The "Change player color glitch" does work. I remember successfully pulling it off in the past. That image comes from this Glitch City wiki article.
There was a Shiny Mew event in Gen II that was downloadable from the Pokemon Centers in both Japan and New York(There were also shiny events for all of the Legendaries from both Gen I and Gen II, the former especially helped because it's hard trying to get anything Shiny in the Gen I games without ACE). Shiny Celebi, however, was still exclusive to the Crystal event released only in Japan.Game Freak seems to dislike giving easy or early access to shiny mythicals since Mew and Celebi were always distributed with fixed IVs in Gen I and II - while Celebi could be SR'ed for in Crystal, this was only ever possible in the Japanese titles until recently. Mew wasn't available shiny until Gen III, and only then on Japanese copies of Emerald with an extremely elusive event item.
Oh, was there? I was under the impression that all the Mew distributed were fixed to not be shiny, but I'm not familiar with the majority of Gen I and II events.There was a Shiny Mew event in Gen II that was downloadable from the Pokemon Centers in both Japan and New York(There were also shiny events for all of the Legendaries from both Gen I and Gen II, the former especially helped because it's hard trying to get anything Shiny in the Gen I games without ACE). Shiny Celebi, however, was still exclusive to the Crystal event released only in Japan.
Most are locked to not be Shiny, but this one was SUPPOSED to be Shiny, like Shiny download event Pokemon in Gen III-VIII(Outside of a handful of Japan-only events Gen V and VII that only have a chance to be Shiny, instead of always or never being Shiny)Oh, was there? I was under the impression that all the Mew distributed were fixed to not be shiny, but I'm not familiar with the majority of Gen I and II events.
Yeah, its frustrating they like to Shiny lock some Pokemon that have no reason to be locked because they, at that moment, think it's better to keep the Shiny in their pocket as a POSSIBLE Event they could do later (whether they do or don't doesn't matter, which is where why this is such a problem comes from). The only Pokemon that should be shiny-locked are story event Pokemon and Pokemon they plan on having a Shiny Event for (and make sure that Shiny event is a worldwide release...). There's no excuse otherwise, and even the Event excuse is a bit flimsy and should only be done so with absolute certainty that most everyone would be able to get it.Thinking about shiny locks just now and it seems to me that GF is kind of inconsistent with how they're applied.
I think the difference comes in between what they see as event only or more story important Pokémon, the pokemon that are more involved in the story of the games themselves have been generally shiny locked in recent times, such as Calyrex, since you are probably going to see it if you do the Crown Tundra DLC. This brings in the original Ultra Beasts and Lunala + Solgaleo from Gen 7, since you would see them if you followed the main story. Just about every other non shiny locked Pokémon in those two generations is off the beaten path in terms of the story, so it would make sense not to shiny lock them since people really would not see them.Thinking about shiny locks just now and it seems to me that GF is kind of inconsistent with how they're applied.
- In Gen V, only Reshiram, Zekrom, and Victini are shiny-locked. All other catchable legendaries - Kyurem, the Kami trio, and the Swords of Justice - are available in their shiny forms. The three mythicals are obviously also shiny-locked by dint of only being available by events. Additionally in B2W2 all of the old legends are available shiny.
- In X and Y all legends and mythicals are shiny-locked, period. In ORAS Groudon, Kyogre, Rayquaza, and Deoxys are shiny-locked but everything else is available as a shiny.
- In Gen VII Solgaleo, Lunala, Necrozma, Cosmog, Zygarde, all the Tapus, all the Ultra Beasts, Ash-Greninja, and all the mythicals are shiny-locked. In USUM, this no longer applies to the Ultra Beasts (except Poipole) and does not apply to any of the older legends available via the Ultra Wormhole.
- In Gen VIII Zacian, Zamazenta, Eternatus, Cosmog, Kubfu, Calyrex, Spectrier, Glastrier, Keldeo, and the Galarian forms of the legendary birds are shiny-locked. In addition, the starter trio and the scripted encounter with Galarian Slowpoke are all shiny-locked too, but can be bred to produce shiny forms.
Few things jump out at me there:
-In BW they didn't lock everything they could have. You'd have expected Kyurem or possibly even Landorus to be shiny-locked but it seems like initially they just wanted to lock the cover legends as well as Victini, which is a mythical. For obvious reasons, Game Freak seems to dislike giving easy or early access to shiny mythicals since Mew and Celebi were always distributed with fixed IVs in Gen I and II - while Celebi could be SR'ed for in Crystal, this was only ever possible in the Japanese titles until recently. Mew wasn't available shiny until Gen III, and only then on Japanese copies of Emerald with an extremely elusive event item. Consider that in 2021, eleven years after BW's initial release, Meloetta, Keldeo, and Victini are still unavailable in shiny form; there has never been an event for any of them, despite ample opportunity.
-In X and Y there isn't a "lower" legendary trio so they just said "screw it" and locked everything, including Mewtwo and the three legendary birds. I suppose they locked Zygarde because at this point they expected another Kalos game to happen and probably anticipated that they could use shiny Zygarde for an event. Part of me suspects they regretted giving early access to shiny Kyurem in BW and wanted to keep something back this time around.
-By the time we reached SM, it looked like they wanted to lock ALL special Pokemon, period, so not one of the catchable legends can be caught shiny. Except... did they forget about Type:Null? It seems an odd one to leave out given that the game is clear on it being a legendary. Yes it's a pain to SR for but people will do it. They later made a big hoo-hah about releasing shiny versions of the light trio, Poipole, and the Tapus, so you'd think they'd do the same with Type:Null.
-In Gen VIII they've again just locked off absolutely everything, and even made it so you can't get a shiny starter (which seems unduly harsh). Oh, wait. Turns out Regieleki and Regidrago were never shiny-locked. I'm not complaining, but... why not? Those two, along with Glastrier and Spectrier, are four of the most wanted Pokemon in the game right now. Why wouldn't GF take the opportunity to restrict them?
Serebii has a good list of all the shiny-locked Pokemon at the time of writing - there's some oddballs on there, like shiny Fancy Pattern and Pokeball Pattern Vivillon or hat Pikachu. What intrigues me is that there are some Pokemon, like Zeraora, for which it only took GF two years to release the shiny for, and yet others, like Victini and Hoopa, that we are still waiting on after years and years. Keldeo is encounterable for the first time in the Crown Tundra, and yet GF still shiny-locked it. Zeraora has no connection to Galar, and was an odd pick to be the prize for "one million victories" (seriously, why not Victini, it's literally there in the name) - did GF just look at all the mythicals and pick it randomly? Or is there more of a reason to it?
What do you think is the reason we haven't seen some of these yet?
The Alola starters aren't shiny locked, right? There's a cutscene after you pick your starter where it stares at you and picks you back. Do they show up as shiny in that cutscene?That also matches the SwSh starters being locked, since IIRC you get a cool little cutscene with them before picking one.
Apparently, they are not shown as shiny in the cutscene but are actually shiny when you get them and can nickname them, the video linked below shows someone apparently getting it in S/M:The Alola starters aren't shiny locked, right? There's a cutscene after you pick your starter where it stares at you and picks you back. Do they show up as shiny in that cutscene?
Yeah, I think in part it is to prevent this inconsistency, since it is a lot more consistent to render the pokemon once in the same way rather than needing to remember two models. However, I also think they also want to discourage soft reseting for shiny pokemon when they are story important. When I was looking up the last video most of the top links with a ton of views were from Gen 7, showing how someone can soft reset for one. From what I can tell, it looks like soft reseting took off around 2016 with S/M as most of the videos came out around S/M's release.Springboarding off that, I also think they're worried about overworld sprites/cutscenes not matching the battle sprite. This is also inconsistent, but it does actually match to a certain degree with the above, since story-important pokes are also the ones you're more likely to see outside of the battle screen. That also matches the SwSh starters being locked, since IIRC you get a cool little cutscene with them before picking one. I think they're somewhat worried that a player will walk up to a mon and then load into a battle and have it be a different color.
That's fair, although I'm still puzzled why they're apparently so concerned that the Reshiram that didn't look shiny in the overworld might be shiny in-battle. I can see the logic of locking "story" Pokemon but it's kind of bizarre to me. Things like the Piplup I started with in Diamond having Pokerus (I'm assuming because the Starly it battled did) aren't "meant" to happen but they're a neat little bonus. Getting a scripted Pokemon as shiny is a cool bonus, not a flaw.I think the difference comes in between what they see as event only or more story important Pokémon, the pokemon that are more involved in the story of the games themselves have been generally shiny locked in recent times, such as Calyrex, since you are probably going to see it if you do the Crown Tundra DLC. This brings in the original Ultra Beasts and Lunala + Solgaleo from Gen 7, since you would see them if you followed the main story. Just about every other non shiny locked Pokémon in those two generations is off the beaten path in terms of the story, so it would make sense not to shiny lock them since people really would not see them.
BW sets the standards for shiny locked pokemon IMO here. Since I'm never (without hacks) going to see Genesect on my replay of Black, why bother locking it? I am otherwise going to see Zekrom and Reshriam in the story, but never Genesect outside of events. However, I will see Thundurus if I click on the NPC's in the game. Kyurem does not matter to the main story of BW, so why bother locking it? Victini stands out as a locked pokemon right now, but for a month when BW was released the Liberty Pass event was active over Wifi, so anyone could get it as soon as they got to Castelia City. Looking at the Crown Tundra, everything in Dynamax Adventures is unlocked, but every pokemon encountered as part of the story or a gift is locked. It fits a trend of Game Freak locking pokemon that they show in the story or give to you on a silver platter, but otherwise let every other pokemon go free. An extreme example is the Porygon you get as a gift in IoA, since its not the most important pokemon to shiny lock since you could get it shiny before, but it is given as a gift so it is locked! That Porygon is more of a story mon in IoA since if I do the story, I will probably get it.
While something like Type: Null seems weird, you may never get it if you dont know how to get it. You do not need to go back to the Aether Foundation for really any other reason than to get Type: Null, while for the Ultra Beasts in order to complete the post game story you need to see them and battle them. In the end, I believe it comes down to what Game Freak really wants you to see when playing the game in determining what they lock, meaning that they will lock special gift pokemon, but pokemon that otherwise will only be event releases or are not connected to the story will not be locked.
If this is the reason I think it's a pretty shitty one tbh. I haven't spent hours SR'ing for something for quite a while, but a lot of people do and that's their prerogative as people who've bought the game. If they want to spend 12 hours getting a shiny starter, why shouldn't they? Disabling that option feels a lot like GF trying to make players play the game the "right" way, and that mindset is a part of why I'm quite turned off by some of the more recent titles. What I enjoy about Pokemon is the freedom to play in the style you want, and any constraints like this make the game less interesting and expansive in my view.It might kinda tie into how the Galar Starters iirc are not guaranteed to have any max IV's while most other legendaries in Sw/Sh have 3 guaranteed max IV's. Since the starters don't have any guaranteed IV's and are unable to be Shiny there is less point to soft reseting at the start of the game. Instead, you have to play through the game until you can get a Shiny starter with better iv's from an egg, which usually in the post game. It encourages people to actually play through the game instead of being stuck at the same spot for hours reseting for a shiny.
I don't think they were really thinking about the Type Specialists in Gen I when they were assigning the Types to the TCG. I think their logic was as so:Not really a mystery or conspiracy, more of just an oddity that I found peculiar.
As many of you probably know, each of the Kanto Elite 4 has a sort of secondary type focus. Lorelei has Water, Bruno has Rock and Ground, Agatha has Poison, and Lance has Flying. Interestingly, each of these secondary types is paired with their primary types in the TCG. Ice is represented as Water, Rock and Ground are classified as Fighting, Ghost and Poison were both grouped in with Psychic before Poison switched to Dark, and both Dragon and Flying fell under Colorless before Dragon became its own type.
Except... Poison wasn't originally considered Psychic. Up until Gen 4, Poison was considered Grass. Meaning that every Kanto Elite 4 member had their Pokemon unified under TCG types except for Agatha.
Oh, I don't think they did it intentionally. I think all the original TCG types were pretty easy groupings, minus Rock/Ground + Fighting but I guess the icon is pretty easy to mistake for a rock. I just find it interesting that all but one of the Kanto E4 were monotype under TCG, and then the odd one out was retroactively made monotype years later. Though I wonder if Agatha might be the reason for making Poison a Psychic type? I've never understood why Poison switched from Grass to Psychic. The only possible reason I could think of was "purple" which is such a ridiculously superficial reason. Agatha is a much better reason to swap it even if I still think it's a terrible reason.I don't think they were really thinking about the Type Specialists in Gen I when they were assigning the Types to the TCG. I think their logic was as so
Which was disappointing since British folklore is rich in potential designs.Swsh focus a lot on british modern times for their pokemon. Probably them relying too much on James Turner's british background in general. His pokemon are more focused on pop culture, which isn't bad, but led to a lack of more historical stuff and made the swsh dex feel artificial, too modern
In RS, Wattson only uses Pokémon from New Mauville, which is a project he oversaw. I think they thought it added to his flavour to use a team of New Mauville Pokémon for that reason, and then in Emerald realised it just makes more sense for him to use the new electric dog on the route right outside his gym lol.
So anybody got a clue what was up with Wattson's RS team, specifically the lack of a Manectric? Even in those games one of the gym trainers had an Electrike, which for that point in the game is closer to evolving than Magnemite (Level 26 for Manectric VS Level 30 for Magneton). In addition the anime episode Wattson debuted in had him use the electric dog and that first aired in August 2003, well over a year before Emerald's japanese release. My best theory atm comes from a vague recollection of a RS beta leak that happened a while ago where a bunch of gym leaders had teams without any Hoenn mons, likely as placeholders until the new 135's designs and battle properties were finalized. Maybe they accidentally kept Wattson's placeholder team? Alternatively it may have been deliberate, they might've figured Magneton fit more with Wattson's status as a tech mogul than Manectric. Waddya think, agree with either of these theories or got your own?
Only tangentially relevant, but you just reminded me of a funny quote from an old Emerald guide I have bookmarked because it's a great readIn RS, Wattson only uses Pokémon from New Mauville, which is a project he oversaw. I think they thought it added to his flavour to use a team of New Mauville Pokémon for that reason, and then in Emerald realised it just makes more sense for him to use the new electric dog on the route right outside his gym lol.
Wouldn't the electrike part of that not do anything since the entire encounter table is electric type? The only other line in New Mauville is voltorb.Only tangentially relevant, but you just reminded me of a funny quote from an old Emerald guide I have bookmarked because it's a great read
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Not only that, Magnemite's encounter chance is already 50% on the first floor (the other 50% being Voltorb). In the basement both are 49% because there's a 1% chance of encountering their evolutions. So not sure how Magnet Pull affects a Pokemon with an encounter rate already at 50%.Wouldn't the electrike part of that not do anything since the entire encounter table is electric type? The only other line in New Mauville is voltorb.
Magnet Pull would depend on if it is:Not only that, Magnemite's encounter chance is already 50% on the first floor (the other 50% being Voltorb). In the basement both are 49% because there's a 1% chance of encountering their evolutions. So not sure how Magnet Pull affects a Pokemon with an encounter rate already at 50%.
My guess is whoever wrote this didn't understand by "increase chance of encounter" they meant when you encountered a Pokemon that was when it alters which Pokemon you're about to get, not that it increases the amount of wild encounters. That or they personally had a very frustrating time in New Mauville.