SHINY POKEMON

During your video game epic that is Pokemon, you may encounter a Pokemon whose color scheme looks different from its normal version. Congratulate yourself, for you have just encountered a shiny Pokemon.

A shiny Pokemon is like a trophy; while it is not any stronger than its normal version, the fact that you have one is pretty cool. The chances of finding a shiny Pokemon is 1 in 8192. That's a 0.0122% chance of finding one! Don't bother breeding for one either, as the chances of receiving a shiny egg are just as slim. Because of this, there is no reason to go hunting for a "shiny" like you would hunt for Latios. Doing so is a waste of time, as, theoretically, you have to encounter eight thousand Pokemon to see just ONE shiny! Make a better use of your life and pray for luck instead.

If you have time and want to go shiny hunting, here are some tips:

- Always carry Pokéballs with you. As previously said, you never know when you are going to come across a shiny. If you've found one, it would really be a bummer to not be able to catch it.
- Pokemon that have set locations are easier to find shiny. These Pokemon never change locations, so you'll always find THAT specific Pokemon, thus reducing wasted time. For example, the three starters (at the beginning of the game), Kyogre, Groudon, Rayquaza, etc.
- Looking for a specific shiny in the open wild is like looking for a needle in a haystack. Make that a really big haystack. Because you cannot control what you are going to encounter in the grass, sea, or cave, you never know which Pokemon that you run across will be shiny. Honestly, this type of shiny hunting isn't worth it; don't make Pokemon a tedious activity.
- If you run across one shiny legendary, you will always run across a shiny legendary. In other words, if you have found a shiny legendary that runs away, such as Latias or Latios, the Pokemon will remain shiny the next time you see it. If you run across a shiny Latios, don't worry that you'll never see him again; just battle him as usual, and make sure to save RIGHT AFTER the encounter.
- There are no tricks or cheats to get shiny Pokemon (excluding Action Replay), so if you've heard that if you fly to Celadon City five hundred times and push the truck off of the old man, you will get a shiny, don't believe it. Finding a shiny depends solely on one's determination and luck.

For those interested, the exact probability of encountering a shiny Pokemon is calculated as follows. The game generates four random numbers ranging from 0 to 65535. These are represented as binary numbers, 16 bits in length. The bitwise operation "exclusive or" is performed on each of the numbers, resulting in a single binary number in the range 0 to 65535. If this number is less than 8, the Pokemon is shiny. Hence the probability of this occuring is 8/65536 or 1/8192.

Furthermore, the two trainer ID numbers (one visible appearing on the menu's trainer card, the other invisible and unknown to the player) makes up two of the four random numbers. While these values remain static throughout the entire game, the other two random numbers are calculated when you encounter the Pokemon in the wild, when you hatch a Pokemon, or when you pick up the Pokemon as a gift (as with the starters). Thus, shinyness is no longer determined by deter values (It was in Gold, Silver and Crystal) and it is therefore possible to have a shiny Pokemon with maximum DVs.

Now that you know more about the mystery of the elusive shiny Pokemon, your epic quest to catch them all will be that much more exciting. Who knows what your next wild Pokemon will be?

All credit goes to swift53 for this guide