Pokémon GO: Everything That Works Differently from the Main Games

No Trainers to challenge along the way, no turn-based battles. Pokémon GO carries the same name and the same creatures as the Nintendo games, but almost none of their rules carried over unchanged. You don't catch the same way, you don't evolve your Pokémon the same way, and some creatures simply cannot be obtained anywhere else. Here, mechanic by mechanic, is what really separates the mobile game from the main series.

Contents

• Catching: a circle, a Ball, and plenty of Berries
• CP, IVs and moves: stats rewritten
• Stardust: a useless treasure turned central currency
• Candy and evolutions: the system that replaces levels
• The evolutions only Pokémon GO offers
• Raids: the group event GO invented
• Trading: proximity as a requirement
• The Pokémon you can only find there
• Shinies, weather and Team GO Rocket
• Should you play GO if you love the mainline games?
• Pokémon GO versus the mainline games
• Frequently Asked Questions

Catching: a circle, a Ball, and plenty of Berries

Here there is no battle first: you tap the Pokémon on screen, you aim, you throw. The number displayed above the creature is its CP, or Combat Power, and it has a direct effect on difficulty — the higher it is, the harder the catch.

The colored ring that closes in on the Pokémon is the key indicator: green for a high catch rate, yellow for medium, orange for low, red for very low. Its color depends on the Ball you choose, on any Berry you use, on the species and on its level — an already-evolved, high-level Pokémon is far harder to keep inside a Ball.

📱 Green for a high catch rate, red for a very low one: you watch that ring close in on your own screen, so the phone might as well be wearing one of our Pokémon Samsung cases.

Alongside the standard Poké Ball, Great Ball and Ultra Ball come the Premier Ball, reserved for Raids, Max Battles and Shadow Pokémon, the Master Ball, which has guaranteed a catch since 2023, the Safari Ball from the events called GO Wild Area, and the Beast Ball — the one for Ultra Beasts, available since GO Fest 2022.

Berries, for their part, are fed before the throw and exist nowhere else in this form. The Razz Berry raises the catch rate a little, and its Golden version raises it a lot; the Nanab Berry keeps the Pokémon from moving and attacking; the Pinap Berry doubles the Candy you receive, and its Silver version combines both effects — Candy and catch rate.

CP, IVs and moves: stats rewritten

A Pokémon in GO does not have six stats but three: Attack, Defense and HP. On top of that come IVs — individual values — ranging from zero to a maximum value per stat, which you can check with the Appraise feature. The CP you see is only a summary of all this, blending base stats, IVs and level.

The move system is just as reworked. Every Pokémon has a Fast Attack and a Charged Attack, with the option to buy a second Charged Attack for Stardust and Candy. Another subtlety few players know about: a move's numbers differ depending on whether it is used in a Gym or in a Trainer Battle.

The most counterintuitive detail concerns the type chart. Where the main series games double the damage of a super effective move, Pokémon GO multiplies it by just 1.6, and divides the damage of a not very effective move by 1.6. Weaknesses still matter, then, but they do not settle a battle as brutally as in a classic showdown.

Stardust: a useless treasure turned central currency

This is the clearest example of how GO recycles the series. In the main series games, Stardust has existed since the second generation, but it has no effect at all: it is a valuable item you pick up to sell in a shop, nothing more.

In Pokémon GO, it becomes the resource everything revolves around. You use it to power up a Pokémon so it gains CP, to unlock a second Charged Attack, and to pay for trades with other Trainers. You cannot buy it: you earn it by catching, by hatching Eggs and by holding Gyms.

Its cost weighs heavily on your decisions. Trading a Legendary Pokémon costs up to one million Stardust between two Good Friends — a figure that drops to just 40,000 when both Trainers are Best Friends. Friendship progress is therefore not cosmetic: it is a discount of more than 95%.

Candy and evolutions: the system that replaces levels

In the main series games, a Pokémon evolves by gaining levels. In GO, it evolves when you give it enough Candy from its evolution family. The thresholds are fixed: 12, 25, 50, 100 or 400 Candy depending on the species — and zero in a few very particular cases.

That Candy comes from seven sources, four of which have no equivalent anywhere else. Catching earns 3, 5 or 10 Candy depending on the evolution stage; transferring a Pokémon to the Professor earns 1; hatching an Egg gives between 5 and 32; and walking with your Buddy Pokémon earns 1 every 1, 3, 5 or 20 kilometers depending on the species.

Some evolutions also require a dedicated item, as with Onix into Steelix or Slowpoke into Slowking. The principle stays close to the rest of the series, with one nuance: the item is not held, it is used up at the moment of evolution.

The evolutions only Pokémon GO offers

The most elegant case is trading. Eight Pokémon that evolve by being traded in the main series games see their Candy cost here drop to zero after a trade: Kadabra, Machoke, Haunter, Graveler, Boldore, Gurdurr, Karrablast and Shelmet.

Eevee gets the most generous treatment, and the only trick in the entire franchise that relies on a nickname. Renaming your Eevee "Tamao" or "Sakura" before evolving it gives Umbreon or Espeon, "Linnea" or "Rea" gives Leafeon or Glaceon, "Kira" gives Sylveon, and "Pyro", "Sparky" and "Rainer" give, respectively, Flareon, Jolteon and Vaporeon. The trick, however, only works once per nickname.

Once that bonus is spent, you have to meet the game's real conditions, and they are physical. Ten kilometers walked with Eevee as your Buddy give Espeon by day and Umbreon by night; a Mossy Lure or a Glacial Lure active nearby gives Leafeon or Glaceon; and Sylveon requires 70 hearts earned with your Buddy — not 70 kilometers, a very common mix-up. With none of these conditions met, the evolution is drawn at random between Flareon, Jolteon and Vaporeon.

👟 The nickname trick only works once: after that, Espeon by day and Umbreon by night require walking ten kilometers with Eevee as your buddy, and you're the one doing the walking — so it might as well be in our Pokémon shoes.

Raids: the group event GO invented

Introduced in June 2017, Raids take place at Gyms and let you battle and then catch Pokémon you never — or almost never — run into in the wild: Venusaur, Tyranitar, and above all the entire roster of Legendary Pokémon.

One hour before the boss appears, a giant Egg announces the tier of the battle, and its color tells you at a glance: pink for a tier 1 Raid, yellow for tier 3, black for a tier 5 Legendary, and multicolored stripes for a Mega Raid. Tiers 2 and 4 no longer exist: on August 27, 2020, the very day Mega Raids opened, tier 2 bosses were folded into tier 1 and tier 4 bosses into tier 3.

Taking part costs a Pass. The orange Pass is free, one per day from spinning a Gym's Photo Disc and only if you have none in reserve. The green Pass, the Premium one, works only within range of the Gym; the blue Pass, the Remote one, does exactly the opposite and was introduced during the Covid-19 health crisis to avoid gatherings.

One category, on the other hand, has disappeared. Exclusive Raids, or EX Raids, were played by invitation only, at a specific Gym and at a set time; they have been suspended since March 14, 2020 because of the pandemic and were never brought back. Their role is now filled by Elite Raids, which arrived on October 16, 2022 with Hoopa Unbound: the Egg shows up twenty-four hours in advance on a selected Gym, and the Remote Raid Pass is refused there — you have to come in person.

Trading: proximity as a requirement

Trading in GO has nothing to do with the link cable or the online connection of the main series games. You have to be friends with the other Trainer, be within one hundred meters of them physically, and have reached level 10. The game also requires a minimum age of 13, as declared in your profile.

The rule with the heaviest consequences is irreversible: a Pokémon can only be traded once. It can therefore never go back to its original Trainer, nor move on to a third player. Trades involving a Legendary, a Shiny or a species missing from the recipient's Pokédex also count as Special Trades, limited to one per day.

In return, a trade can produce a Lucky Pokémon: its Stardust power-up cost is cut in half and its IVs are guaranteed high in all three stats. The longer a Pokémon has sat in storage, the higher the odds it becomes Lucky — finally a reason to dig out your 2016 catches.

The Pokémon you can only find there

GO invented a category the series had never known: the regional Pokémon, confined to one part of the globe. Right from launch, four species were locked — Farfetch’d in East Asia, Kangaskhan in Australia, Mr. Mime in Europe and Tauros in North America.

The list has grown with every generation, and the boundaries are sometimes drawn very finely. Heracross covers South America, Central America and the southern United States, so much so that Florida is split in two: Tauros in the north, Heracross in the south. Corsola, for its part, is only found on tropical coasts between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn.

🌴 Corsola only turns up on tropical coastlines, between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn: a species you have to earn outdoors, under the blazing sun, like everything else in GO — reason enough to put a Pokémon bucket hat on your head before heading out to hunt.

The most extreme case is still Meltan, a Steel-type Mythical Pokémon that appeared in GO on September 22, 2018 and is drawn out by an item unique to the game, the Mystery Box. Its evolution, Melmetal, cannot be obtained anywhere else: it requires 400 Meltan Candy and exists only in the app. Every Melmetal in the main series is therefore, without exception, a Pokémon that passed through a phone.

Shinies, weather and Team GO Rocket

The hunt for Shiny Pokémon works the other way around from the main series. Here, Shiny forms are locked by default and unlocked species by species during an event — the first were Magikarp and Gyarados, during the Water Festival of 2017.

Real-world weather also influences encounters, something no other game in the franchise does. And since July 2019, Team GO Rocket has been taking over PokéStops: beating them frees a Shadow Pokémon, always unevolved, which you can catch and then purify. Its three leaders, Arlo, Cliff and Sierra, also drop the precious 12-kilometer Eggs.

These Eggs are another marker of the game: five distances exist, and the source determines everything. The 2, 5 and 10 kilometer Eggs come from PokéStops and Gyms, the 7 kilometer ones only from Gifts sent by friends, and the 12 kilometer ones only from Team GO Rocket leaders.

Should you play GO if you love the mainline games?

The two experiences don't replace each other. A mainline game is played sitting down, with a story, Gyms and fine turn-based strategy. GO is played on your feet, in short sessions, and its real engine is collecting over the long haul rather than tactical mastery.

The bridge is there all the same: GO brought ideas into the franchise that went on to spread, from hunting outdoors to community meetups. And for many adults it remains the simplest way back into a world they had left behind on a Game Boy. A plush of your first starter on your desk, and the circle is complete.

Pokémon GO versus the mainline games

Frequently Asked Questions

• What is Stardust used for in Pokémon GO?
  It does three things: it powers up a Pokémon to raise its CP, it unlocks a second Charged Attack, and it pays for trades between Trainers. That is a major difference from the mainline games, where Stardust has existed since the second generation but does nothing at all: it is simply a valuable item you sell at a shop.
• How do Pokémon evolve in Pokémon GO?
  They don't evolve by leveling up, but by taking in Candy specific to their evolution family: 12, 25, 50, 100 or 400 depending on the species. You earn Candy by catching Pokémon from the same family, transferring them to the Professor, hatching Eggs or walking with your buddy. Some evolutions also call for a dedicated item.
• Can you get Melmetal anywhere other than Pokémon GO?
  No. Meltan only appears in Pokémon GO, where the Mystery Box draws it out, and its evolution into Melmetal can only be triggered in the app, for 400 Meltan Candy. So every Melmetal found in the other games was necessarily obtained in Pokémon GO and then transferred.
• How do you get Sylveon in Pokémon GO?
  There are two methods. The first is to rename your Eevee "Kira" before evolving it, but it only works once. After that, you have to set Eevee as your buddy and earn 70 hearts with it: it really is a number of hearts, not a distance in kilometers, contrary to a very common mix-up.
• What are the requirements for trading a Pokémon?
  You have to be friends with the other Trainer, stand within a hundred meters of them, be at least level 10 and at least 13 years old. The trade costs Stardust, and the rarer the Pokémon and the lower the friendship level, the more it costs. Above all, a Pokémon can only be traded once: it can neither return to its original Trainer nor move on to a third player.
• Do type weaknesses deal as much damage as in the mainline games?
  No. In Pokémon GO, a super effective attack multiplies damage by 1.6, and a not very effective attack divides it by 1.6. The mainline games apply far sharper multipliers, which makes the type chart less decisive in GO than in a traditional battle.

In short

Same franchise, same Pokédex, but two games that tell different stories: GO turns catching into a walk, replaces levels with Candy and makes Stardust a currency. Understanding that spares you a lot of disappointment, and above all it lets you enjoy both without expecting from one what only the other can do.