While you’re busy trying to fill your Pokedex in Pokemon Legends: Z-A, you’ll need to meet various evolution requirements in order to evolve your Pokemon and complete the information on their later forms. While most Pokemon simply need to level up to evolve, others require specific evolution items or Evolution Stones, and some Pokemon even need to be befriended first.
You’ll need to increase a few Pokemon’s Happiness/Friendship in order to get them to evolve, but for those unaware of how to achieve this, we’ve got a full breakdown right here.
How To Increase Your Pokemon’s Happiness
A Pokemon’s Happiness (or Friendship level) will naturally increase from you having it in your active party, using items on it, and avoiding having it faint.
You can also use Luxury Balls for 3,000 each (purchased from the Poke Ball Boutique on Autumnal Avenue), and these make the caught Pokemon grow friendlier after being caught. However, we recommend you save your money for cafés instead.
The Fastest Way To Increase Happiness
There is a much quicker way to get a Pokemon’s Happiness high enough to evolve in a very short time in Legends: Z-A.
There are cafés all over Lumiose City, and visiting one of these with your active Pokemon will increase its Happiness. For Pokemon like Riolu and Eevee, we found it took four café visits without the Soothe Bell to reach the required Happiness (with the Soothe Bell, it takes about three visits) based on a Pokemon we didn’t have any Happiness with before.
It doesn’t matter which café or drink you choose, and you don’t need to actually spend any time there. You can quit immediately, and it still counts.
Cafés are the fastest way to increase a Pokemon’s Happiness, especially with the Soothe Bell, and so we don’t recommend doing the long wait of trying to increase it naturally.
How To Unlock The Soothe Bell
The Soothe Bell is an item that can be held by a Pokemon, and by equipping this, its Happiness will increase faster.
You can unlock the Soothe Bell by completing the Side Mission ‘Some Friendly Competition’, which is outside Café Rouleau on Estival Avenue on the western side of Lumiose City. This is a very simple mission that requires you to defeat the NPC’s Pokemon, Clefairy and Lopunny, in battle.
This mission only becomes available after you have beaten Canari in a Ranked Battle.
All Pokemon That Have Happiness Evolutions
Here are all the Pokemon in Legends: Z-A that require Happiness to evolve.
There are other Pokemon in the series that require this too, and it’s possible they may be added in the DLC so we’ll update this article as needed in the future.
Pichu
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Level up with high enough Happiness, and it can evolve.
Pikachu
Riolu
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Level up with high enough Happiness, and it can evolve during the day.
Lucario
Eevee
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Level up with high enough Happiness and choose to evolve during the night.
It must not have any Fairy moves equipped.
Umbreon
Eevee
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Level up with high enough Happiness and choose to evolve during the day.
It must not have any Fairy moves equipped.
Espeon
Eevee
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Level up with high enough Happiness while it has a Fairy move equipped, and it can evolve.
Sylveon
Cleffa
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Level up with high enough Happiness, and it can evolve.
Clefairy
Budew
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Level up with high enough Happiness, and it can evolve during the day.
Roselia
Buneary
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Level up with high enough Happiness, and it can evolve.
Lopunny