It’s been a little more than a year since my last post, wherein I ostensibly reached the end of my “Grand Ambition.” Shortly after, I completed the National PokeDex in OmegaRuby, registering all 721 known Pokemon at that point. Upon hitting that milestone, my interest cooled. I continued popping into Sun to claim each new distribution, but nothing more.

Well, a few weeks ago I started playing OmegaRuby again, finally setting out to obtain some shiny Pokemon. My first target was Charmander.

As a reward for completing the National Dex in OmegaRuby, I received the Shiny Charm, an item which increased the likelihood of encountering shiny Pokemon. The standard rate in this particular generation is 1/4096. That is, each encounter, in the wild or by hatching an egg, has a 1/4096 chance of a shiny Pokemon appearing. Pretty dire odds… The Shiny Charm increases this rate to 3/4096, or roughly 1/1365. There are ways to further increase the odds though, such as breeding Pokemon from different regions – the Masuda Method. In doing so, and if in possession of the Shiny Charm, the odds the breeding Pokemon produce shiny offspring is increased to 8/4096, or 1/512. Regardless, they’re still very rare.

Unfortunately, I didn’t keep track of my progress, but I got my shiny Charmander after 150-200 eggs! I’d say that was maybe ten hours of playtime, spread out over a dozen or so sessions.

Wanting to “properly” train him, even though I don’t intend on playing competitively, I went down the rabbit hole of individual values and effort values… which is an overwhelming topic for another day.

Next target… SHUCKLE!