With Spritzee, Swirlix, and Pancham joining Galarian Farfetch’d as Adventure with Your Buddy to evolve characters, it seems as if this method is here to stay. I do enjoy some of these newer evolution extra steps prior to evolution. Each one of the Pokemon have featured a different style of evolution challenge. I present these in the order I completed the
The first type shown was with Galarian Farfetch’d – 10 excellent throws with buddy. This can get a little frustrating a throw is oh so close to an excellent with a regular Pokemon, but we either get a great or just miss the mark. I tried to avoid Legendaries since they are a much easier target. I found this to be a fun test of skill overall. I enjoyed doing the couple of Galarian Farfetch’d that I did turn into Sirfetch’d. This is a challenge type I would like to see again many times.
The second type I did was Spritzee – Use an Incense with buddy. I did this evolution to Armoatisse at Step 5 of the Luminous Legends X timed research. I did it, I got one, but I felt unsatisfied with the obstacle. Like I didn’t do enough to warrant the evolution. At least I knocked off two steps in the Timed Research – Use an Incense was straight up one step and that was my third Fairy type, so the empty feeling was partially satisfied. I probably won’t do this again unless I get a perfect or Use an Incense as a Daily Research. Keep this type of evolution challenge for weaker Pokemon.
The tgird type I did was the Swirlix – Give your buddy 25 treats. The only reason I did this was to get Slurpuff. Otherwise, this is a poor challenge. Berries are too valuable a resource to use in this way to me. Especially for a Slurpuff that is pretty weak. I got this for the Pokedex entry. Please never ever again.
There is a fourth type with Pancham, catch 32 dark type Pokemon. I like the idea since it “infuses the dark” into the future evolution of Pangoro. If the challenge is to catch so many of a different type, the target Pokemon should be limited to a role when the different type is in season or just before the different is in season so Trainers can react. At least Dark types are front and center for this challenge.
The final type that is partially known is future Sylveon, an Eevee evolution. This is earn a number of hearts as Buddy. I like this, this is what a Buddy should be for. I would hope that it is 70 for Great… make it an easy to track without looking at the particular Eevee. This also gets the first two permanent buddy perks, as we know. I am assuming that Sylveon will be a pretty strong Pokemon.
Other types that would be fun:
- 50 Great Throws with Buddy and/or 100 Nice Throws with Buddy (variation on the Sirfetch’d theme)
- For stronger Pokemon Ultra or even Best Buddy.
- X Battles with Buddy – Buddy must participate to get credit. There must be a winner (cannot quit the battle). This can be either Leaders or with a fellow Trainer. NOT necessarily PvP. This is also different than the Buddy Hearts where the Buddy must be in your lineup to get credit. Buddy must participate can be monitored in game. Possible varient would be Buddy Must Lead Off in Battle.
- Walk X KM with buddy (Yes, Espeon and Umbreon already do this. These are not the only way to evolve Eevee. Nor do they visually track like the way this version does.)
- A combination of two of these steps. Trainers should be able to perform the tasks at the same time.
Of course, these should be all scalable depending on the strength of the Pokemon and the relative strength to the type. For example, a strong Rock type should be less of a challenge than a similarly relatively strong Bug type since the currently strongest Bug type is much weaker than the strongest Rock type (even taking non-Shadow/Mega/Legendary into account). See Pokemon GoHub’s Database for more info on what I mean by relative strengths.
All in all, I look forward to more of these kinds of evolution challenges…but keep it real with some of these.
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