For a lot of Pokemon Scarlet & Violet players, it can be tough to find a Shiny Pokemon. Unless you’re using extra techniques like the fantastic Shiny Sandwiches, or naming use of the current Mass Outbreaks, those elusive little creatures are extremely tough to find.
Well, one Trainer has found a Shiny that takes things up a notch, as not only is it extremely rare, but also nobody can catch it. Well, nobody but Arven.
As pointed out on Reddit by one Pokemon Scarlet & Violet player, they managed to engage in a Titan Pokemon boss fight with the NPC Arven, only for the dog-loving Trainer to pull out a Shiny Toedscool.
Explaining what happened, the author of the post stated that they were doing a second playthrough of Violet, and only saw Arven’s Shiny Toedsool “when it died” in battle.
Naturally, a lot of the comments underneath the post are asking how exactly this could happen, and it turns out, this is not the first time something along these lines has been reported.
Talking about the strange phenomena, one comment said, “Out of all the Pokemon to Shiny lock, they forget this one?!!” Another person added, “Huh, I didn’t know that could happen, that’s cool.”
However, when other players started to ask questions about the event, confusion arose. One comment tried to explain it by saying, “None of the rival’s Pokemon are Shiny locked and will stay Shiny the entire game if they keep it.” But, not everyone agreed.
Underneath this initial answer, another comment disputes the idea that “none” of the rival’s Pokemon are Shiny locked, arguing that they don’t think “any of that is true” before going on to say there has been “no evidence” to back up this idea.
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It seems that outside of a few isolated incidents, specifically with Arven’s Pokemon in this one encounter, nobody has ever seen any of the Pokemon Scarlet & Violet NPCs have a Shiny Pokemon, let alone the idea they would keep it throughout the game.
The person behind the rebuttal even backed up the idea that only Arven’s Pokemon in this fight can be Shiny, pointing toward a previous example of the event shared on X by a different Pokemon fan.
I figured out how Arven's shiny-locked Pokémon can be shiny:The game generates 2 Shellder: a display Shellder prior to the cutscene, and a battle Shellder when the battle starts.The display Shellder is NOT shiny-locked. The battle Shellder is shiny-locked. pic.twitter.com/7VFuf4Q3Qb
— Anubis (@Sibuna_Switch) December 8, 2022
While anecdotal, the person who shared their own Shiny find on Arven’s team seems to think it is because of the way the game generates the NPC’s Pokemon before battles.
With this encounter, Scarlet & Violet may be generating a version of the Pokemon that can be Shiny for this battle, but it won’t remain Shiny after this encounter.
This is backed up with a comment in the thread, that explained, “People who have had this happen say they’re not Shiny in future battles.”
It’s certainly a very rare occurrence, and with all the information at hand, it seems if you’re lucky enough to come across Arven with a Shiny Pokemon you will likely never see it in the Shiny form again.
Still, if you want to add some Shiny Pokemon to your own team, be sure to check out some of the best monthly Pokemon Go events, including Spotlight Hour, Community Day, and the monthly Raid Boss schedule.