How to get Riolu & Lucario in Pokemon Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl

Looking to add some iconic Pokemon to your Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl team? Here’s how to get Riolu and Lucario.

Pokemon Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl introduced a fair amount of new additions to the franchise but they also remained faithful to the original adaptation’s Pokedex.

This means that certain Pokemon can still be quite tricky to get. Here are the easiest ways to get Riolu and Lucario in Pokemon BDSP.

Contents:

• Where to find Riolu & Lucario
• How to get Riolu Egg
• How to evolve Riolu into Lucario

ILCA / The Pokemon Company

Players can get their hands on the Fighting-type ‘mon in a special location.

Where to find Riolu & Lucario in Pokemon Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl

Lucario remains a fan-favorite as its dual-typing makes it a heavy-hitter. In order to get the ‘mon on your team, players will have to venture a fair bit into the story. Follow the below steps to find Riolu and Lucario:

1. Get the Surf HM from Cynthia’s grandmother at Celestic Town. Then defeat Gym Leader Crasher Wake at Pastoria City.
2. Head back to Jubilife City and take the west exit to Route 218 and use Surf to make your way to Canalave City.
3. At the bottom left side of Canalave will be a sailor NPC standing in front of his boat. Talk to him.
4. The sailor will take you to Iron Island where Riolu can ONLY be found in its Egg form.

ILCA / The Pokemon Company

Riolu can be found on Iron Island.

How to get Riolu Egg

Once you step off the boat at Iron Island, make your way into the cave. While exploring level two of the cavern, you will eventually run into an NPC named Riley.

He will ask you to team up with him to battle Team Galactic. After defeating Galactic Grunts in dual battles, he will thank you for your help by giving you a Riolu Egg.

You will now need to hatch it. The quickest way to hatch eggs in Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl is to equip the item to your Party and then ride back and forth on your Bicycle until the Egg starts to crack open.

ILCA / The Pokemon Company

Riley will give you the Riolu Egg in the Sinnoh remakes.

How to evolve Riolu into Lucario

Now that Riolu has hatched from your Egg, you just need to level it up to get Lucario… Right? Not so fast! The Fighting-type has some specific steps that need to be taken in order to evolve it.

1. After hatching Riolu, you need to raise its friendship level.
2. You can increase your friendship level either by having Riolu walk outside of its Poke Ball, or giving it Berries to make it happier.
3. Once you have a one-heart friendship level, you need to level up Riolu during the daytime.
4. If it’s not daytime, you can go into your Nintendo Switch settings and adjust your system’s clock between 10AM – 7:59 PM.
5. And that’s it, Riolu will evolve into Lucario!

Now that you know how to get Riolu and evolve it into Lucario in Pokemon Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl, take a look at our other BDSP guides and walkthroughs:

How to get Jirachi | How to get Mew | Version exclusives | All Legendary Pokemon | How to get the Poketch | Best starter to pick | All Styles | How to beat all Gym Leaders | How to walk with your Pokemon