The shiny hunt has become a whole new kind of game for many Pokémon fans, adding another major challenge that can eat up hundreds of hours. Even a fan who completed a shiny collection for years, which does not relate to the monsters of the game, would agree.
What makes shinies so unusual? In the shiny hunt of player @Noa_Kyogre, the fan is not trying to collect rare Pokémon, but outfits. They ultimately achieved this after more than 5 years in the spin-off “Pokémon Battle Revolution”, which was released in 2006 for the Wii.
Battle Revolution is a pure battle simulator, which gained popularity mainly due to the design of the battles, despite lacking exploration and Pokémon hunting: there is a voiced battle commentator, battle animations, and it reminded players of the kind of battles seen in the anime.
Even though you can’t catch monsters in this Pokémon spin-off, it still offered the challenge of the shiny hunt. Because after a successful battle with a final trainer, you receive the outfits that they wear. And just like with the monsters, the costumes also have a chance of obtaining a rare coloration.
How difficult was this challenge that this trainer set for themselves? To understand how difficult this challenge really was, you have to consider the following:
- The probability of getting a shiny costume, based on the catch rate of shiny Pokémon (before Generation 6), is 1:8,192, which is 0.0122 %.
- The fastest time to start a costume attempt is 10–15 minutes (based on the experience of a player on Reddit).
- Overall, if you count the trainers from the Japanese and international versions of the game, there are 12 trainer costumes for which you can obtain the shiny variant.
Assuming that a shiny attempt takes 10 minutes at best and is successful after an average of 8,192 attempts, around 1,365 hours are needed for a shiny outfit. If you multiply this by 12 for each shiny outfit, you end up with approximately 16,384 hours, which is 683 days or almost 2 years – of pure gameplay time!
What does the fan say about their success? After over 5 years of work, @Noa_Kyogre proudly posts the result of their shiny hunt on X:
“What the hell,” writes @Eizzah__, “you’re legendary!” But @RickyPDillon also thinks: “That’s so cool! I didn’t even know these existed!”
In response to congratulations from several fans, however, the player reveals one thing they are absolutely sure of: “Never again!!!!!!!” (@Noa_Kyogre on X)
Even in other games, players recognize that the grind for a special challenge may not always be worth it. Similar to the shiny hunter in Pokémon Battle Revolution, a streamer and YouTuber also had to learn this, who has mastered one of the rarest challenges in ARC Raiders: “I temporarily ruined my life” – player spends 300 hours in ARC Raiders for something only 14 people own
