Pokemon Go: How to Evolve Inkay

Pokemon Go has a new evolutionary method pulled straight out of the main series games. Today is the start of Pokemon Go's Psychic Spectacular, a new event focused on Psychic-type Pokemon. One of the main selling points of the new event is the addition of Inkay, a Dark/Psychic-type Pokemon that first appeared in Pokemon X and Y. In the main series games, Inkay evolves into Malamar only when the player holds either the Nintendo 3DS or Nintendo Switch (or Nintendo Switch Pro Controller) upside down. This evolutionary method was designed to take advantage of the Nintendo 3DS actually having a gyroscope, something that previous Nintendo handheld consoles lacked.

Since most mobile devices also have gyroscopes, Niantic decided to take a page from the main series games' book. In order to evolve Inkay into Malamar, players will need 50 Inkay candies and then tap the Evolve button while holding their phone upside down. If they attempt to evolve Inkay the "normal" way, players will instead get a pop up notification that says that Inkay "needs some help evolving." Players will also see the Evolve button light up when holding their phone upside down to show that they've successfully triggered the evolution requirement. You can check out a video of the evolution below: 

Unfortunately, there is one drawback to this admittedly cool feature. Pokemon Go players who are playing the game on a phone without a gyroscope are reporting that they can't evolve Inkay successfully. Players will either need to trade for Malamar or log onto a device that has a gyroscope in order to add the Pokemon to their Pokedex. 

Based on its typing alone, Malamar is an intriguing Pokemon - it has only two weaknesses (Bug-type and Fairy-type), which would usually make it a viable candidate in either PvP or gym play. Sadly, Malamar's poor stats and its weird moveset makes it an inconsistent Pokemon to use in PvP play. There are simply better Pokemon to use in both Great League and Ultra League, which makes Malamar a Pokedex filler at best until it gets some better moves. 

The Pokemon Go Psychic Spectacular runs from today through September 13th at 8 PM local time. 

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