What are shiny Pokemon in ‘Pokemon Go’? (Niantic)
Shiny Pokemon have been released in Pokemon Go. So what is it that’s so special about these creatures, and why should players want them?
The shiny Pokemon are not actually inherently more powerful than their less shiny counterparts. In fact, the early evidence suggests that there’s really no link between a Pokemon’s shininess and its individual values.
Really, the shiny Pokemon are just cool looking and are valuable due to their rarity.
Shiny Pokemon date back to the second generation of Pokemon, and it seems that at least part of the reason for their creation was to show off the graphics of the Game Boy Color; at that point, the previous Pokemon game had been in black and white.
In the games, a shiny Pokemon tends to also have shining stars surrounding it, and it often makes a unique sound effect upon being captured. When they were first introduced, a Pokemon being shiny meant that it was more high powered than usual, but that does not appear to be the case in Pokemon Go.
For the most part, shiny Pokemon have a color that is dramatically different than its non-shiny counterpart, so the shiny creatures really stands out. Unlike what the name suggests, it is not simply the same looking Pokemon but with a shiny glow to it. For example, the shiny version of Magikarp is gold, and the shiny version of Gyarados is red.
There’s not much you can do to increase your changes of finding a shiny Pokemon in Pokemon Go. Rather, you just have to be lucky, and catching a shiny Pokemon will come as a nice, random surprise every now and then. You’ll want to make sure to catch every single Magikarp and Gyarados you see if you don’t do so already. After all, you won’t be able to tell whether the given Pokemon is shiny by looking at your map and nearby tracker; the Pokemon will appear normal colored on these screen and will only reveal itself to be shiny during your battle.