Pok¨¦mon Isle of Armor: how to get and evolve Kubfu, including how to become best friends
A quick explainer for how to get Kubfu and how to evolve it.
Kubfu is the legendary Pokémon and mascot of the Isle of Armor DLC, and so unsurprisingly it plays a central role in the main story on the island.
Here, we'll explain all you need to know about the cute little bear, including how to get Kubfu in the first place, how to evolve Kubfu, and how to become best friends with Kubfu for one of the Dojo challenges.
On this page:
How to get Kubfu in the Pokémon Isle of Armor DLC
Kubfu, the Isle of Armor's legendary Pokémon, is awarded to you for completing the Isle of Armor Dojo's three challenges.
Head to our main Isle of Armor walkthrough hub for the full details on those, but here's the brief lowdown of what those challenges are:
- Collect the three escaped Slowpoke
- Find some Max Mushrooms
- Defeat your rival in a battle at the Dojo
After that final step, Mustard will grant you your reward, Isle of Armor's "secret armor", Kubfu!
How to become best friends with Kubfu
After you get Kubfu, you'll be given an additional task, which is to become best friends. To do so, you'll need to head to one of several spots on the island where there's a great view.
These are marked on your map with exclamation marks, if you take a look. Any will do, but we took our Kubfu up to Potbottom Desert ourselves, just out the other side of the Warm-up Tunnel.
Interact with the Dojo assistant at any of these locations, and they'll let you drink in the view. After that, you'll get a notification saying you and Kubfu are the best of pals, and it's time to head back to the Dojo!
With it finally in the wild, here's how to start the Crown Tundra DLC and our full Pokémon Crown Tundra walkthrough. Plus, here's how to catch Calyrex, Glastrier and Spectrier, the Regieleki and Regidrago puzzle solution and Regirock, Regice, Registeel locations, details on how to catch Legendary Birds Articuno, Zapdos and Moltres in the Crown Tundra, the Ultra Beasts and Necrozma adventure, Dynamax Adventures, including the legendries you can catch on these adventures, and the new Crown Tundra Pokédex and returning Pokémon explained. For Isle of Armor players, here's how to find the Slowpoke, where to find Max Mushroom locations, and how to get Kubfu, become best friends and evolve it, plus all Diglett locations too! For the base game, here's info on the ability to transfer Pokémon to Pokémon Home, the Wild Area, lists of all TM locations and TRs, all Galarian forms and finally our main Pokémon Sword and Shield walkthrough for the whole game.
How to evolve Kubfu into Urshifu
Once you've become best friends with Kubfu and returned to the Dojo to speak with Mustard, you'll be able to take the final steps to evolve it into Urshifu.
To do so, you need to head to one of the two towers on the island: the Tower of Water or Tower of Darkness. They're marked clearly on the map! The Tower of Water is to the west by the sea - head to the Soothing Wetlands and turn left to reach it. The Tower of Darkness is accessed by going straight on through the Soothing Wetlands, up through Brawler's Cave, and across Challenger's Road where it's up ahead.
Once you're there, you'll need to defeat five trainers, one at a time, a bit like an old school Elite Four challenge. There are some rules: you can't leave until you've either beaten all of them, or been defeated yourself, and most importantly you can only bring Kubfu inside - no other Pokémon! Oh, and you can only challenge one of the two towers, meaning you'll only get one of Urshifu's two forms. To get the other, you'll need to complete the Isle of Armor DLC again with the other version of the game!
- Tower of Darkness - choose this one for Single Strike Style Urshifu, which is Fighting and Dark-type.
- Tower of Water - choose this one for Rapid Strike Style Urshifu, which is Fighting and Water-type.
The recommendation in-game is to have your Kubfu levelled up to at least Lv.70. We got ours up to Lv.66, but we also fully EV trained it as well, giving it perfect Attack and Speed EVs, which meant it could defeat all of the opposing Pokémon quite easily. Without EV training, we'd suggest Level 70 to 75.
The first four Pokémon it'll defeat easily with Fighting-type moves, but be sure to bring a Flying or Psychic type one for the final battle!
Once that's done, interact with the scroll on the top floor, and Kubfu will evolve into one of Urshifu's two forms!
Head back to the Dojo one last time, and you'll get a final task: finding the ingredients for Urshifu to eat the Max Soup, which will let it Gigantamax!
That's it for here! Head back to our main Pokémon Sword and Shield Isle of Armor walkthrough hub for more guides like this!
Explore the Isle of Armor and Crown Tundra with the Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield Expansion Pass!