As crazy as it might sound, there are a lot of gamers that have managed to land themselves an early access version of Pokémon Legends Arceus, so we now know a little bit more about how to catch shiny Pokémon in the game. As an origin story prequel to the series, it’s set a long long time before the likes of Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pear, so a lot of elements from the main series don’t feature in the game.
This includes gyms with their puzzles and leaders, so you won’t have any of that to contend with. They’ve been replaced by increasingly difficult quests and frenzied Noble Pokémon to settle down, so the game isn’t without its challenges. However, the good news is that there will still be plenty of shiny ‘Mon to catch, or at least that’s how it looks from all of the streams that appear to have gotten their hands on the game way earlier than the rest of us.
AdvertisementFrom what we’ve seen, and there are plenty of them out there for some reason, they look like they’re playing the actual game, but the good citizens of the world will have to wait until the official release date on the 28th January 2022 to find out. To help you out on day one, here’s everything that we’ve been able to find out from the whole twisted affair to get you shiny hunting right out of the blocks.
How to find and catch Shiny Pokémon
Getting to grips with hot to find and catch Shiny Pokémon is a lot like going on a normal hunt, except there’s just a much lower chance of encountering one of them. However, they do show up every now and again, so it pays to know what you’re looking for, but don’t expect them to be all that frequent.
AdvertisementIf they weren’t rare it wouldn’t be worth going after them, so it makes sense that they don’t show up all that often. Don’t give up hope, though, because from what we’ve seen of Pokémon Legends Arceus they’re a bit more regular than in earlier games, so you stand a good chance of landing a team of shinies by the end of the game if you know what you’re doing.
In previous entries in the series, there’s often been some sort of clue to look out for to help you spot the difference between them and the rest of the normal ‘Mon in the grass. That’s usually some kind of twinkling or shimmer that helps you to spot them as you’re rushing about the place with some objective or obstacle to get past.
AdvertisementThat will be the same here in Pokémon Legends Arceus, but instead of the sparkle, their color is tinged gold, so if anything they’re even easier to spot. However, that won’t make them appear any faster, so you’ll still have to rely on chance encounters to a certain extent, but we’ll cover off some tips below to help you increase the appearance rate for shiny.
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How to improve your spot rate for Shiny Pokémon
With the addition of the mounts like the Wyrdeer and Hisuian Braviary, you might be tempted to just ride or fly about searching for Shiny Pokémon now that you know what to look for, but this will turn out to be a slower process. You might get lucky once in a while, but if this is all you do when you head out on a hunt then more often than not you’re going to be returning to camp empty-handed.
Instead, what you need to do is get down on your two legs and start hunting out in the wild. The more of a certain Pokémon you catch the higher your chance of finding a shiny version of them with the appearance rate growing with consecutive catches. As a result, you need to get set for a certain amount of grinding to land the shiny you want the most.
How to catch Shiny Pokémon in Legends Arceus
Once you’ve spotted a Shiny in the wild, a lot of the catch process is the same as with other Pokémon, but there’s way more sensitivity in terms of not beating them before you land the catch. The last thing you want is to spend ages trying to find a certain ‘mon in its golden sparkly form only to one shot it to oblivion and ruin your chances to catch it for sure.
A good approach is to try to use the most appropriate Poké Ball for the Pokémon you’re looking to catch. If you can get it to stay in first time then you’ll save yourself a lot of headaches going forward. The problem is that you just won’t be used to the Poké Balls that existed back then, so you might not know which to use when.
In other games in the series, it was all about stocking up on Quick Balls for the most part, but it doesn’t look like you’ll have them in Pokémon Legends Arceus. Or at least, you won’t get anything similar to them to begin with, so if you want to hit the ground running with Shiny hunting then you’ll need to get to grips with the new options you’ll have in the game.
Once you master the standard Poké Ball, you’ll then go on to unlock Heavy Balls, which have a better catch rate with Pokémon that haven’t spotted you, so you can use these with a stealth approach for your target. You can use Smoke Bombs to add to your sneaking options. There will also be a range of balls, from what we’ve seen, that work better for certain types of ‘mon, so it’s worth looking at each of these and choosing the best fir for the Shiny you want to land.
Alternatively, you can make sure that you pick your team wisely when you go out on a hunt. If you can always be able to chip away at their health without making them faint then you’ll have a better chance of catching them no matter which ball you use. Get them down to close to the line without stepping over it and transition to ball throws and you should be able to get your catch rate up too for Shinys in Pokémon Legends Arceus.
You can also check out our computer games section to keep tabs on more game releases, or visit the Pokémon Legends Arceus website at legends.pokemon.com/.
