(4.) The Pursuit of Happiness
There are currently eight/nine extremely effective ways to make your Pokémon
love you.
1) Pokémon like to be used in battle. Meaning, use them in battle, level them
up, etc. This is essentially the most basic and easiest way, but if you're
trying to evolve a Pokémon earlier to learn certain moves, keep reading.
2) Also with battling, there are special drinks at the top floor of the
Veilstone Department store. Lemonade's only 350, the priciest, and the best.
Healing up Pokémon with these special drinks are the way to go.
Note: Moo Moo Milk may affect this, but it is a mystery for now. Can anyone
confirm this? Kudos to TBIRallySport for bringing this question up.
Renote: Tested on Moo Moo Milk. Moo Moo Milk gives it about the same amount of
happiness as Lemonade, although I prefer Lemonade since it's cheaper. I assume
the high price on the Milk is due to its healing rate.
3) Poffins. I'm sure you heard of this before. They're mostly for raising
stats in the Visual part of Super Contests, but they have a second use. Go to
the second page of your Pokémon screen. It tells you what kind of poffin they
relish: it could be sweet, bitter, whatever (it should be noted that if your
Pokémon "eats anything", it will get the same happiness from every berry as if
it didn't like it--just because it eats everything doesn't mean it likes
everything.) Now look in your Berry pouch, and hit "Check Tag" (not literally,
assuming that there are people that actually do that on these boards--it
wouldn't be surprising) on a Berry. Now you go into a pentagon-like screen,
with a scheme set up so you can see just how much each berry levels up a stat.
The farther it goes in a certain corner, the more flavorful it is (and the
more points it gives for SC). When you know what kind of berry you want to use,
go to Hearthome City. There is a house near (below, in the birds-eye view) the
Pokémon Center, with a sign in front of it. You can enter, and talk to a
woman inside to enter a minigame format to "cook" poffins with your stylus
(or finger, whichever you prefer). You can do this with up to 3 friends, and
granted your friend(s) is/are capable of following instructions, they will
generally come out better with more people. But after you get the hang of it,
you can do it yourself fine as well. After you're done (take my advice: don't
use any poffins that are below lv. 10,) you can feed it to your Pokémon via
the Poffin Case in the Key Items section (you can get a poffin case from the
Pokémon Fan Club to the right of the building, if you didn't get it earlier).
A Pokémon has a gauge called "Sheen". That Sheen grows a star for every poffin
you give it--it needs a limit, doesn't it? Sheen never goes down. When your
Pokémon's Sheen maxes out, it's full. Permanently. Unless you go MAD HAXXORS,
in which case, you don't need this at all.
4) Going along with Poffin-making and eating, winning Super Contests
(henceforth referred to as "SC") can, supposedly, also give you happiness. It
isn't confirmed completely, but it can't hurt (c'mon, you made your poffins,
now put 'em to use!) And honestly, the Normal Ranks of every SC is a breeze,
with or without poffins. Do this if you have time.
Note: A breakthrough! Evan confirms SC's effects on happiness:
"I has somehow bumbled the first try at SC with Togepi and it still had 1
heart. I entered a second time and dominated the whole contest. My point; I
checked Togepi again and it had 2 hearts after it had won (it was also
holding the Soothe Bell, mind you)."
5) There is a lady in Veilstone City residing in a house right below (again,
birds-eye view) the Gym there. Once a day, she'll give a Pokémon of your
choice a massage. I'll repeat this: once per day. This acts as Daisy's
grooming from Gold, Silver, and Crystal. It raises the Pokémon's happiness
quite a bit, and also nets you a great little accessory for your Pokémon in
photo-shooting in Jubilife, or SC.
Note: There's a resort area near the Battle Tower, where you can enter only if
you have 11 ribbons on one Pokémon. Apparently there's a massage parlor in
there, as well, but I have yet to check this for myself (eleven ribbons is ten
too many for me =P.) Thanks to ABZB for telling me this.
Renote: Kylie verifies that it is TEN ribbons to get in, not eleven.
Also: At Sunyshore City, there is a woman named Julia in a house at the
rightmost corner. Every day, she will give you a ribbon for giving her a
pronoun for her story (ANYTHING will work.) Please note that only the Pokémon
first in your party will get the ribbon.
6) You've definitely heard of this before too: Vitamins. What are vitamins,
exactly? Simply put, they're very expensive and rare medicinal items that add
to the EVs of your Pokémon in certain sections by 10. You can give your
Pokémon up to 10 of each vitamin, and the order goes as follows: Protein
raises physical attack, Iron raises physical defense, Calcium raises special
attack, Zinc raises special defense, Carbos raises Speed, and HP Up, well, you
can guess. You can find them for 9800 each (pricey, but you can't say I didn't
warn you) on the second floor of the Veilstone Department Store, from the
middle woman. Giving them to your Pokémon both makes them extremely happy and
raises their stats like crazy, if you're EV-training. Anyway, if you've got
the money, vitamins are one of the many ways to go.
Edit: SuperBandit reminds me that you can buy vitamins at the Battle Tower for
1 BP each. This is a much better deal, seeing as the Battle Tower is easier
than the Elite Four and you can get three vitamins per seven floors.
7) There are a total of six special berries, one for each vitamin, come to be
known on the boards as "EV-Reducing Berries". Basically, these are
"anti-vitamins". Rather than add 10 EVs to your Pokémon, they instead decrease
10. Well, then, what's the point of them, you might ask? Beside the obvious
reallocating of EVs, these "anti-vitamins" also make your Pokemon as happy as
if it were given a vitamin instead! The berries are as follows, and compares
oppositely to each vitamin: Kelpsy Berry = Protein, Qualot Berry = Iron,
Hondew Berry = Calcium, Grepa Berry = Zinc, Tamato Berry = Carbos, and
Pomeg Berry = HP Up. These berries are so much cheaper to access, but keep in
mind to always leave one behind and plant it. That way, you can get more than
five berries for the price of one!
Edit: If your Pokémon is newly hatched/caught, it won't have any EVs. This way,
when you use one of these berries on it, its EVs can't lower. Thus, you can
give it all the berries you want and it won't lower anything! Great way to
raise happiness without losing anything.
Amity Square. This is the place that is above the SC Stadium (or whatever
you want to call it), and it's there for two reasons. Well, actually, three
reasons, but it only fulfills two: getting good items, and making your Pokémon
happy. It was probably also intentioned for you, the player, to be happy as
well, seeing as how Pokémon Yellow was such a success, but it doesn't work,
because you can only walk with "cute" Sinnoh Pokémon, few people actually use
those Pokémon, and, like the angry Youth in the right entrance of the Square,
you get pissed off, screaming "BIAS!". Nonetheless, some of those Pokémon are
capable of evolving by happiness (Happiny, Chansey, Slutbuni Jr.), and what
better way of making someone happy by taking them out of their ball? Take them
out there as long as you like--it really makes them happy fast, I guarantee
it.
Note: Hg reminds me that it takes 200 steps for a Pokémon to find an item on
the ground in Amity Square, so checking on them every now and then (or if
you're using the pedometer application) will net you a nice little berry or
accessory for SC's.
9) The ninth and final way of raising happiness that I know of and can remember
is my favorite. Well, actually, it's more of a suggestion, but it works
amazingly. Simply put, take your Pokémon, give it a Soothe Bell, ride up to
Route 206 (Cycling Road), get on the second column from the right, and let go
of the D-Pad. Whee! If you're clumsy, you'll crash into that stupid moving
cyclist, but that's okay. Keep your gear on 5 (the faster one) and bring
yourself up when you approach bottom. Rinse, lather, and repeat. If you wish,
Clear the pedometer (number 4 Pokétch application, default) and watch your
steps go up. Gauge the proper time for when you think your Pokémon is happy
enough (either note a certain step you should reach, or check its happiness
manually.) I guarantee, this is the way to level a Pokémon's happiness without
doing anything. All I did was hold the up button for around five seconds every
couple of seconds and talk on AIM.
This is also a great way to hatch eggs.
PS: The Soothe Bell isn't a requirement, but it makes the process twice as
fast, which is really worth it.
PPS: Many people tell me that a better path would be Solaceon Town and the two
routes above it; find the column that goes up the bike ramp up north, and the
path ends up longer than Cycling Road. The downside to this is that you have
to actually press up and down, but it's your choice. Plus, there's no annoying
biker, so whatever floats your boat.
PPPS: JeffM informs me of a better way:
Subject: How to gain happiness 
Thu Aug 14, 2008 5:10 am
