Pokemon Sword and Pokemon Shield, the latest games in the long-running series from Game Freak and Nintendo, are out now. Set in the British-inspired region of Galar, the new games come with a host of new Pokemon and mechanics, as well as the notable absence of some old ones. Overall, Pokemon Sword and Shield have not had a smooth run up to launch, and, despite a warm critical reception, are still struggling to win over some parts of its fanbase.

One mechanic that has returned in the new games, as well as appearing in spin-offs such as Pokemon GO and Pokemon: Let's Go Pikachu! is the existence of Shiny Pokemon. Those are incredibly rare variants of normal Pokemon that have an unusual coloration for their species, whether as subtle as a slightly darker yellow Pikachu or as obvious as a Ponyta with blue flames instead of red. Despite having no mechanical advantages, Shiny Pokemon are one of the hardest things to acquire in the games, and a lot of players may not ever have seen one, let alone catch it.

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A Wild Shiny Appeared!

Catching Shiny Pokemon in the wild is a daunting prospect, with spawn rates as low as 1/4096 and in most games no way to tell whether a Pokemon is Shiny before engaging it. Pokemon Sword and Shield are no exceptions, though there are some ways to increase the odds of stumbling across one. However, it's worth noting that there are no Shiny versions of the starter Pokemon in Sword and Shield, and anyone trying to restart their game until they get one is going to be very disappointed.

The main method for a player to increase the chances of a Shiny Pokemon encounter is to simply engage as many of the kind of Pokemon they want to catch a Shiny version of as possible. This is due to a relatively new mechanic to the series, introduced in Pokemon Let's Go Eevee and Pokemon GO, called Combo-Catching. Combo-Catching increases the odds of a Shiny Pokemon appearing for each Pokemon of the same type caught in a row (catching another type breaks the streak), and can stack up to twenty-five times.

The Long Haul

Even with Combo-Catching, the odds of finding a Shiny Pokemon can be extremely low. Thankfully, there is another mechanic that can boost the odds, though it also requires a huge amount of effort. The odds of finding a Shiny of a particular Pokemon is increased ever so slightly each time a player defeats that Pokemon in battle. This increase is so small that players should expect to have to have exceeded five-hundred defeats of the same Pokemon species before seeing a meaningful bump to the odds, but for those chasing the ever elusive Shinies, it can be time well spent.

The final way of boosting thr odds of catching a Shiny is through an item known as the Shiny Charm, which is available from the Game Freak Game Director after completing the Pokedex. With all three of these methods combined, the odds of finding a Shiny can fall as low as 1/455, which, while not great, is a lot better than where they started.

There is an alternative, however, to catching Shinies in the wild, and that is through Breeding. By using something called the Masuda method, named after Game Freak Director Junichi Masuda, who introduced it to the game, players can increase their odds of a hatching a Shiny Pokemon by six times. The Masuda method involves trading a Pokemon (ideally a Ditto) from someone with a foreign language version of the game, and then breeding it. The resulting egg's chances of being Shiny can be boosted even further by the Shiny Charm, down to a only-slightly-ridiculous 1/512.

Pokemon Sword and Shield are out now for Nintendo Switch.

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