Ok well i've completed the metallic games several times now and im currently on Crystal trying to get as much of the pokedex complete as i can, but in SHINY FORM. Completing the pokedex isnt that hard, with the exception of celebi who i CANNOT officially obtain without a gameshark, and also getting up to level 100 isn't hard either, its just takes a long time.

Anyway, i've clocked up around 180 hours on this save file and i did the process of trading back shiny gyarados to yellow and caught myself a shiny ditto. i am now using him to try and breed as many shiny pokemon as i can. But this is where it starts to get frustrating... I have so far hatched 15 charmander eggs and 21 cyndaquil eggs and have still yet to achieve a lvl 5 shiny baby...

Is there something i'm doing wrong? Coz i know for a fact that the chances of getting a shiny in g/s/c by breeding are much higher than in newer versions such as r/s/e and fr/lg. But i mean come on ive hatched a total of 36 eggs and not ONE of them has been shiny??? i thought the odds of getting a shiny, if one parent was shiny, was like 1/64...???

Then i got slightly curious checking over the picdex on psypoke. OK there are shiny pics for gold and silver but where is the shiny picture for crystal???? Does this mean that you can't get shiny pkmn in Crystal or what??? I'm confused! Help would be great thanks; and any advice on trying to breed shinies without getting totally stressed out

Here's what Wikipedia says:

Shiny Pokémon

A red Gyarados, the most commonly known shiny Pokémon. Gyarados are usually blue.A Shiny Pokémon is an alternately colored variant of a Pokémon. They can be caught in any Pokémon RPG from Gold and Silver onwards, though the probability of catching or finding one is 1 in 8,192. The one major exception to this rule is the shiny Red Gyarados present in the Lake of Rage in the Pokémon Gold, Silver, and Crystal games. Also, in Crystal, the Egg given to players by the Day-Care people has a 50% chance of hatching a shiny Pokémon. Otherwise, contrary to rumor, there are no ways of increasing the chance of getting shiny Pokémon.

Shiny Pokémon are not necessarily better than regular Pokémon, although in Gold, Silver, and Crystal, they have better-than-average individual values. In the GBA generation, however, "shininess" is determined by another value, and shiny Pokémon are not effectively stronger than any other Pokémon in battle. Most fans consider shiny Pokémon to be collectors' items since they are so rare.

The term "shiny" is not explicitly stated in the games, and it is in fact a term invented by the Pokémon fan community due to the flash of stars appearing as the Pokémon enters a battle, unintentionally implying a sheen or crystalline property to the colors of the Pokémon. This minor animation was originally intended so that one could identify a Pokémon was shiny even if playing Gold and Silver on a monochrome Game Boy.[citation needed] The term "shiny Pokémon" is not officially acknowledged in English media, although it seems to be a widely-used slang term in Japan; Ken Sugimori uses it in the title of a piece of artwork featuring a shiny Charizard. "Alt. Color" does appear among the options the player can choose filling out forms in the third generation of games.

Since first-generation games do not recognize shiny Pokémon, there is no distinction unless the Pokémon is traded to a later version.

In second-generation games, two Shiny Pokémon cannot breed, due to compatibility being partly determined by individual values, which are similar with every Shiny Pokémon. However breeding a Shiny Pokémon with a regular Pokémon in the second-generation, has a higher chance (1 in 64) of producing a shiny Pokémon. On all later versions, breeding a shiny Pokémon has the same chance of getting another shiny Pokémon as finding one in the wild.

NOTE that last paragraph talking about the second generation having an increased chance of obtaining a shiny pokemon...

I didnt know that about Crystal. I never knew that the egg had a 50% chance of being shiny. As a matter of fact...it has been so long since I played that I dont remember what it was that hatched...

great advice DNA, lol. rather just making points more like...