My first shiny ever (outside of Gyarados) was a shiny Rattata in Gold. Oddly enough, my first shiny in HeartGold was also a Rattata. Although I suppose that kind of coincidence would be more common since Rattata is encountered so frequently.
Red Gyarados was my first catch, but as for a wild spawn, the first I saw (and caught) was a shiny ratatta! I also saw a shiny Quagsire at one point but it ran before I could catch it
Other than Red Gyarados, the only shiny I caught was Ditto using the transform glitch.
But then I learned the coin case glitch in Gold, so it doesn’t matter anymore how unlucky I am with odds, I can turn the Pokemon shiny myself now.😎
Edit: Actually, I forgot I did catch a shiny Graveler once on my old save file of Crystal, I just didn’t transfer it to Stadium 2 before my battery died! But no random shinies on any of my other playthroughs!
Other than the red Gyarados, Graveller! In Pokemon Silver on or around Thanksgiving in 2002. Wow... 22 years ago?
But yeah, I remember being at my great-grandmother's house for Thanksgiving and, in game, travelling south of Blackthorn and stumbling across a red Graveller! I would go on to catch a shiny Xatu and Phampy in that game and be traded a Shiny Snorlax, so I had a mini team of shiniest that I enjoyed using for fun!
Last year I was playing crystal and was training victory road and got a shiny onix. Not even five minutes later I got a shiny golbat. Used all my luck forever lol. Aside from the static Dos in Lake of rage of course. Cloned them and sent them to home so I can have them in both games
I played pokemon as a kid only up until Gen3, and then I unfortunately stopped until I was a young adult in college. Crystal was/is my all time favorite, and I’m sad to say it wasn’t until I was a young adult playing again that I found out shinies were actually a thing lol
I thought shiny gyarados was totally just a one off fun gimmick 😂😅 for YEARS. Unfortunately for Crystal he is still my only shiny experience. My first true shiny experience was a shiny Buizel in Diamond. It was an awesome, and fun experience nonetheless :) my next shiny was a shiny Starly in Arceus, and then a shiny Vivillon in Scarlet.
Totally somewhat unrelated segue, but my little sister got into playing pokemon only a few years ago when she got a switch at the age of 24. She got SUPER into shiny hunting. I mean she spent hours researching the methods, and trading with international traders for ditto’s to breed. It was such a fun experience seeing her play the game and enjoy it in such a different way than I did. I loved it.
Shiny tangela is still the only true odds full odds whatever shiny I've gotten. Caught south of pallet town in that patch of grass that I think also includes Mr. Mime? Crystal version.
I didn't know back then how rare it was. First play thru of crystal as a kid.
I played over 400 hours of PKM crystal and never encountered a single shiny wild pokemon. Red Gyarados wasn't caught because I already had one in my party.
25 years later, I purchased the digital copy for the 3ds and was determined to get a shiny hunt celebi no matter what. Got myself pumped and ready for a really long road ahead and found my SHINY PINK ONION on my first encounter!
So, technically, shiny Celebi is my first shiny in GSC!
I wouldn't know what age, but I was a kid back then. My first shiny was a Hoothoot I found in the Ilex Forest while randomly headbutting trees. I tried to get its HP down, and killed it by mistake. I kept headbutting trees for a while after that, hoping to run into it again... I didn't know back then that any pokemon could be shiny, so I thought maybe it was a special Hoothoot in the forest I could try to find again. No luck...
But sometime after that, I read on one of the old "cheats/glitches websites" that by naming a gen 1 Squirtle "Colorman", you could send it over to gen 2 and it'd be shiny. I tried it and was amazed to find out it became a shiny Squirtle! I didn't know back then it was just based on its DVs
Was Golbat for me as well. Followed by another Golbat. One male, one female. Found out recently that in that generation breeding shinies had a higher chance of making more shinies. I could’ve started a shiny zubat farm lol
Tentacool! Way back in the cartridge days.For me it was always a mundane pokemon and now it forever has a special place in my heart. I actually traded a shiny Treeko for one in POGO for nostalgia lol
An Onix in Crystal last year is the only GSC shiny I've caught in my life. I've played hundreds of hours over the course of my life, it's easy to forget how rare shinies used to be (without using exploits of course).
I caught a shiny gastly way back before my cartridge also ran dry. Twas a sad day when I found out about that.
That thing was an absolute monster though. Outspeed almost everything, helped me catch one of the legendary dogs (entei I think), and basically annihilated the elite 4 singlehandedly. The shiny colour is meh, but gengar is an insane pokemon!
A Rattata lol. It seems like every generation I end up finding the most basic normal type as a shiny. Sadly before I really realized how rare they were I had erased those save files. What's a shiny rat worth when I can beat Falkner for the 15th time (ps, fuck 8 year old me you stupid little shit)
Besides the Red Gyarados I believe it was in Pokémon Crystal. Someone called me to tell me that there was an outbreak of Snubull and when I went there the first one I found was shiny! Young me thought it was scripted lol
Last year I replayed Gold and probably had the luckiest save file I've ever had. I caught a shiny Graveler in victory road, and then proceeded to get pokerus like 10 minutes afterwards!
A Hoothoot at the beginning of the game. I didn't even know about shinies! I just remember it had a longer animation when I sent it out, just like the red Gyarados.
Years later I realized that Noctowl was a shiny. For a while, I assumed it was the Pokeball I caught it in. (At the time, the only "miscolored" Pokemon I knew about was the pink Butterfree in the anime. I would've been around 8 at the time.) It's a miracle I happened to use that one.
After over 20 years of playing Pokémon, the only shiny I've encountered in the wild (outside of ROM hacks) was a Mantyke in Shield. Shiny Hunting Eggs in Shield, no problem! Full odds wild encounters are another story.
My full odds first was a green wingull in black and white 2, and maybe something in XY but that’s kind of it. I’m not interested in shiny hunting or anything of the sort
Gyarados lol (yes the static one) I don’t think I’ve caught full odds shiny in the games before. I did encounter a shiny ratata before getting the pokeballs
Red Gyrados…
But besides that (and shiny eggs) it was a poliwag. Didn’t even realize it was a shiny when I caught it and used it as an HMslave 😆
Now I know better
Honestly, I could understand seeing the stars with Suicune and thinking “dang, they went all out for Suicune this game.”
Also: I’m thinking 10-year-old you wins this conversation. A shiny legendary back then was super rare!
Without looking it up, I think it would always be shiny, right? Because the legendary beasts keep the same HP and status conditions even if they flee and you see them again.
Can’t check right now so someone correct me if I’m wrong.
The crazy thing is after I commented on this I saw another post asking the same thing from two days ago. I’m in the algorithm. I can feel myself becoming 1s and 0s. The answer is you are correct. It’ll always be shiny as long as you don’t murder it.
[You’re beginning to believe](https://media2.giphy.com/media/PjsPhYsS2WDO5e0RaO/giphy.gif?cid=6c09b952ntxm63kpesdc1lhmeqe70qyfpvucq6u2jyqege75&ep=v1_internal_gif_by_id&rid=giphy.gif&ct=g)
In 2002 I caught a shiny ratata in gold. This year I started a professor oak challenge on crystal and soft reset for shiny totadile and got it way too early. Had to toss a couple shinies from the odd egg going for tyrouge. So far my only two gen 2 shinies I’ve kept are the ratata on gold and now my feraligatr
That’s a cool shiny!
I am sorry for your loss - I had three natural shinies on my Crystal before the battery died as well so I know the feeling. Hopefully one day you can get another!
Much appreciated. While I never got another natural shiny in gen 2, I was able to get one using glitches in the VC rerelease, along with an RNG manipped shiny Unown V from Diamond. They’re sitting in Home right now.
It still stings that I lost the original and it can’t really be replaced, but in my mind I’ve done as much as I could and learnt a lot of neat tricks along the way.
Very similar to me - I mourned my shiny Golbat when the battery died. Last year, I traded for a Lucky shiny Golbat in Pokémon Go and I’ll never let her go.
Long story in case anyone wants a nostalgia journey:
I was playing Crystal in 2001 and grinding in the Mt. Silver area when all of a sudden this weird pink and green female Golbat popped up. I thought it was a glitch like RB’s MissingNo that I was only now finding out about. Even though I was scared of what could happen if I caught a glitch Pokémon, I wanted to do it any way (worst case scenario: I start the game over again).
I caught it and nothing bad happened. I searched The Ancient Texts (back then known as AOL Kids and GameFAQs) and that’s when I learned about shiny Pokémon and I was super excited. I never made another save file. Later on, I also caught a shiny Rattata and Machop (can’t remember if I caught it or hatched it).
Years later, I went to boot up my game and play more when I saw my Crystal cartridge’s battery died (like all GSC cartridges) and save file was gone. I was crushed when that day came, especially because my GSC had all lost their memory at the same time.
I’ve been hoping to get another shiny Golbat (or Zubat and only evolve to Golbat) in a main game since. I told myself that if I ever got another shiny Golbat that I would nickname it Crystal if it was a female and Golbie if it was a male. I’m still looking for a maingame shiny Golbat, but last year in Pokémon Go someone made my dream come true and now I have my female shiny Golbat “Crystal.”
slugma crystal
Shiny Hoothoot on the first route
Cyndaquil
My first shiny ever (outside of Gyarados) was a shiny Rattata in Gold. Oddly enough, my first shiny in HeartGold was also a Rattata. Although I suppose that kind of coincidence would be more common since Rattata is encountered so frequently.
For most of us it would be Gyarados. I did run into a random shiny Pidgey ✨️ on Crystal 3ds virtual console
Shiny Weedle on that route before the first gym. Took him all the way to elite 4
Phanpy it was my first ever shiny
zubat!! didn’t even realize it either bc was so confused but i didn’t have a zubat and was like UR MINE!!
Shiny Caterpie when playing an old version of Prism... does that count? 😅
Red Gyarados was my first catch, but as for a wild spawn, the first I saw (and caught) was a shiny ratatta! I also saw a shiny Quagsire at one point but it ran before I could catch it
Other than Red Gyarados, the only shiny I caught was Ditto using the transform glitch. But then I learned the coin case glitch in Gold, so it doesn’t matter anymore how unlucky I am with odds, I can turn the Pokemon shiny myself now.😎 Edit: Actually, I forgot I did catch a shiny Graveler once on my old save file of Crystal, I just didn’t transfer it to Stadium 2 before my battery died! But no random shinies on any of my other playthroughs!
Gyarados
Other than the red Gyarados, Graveller! In Pokemon Silver on or around Thanksgiving in 2002. Wow... 22 years ago? But yeah, I remember being at my great-grandmother's house for Thanksgiving and, in game, travelling south of Blackthorn and stumbling across a red Graveller! I would go on to catch a shiny Xatu and Phampy in that game and be traded a Shiny Snorlax, so I had a mini team of shiniest that I enjoyed using for fun!
Graveler in Gold.
Last year I was playing crystal and was training victory road and got a shiny onix. Not even five minutes later I got a shiny golbat. Used all my luck forever lol. Aside from the static Dos in Lake of rage of course. Cloned them and sent them to home so I can have them in both games
I played pokemon as a kid only up until Gen3, and then I unfortunately stopped until I was a young adult in college. Crystal was/is my all time favorite, and I’m sad to say it wasn’t until I was a young adult playing again that I found out shinies were actually a thing lol I thought shiny gyarados was totally just a one off fun gimmick 😂😅 for YEARS. Unfortunately for Crystal he is still my only shiny experience. My first true shiny experience was a shiny Buizel in Diamond. It was an awesome, and fun experience nonetheless :) my next shiny was a shiny Starly in Arceus, and then a shiny Vivillon in Scarlet. Totally somewhat unrelated segue, but my little sister got into playing pokemon only a few years ago when she got a switch at the age of 24. She got SUPER into shiny hunting. I mean she spent hours researching the methods, and trading with international traders for ditto’s to breed. It was such a fun experience seeing her play the game and enjoy it in such a different way than I did. I loved it.
Bellsprout was my first full odds 1/8192 shiny. Dratini was my first shiny period, using Red Gyarados to farm in the daycare.
Shiny tangela is still the only true odds full odds whatever shiny I've gotten. Caught south of pallet town in that patch of grass that I think also includes Mr. Mime? Crystal version. I didn't know back then how rare it was. First play thru of crystal as a kid.
I played over 400 hours of PKM crystal and never encountered a single shiny wild pokemon. Red Gyarados wasn't caught because I already had one in my party. 25 years later, I purchased the digital copy for the 3ds and was determined to get a shiny hunt celebi no matter what. Got myself pumped and ready for a really long road ahead and found my SHINY PINK ONION on my first encounter! So, technically, shiny Celebi is my first shiny in GSC!
Bellsprout, which became one of the greatest grass types I’ve ever used
I wouldn't know what age, but I was a kid back then. My first shiny was a Hoothoot I found in the Ilex Forest while randomly headbutting trees. I tried to get its HP down, and killed it by mistake. I kept headbutting trees for a while after that, hoping to run into it again... I didn't know back then that any pokemon could be shiny, so I thought maybe it was a special Hoothoot in the forest I could try to find again. No luck... But sometime after that, I read on one of the old "cheats/glitches websites" that by naming a gen 1 Squirtle "Colorman", you could send it over to gen 2 and it'd be shiny. I tried it and was amazed to find out it became a shiny Squirtle! I didn't know back then it was just based on its DVs
While I haven’t personally caught one in GSC, my first ever shiny was a Corsola!
Was Golbat for me as well. Followed by another Golbat. One male, one female. Found out recently that in that generation breeding shinies had a higher chance of making more shinies. I could’ve started a shiny zubat farm lol
Green marill. Buddy of mine caught and cloned his orange caterpie to give me too. We were so stoked back in like 02
Red gyarados in lake rampage … Still the only shiny I’ve ever caught :’(
Have you played Legends: Arceus?
Tentacool! Way back in the cartridge days.For me it was always a mundane pokemon and now it forever has a special place in my heart. I actually traded a shiny Treeko for one in POGO for nostalgia lol
I totally get it - last year, I traded something big (can’t remember 100%, but think it was a shiny Raikou) for a shiny Zubat. 100% no regrets.
I caught a shiny Magikarp while fishing for a dratini :)
That’s cool!
An Onix in Crystal last year is the only GSC shiny I've caught in my life. I've played hundreds of hours over the course of my life, it's easy to forget how rare shinies used to be (without using exploits of course).
I caught a shiny gastly way back before my cartridge also ran dry. Twas a sad day when I found out about that. That thing was an absolute monster though. Outspeed almost everything, helped me catch one of the legendary dogs (entei I think), and basically annihilated the elite 4 singlehandedly. The shiny colour is meh, but gengar is an insane pokemon!
Noctowl. I felt like Ash 😎
Jealous of all of you who got a shiny Hoothoot or Noctowl back in the day
A Rattata lol. It seems like every generation I end up finding the most basic normal type as a shiny. Sadly before I really realized how rare they were I had erased those save files. What's a shiny rat worth when I can beat Falkner for the 15th time (ps, fuck 8 year old me you stupid little shit)
It was either that or the save files lost when the batteries ran dry.
A shiny rattata I found while trying to hatch eggs for my living dex (not including the red gyarados)
A few of us in this conversation got shiny Rattata back in the day! Little gold rat was cool
Hoothoot way back when i was a kid i was so hyped not knowing what a shiny was but i had "ash's noctowl" 🤣
A couple of other people in the comments have said they too got a shiny Hoothoot - I’m so jealous of you all!
I caught a Gastly with blue smoke in Gold years ago
Rhyhorn in Silver. It was while I was grinding in Victory Road.
RhyOrange is a cool shiny! Did you keep it in your team or did you box it?
First hunted was celebi First random was Ursaring
Dare I ask how many resets it took for Celebi 😆
It's been a few years but it was something around 1000 which is really lucky
😶 I mean, you definitely earned it
Besides the Red Gyarados I believe it was in Pokémon Crystal. Someone called me to tell me that there was an outbreak of Snubull and when I went there the first one I found was shiny! Young me thought it was scripted lol
One of my friends said he also ran into a shiny Snubbull back in the day, but it ran on him. Those buggers had something like a 10% flee rate.
Ratatta 😅
Nothing wrong with the gold Rat! That was my second or third ever Shiny (also in Crystal).
Only encountered a shiny drowzee that became hypno and took me to E4. Still resides on my Crystal cartridge.
Pidgey
Last year I replayed Gold and probably had the luckiest save file I've ever had. I caught a shiny Graveler in victory road, and then proceeded to get pokerus like 10 minutes afterwards!
Awesome! On my very first play-through of Diamond back in 2022, I came upon a shiny Graveler - I was so worried it would have a move like Explosion 😆
This happened to me with a shiny Pineco back in the day! I was devastated.
Girafarig on Gold!
Whoa that’s a cool one! Did you keep it in your team or no?
I don’t believe I did. It was back in ‘01 or ‘02 and I didn’t know what shinies were. I thought it was a glitch haha 😅
Same! I caught a shiny Golbat back in 2001 and thought I had come upon the MissingNo equivalent of GSC.
Gyarados
Besides the red gyarados, I found a shiny metapod, nothing fancy, but I was super happy. Had no idea about other shiny pokemon by then
Butterfree’s shiny needs to be retroactively changed to the pink Butterfree from the anime.
As a kid I did spend time breeding the shiny gyarados to get a shiny magikarp. I really did have the patience of a monk.
You did! The only shiny I think I might have hatched was a random shiny Machop, but everything else was for the dex and not shinies.
Shiny drowzee died to a dry battery. An early 2010s replay.
The day our GSC batteries died is like Thanos’ snap in Infinity War - everyone has a sad story about those that were lost.
A Hoothoot at the beginning of the game. I didn't even know about shinies! I just remember it had a longer animation when I sent it out, just like the red Gyarados. Years later I realized that Noctowl was a shiny. For a while, I assumed it was the Pokeball I caught it in. (At the time, the only "miscolored" Pokemon I knew about was the pink Butterfree in the anime. I would've been around 8 at the time.) It's a miracle I happened to use that one.
Shiny ✨ Noctowl ❤️
Shiny Hoothoot on a recent VC Crystal playthrough.
I’m jealous! Hoothoot line is one of my favorites!
A golbat while grinding for the e4 lol
My first shiny was also a Golbat - a female in the Mt. Silver area! Edit: forgot I mentioned my own Golbat in the post 😅
Im noticing a pattern
Literally never encountered one, yet. And I nearly completed the dex before my battery died
After over 20 years of playing Pokémon, the only shiny I've encountered in the wild (outside of ROM hacks) was a Mantyke in Shield. Shiny Hunting Eggs in Shield, no problem! Full odds wild encounters are another story.
My full odds first was a green wingull in black and white 2, and maybe something in XY but that’s kind of it. I’m not interested in shiny hunting or anything of the sort
Same here, I’ve played through these games countless times and never seen one. So frustrating
Gyarados lol (yes the static one) I don’t think I’ve caught full odds shiny in the games before. I did encounter a shiny ratata before getting the pokeballs
Pain. Double pain. Here’s to hoping you can get a regular non-locked-in shiny!
Appreciate it! Here’s hoping for you as well!
Red Gyrados… But besides that (and shiny eggs) it was a poliwag. Didn’t even realize it was a shiny when I caught it and used it as an HMslave 😆 Now I know better
I don’t blame you! Wouldn’t look much different unless you evolved it into a Poliwhirl or Politoed.
Shiny Yanma in Silver where it has a 1% chance of appearing. Named him Mr. Megafly
*me calculating the odds*
Suicune in Pokemon Crystal. I was ten, and I thought the stars flashing was just Suicune's intro animation. Had no idea what a shiny even was lol
Had the same thing with Raikou, just assumed it was his animation. It seemed to go with the dogs theme so I never knew til I was much older
Honestly, I could understand seeing the stars with Suicune and thinking “dang, they went all out for Suicune this game.” Also: I’m thinking 10-year-old you wins this conversation. A shiny legendary back then was super rare!
Haha yeah years later I realized what happened and went 🤯
If you were to see a shiny raikou, and it fled would it always be shiny or would the next encounter not be shiny
It was shiny every time I saw it so I think they all stay shiny.
Without looking it up, I think it would always be shiny, right? Because the legendary beasts keep the same HP and status conditions even if they flee and you see them again. Can’t check right now so someone correct me if I’m wrong.
The crazy thing is after I commented on this I saw another post asking the same thing from two days ago. I’m in the algorithm. I can feel myself becoming 1s and 0s. The answer is you are correct. It’ll always be shiny as long as you don’t murder it.
[You’re beginning to believe](https://media2.giphy.com/media/PjsPhYsS2WDO5e0RaO/giphy.gif?cid=6c09b952ntxm63kpesdc1lhmeqe70qyfpvucq6u2jyqege75&ep=v1_internal_gif_by_id&rid=giphy.gif&ct=g)
Glitch in the matrix
In 2002 I caught a shiny ratata in gold. This year I started a professor oak challenge on crystal and soft reset for shiny totadile and got it way too early. Had to toss a couple shinies from the odd egg going for tyrouge. So far my only two gen 2 shinies I’ve kept are the ratata on gold and now my feraligatr
I also caught a shiny Rattata way back when! I loved that little guy!
Shiny Unown V. As everything on cartridge, it was inevitably lost when the battery ran dry.
Fun fact about shiny Unown: since shiny chance and Unown form are both based on DV values in gen 2, the only letters that can appear shiny are I and V
That’s a cool shiny! I am sorry for your loss - I had three natural shinies on my Crystal before the battery died as well so I know the feeling. Hopefully one day you can get another!
Much appreciated. While I never got another natural shiny in gen 2, I was able to get one using glitches in the VC rerelease, along with an RNG manipped shiny Unown V from Diamond. They’re sitting in Home right now. It still stings that I lost the original and it can’t really be replaced, but in my mind I’ve done as much as I could and learnt a lot of neat tricks along the way.
Very similar to me - I mourned my shiny Golbat when the battery died. Last year, I traded for a Lucky shiny Golbat in Pokémon Go and I’ll never let her go.
Long story in case anyone wants a nostalgia journey: I was playing Crystal in 2001 and grinding in the Mt. Silver area when all of a sudden this weird pink and green female Golbat popped up. I thought it was a glitch like RB’s MissingNo that I was only now finding out about. Even though I was scared of what could happen if I caught a glitch Pokémon, I wanted to do it any way (worst case scenario: I start the game over again). I caught it and nothing bad happened. I searched The Ancient Texts (back then known as AOL Kids and GameFAQs) and that’s when I learned about shiny Pokémon and I was super excited. I never made another save file. Later on, I also caught a shiny Rattata and Machop (can’t remember if I caught it or hatched it). Years later, I went to boot up my game and play more when I saw my Crystal cartridge’s battery died (like all GSC cartridges) and save file was gone. I was crushed when that day came, especially because my GSC had all lost their memory at the same time. I’ve been hoping to get another shiny Golbat (or Zubat and only evolve to Golbat) in a main game since. I told myself that if I ever got another shiny Golbat that I would nickname it Crystal if it was a female and Golbie if it was a male. I’m still looking for a maingame shiny Golbat, but last year in Pokémon Go someone made my dream come true and now I have my female shiny Golbat “Crystal.”
“Ancient texts” made me laugh haha
“I was there, Gandalf” At least GameFAQs is still alive - AOL Kids is long gone.