Shiny Hunting

by Faultier, 31 March 2026

If you played Pokémon around the 2013-15 era, during its sixth generation, you most likely tried to shiny hunt, maybe even catching some yourself. You probably watched CandyEvie or TheSupremeRK9S. And you most likely tried the chain fishing method.

For those of you who don't know, shiny Pokémon are variants of the regular creatures which have different colours than regular; for example, a shiny Gyarados is red instead of blue. They also sparkle when put into battle, hence the name. And they are quite rare, showing up once every 8192 encounters up to generation five, and once every 4096 encounters from then onwards.

The point in mentioning generation six, and the time when those games were recent, is that, not only were new hunting methods added, like chain fishing and horde encounters, but also YouTube and Twitch were at a high point. More so, the online features of those games, including the PSS and wonder trades, made trading and battling other players more accessible than ever, increasing the purposefulness of doing extra stuff.

Recently I have been having a few tedious days, and I decided to grab my copy of Pokémon X and see what I still hadn't done. For me to get the golden Trainer Card, all that was left was to beat the Maison in a streak. And since I loved hunting shinies when I was younger, I thought I might as well do that with a team of shiny Pokémon.

But I encountered a large issue. Without all of the incentives of that era, which now feels like a past far-far-away, I couldn't find a motivation to even attempt my hunt. Like many other games, it started to feel to me like that was all a relic of a distant time, and not the sort of hobby I would take now.

More recently, I have been spending my free time doing other stuff. I tried hiking, which I quite enjoy, and playing more strategic games, my OpenTTD and Football Manager. I have been wanting to read again, but as I wrote earlier this month, I don't have any books around me right now. Maybe I just outgrew this sort of experience for more mature ones, or maybe the games just changed in my eyes. Anyways, I miss the joy I had when doing that.

If you ever felt like this with some old hobbies, please let me know. I'm curious to see how other people have dealt with such experiences. And thank you for the time you spent here, reading my monologues. I appreciate your visit to my page, and hope to catch up with you some time soon.