We’ve Got Your Pokemon Go #TrainerGoals Right Here

When we last checked in on Pokémon Go, we knew that field testing for the game had officially begun, and that it would spiral out from Japan. Most of the leaks and information about Pokémon Go has been compiled by the awesome people over at /r/TheSilphRoad. You can pop over there for more in-depth reads.

As of last month, the field test has been showing off some of the more prominent features that Pokémon Go will have at launch, and some of the leaks are showing what we can hope to expect as trainers. Here’s a look at some of the highly anticipated, #TrainerGoals-worthy features coming to the game.

Evolution

We all remember how evolution goes, right? Take a Pokémon, train it up, pick the right moves, and it’ll evolve at certain levels, or with certain items. In Pokémon Go, Evolving a Pokémon requires evolution crystals to trigger evolution once you’ve collected enough crystals to use on a Pokémon.

Evolution crystals are formed by finding shards. Crystal shards are collected by catching wild Pokémon of the same type, and each shard will be unique to that particular species. While this does mean having to catch several Pokémon in order to get shards, you can release them once you’ve collected their evolution shard – there is apparently an option to do so right after catching them.

There’s also a variation for Pokémon with either two or three evolutionary stages: Pokémon with two stages of evolution such as Ekans or Diglett will require 20 evolution crystals, while Pokemon with three stages of evolution such as Charmander or Abra will require 10 evolution crystals per stage. A notable exception (so far) to this rule is Magikarp, who will require a whopping 100 crystals to evolve to Gyarados. Footage of this was leaked, but as of writing, the video appears to have vanished.

It should also be important to note that crystals will have varying shard collection requirements among Pokémon, and that these numbers can still be subject to further changes prior to launch. No word yet on how this will affect the Eevee line.

Locations and Biomes

The trailer was pretty adamant that Trainers would have to do a lot of traveling in order to find more diverse Pokémon. As expected, location and weather will definitely affect the Pokémon you get – one tester reported finding more Magnemite and Rattata in cities and Water-types near a lake. Another tester claimed that thunderstorms may cause increased sightings of Electabuzz.

The video above confirms that while certain Pokémon are endemic to an area, there will still be a huge range to choose from, along with more information on locational variance, weather variance, and an interesting possibility in “rare capture” spots.

The rare capture spots could also be placeholders for possible raids, and I’m kind of inclined to believe what they said in the video – which is totally worth the watch.