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There’s lots of new Mega Evolutions to enjoy in Pokemon Legends: ZA. But you can’t go wrong with some of the old ones. A reliable pick is Lucario, a Fighting- and Steel-type with stats that enable a variety of move sets. After getting a taste of Mega Lucario’s power in your first Rogue Mega Evolution battle, you’re probably itching to use it some more. You’ll have to find a Riolu first though, but it won’t be too hard — you can even trade for it. Here’s all the ways you can obtain a Riolu in Pokemon Legends: Z-A.
Trade for Riolu – An Abra Playmate Walkthrough
The easiest method for obtaining Riolu is trading from an NPC named Bond, as part of Side Mission 24, An Abra Playmate. You can unlock the mission after completing Main Mission 9, Chase That Mysterious Pokemon! You’ll be thrust into another Main Mission after that, but you’ll still unlock this Side Mission among others. Just head to Academie Etoile, near Wild Zone 3, and he’ll be waiting there.
As the Side Mission’s name implies, you’ll have to catch an Abra to trade with Bond for his Riolu. Abra can be found on Wild Zone 5’s rooftops, which you can get to by climbing the ladder in the top left corner of the zone. Once you catch one, you can report back to Bond to trade, earning 300 Pokedollars and 5 Exp. Candy XS, as well as an easy Riolu named Riolouie.
That being said, Bond’s Riolu has an nickname you can’t change. As clever a nickname Riolouie may be, I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted a Riolu to truly call your own. So here’s all you need to know to catch one in the wild.
Riolu Weather Requirements and Locations
Before you begin your search, you need to be mindful of the weather and time of day. Riolu only spawns when it’s sunny out. You can check the weather by opening your menu with X and looking in the top right. So if the skies are cloudy or if it’s nighttime, try to sit on a bench to move time forward and change the weather until you get a sun symbol.
Rouge Sector 4
Riolu spawns reliably on top of the long building making up Rouge Sector 4. To reach it, you’ll first need to use the Holovator to the left of Wild Zone 3 to get on top of a different building. Then you’ll have to use Roto-Glide to go from that building to the top of Rouge Sector 4. Once you reach it, you’ll find a Riolu in the bottom left corner of the rooftop.
Because Roto-Glide is required to make it to this rooftop, you won’t be able to reach it until you’ve started Main Mission 16, A Rogue Mega Beedrill. So if you’re not far enough in the main story, progress a bit before trying to catch Riolu this way.
Magenta Sector 9
You can also find a RIolu on top of a blue rooftop in Magenta Sector 9, which will be the rectangular building on the map. If you made it far enough in the story, this will be near Wild Zone 18. Travel down the small street between Magenta Sector 9 and Quasartico Inc. until you get to the second alleyway on the right. You’ll find some scaffolding to climb in order to reach the rooftop.
Once you’ve reached the top, turn right and make your way across to a red rooftop, then across a small bridge to a blue rooftop after that (this will require entering and exiting Wild Zone 18 for some folks). Just turn right and run to the blue rooftop on the other side, and a Riolu will be there — sometimes even an alpha!
How to Evolve Riolu Into Lucario
Once you’ve caught your Riolu, you can evolve it into Lucario during the daytime with high friendship. A Pokemon’s friendship starts at 0, and you’ll need to raise it to 160 for any Pokemon requiring high friendship to evolve.
The points accumulated for some activities that raise friendship will get lower as a Pokemon’s friendship increases. You can’t see the exact friendship level, but you can always check a Pokemon’s general friendship range by talking to a trainer sitting with her Roselia at Cafe Pokemon Amie, after completing Side Mission 25, Trubblesome Patrons.
You can increase a Pokemon’s friendship in a wide range of ways, such as leveling it up in battles, feeding it Exp. Candies, or using feathers and vitamins on it. Giving it a Soothe Bell to hold will help it to gain friendship points even faster. But you can also lose friendship when the Pokemon faints in battle, especially against Pokemon that are 30 levels higher than it.
The best ways to raise a Pokemon’s friendship are to drink at cafes and food trucks with it or to relax on benches with it for 10 seconds. These activities not only raise Pokemon friendship the most, but also have no falloff at higher friendship levels like the other methods. When you’re planning to have a drink, just make sure the Pokemon you want to increase friendship with is in the active spot.
If you need a friendship evolution pronto, the quickest way is to feed it certain berries that raise friendship. These are Pomeg, Kelpsy, Qualot, Hondew, Grepa, and Tamato Berries, all of which you can buy from a vendor in Magenta Sector 6 for 200 Pokedollars each.
These berries come at the cost of reducing certain stats depending on which one you feed them, so I wouldn’t recommend doing this unless you can grow that stat back with other items, it’s a stat that’s not important for your Pokemon, or you’re only evolving it for the Pokedex. In either case, you will need to feed it 22 berries if you’re starting from 0 friendship.
False. There is a ladder on the NE corner of the building. You don’t need to roto glide