The release of Pokémon Scarlet and Violet brings with it a return of one of Pokémon’s most enduring pastimes along with a new trick to aid trainers in their hunt. Shiny Pokémon, introduced in Generation 2, have become a popular post-game hunting activity for fans of the franchise, their rarity and altered color palettes proving enticing for trainers to capture and claim as their own. Following series tradition, Pokémon Scarlet and Violet brings back the Shiny Pokémon hunt while also offering new, helpful mechanics.
Previous Pokémon games have included some form of visual indicator of a Shiny Pokémon beyond the different colored appearance of the Pokémon itself. This was usually indicated by an icon of some kind in games like Pokémon Legends: Arceus, in which the Pokémon themselves roam freely. Pokémon Scarlet and Violet expand on the open world concept, but the newest titles remove the visual indicator. However, a new feature introduced in Scarlet and Violet can be used to help detect the Shiny Pokémon.
Scarlet & Violet’s Let’s Go Feature Is The New Shiny Pokémon Indicator
Pokémon Scarlet and Violet’s Shiny Pokémon can be readily detected with the game’s new Let’s Go mechanic. The Let’s Go feature allows players to bring out their lead Pokémon to walk alongside them, fetch items, or attack other Pokémon in the wild. This mechanic can be used to clear a field quickly at the cost of half of the experience points being rewarded, but if a wild Pokémon happens to be a Shiny, your partner Pokémon will refuse to attack, preventing an accidental knockout and indicating the Shiny status to a player before engaging in an encounter.
Pokémon Scarlet & Violet’s Let’s Go Changes Shiny Hunting
Shiny Pokémon are identifiable in the wild only if the trainer recognizes their alternate colors on sight. As Scarlet and Violet didn’t fix the Pokémon series’ worst Shiny problem, several Pokémon have Shiny versions that closely resemble their original palette, creating an unnecessary difficulty in telling a Shiny apart from the original. Using the Let’s Go feature to scout Shiny Pokémon in the wild is a method that potentially circumvents that difficulty, making it easier for players to recognize the Shiny Pokémon in the wild. It also saves Shiny hunters a lot of time, saving them from engaging with every Pokémon in an area just to check for Shinies.
The inability for players to easily recognize Shiny Pokémon is discouraging for trainers looking to engage in their post-game pastime. Despite the existence of exploits for capturing Shinies in Scarlet and Violet, not being able to recognize when one of the incredibly rare Pokémon makes itself known at a glance would make the entire hunt a futile effort. The Let’s Go feature’s ability to detect a Shiny Pokémon alleviates the worry of missing out on the Shiny Pokémon’s appearance, but in the long run, it is only a band-aid to a wider problem in the Shiny Pokémon hunt in Generation 9.
Using the Let’s Go feature to detect Shiny Pokémon in Gen 9 is a convenient solution that mitigates an annoyance that hampers one of the Pokémon series’ traditional post-game pastimes. The lack of audio or visual indicators for a Shiny Pokémon before a proper encounter is triggered makes spotting one a more arduous task coupled with the extremely subtle changes among some of Pokémon’s worst Shinies. The lack of any additional indicator makes the hunt especially trying for any trainers who may be colorblind, making the detection of certain Shiny Pokémon all but impossible. These issues all bring unnecessary hurdles to Shiny hunting for even the most experienced of trainers, but the introduction of the Let’s Go feature in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet provides players a workaround to ease the hunt and directly involving their own Pokémon on the adventure.
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