The Twitch streamer Max “Trymacs” Stemmler tried to catch a specific type of Pokémon for over 140 hours, only to not recognize it in a real situation.
What are Shinies? In Pokémon games, in addition to the normally colored version of the pocket monsters, there exists a shiny variant of the Pokémon, known as a Shiny. The colors of this monster look different, but otherwise, the two versions are not further distinguishable.
Trymacs took on the challenge a few weeks ago to complete a run of Pokémon Soul Silver using only shiny Pokémon. However, he first had to catch them. The chance of encountering Shinies in the edition he played is 1:8,192 (according to PokéWiki), which led to Trymacs saying he goes to bed “broken” every night.
After 143 hours, he managed to catch a total of two Shinies but was still in the first area. Since then, it seems Trymacs has paused the challenge for the time being. Instead, he has recently turned to Soul Link challenges with his colleagues Rumathra and Chefstrobel.
“I think I have some kind of passive”
Trymacs does not recognize Shiny: When the three have to restart their Soul Link challenge once again, Trymacs encounters a shiny Cerapendra. This one is not purple and pink like the original, but shines red.
Soul Link Challengein Pokémon is a Nuzlocke variant for two players, where the caught Pokémon of both players are linked together. If one player’s Pokémon is defeated in battle, the Pokémon associated with the other player is also considered
defeatedand must also be removed from the team.
Trymacs enters his first battle, and an animation is triggered: Glitter particles shimmer to symbolize the Shiny. The Twitch streamer sees this and comments: “I think I have some kind of passive.” (Source: Twitch.tv).
This refers to a passive ability. However, such a thing does not exist in the Pokémon edition that the Twitch streamers are playing. Pokémon inherently have an ability that acts passively in battle, but no additional one, as Trymacs suspected here. Furthermore, abilities are not visually represented.
His Twitch chat finally points out to him that the Pokémon is a shiny one. Trymacs is very surprised: “Am I shiny!? That’s why I was glowing! That’s not a passive.” (Source: Twitch.tv).
Only then does Trymacs notice the other colors: The body of the Pokémon is bright red with turquoise accents, unlike the actual version. He assesses the Pokémon: “This is a crazier Shiny than in my Shiny run.” (Source: Twitch.tv).
Is the Shiny useful? Shiny Pokémon do not have any special advantages; they just look different. However, there is a small advantage in a Nuzlocke challenge.
There is the option to introduce the Shiny rule in his challenge run. In a Nuzlocke played solo, a Shiny Pokémon can always be kept, even if a Pokémon has already been caught in the section.
In a Soul Link run, two (or in this case three) Pokémon are linked together by the players. Here, a Shiny can be swapped and take the place of one of the Pokémon.
However, Trymacs did not really get to make use of this rule. The run had to end shortly thereafter because one of the Twitch streamers was knocked out with his Pokémon.
Currently, Pokémon games are in a kind of hype among German Twitch streamers. More and more are taking on difficult challenges. Thus, a game on Twitch was able to become very big, even though it is from 2004: A Pokémon game grows on Twitch by 1,200% as German streamers suffer in it
