Shinies. The elusive differently coloured Pokémon that were so rare that most people thought they were hoaxes/glitches/hacks. Yet, with the internet becoming more and more widespread, soon everyone knew about them. With a 1 in 8000 chance of finding them, they were truly sought after by collectors who had to put considerable effort into getting them.
With people complaining they couldn’t get one, Gamefreak threw a bone and released several shiny Pokémon as events, in addition to making some slight tweaks to the chance of finding shinies. Sorry folks that had a shiny Raikou, your’s became so common that people didn’t care about your achievement anymore. Luckily there were only a few event Pokémon, leaving a majority still hard to catch (even when using the Pokéradar).
But XY changed even more than that. They made so many tweaks that, as evidenced by the comments here and on other sites, you could easily find three shinies a day. The Safari zone with hundreds of Pokémon available, a new egg breeding mechanic, horde battles, the Pokéradar is back and maybe even a tweak to the base chance itself! This brings my to my concern of today: is there still a point in shinies?
The major thing about shinies was not that they were differently coloured. In fact, you could say that over half of all Pokémon looks worse or almost not different at all in their shiny form. No, the thing that made them cool was the rarity of finding one, the thrill of encountering and successfully catching it. It shouldn’t be only about its looks, but also on the memory that is attached to it. But with XY the rarity is gone. People will stop caring about your feat. “Oh, you got 30 shinies? I got 60, hmpf.” The whole elusive aspect went away, and that makes shinies not that exciting for me anymore as they once were.
But that’s just me of course. What do you think? I’d love to hear your opinion in the comments, and when I got the time I will try to respond to them. Seeing as this is a discussion post, keep spam to a bare minimum. If you got something interesting to say, say it, but don’t start 200 comments threads about one battle you had, use the chat.
~Daedardus~
I totally agree with this article. Gamefreak shouldn’t have made getting shiny ones so easy as they have lost most of their value. I see lots of trainers offering so many shiny Pokémon in exchange, so many that I no longer want to have shiny ones because almost everyone already does. In the future the “special thing” will be to have a regular Pokémon.
I have played the game nearly 500 hours. I have a living Pokedex of everything that’s available. http://imgur.com/a/eOIfe Many of my hours of gameplay were spent in the Friend Safari. I’ve bred tons of eggs, most of which were unintentionally Masuda Method. I’ve attemted Poke Radar and Chain Fishing (reaching a record of 68).
I have not had a random shiny encounter in my entire time of playing X. The shinies I own come from the GTS. If the shiny rate has indeed increased, I fail to see it in my game. >:(
No way! To me, they haven’t because some of the shines look super cool!
Besides, I haven’t encountered any >.< EVER
It upsets me so much, because I'm just like,
Me: *Sitting in class*
Friend who plays Pokemon: *Sits down also* Guess what? I got a box full of shinies, and this one I found in your Safari!
Me: *Hits desk, hopeless* WHY ME?!?!
Seriously, that happens. Everyday.
So, no I don't believe they lost their value, because some are like me, and never have found a shiny ever, and trying to find one is their ultimate quest.
Like mine.
YOU WILL BE MINE SHINY!!!
Still have yet to get my first X/Y shiny. :3
I’ve only got 1 shiny in my Y game, it’s a shiny poliwhirl now a poliwrath. but im really wanting a shiny gardevoir and a shiny gyarados and maybe a shiny gangar but im unlucky. in my soulsilver i found a shiny gravaler but killed it X_X awhile ago.
i feel 50-50 on this, although i dont think they lost there value too much, alot of people still cant get one, i still havent found one in y so i find that whole they easy to catch in x and y is bull, however i do still think they have lost their uniquness when it comes to nature,abilities or ivs, people care too muich about that so it wouldn’t matter if you got a shiny caterpie if its ivs aint good who cares.i still think they should introduce new colors though, i been thinking about that since tuby and sapphire, treat some pokemon like animals when put under different climates they look different, the anime did this with the orange islands becuase it was more tropical so some pokemon had a more tropical look, why havent they done this is beyond me one of few irks about there series and x and y lost points cause they should of been adpated this into the game by now but won’t go into too much about that, and sure a few pokemon have it like villion but they need more 250-320 pokemon should be enough there so much pokemon now they should really do this add like two more alternate colors(maybe those colors should have shiny too) increase the rarity on the new colors, decrease a little on the old one. just my opinion
I personnaly find them VERY HARD to catch even if I have Y, and the reason is because I’ve never caught one (only the Shiny Gyarados in Crystal) so I’m still awaiting that “thrill”.
I have 2 shinies right now and that is Wingull and Zoroark 😀
My starter pokemon was a shiny so I’m not going to complain too much about it, but shiny pokemon have less special meaning to it than it used to without a doubt. Too easy to find. The only way you should be able to find it is randomly, not through chain fishing, breeding, or the poke radar. Don’t waste 100 hours of a game trying to get as many shinies as you can cuz that it just ridiculous. Get a life if you spend more than 5 hours a week shiny hunting.
I think it’s cool they made it easier, though they made it WAY TOO easier.
I never cared for shinies before, and when I did I only cared about those whose colors I liked (such as green, was it Green Dragonite?)
3 shinies a day huh? I’m not so sure. In my 550 hours played on Y, I only ever saw a grand total of 1 shiny (Spritzee) and I didn’t really feel anything when I “accidentally” fainted it.