Pokemon X and Y introduces an interesting new mechanic into the game called Affection.
This is basically the measure of how happy the Pokemon is and how much it likes you. Now why should you care if a bit of code in an imaginary world likes you? Well, there are some tangible benefits that can have an impact on your gameplay if you max out a Pokemon’s affection for you.
Firstly, there is a pretty significant 20% experience boost for each fight. This means that the Pokemon that likes you levels faster. Aside from this, that pokemon will also have increased evasiveness when being attacked, and has a higher chance of landing a critical hit while attacking.
You’ll know that the crit was due to the affection because it’ll show the text ‘Pokemon Gyarados is in sync with Trainer Dormin’ (or something similar).
If that wasn’t enough, your Pokemon will be more resistant to having its’ stats lowered, and will more often hang on with 1 hp instead of fainting when taking massive damage. And on top of that, all the bonuses are permanent once the affection hits full.
So how do you make your Pokemon love you? Well here are the steps to do so:
1# Go to the Pokemon Amie on the bottom screen and examine the Affection, Fullness and Enjoyment stats. This is where you will track the progress of the Affection. Take your stylus and pet your Pokemon by drawing circles on it’s face. This will cause heart particles to appear on the screen and this way you’ll know that it’s affection for you is increasing.
2# Another way to increase Affection is to feed the Pokemon Pokepuffs. These are little cakes that the Pokemon enjoy eating. Grab the puff using the cake button on the top left and drag it to the Pokemon’s face until it starts nibbling.
There’s a limit to how much you can pet and feed it however, and after 4-5 of either it will stop increasing its affection. In order to get it hungry (both for cakes and your touch) you need to play mini-games with it. You can access these by tapping the button that looks like a musical note on the top right of the screen.
About two rounds of these games should be enough to tire out your Pokemon and earn you some free cakes to feed it.
