What is a better companion, a hundo or a shiny?

Lately, I’ve been having problems trying to decide what buddy I should have in Pokemon GO. I enjoy leveling up buddies and getting them to the best buddy level, but it can take a long time to do so. By my calculations, it tends to take 28-30 days to get one Pokemon to Best Buddy, and that’s in a semi casual way. There are definitely ways to speed up the process, but that requires more effort than I have available. Most of the time, I have to narrow things down and make a final decision on what Pokemon I will walk.

And normally, that choice boils down to me picking a hundo or a shiny.

Functionally, it makes no difference what I pick. As long as I walk a buddy, once I get to Great Buddies, my Pokemon will start helping me by offering gifts and occasionally bouncing back a Pokeball. It doesn’t matter what stats the Pokemon has or whether it’s shiny or not, it’s still going to give you all the little bonuses that buddy Pokemon offer.

But there’s always the cool factor. Do I want to impress with my buddy? Of course. I’d quite like the idea of someone glancing at my profile and thinking, if only for a moment, that I’m walking something cool, like a shiny Giratina or a shadow Suicune. Okay, to be fair, sometimes I walk some really weird stuff. I have a shiny Wurmple that I walked all the way to Best Buddies, and I started walking with a shiny Attack Form Deoxys which I got in a solo raid. Both Pokemon are completely useless, but they look cool as a buddy. The Deoxys even more so since it’s a mythical Pokemon that can’t be traded. I’ve also walked plenty of useful Pokemon as well, including multiple Legendary Pokemon. One of my first Best Buddies was my 100% Groudon, which is soon to be buffed. Orokin Chonk on the other hand will always be one of my favourites, but its stats are actually really bad.

That coolness factor though isn’t always obvious. Everyone can see a shiny Pokemon. People will notice a shadow Pokemon. But unless you specifically name a Pokemon 15/15/15 or something similar, then there’s no way to actually tell whether someone is walking a perfect Pokemon or not. Of course, this all goes out the window if you are walking a shiny that is also perfect (the shundo), but let’s face it, those are stupidly rare. I only have two, and one was from a guaranteed Lucky Trade.

What annoys me most of all though is that there are a lot of Pokemon buddies that I’ve never really interacted with at all. Like, not even fed once. I’ve just selected them by accident. This would be fine but there’s no way to remove buddy history for a Pokemon, so they remain in your buddy history for pretty much forever. Even trading said Pokemon away won’t remove it from the list.

Either way though, it makes no difference. It’s all your personal preference. I like to walk a mixture of random stuff, and probably so does everyone else. Doesn’t matter if it’s a hundo, a shiny or anything, it’ll still be your buddy.