Turns Out, Shiny Pokémon Aren't As Special As Everyone Thought

were released around the world between 1999 and 2000, and they introduced a small feature that has appeared in every single mainline game that has followed. It quickly gathered a following and has a thriving community even today. This feature would also become the cornerstone of in-game Wi-Fi events and distributions — it's a simple color palette swap for Pokémon, followed by a glisten at the start of battle. Shiny Pokémon, or Shinies, are highly sought after and extremely popular despite the fact that they don't boast stat or performance boosts.

Every Pokémon from the 1025 that are available, as of, has its unique Shiny variant, despite some Shinies remaining unobtainable. Shinies have changed in appearance over the generations but remain faithful to their initial concept. They don't have any distinct moves, IVs, abilities, or natures. However, they are exceedingly rare, with most players not encountering them. This isn't necessarily the case nowadays, though, and some might feel that Shinies are becoming less valuable.

From Generation 3 onwards, Shiny Pokémon are determined by three numbers, two of which aren't exposed to the player. This includes the personality value of the Pokémon (a number from 0 to 4,294,967,295), the trainer ID (TID) of the player (a 5-digit number), and the secret ID (SID) of the player (a hidden 5-digit number that was changed to 6 digits from Generation 7, onward.). The game assigns the trainer a TID & SID when a save file is created. A Pokémon's personality value is generated when the Pokémon is created.

These numbers are values created by the game's pseudo-random number generator at different stages in the game.

A detailed explanation of the calculations used by the game to determine if a Pokémon is Shiny can be found on Bulbapedia. To simplify the calculations, the chance to organically find a Shiny Pokémon is 1/8192, or 0.012%. Shiny odds were doubled in Generation 6 to 1/4096, or 0.024%, giving the current base odds in modern