Pokémon friendship, or affection, can be a requirement for evolutions but in Pokémon Legends: Z-A, there are no moves with friendship-based attack calculations. Luckily, if you’re trying to evolve a Pokémon that requires high friendship, there are several easy ways to do so.
How to raise a Pokémon’s friendship level
There is an invisible point system that tracks a Pokémon’s amount of friendship internally. A value of 160 or higher is needed to evolve a Pokémon who needs a high affection level. There are multiple ways to raise this value and also several ways it can be decreased. You can also obtain a Soothe Bell to speed up friendship gains by completing Side Mission 36 ‘Some Friendly Competition’.
There are two specific ways that are the fastest and most effective at raising friendship in Pokémon Legends: Z-A and they do not suffer from diminishing returns (lessoned point gains) as your Pokémon’s friendship level increases: visiting a café and spending time with your Pokémon team at a bench.
Café trips
Stopping at one of Lumiose City’s many cafés while the Pokémon whose friendship you want to raise is either out of its Poké Ball or highlighted in the lower righthand corner will allow you to share a moment together.
This will raise that Pokémon’s friendship points by 30 points. If trying to reach the 160 friendship points needed to evolve a Pokémon and starting at 0, that means you’ll need to have 6 drinks together.
Sitting on benches
Unlike getting a drink at a café that raises a single Pokémon’s friendship, using the “Hang out with your Pokémon” option at a bench (not the option to kill time) will increase the friendship points of all Pokémon in your party by 10. This makes it more time efficient if there are multiple Pokémon whose friendship you’re working on increasing or more cost effective if you’re low on money.
Other ways to increase and decrease friendship
Leveling up your Pokémon or using consumable items such as Exp. Candies, Vitamins, Feathers and EV-reducing Berries can all raise a Pokémon’s friendship level by several points, but none will raise them more than 5 points. They will also have no effect after reaching 160 points of friendship.
Your Pokémon can also lose friendship points if you let it faint in battle, with 1 point being lost if it is defeated by a Pokémon within 30 levels of its level or up to a 10 point loss if it is defeated by a Pokémon more than 30 levels above it.
How to check your Pokémon’s friendship level in Legends: Z-A
After completing Side Mission 25 ‘Trubblesome Patrons’, an NPC will become available who will give you an indirect assessment of your Pokémon’s current friendship level. She will be sitting outside Café Pokémon-Amie on Autumnal Avenue in the Magenta District of Lumiose City.
| Current Friendship Points | NPC Dialogue |
|---|---|
| 0 | What’s this? Are you a disciplinarian? This poor Pokémon isn’t the least bit friendly toward you! |
| 1-29 | It almost looks like you’ve been letting it get KO’d in battles nonstop, but that can’t be right… Right? |
| 30-79 | Hmmm… I think your relationship may still take some time to build up. |
| 80-129 | Well, it’s grown somewhat friendly toward you… Yes, that’s what I’d call this. |
| 130-179 | You two are fairly friendly, but I can tell there’s still plenty of room for you to grow closer! |
| 180-219 | It looks to me like you and (Pokémon) could still become an even more wonderful team! |
| 220-254 | You really do like (Pokémon) and always keep it by your side, don’t you? |
| 255 | It’s incredibly friendly toward you! Being with you must make it very happy. |
Pokémon with friendship-based evolutions
In Legends: Z-A, only a handful of Pokémon require friendship as part of their evolution process. They are:
- Budew requires high friendship and daytime to evolve into Roselia
- Pichu requires high friendship to evolve into Pikachu
- Cleffa requires high friendship to evolve into Clefairy
- Eevee who requires high friendship and an additional element for three evolutions:
- High friendship and evolving during the day to get Espeon
- High friendship and evolving at night to get Umbreon
- High friendship and Eevee having a Fairy-type move in its moveset to get Sylveon
- Buneary requires high friendship to evolve into Lopunny
- Riolu requires high friendship and daytime to evolve into Lucario
