After a string of disproved theories, Pokémon GO gamers have apparently figured out a trick on Eeveelution in the massively popular augmented reality mobile game.
Eeveelution is the term that has been coined for the evolution of Eevee, a Pokémon with mysterious evolution powers. In the main franchise, Eevee has eight evolutions, all of which require players to gather certain items or to fulfill certain conditions to dictate which Eeveelution would happen.
At first, it was thought that the evolution of Eevee in Pokémon GO only happened randomly. Theories then surfaced regarding factors that affect the Eeveelution that would occur, including the Eevee's secondary attack and the color of the nearest gym, but all of them were shot down.
However, the Pokémon GO community has apparently figured out a trick to control the evolution of Eevee, and it heavily references the original Pokémon anime.
In a 1998 episode entitled "The Battling Eevee Brothers," Ash finds an abandoned Eevee who belonged to a boy named Mikey. Mikey had three brothers, all of whom owned evolved Eevee — Rainer had Vaporeon, Sparky had Jolteon and Pyro had Flareon.
In the Reddit forum where the Eeveelution trick is being discussed, thread starter smithnigel revealed that this particular episode will play a huge role in choosing the Pokémon that the Eevee will evolve to.
The first step would be to rename the Eevee to be evolved into the name of the corresponding Eevee brother for the evolution being targeted. For example, for gamers who want a Vaporeon, they would have to rename their Eevee to Rainer, and so on. The spelling should be correct, and the first character should be capitalized.
After renaming the Eevee, gamers are recommended to save and restart their game, to make sure that the name change will stick as Pokémon GO servers remain unstable.
Gamers should then click on the evolve option to obtain their Vaporeon, Jolteon or Flareon, with smithnigel and friends claiming that they have had a 100 percent success rate using this method.
It was noted, however, the gamers are not getting the correct Eeveelution when they try to do the trick for the same Pokémon twice in a row. Gamers will have to change it up between the Eeveelutions every time, as they will not be able to use the method to get two Flareon in a row, for example.
The Pokémon Company and Niantic Labs have not confirmed the legitimacy of the method, though with this and the trick to choose Pikachu as your starter Pokémon, it begs the question — what other secrets are there in Pokémon GO?
