Since the introduction of shiny pokemon in Pokemon Gold and Silver (Generation 2), it’s been a sought-after thing for every collector and fan of the series, they used to be extremely hard to get and they really felt like you hit the lottery finding them. But in recent years, they have become so much easier to find. So this begs the question, Are Shiny Pokemon Still Special?
In this article, we are going to take a look into why Shiny Pokemon are special but also explain what they actually are. I can see that some people might have never heard of it or even have seen one before due to their rarity. I personally also found out about them years after I started playing them when suddenly a Diglett had a different nose when I went back to play Pokemon Fire Red back when I was a kid.
What Is A Shiny Pokemon?
This can be explained pretty simply, it’s just a pokemon with a different color pallet than they are originally supposed to be. for example from the youtube video above, a golden/yellow Arceus instead of a white one. Some only have minor differences like different color eyes (looking at you Charcadet) or just a minor shade difference that are just super missable if you don’t pay super close attention (Gengar…). But some make the pokemon just so much cooler, like Charizard who becomes a cool black/grey dragon, or Ponyta whose flames turn blue.
When introduced, you only had a 1 in 8192 chance to find one, with nothing really to increase these chances. Since the Pokemon X and Y games (generation 6), they made it already easier by making the number 1 in 4096. They also introduced things like the shiny charm that cuts the number in half and also a special method with ditto that would cut it in half again with breeding.
Are They Still Special?
Technically, yes, they are still special, and of course extremely cool in some cases. But in the recent games Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, they turned the shiny experience to the max and make it so easy to find them, when you see one, it doesn’t feel as exciting after seeing a few in 1 playthrough. Back in the day, it was almost impossible to come across one if you are not looking for one, but now with all the pokemon running in the wild, it seems like they just pop up out of nowhere more than they actually should and you will for sure come across at least 1 of them during your adventures in the Paldea region.
Personally, I have found about 8 shiny pokemon during my playthrough of Pokemon Scarlet and while going for the full dex I found, even more, bringing the total to about 15, something that would never happen back in the day, and even in other games that I played after this I managed to find a few, like an Oddish in Pokemon Alpha Sapphire, a 2nd Dratini in Pokemon Let’s Go Eevee and also a handful of shiny in Pokemon Go. They are still special to me, but every year, the hype goes down for me while at the same time elevating it for some reason due to actually being able to find them.
If you enjoyed this article then please check out some of our other Editorials where every week we jump into a different topic about anything gaming. Please let us know what you think about the recent developments on shiny pokemon in the comments or on Twitter/Discord!
