Entirely possible it was just bad luck on the streamer's part, but I don't think I saw a single affection proc in this entire fight? I think the "____ is awaiting your instructions" is what indicates that affection has begun to take hold, and while seeing that at all does lend credence to simply bad luck, of note is that Magnezone and Honchkrow did not have this message. In fact, despite a message about being worried about battling well, Garchomp doesn't have any messages like above display like this, so it might just be a hardcoded first turn thing for the Cynthia fight. Not entirely sure what to make of all this tbh (I mean they could have modded the affection bonuses out, but then why do some mons not even seem eligible for them in the first place, and is the person that does that kind of thing really the same person that uses items in battle?), I just want to believe affection isn't forced .__.
Tryin to line up all the actions with the Affection chart is a pain, since I have to reference the gen 6 chart, but....
Garchomp in particular shakes back & forth, which seems abotu on par with "affection 2" and has a note about "Being worried" which also lines up with that. Garchomp does not get any messages for getting a Super Effective hit (" That's it! I knew you could do it! ") which is tied to affection 4.
The Kadabra has affection because the Trainer shouts "I know you can do it!", but does not shake or jump. It is "awaiting your directions....". Those line up with affection 3, but it's not shaking back & forth or jumping.
Loppuny has affection judging by the messages (I knw you can do it, awaiting your directions), but shockingly doesnt shake or jump in battle. Maybe this is only something that happens at the start of battle with your first pokemon. Same with Empoleon
There's a lot of other dialog optoins that just are not present, even something as simple as "thrilled to bits"...honestly I'm unsure what's going on with the dialog in general, I saw in their Aaaron battle (Which is otherwise worthless for this since he's so easy anyway) that Honchkrow shook and the trainer had the "I know you can do it" dialog, but there was 0 indication of affection on Honchkrow at all in that battle otherwise (even on SE hits) and nothing at all for that Magnezone or even the Garchomp I think. Mayb egen 8's dialog system is just entirely different in how it functions with affection.
So as for stuff not activating, first off I don't think anyone present has Max affection, which gives the biggest bonuses and a crit bonus (effective to a +1). Secondly there's not many instances where a bonus could kick in, which are as follows:
-Getting knocked out but surviving. This is always a dice roll anyway, and is low at low affection (10% judging by gen 6/7 at level 3, then 15, then 20)
-Recovering from status. There was only one instance of this and it was on Magnezone who had no affection and was immediately healed anyway
-20% higher exp. No clue what the exp situation in this game is tbh.
In conclusion: damn i wish there was literally any substantive breakdown in how gen 8 affection dialog and effects were applied aside from the one chart on serebii which doesnt list out the dialog you start seeing and when you start seeing it because gen 6/7 doesnt seem to line up 1:1 on that front.
But really at the very least I don't think any of them have high affection, even the Loppuny, which just further makes me doubt that one claim that they were already seeing affection bonuses before doing amity square, and were getting the crit bonus by Maylene without anyone following (but after doing the square). Any affection bonuses they might have had access too, probably just didn't proc since it's always going to be a low dice roll (lord knows we all know the pain of searching for an hour for a 10% encounter......)
