Okay, take two! I did a very terrible 'Shiny post' a couple of years back, after Generation VII, and... it wasn't a particularly good series of articles.
So with two new generations under the belt, and Nintendo's Pokemon Home giving us art for almost every single Pokemon form out there, I now have a better and more comprehensive way to talk about every single shiny design out there. Most of the images here are taken from Serebii or PokemonDB, so thanks to them.
These will be pretty rapid-fire, and I'm grouping every single permanent evolution, alternate form, mega-evolution, gigantamax and regional form with the family they debut in so we can appreciate it all as a whole. Which means that since Generation I has had a record number of additions, this is probably going to be one of the longer articles in this series.
A quick background about Shiny Pokemon. Introduced in Generation II, there's like a 0.2% chance that any Pokemon you encounter in the wild will have its Shiny colouration -- an alternate colouration that doesn't otherwise affect anything about the Pokemon's stats, but it looks so damn cool! In theory, anyway. Up until I want to say Generation V, a lot of the Shinies were a last-minute effort or something becuase a lot of them simply move the colour shader a bit. But Shiny-hunting has always been one of the bigger hobbies in the fandom, and while I've never had the desire to Shiny-hunt... I have encountered a couple of shinies, particularly in the latest couple of games as well as Pokemon Go, where Shinies are a bit easier to spawn.
I'm not going to give scores, but here are some brief rules and notes before I start getting into the designs:
- Not all the notorious 'green' and 'pink' Shinies are bad. Some look great! It really depends on the accent colours and the specific shade used.
- I also like Shinies that look like they could actually be variants that exist in nature, as opposed to some that just look like they got into an accident with a can of paint.
- A lot of the black and gold/yellow Shinies will be looked upon favourably by me, but come on. Those are very easy cool colours.
- The worst Shinies are the ones that make me double-check and see if I pulled out the right picture. What's the point of being Shiny if you only look slightly more anemic?
- And the second-worst Shinies are the ones that change the colours and are obvious if you put them side-by-side, but it's hard to tell when you're just looking at the Shiny alone.
- Generation I-IV Shinies get a bit of a more relaxed scoring system from me because of the limitations of their debut games, but I'll still call out bullshit when I see them.
I'll include most of the alternate forms, only excluding the random, near-unnoticeable gender changes that were retroactively given to Gen I-III Pokemon by Generation IV.
With that said, let's go!
I actually do reasonably like the Shinies of the Bulbasaur line. Bulbasaur is one of those 'it's not immediately evident he's a Shiny' if I just show you the picture, but it's very obvious when they're side-by-side that his shade of gren is much lighter.
Ivysaur and the three flavours of Venusaur are far more prominent, with every pink flower changed to a nice shade of autumn yellow. It's a pretty stark contrast that makes the lighter shade of green on their skin and leaves a bit more evident.
Charizard is famously one of the Pokemon who got his Shiny changed between Generation II and III, and since it's Charizard, they make him black with blood-red wings. I can't lie, it's a badass look for Charizard, particularly since this is supposed to be a mysterious, hard-to-find variant.
Gigantamax Charizard and Mega Charizard Y follow suit with the black-and-red colouration, though this art for Y makes it a slightly lighter gray. Mega Charizard X, already coloured black with red wings, becomes a rather terrible shade of green. You'd think the obvious thing to do is to give Mega-X the regular orange colouration, wouldn't it?
Yellow Caterpie is extremely distinctive, and probably my favourite shiny in this line. Orange Metapod is all right, it's very distinctive.
Butterfree and Gigantamax Butterfree... eh. People complain that they didn't adapt the Pink Butterfree from the anime, and while that's technically our first 'Shiny' in the ancillary media, but I can understand them ont wanting to adapt it. And I'd be fine if we got something good, but... just changing the colour of Butterfree's limbs to reddish-pink and muting some of the colours... that ain't it. Not doing anything with the wings is a bit of a shame.
Weedle is one of those Shinies that makes me scratch and go pull up a picture of regular Weedle to makes ure I got the right images. You'd think they'd make Weedle green too, to match either Caterpie or its evolved Shiny forms?
Green Kakuna is whatever, but green Beedrill and green Mega Beedrill look surprisingly badass! The colouration is a bit too 'neon', admittedly, but I still really like it.
EH. This whole line really just looks like someone fucked with the contrast settings or put them on a pale filter. They don't look 'Shiny', they just look like a slight art inconsistency. The fact that the Pidgeot kinda looks like it's been pissed on doesn't help either. I own one of these in Go and I honestly didn't care much about it.
Shiny Rattata is this interesting shade of green-brown? It's not the prettiest, but rather distinctive. Shiny Raticate is bright red, which isn't its regular brown, I suppose. I find it underwhelming.
The Alolan variants have this neat shade of maroon to them. Not what I'd choose for them, but they look all right.
Eeeeeeh. They look different for sure, but Fearow is an example of those 'sickly puke green' shinies that don't work. Spearow is a bit better, mostly because he's got some additional yellow wings as contrast.
Puke-green Ekans is always rather ugly to me, though this particular Pokemon Home artwork is a bit better than the 3D sprites I've seen this as. I think I'd like it better if Shiny Ekans was a more naturalistic shade of green or something.
Yellow-golden Arbok, with those very striking blue cobra hood eyes, however, is amazing and one of my favourite Generation I shinies.
Pichu, Pikachu and Gigantamax Pikachu don't even look different side-by-side with the regular one! Disappointing and terrible. You'd think they would try and do something with their golden boy mascot's shiny, but no. Raichu's a bit better, but still disappointing.
Alolan Raichu, on the other hand, went into being completely chocolate coloured. That's extremely cute!
Ah, Shiny Sandshrew. I met you in the Safari Zone in HGSS and you ran away from me, you absolute shit. The green is okay on him. I'm a huge fan of Shiny Sandslash's bright-red spikes, too, but there's a huge missed opportunity not colouring his claws red as well.
I used to not like shiny Alolan Sandshrew and Sandslash, but I like them a fair bit better now. They exchange the colour to focus more on the cold dark blues instead of white. They're ok.
We were so close! The male and female Nidoran lines swap colours almost perfectly. Shiny Nidoran F is coloured like regular Nidoran M and vice versa. The colour palettes were already proven to work and it's thematically fun. Shiny Nidorina is coloured like regular Nidorino and... it's a 'close-enough' situation for Shiny Nidorino. Shiny Nidoking is coloured like a darker regular Nidoqueen.
...and Shiny Nidoqueen is puke-green. God damn it!
The ear-tips are green. Eh, they look different but I kind of wish their primary colouration change a bit more.
Golden Vulpix with gren ears and toetips is pretty neat. I can't tell the difference between regular and shiny Alolan Vulpix without looking it up.
But shiny Ninetales is a gorgeous shade of silver which looks absolutely haunting. The ghostly purple on shiny Alolan Ninetales is a bit close to its regular blue-white, but still equally as beautiful.
Shiny Igglybuff barely looks different. Shiny Jigglypuff and Wigglytuff basically find green contact lenses, and... it's kinda a lot less evident compared to Clefairy's green ear-tips. Wigglytuff is the most different compared to the base form, but I really honestly wished that they went for different primary colours entirely for both the pinkums.
Uhhhhh. Green Zubat and Golbat look m'eh, though I do like the red wings on Shiny Golbat. Crobat is pink instead of purple, but is another one that really looks anemic. You really want your Shinies to look different, y'know?
My first 'proper' Shiny that isn't part of a scripted event is an Oddish in Pokemon Emerald. And... they basically make every single one of them a bit more pale. Bellossom is the only one that looks different because her humanoid body goes from green to purple. I feel like the lack of contrast between shiny Oddish's body and leaves also makes it look a bit more different, but Gloom and Vileplume just look washed-out. Not changing any of the flowers is a huge loss IMO.
Paras is technically very different, but I have a hard time thinking this is a 'shiny' Paras because the anime and a lot of old circa-1998 art use this colouration for Paras. The game would subtly make Paras's body more and more orange as time goes on, and that change stuck, but 'anime Paras' here just looks natural and not 'shiny' to me.
Shiny Parasect looks appropriately more ghoulish and pale, as if the mushroom's drained even more nutrients from it.
A very pleasant pair of shinies. The shade of blue used for Venomoth is extremely pleasing, and I think blue Venomoth is one of the best shinies in this page. Venonat isn't as good, but I really like that changing the colour of his prominently large compound eyes ends up immediately making him stand out more. I guess it's because changing from red to blue is a lot more extreme than Jigglypuff's light-blue to light-green?
So all the Diglett and Dugtrio's noses become blue, and that's very evident. their main bodies just become slightly altered, though I feel it's more evident on the Alolan ones. I am very disappointed Alolan Dugtrio didn't get a hair bleach with the shininess, though.
Shit that's a lot of cats.
Ahem. Okay, Shiny Kantonian Meowth and his Gigantamax form... the feet and tail tips become pink. It's a striking change, but I didn't notice it until I pulled up a regular Meowth picture and compared them side-by side. Shiny Persian just doesn't look different.
Shiny Alolan Meowth and Persian and blue, and... that sure is neat? I guess they become Russian Blue cats?
Shiny Galarian Meowth and Perrserker go from gray to yellow. I think they're trying to homage the Kantonian Meowth colours? Doesn't look good on Galarian Meowth, but it's okay on Perrserker. The beard changing colour and the black armour pieces being kept is a nice move.
Oh! Baby-blue Psyduck is pretty! I really like him.
Shiny Golduck is... there. Just changing the highlights doesn't really make for a particularly different shiny. If I could retcon these designs, I'd make Shiny Golduck have regular Psyduck's colours.
I don't like any of these. Shiny Mankey is evidently a shiny, but he's nasty green. Shiny Primeape is puke green. And shiny Annihilape really should've changed the colour of his primary fur, honestly.
I kinda like that the regular Growlithe/Arcanine and the Hisuian Growlithe/Arcanine all end up having a yellowish-orange Shiny despite the differences of their fur coats in their regular forms. With the stripes, they kinda look like tigers! I think regular Arcanine looks the worst with the colour they picked for his fur, while the yellow highlights on Hisuian Arcanine look badass.
Shiny Poliwag is impossible to distinguish unless you put him side-by-side with his regular counterpart. Shiny Poliwhirl is a bit better.
On paper, I really like shiny Poliwrath and Politoed switching colours. It's most likely just a happy coincidence in the palette-swap algorithm, though. Shiny Poliwrath gets the worst, being a rather nasty shade of green as opposed to reular Politoed's pleasant one. Shiny Politoed's blue is cute, but I'd rather it kept its regular highlights instead of that off-pink.
I have a bunch of these in Pokemon Go. Shiny Abra and Kadabra look anemic and is one of those where you really need to compare them side-by-side with the non-shiny ones.
Shiny Alakazam and Mega Alakzam, however, have a swanky, gorgeous pink set of armour that really make them stand out very well.
Machop's just anemic, while Machoke, Machamp and Gigantamax Machamp are various shades of being green. It kinda gives the look of some kind of orc or something, which I approve... but the shade of green they pick for especially the two Machamps are so bright that it looks more like a weird radioactive monster from a 90's cartoon.
Shiny Bellsprout just looks like it's autumn, and shiny Weepinbell is straight-up disappointing. Shiny Victreebel, on the other hand... the green bell and the rusty-brown leaves are cool enough, but it's that bright-blue lipstick that really sells this Shiny to me. A surprisingly cool one!
Two excellent ones! The pastel-purple and pastel-blue on Tentacool and Tentacruel is already enough to set it apart from its regular variants, but changing the gem orb things from red to green really makes these two stand out in the best way.
Uuuhhh... yeah. Yellow Kantonian Geodude is actually very cool! I also like orange Alolan Geodude, and the Alolan Golem coloured like reular Golem. The rest, though. Shiny Graveler just looks boring, shiny Golem looks anemic, and shiny Alolan Graveler looks like a turd.
Another all-time favourite! These are all winners. Baby-blue flame Ponyta is amazing, but it can't hold a candle to the majesty of the silvery-purple flames of shiny Rapidash. You get one guaranteed specimen in Legends Arceus, which I very much appreciate!
They tone down the bright colours for Galarian Ponyta and Rapidash, but creamy white and bright green really do make for a very nice set of colours, and still keeps the whole 'they look like cotton candy' vibe of the line.
We have a lot of Slowpokes! And I'll go through the ones I like first. Both Slowbro and Mega Slowbro becoming pastel purple is a very nice variant, and I like that the shell becomes a chrome-y gold. Galarian Slowbro somehow goes one step further, adding another splash of fleshy-orange into the mix which somehow works. I also like Galarian Slowpoke and its yellowness.
But regular Slowpoke is just pale, and regular Slowking is just slightly darker than usual. Shiny Galarian Slowking, however, gets a pass because it's just coloured like regular Slowking when it's normally dark purple. No excuse for either Slowkings to not have their shell-helmets change colour, though.
Very pleasant monochromic colour for Magnemite and Magneton! It fits in very well, and depending on the generation they almost have a gold-and-silver vibe to them. Love them!
Shiny Magnezone is not as different, unfortunately, though I like the eyeball turning into blue.
Kantonian Farfetch'd is pink, which is neat. Galarian Farfetch'd gains the regular Kantonian Farfetch'd's colouration, which is something that doesn't work quite as well here. Finally, Sirfetch'd becomes piss-yellow for some reason. I feel like they probably should've done something with the leeks.
Bright green... yeah, not a fan of these. They at least look very different compared to their regular palette (unlike the Pidgey line) but still not the most flattering look on them.
Disappointing, they look like spoiled milk.
Oooh, pretty great! Reular kantonian Grimer and Muk get the yucky green puke-slime look. I feel that whether it's this shade of puke green, or the brighter neon 'radioactive fallout' green many other shinies have, they would all work on Grimer! And, of course, whether by design or accident, green would be the colour of their Alolan variants.
Alolan Grimer and Muk actually adopt regular Grimer/Muk's purple. It's a bit obvious on shiny Alolan Grimer, but it works since green shiny Grimer existed for years before Alola is released. I love that shiny Alolan Muk keeps the yellow and pink from its regular colouration, only swapping out the green for purple. It's a nice, subtler change that still keeps the oil spill look!
Both look fine, but I vastly prefer orange-shell Shellder to dark-blue-shell Cloyster. Orange Shellder just looks so different!
Another one with a lot of family members, huh? Shiny Gastly really depends on the game. Some of the sprited 2D games makes the smoky gas be this wonderful shade of light-blue and uses a slightly different shade of purple for the head. With how the 3D games render regular Gastly, however, it makes the shiny feel a bit less special.
Shiny Haunter and shiny Gengar, however, are extreme disappointments. Haunter at least you can tell that his tongue is blue instead of red, which is something, but Gengar barely even looks different next to his normal counterpart.
Both Mega Gengar and Gigantamax Gengar are extremely badass, though, going for the exact opposite colour -- white -- with some surprisingly nice pink highlights. In addition to looking so different from regular Gengar, it's even themed around how ghosts are traditionally white, which works very well.
Puke-green Onix is disgusting, but the golden-yellow shade on both Steelix and especially Mega Steelix works wonders. Golden-yellow is one of those colours that really does work well on mineral or metal based Pokemon.
They sure become pink! Hypno rocks it a bit better than Drowzee.
Yellow Krabby is serviceable, and I don't mind green Gigantamax Kingler. But the green Kingler just looks so washed-out. The gren colour isn't the problem here, it's the specific shade.
Always liked these. Regular Kantonian Voltorb and Electrode become basically Great Balls, when they are normally Pokeballs. Hisuian Voltorb and Electrode get a slightly desaturated look, which makes them actually look like the on-screen Pokeball icons in the original Game Boy games. Neat!
They're all a'ight. Exeggcute being orange is neat enough, although I remember that the official games made a joke about this in the Alola games. Both flavours of Exeggutor become autumn-themed, which is a pretty neat look.
Another set that the green colouration doesn't do them any favours. I like Cubone's darker gren a bit better; Marowak just looks radioactive. Alolan Marowak trades it in for purple, which is a bit nicer.
Yeah, these all don't look good. Hitmonlee and Hitmonchan are the worst with their puke-green colouration, though I appreciate shiny Hitmonchan's blue gloves. Hitmontop's pink and Tyrogue's blue are a bit better, but not the best.
I like these a lot! Keeping the tongues pink but changing the rest of the body into metallic yellow is a very good idea. I actually think these are two very good ones!
I really, really like these as well. Turning Koffing and Weezing into that nice shade of metallic green is cool enough, but the fact that they bothered to make the smoke purple as well is the extra cherry on top. On the other hand, there's no excuse for shiny Galarian Weezing, released in Generation VIII, to look just slightly off-base from its regular look.
Really love the rusty-metal colour that they use for shiny Rhyhorn. Shiny Rhydon is a bit disappointing, though, looking washed-out and boring. Shiny Rhyperior looks very different thanks to replacing all the red bands with yellow, but the piss-yellow doesn't really do it any favours.
Happiny and Blissey are extremely disappointing. I know that they're a different shade of pink, but it's barely noticeable without putting them side-by-side. Yellow-green Chansey isn't the best shiny out there, but at least she looks different. Kinda looks plant-ish, honestly.
Very cool, and very pleasant! Shiny Tangela and Tangrowth exchange the dark blue for a much more appropriate 'grassy' green! A huge fan of these two.
I can't tell the difference with regular Kangaskhan. Mega Kangaskhan's kid becoming pink is cute, though.
I think Seadra could've stood to use another colour, but I absolutely love the greenish-blue Horsea and especially purple Kingdra.
Terrible. Barely different, and I had to double-check to see if I downloaded the right art.
Shiny Staryu is pretty. I love the contrast between the milky-white body and the pale-blue central crystal. Shiny Starmie is all right, I do like the colours used but maybe ont in that specific combination?
Shiny Mr. Mime somehow manages to rock that neon green. He feels gloriously obnoxious.
The Galarian Mr. Mime and Mr. Rime both look like they're minimal-effort, though, and for designs from Generation VIII it's kind of unacceptable.
Shiny Scyther is disappointing. His joints become a bit redder, but it's barely noticeable.
Scizor, Mega Scizor and Kleavor all become green, and... I guess they're trying to emulate Scyther and real praying mantis colours? Mega Scizor's limeness is a bit distracting. I kinda wished that the green used for Scizor fit either normal Scythers or shiny Kleavor a bit better, which looks more naturalistic.
Terrible. Smoochum just looks anemic. Jynx looks a bit different, but also looks like the saturation settings for the picture is off.
Elekid and Electivire are very disappointing and barely different. Electabuzz is noticeably so, but it's a terrible colour on him.
Magby just looks washed out. The colour changes are a bit more obvious on Magmar and Magmortar, but they now look like they're being rendered on a Game Boy engine with limited palette. I don't mind these two, though they're not my favourite shinies.
To be honest, purple wouldn't be my first choice for Pinsir, both both him and his mega form rocks the purple colouration pretty well.
Regular Tauros is an eye-searing shade of piss-yellow, but at least he looks like a shiny! Imagine meeting any of the three shiny Paldean Tauroses. Hell, I'm not even sure what is different about them.
Another set of very classic shinies, the red Gyarados is iconic for being the first guaranteed shiny that anyone can get in Johto's Lake of Rage, and for most people, their first introduction to shinies at all. And they picked a hell of a cool colouration! Golden Magikarp looks great and hilariously awesome for a Pokemon who's supposed to be pathetic, and the blood red on Gyarados is just such a great colouration on it. Mega Gyarados turning even the spiky fins red and the originally-red highlights on his scales into a darker shade of red makes some of the details kind of blur together, but it's a great-looking palette regardless.
A simple but effective one, the lavender works pretty well on both Lapras and his Gigantamax form.
Baby blue Ditto! Baby blue is another one of those colours that works amazingly well on shinies, and the very vivid contrast with Ditto's original pink is much appreciated.
Hoo boy, that's a loot of Eevums! Shiny Eevee is pale-white and just looks anemic, although the change is a bit more noticeable in the Gigantamax form?
Let's talk about the disappointments first -- shiny Flareon just looks washed out and terrible. I can't even tell that shiny Glaceon is a shiny. Shiny Leafeon, meanwhile, just looks sunburnt and also doesn't look particularly special. Shiny Jolteon and shiny Espeon are different shades of 'ew green', with Jolteon looking more like barf and Espeon looking radioactive and sunburnt. Both are at least a bit prominent in their shininess, but still disappointing.
Purple shiny Vaporeon is... okay. But the two best shinies here are Umbreon, who just switches out the yellow markings for blue -- which works amazingly well! And shiny Sylveon, who swaps around her pinks and blues and the resulting pastel colours still looks amazing.
Kinda cute. All three versions of Porygon go for this darker blue contrasted with a creamy purple. It's a very nice-looking Shiny. But if I'm allowed to choose, kinda wished Porygon was bright green, so the three colours of an RBG monitor would be represented across its regular and shiny forms.
Lavender Omanyte and Omastar are just pleasant-looking! I don't have much to add beyond that. I think the shell becomes a bit more golden, too, which is nice.
Metallic green Kabuto looks so nice, especially since the underside is still kept the same. Lime-green Kabutops is... he's kind of disappointing? I have one of these in Pokemon Go, probably one of the first shinies I caught in that game, and I just really wished he kept the metallic green from the shiny Kabuto.
Purple-pink Aerodactyl is... he's all right. I think it works a bit better on Mega Aerodactyl, where the rock-spikes are still gray. It has the opposite effect of Mega Gyarados where the details now stand out a bit more, and it works well for both permutations of the two mega evolutions.
Munchlax, Snorlax and Gigantamax Snorlax all look barely different. Yes, dark blue instead of black, but if you weren't looking out for it you wouldn't realize that these guys are off-colour.
Shiny Articuno just looks washed-out and kinda lame, but Shiny Galarian Articuno instead takes hte colouration of regular Kantonian Articuno and it's a gorgeous look on it.
Zapdos is the biggest loser out of the three legendary birds, barely looking any different. Shiny Galarian Zapdos, meanwhile, is probably my favourite out of the three shiny Hisuian birds because regular Zapdos's colours really work pretty well on it.
Shiny Moltres at least looks a bit different, with its pink body? Not the best-looking shiny, since the flames are so eyecatching that it distracts you from the fact that the rest of the body has changed. Shiny Galarian Moltres looks pretty cool, though regular Moltres always looks pretty cool.
Shiny Dratini and Dragonair being pink makes them two of the prettiest pink shinies ever. The golden orbs on Shiny Dragonair is a nice touch. Green Dragonite is... he's honestly kind of a disappointment.
Radioactive green for Mewtwo and his two Mega-evolutions... it's all right, I suppose. It's a worse look compared to regular-flavoured Mewtwo, but it's evidently different and it's sorta thematic with Mewtwo being a genetic experiment gone wrong.
And, again, baby blue Mew is much-appreciated. It is a great contrast with regular Mew's pink colours, and Mew's blue eyes blend in well with its shiny blue colouration. Also worth mentioning that Mew and Ditto having the same colours as shinies fuels the whole 'Ditto are offshoots of Mew' theory.
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And that's it for all of our Generaetion I family shinies! See you guys for Johto Pokemon soon.
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