The Pokemon Company should invent a new type of Shiny

Disclaimer: I love shiny Pokemon. I have a huge collection of legit shinies that I keep in Pokemon Home and I bust them out whenever I replay Sword and Shield. I then use the legendaries I get from that playthrough to get MORE shinies that follow me through my next play-through. It’s a vicious cycle.

For those unfamiliar with what I mean by “shiny”, a shiny Pokemon is a rare variation of a Pokemon. When you catch one, by default, you have a 1 in 8192 chance it’ll be shiny which means it’ll have a variant color scheme. Magikarp, for example, will be golden. And every Pokemon has one. You have simple swaps like Nidoking turning blue and Nidoqueen turning pink, boring ones like Pikachu being a slightly darker yellow, amazing ones like Umbreon’s yellow line becoming a bold neon blue and then god awful ones like Bruxish who’s aquatic color scheme gets swapped out for bright red on a doughy yellow making her look like some sort of pizza fish.

The issue with a lot of these shinies depends on when they came out. A lot of the earlier shinies were brought to you by graphical limitations. The Game Boy Color, which several of the first Pokemon games came out on, only had 16 colors it could use so the options were very limited. But then, as time went on and more came out, it seemed like the rest of the shinies were just rushed and not well thought out. Some, like Glaceon, are almost indistinguishable when attempting to tell the shiny from the regular.

So, here’s the thing. The Pokemon Company is clearly not afraid to try new things. Sword and Shield introduced a slew of new concepts like add-on DLC and Dynamaxing (making your Pokemon grow giant). The upcoming Pokemon Legends Arceus is an entirely new way to play the game involving more of a Monster Hunter-like mission scheme. So, for the sake of adding something new, let’s add a new, more thought-out, secondary shiny variant? (And yes, The Pokemon Company, I’m available for freelance)

Just as an example of how different we could go, I went ahead and made three examples. I busted out the excellent Pokemon Art Academy, drew up three particular Pokemon, and gave them inspired color schemes. Let’s take a look at three.

Togepi

Togepi is a little white and yellow egg boy. And despite the fact that the Pokemon got a ton of time in the Pokemon anime and also sports a very colorful look, the shiny variant is almost exactly the same except he looks somewhat sickly.

For my idea, I took inspiration from a century egg. The 100-year-old eggs are stored in a way that when finally served a century later the shell is black, the insides are green, and everything is disturbing and questionable. But, as Togepi is an egg boy, I figured let’s see what the color scheme looks like for it.

Not only would it stick out like a sore thumb alongside its white and yellow counterparts but I feel like the bright colors of the shapes on its shell really pop.

Wooper

Wooper is one of the most adorable Pokemon I never use. Wooper’s shiny falls into the special hell many other earlier Pokemon’s shinies fall into, it’s a fleshy pink. There’s a LOT of them who got this treatment and, it’s alright but standing next to a standard Wooper who is light blue, it just looks like a messed up gender reveal.

So for Wooper’s secondary shiny palette, I based it more on something out of nature. Something the Wooper is actually inspired by itself. The graceful mudskipper.

I really like this one because, as I said, Wooper is based on a mudskipper and the appropriate colors give it more of a gritty look.

Kyogre

Legendaries could also benefit from this. I genuinely cannot think of a single Legendary that has an alternate color scheme that really looks good outside of Zygarde. Most of them just become a sicklier version of themselves. And my favorite legendary, Kyogre, falls into this trap.

It also falls into the earlier trap I talked about with Wooper. Kyogre, the majestic blue whale, suddenly becomes a violent series of pinks. Just pink on pink on pink. It’s nasty looking. So, again, I took inspiration off its inspiration, the killer whale or “orca”.

Look at this pretty thing. Much like the famous orca, Tilikum stole its trainer’s heart (also life) this one would absolutely steal mine. The darker color scheme mixed with the glowing blue linework would make this thing an absolute nightmare to behold coming at you in the water and I want it.

So, what do you think of the idea? Let us know in the comments. Personally, I think that as Pokemon has more Pokemon than they know how to fit into a single game anymore, something like new shiny variations would be something that allows them to breathe new life into the games without having to add new character models.