How to evolve Riolu into Lucario in Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl

After players have made it to Canalave City in Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, they can also head to Iron Island. Here, they’ll meet Riley, a mysterious figure who walks with players throughout the island’s cave and keeps their Pokémon healthy after battles. For their efforts in the cave, Riley will give players an egg. Veterans of the Pokémon franchise know what’s inside the egg but new players might not know that it’s a Riolu. 

Riolu is the baby form of Lucario, one of the most powerful Pokémon the series has ever seen. It’s a dual Fighting and Steel-type, making it incredibly versatile in battle. However, in order to evolve the Riolu into Lucario, players need to do some leg work. 

Evolving Riolu in Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl

Once you have the egg from Riley in your possession, you’ll need to walk/bike around with it in your party for a fair amount of time to get it to hatch. This will reward you with a level one Riolu. To get to evolve into Lucario, some extra work is needed. 

Riolu evolves through friendship, like other Pokémon in Sinnoh. However, unlike those other mons, Riolu doesn’t need to be at max friendship to evolve. Instead, it only needs one level of friendship, which you can check with a specific Pokétch app. 

The easiest way to gain a friendship level with Riolu is to walk around with it. You can figure out how to walk with any Pokémon in a previous guide of ours. You can also give Riolu the Soothe Bell, a held item that increases friendship. 

After walking around with Riolu, you need to level it up once. You can simply put Riolu at the front of the party, encounter a wild Pokémon, switch it out, defeat the wild Pokémon and then Riolu will gain the necessary XP to level up. 

If it has one level of friendship, then it will evolve into Lucario on the spot. This means you can have an extremely low-level Lucario ready to be trained in Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl. 

• Read more: All Grand Underground Pokémon in Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl

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Featured image courtesy of Nintendo/The Pokémon Company.