Rare Candy

Rare Candy is an item found in the Pokémon RPGs.

When a Rare Candy is fed to a Pokémon, its Level will instantly increase by one.

Once a Pokémon reaches level 100, a Rare Candy will not have any further effect, with the exception of glitch Pokémon, such as those in the Missingno. family.

Due to its effect and overall rarity, Rare Candy is often the subject of duplication cheats, such as those that affect the sixth item slot when encountering a Missingno on Pokémon Red and Blue.

Lack of Stat Growth

Close observers of Pokémon have noted that Pokémon raised with Rare Candies, rather than being trained, will have significantly lower stats.

The reasoning for this is not because the Rare Candy does not raise stats, but that it does not take effort values into account when calculating the Pokémon's new stats. Therefore, there is a significant drop in the stat increase.

Once a Pokémon has maxed out its effort values, it is genereally considered safe to use Rare Candies on that Pokémon.