New Pokemon Titles Bring a New Way to Hunt Shinies

PokÃ©mon: Let’s Go, Pikachu! and PokÃ©mon: Let’s Go, Eevee! are role-playing video games developed by Game Freak and published by The PokÃ©mon Company and Nintendo for the Nintendo Switch.

These are the first PokÃ©mon titles to come to the Switch. Now these titles aren’t the Gen 8 people including myself were hoping for but oh boy these games are amazing.

These titles take you back to Kanto with the original 151 PokÃ©mon and does so beautifully I’m not just talking about the visuals which are superb, I’m talking about Game freak keeping everything almost identical to the original games we started with from the placement of the building to even the NPC’s and dialogue. Don’t forget to check out the other article about PokÃ©mon: Let’s Go,Pikachu! and PokÃ©mon: Let’s Go, Eevee! Which goes deeper into these games.

Now if you’ve been playing PokÃ©mon for as long as I have which is forever we all know about shiny PokÃ©mon in these games. The different colored pokes that give off a sparkle which makes you scream in joy because you’ve spent the last 8 hours hunting it. Yes, those PokÃ©mon.

Various shiny hunting methods are known so far for generations 1 to 7 such as the DV Method, Full odds hunting, Soft resets, Masuda Method (which was my favorite until recently, I’ll get to why later) The Friend Safari, Poke radar Chaining, DexNav,Hoard hunting, SOS Chaining and the Ultra Wormholes.

PokÃ©mon: Let’s Go, Pikachu! and PokÃ©mon: Let’s Go, Eevee! Switches things around more than a little when it comes to hunting shiny PokÃ©mon.

Game Freak took inspiration from past generations when it comes to shiny hunting. Similar to SOS chaining, players can now perform a system called Catch Chain, which leads to Catch Chain Combos which lets players focus on hunting for one species’ shiny or one with high Individual Values. Once players catch a certain number of a PokÃ©mon in a row, which is referred to as Catch Chain Combos which unlock certain bonuses, including increased shiny odds and high IVs.

Being a shiny hunter myself I’ve had a long time to experiment with this so called Catch Chain Combo method and I can safely say this is the most fun I’ve had in years hunting for shinies.

I mostly used to be a Masuda Method fan where I would collect eggs from the day care, hop on a bike and just ride back and forth hatching them until I lost my sanity or a shiny popped out, Don’t get me wrong, I have plenty of shinies from the past games using the Masuda Method but would I go back to it if the Catch Chain Combo Method is available? I guess not.

The Catch Chain Method is mostly you catching a single PokÃ©mon over and over again until you have a chain of 31. After you’ve reached that 31 combo milestone your chances of getting competitive IV’s for that PokÃ©mon increases and also increases the chance of a shiny PokÃ©mon to pop up be it that certain one, or any other PokÃ©mon. You can just reach the Catch Combo of 31 and simply stand there and use lures to make them spawn faster, accelerating the amount of PokÃ©mon spawns thus increasing your chance of shinies. And all the extra PokÃ©mon you had to catch to rack up that Combo meter can be sent to Prof. Oak who will give you candies in return which you can use to EV train your PokÃ©mon.

You can even go to a different town or to the guard houses found between towns to refresh the location increasing your chances to find a shiny further.

Now yes, the PokÃ©mon you’re chaining will have a higher chance to be a shiny, plus any other PokÃ©mon you are not chaining can end up being shiny as well. This happened multiple times when I was shiny hunting myself. I reached a CatchChain Combo of 31 for Pidgey but later on a shiny Oddish popped out, But hey a shiny is a shiny after all no complaints from me. Below are the numbers you need to know about the Catch Combos excluding the shiny charm of course. And of course a random full odds shiny might just pop up like the picture below just when you start comboing if you’re lucky enough.

Catch Combo 1-10: 0 Perfect IVs and a1/4,096 shiny chance
Catch Combo 11-20: 2 Perfect IVs and a 1/1024 shiny chance
Catch Combo 21-30: 3 Perfect IVs and a 1/512 shiny chance
Catch Combo 31+: 4 Perfect IVs and 1/341.3 shiny chance

Of course you have the traditional full odds method available of course which includes lots of refreshing the location until a shiny pops out, But the Catch Chain Method to me is more fun and a lot faster. The fact that you can see shinies in the over world without having to engage them speeds things up a lot as well. The different color accompanied by heavy sparkles will tell you that’s a shiny.

Now this chain is far from unbreakable. The ways you can break your Catch Chain Combo is

There’s also a type of “cheat” if you will that you can use. you can “cheat”a bit if you’re just hunting for rare PokÃ©mon by Catch Comboing a common PokÃ©mon which is easier to catch on one route, then going to a route with rarer PokÃ©mon and hunting until you find something powerful like a Charizard.

Of course if you leave the shiny hunting for after you finish your Pokedex then you can use the shiny charm which you obtain from Celedon City after completing your pokedex which further increases the chances of you getting a shiny.

And last but not the least comes the time when you want a shiny legendary. Soft resetting is something that has never been changed for legendaries in PokÃ©mon games. Now for the legendaries in Lets Go you soft reset just like all the previous games.

And of course the only other things you’ll need to get yourself a shiny is luck and patience. Shiny hunting is no easy task, especially if luck decides to take a vacation. Some people get a shiny in 10 mins some people get one in 10 hours and yes I am not exaggerating at all. I have personal experience. Good things never come easy, especially shiny PokÃ©mon. Happy hunting trainers!