Scarlet & Violet have been the most fun I've had with Shiny Pokemon. The amount that spawn around you makes seeing them such a treat, especially when it's one shiny in a group of non-shiny Pokemon; even after the amount I've seen thus far I still go "oh!!!!!!!!"
I've currently found 21 of them:
-Cubchoo was the first one I found, in November,while I was first exploring the ice mountain. I almost missed it at first, since it's so small, but as I ran by I went "wait hold on that was pink" and sure enough it was this little guy. Very cute. Just a great ball for this one.
-Stantler I found while I was trying to complete the Pokedex, I think? Found this one 5 days later. I don't particularly care for green shiny Pokemon but I have gained appreciation for being a Shiny you will never not know is shiny. I'm really hoping that when Home comes we'll be able to evolve this, rather than waiting for the DLC. wyrdeer's shiny is a much better shade of green. Repeat Ball, I didn't have a lot of Pokemon to really weaken it.
-December was quite the month for Shiny pokemon. I can't quite remember the context for these next few but I think I did have the Shiny charm. On December 5th I ran into a shiny Colycoly and straight up I almost didn't recognize it; it's mostly blue but the problem was it was at night! Cases like these really need the shiny announcement jingle, had there not been other Rolycoly nearby I'm not sure I'd have snapped to it. Repeat ball also.
-On December 6 I ran into 2 shinies, the first was a Lokix out on the rocks near the coast while I was clearing out raids and the second was an Oinkologne (Male) in the West Province. I like these shinies a whole lot, they both went with "what are their normal animals known for" colors and I think it really works. The tri-pink mix of Oinkologne is incredibly charming in particular, but I like how hte white markings go with the specific shade of green on the Lokix. Lokix went in a Repeat ball but Oinkologne went into a Heal Ball. The most normal option, I'm aware.
-I decided I wanted a 3-segment Dudunsparce for the collection (not shiny, not that crazy), and after talking with a friend determined the fastest way was to just go to Area Zero's cavern and catch a bunch of Dunsparce.I was there for several days, off & on; on December 10th I found a shiny Espathra. A really beautiful shiny, my friend also caught one in the desert shortly before; I caught this one in a Luxury Ball.
-The next day I found a Shiny Gible. This was one of the ones I was really worried about seeing and not realizing it was Shiny...thankfully the sharp blue does stand out when it spawns in groups. It's a nice blue, I caught it in a Dive Ball. The real terror of this one was the fact that I saw it in the background.
-Same day I saw there was a Glimmet swarm and remembering the rates were pretty good on that I cleared it out on a whim and found one before it even got to the final part of the swarm. Glimmet are very tiny and the dark lights of the cave didn't help, when it spawned I seriously had to take a second and look closesly at it and then compare it to another one that was near by. Premiere ball for this one.
-Can't remember what I was doing at the time, but I found a Sliggoo on the 13th; I really love this shiny, it kind of looks like ice cream. Heal Ball also.
-This was much later at night, I think when I was just exploring around and clearing raids, but it was Grumpig. I don't. Like it, honestly. Instead of going "oh!!!!" I went "oh....okay....". Sometimes you just roll a bummer
-So around this point, I had helped a friend evolve their shiny finizen and I hadn't seen it before. It's a really cute shiny, and Hero Palafin has a cool black colorscheme. Thus I decided to start actively Hunting for it, the first time I ever tried this in a game; I had the Shiny Charm and a foreign Ditto, so the odds were in my favor. This is all a long wind up to say that while hatching eggs I would run around Paldea and see if I could just happen across other Shiny pokemon and I
did in the most terrifying situation possible: I saw a Shiny Pachirisu (the 27th) then immediatley ran into another Pokemon I couldn't see, it started running away and then after I ran a Finizen egg decided to hatch and I have never wanted an egg skip animation more than in that moment. Thankfully, it turns out that Shiny Pokemon don't have that short a timer on them. I've wound up using this one several times to help paralyze and weaken Pokemon; it's so weak that even with a 20-30 level advantage Nuzzle won't even bring certain pokemon to yellow, much less red. Next Ball, for something different
-I hatched eggs on & off throughout january & february, but I also took breaks because ya'll it is so demoralizing how the hell do people shiny hunt eggs, honestly. I don't even care about the picnic aspect, I actually like that since it's so fast and gets you like ~60 eggs. But in March 4 I booted the game back up for another batch, saw there was a Dondozo outbreak and looked at its shiny and went dang that's a nice one.Then just walked through the swarm and bam, one spawed after the 60k mark. Dondozo outbreaks are fun because this one was around the water fall in the lake and that meant you had a ton of big boys in a very small area and the game was
struggling. Dondozo behaviors are funny because they're actually agressive but they first have to realize you're there. I just caught this in an Ultra Ball
-On the 6th I was finishing up egg hatchings in Area Zero and found a Shiny Zweilous. It's...very ugly. Awful shade of green; I'm glad it kept the black (or brown, I guess?) fur and purple treads at least. Area Zero's a great spot to hunt for shiny Pokemon by the way; there are more spawners in Area Zero than the entirity of Paldea, so its constantly popping them out everywhere. You ever see someone shiny hunt an Iron Valiant with a sandwich? That cave's COVERED in them, it's very funny.
-After another brief break, I came back for another small batch of eggs and saw a Drednaw swarm. I tried the "get to ~60 KOs, then spam picnics to respawn without ruining the swarm" trick. I didn't find a Drednaw, but when everything spawned back in after a picnic I did see a shiny Flamigo. I put this one in a Luxury Ball. Shiny Flamigo's a little funny because seeing it alone on serebii, I didn't think it looked very good, but seeing it in game environments I think it looks pretty charming shade of light pink.
-So after 671 eggs, during which I managed to find and catch 2 separate Palafin raids so now I had one in a Love Ball and one in a Luxury Ball for beeding purposes, I was losing my mind and decided to make use of those shiny sandwiches. 3 Cucumbers/Salty/Spicy Mystica gives encounter + shiny water and I went to the area near Leventia. The shoals make it easy to run around and it seems to spawn a ton of Finizens, I like it better than the open ocean even if it has more variety, or the little inlet near the auction town. It's nice you can save scum sandwiches, by the way:
- Attempt 1: Nothing. Reset!
- Attempt 2: (29th) A Shiny Magikarp (Premiere Ball). Magikarp's funny because visuall it's actually wonderful, the new texture work it has in SV makes it really shine. But also if you ever evolve it it's like....so I think people get weird about "shiny worth", like I am listing out 21 shiny Pokemon I got over the span of 3 months but I loved finding all of them, its so fun to see and look at and catch them. But also everyone has a Shiny Gyarados. It's the most well known and easiest one. Yeah sure you caught your own Gyarados suuuure. Alas
But in addition to that, I also found a Shiny Wiglett and wow that's such a good shiny! I thought it would share Diglett's colors but it's a cool yellow with blue nose, and wugtrio also looks great when I eventually evolve it. Easily worth saving and burning the sandwich. Luxury Ball for that one.
- Attempt 3: Reset
- Attempt 4: (31st) *rubs temples*. So I decided for this batch, I would hang in Leventia for a bit and then swim over to the port town. Finizens spawn throughout and I wanted more variation. At levenzia I found another Magikarp (Premiere), followed by another Magikarp in the South Province ocean (Premiere), followed by ANOTHER MAGIKARP (Heal) at the port town province. I was honestly both staggered and livid; like Magikarp are common but not so common that you'd run into this many back to back. I was this close to resetting but literally at the last 5 seconds of the sandwich, a Floatzel spawned. It looks a little sickly, but it's not too bad. Caught it in a Dive Ball and I figure,d okay. I'll keep it. I won't reset. So I just have 4 shiny Magikarp now. Jerks....
- Seriously look up some of the shinies around there they aren't bad. Mareanie & Qwilfish are lovely pinks, Bruxish is super vibrant red, arrokudas are blue, shellders are gold (a lot of water type shinies wound up yellow or gold, huh?). They aren't even that rare, really....
- Attempt 5: Reset!
- Attempt 6: (Today!) It happened. I found The Boy
I popped OFF after seeing this in the pod of Finizens (seriously there was 10 of them!), I actually forgot to save before engaging so I was actually worried. Thankfully, I had planned for this ahead of time. See, I still wanted it in a Love Ball and (thank god for that Valentines give away) I still had one left over. So before this entire escapade I grabbed 2 Finizens,a guy & a girl, and made sure I paralyzed it, false swiped it to 1 and with a female finizen out front a Love Ball is a 100% Guaranteed Capture. It even got a critical capture.
Saved like 4 times after that one. no April Fools here. I'm waiting for the Home Update to land so I can get the unevolved ones registered before I evolve them. Critical brain worms, I'm aware.
it's a shame Palafin is basically impossible to use in Raids, I'd loe to raise it up all nice and strong and use it but Zero Palafin's kinda...not great.
I probably won't be doing any shiny hunting after this; definitely not eggs, at least. As I mentioned earlier the picnic process is actually super fast and leagues better than before, and the Masuda method + Shiny Charm rates are pretty good, but hatching them takes so long. The game was not designed for mass hatches, which is fine, but boy it takes it out of you. Shiny Sandwiches are really good and 6 attempts to find the one I want with 6 other shinies on the way (3 of them unique) is really good, but it was definitely getting tiring...I probably would have needed another break. I don't understand people who do full odds or the really unlucky people who even with al lthe stuff have to wait out even more.
But it's fun to say I did it at least once.