or her favorite Pokemon in order to collect the same kind of candy, eliminating the need to catch the same kind of Pokemon over and over again.
How does it work? According to Movie News Guide, it's similar to hatching an egg in "Pokemon Go." Players will have to choose one Pokemon to travel with them as their Buddy, and they need to walk certain distances (1 KM to 3 KM) to earn a lot of candy, which is required to power up and evolve Pokemon in the game. It seems as though legendary Pokemon will finally be coming soon as well, as strings involving them in the programming have been discovered by dataminers.
There are other improvements introduced in the latest "Pokemon Go" update. A glitch involving egg-hatching was fixed, eliminating hatches without animations. Performance was also improved in the game, but in no specific terms—only that there will be less crashes for players to experience.
However, Niantic is still going to have to introduce some major overhauls to the game in order to really retain players'—especially hardcore Pokemon fans—attention. "Pokemon Go" is still largely a broken game with inconsistent, unintuitive mechanics that barely line up with what the original Nintendo games represent.
Interest in "Pokemon Go" has been falling off since its release, and while they can renew it by releasing a new batch of Pokemon to catch, they're going to need to make some big changes soon. Stay tuned to Game & Guide for more "Pokemon GO" news.