By Emily
Of all the generations, the third has some of the best shiny Pokemon, and most of my personal favorites come from here. Both rare and common characters have had good luck with their shiny form colors, and one of the best was even turned into an event.
Milotic was given out as a shiny event in 2008 and 2009 during the yearly Video Game Championships. Japan had this event at the end of 2008 and it was only available to Platinum games. It was available in Europe and the United States during the first half of the year and was only available on certain days due to the dates of the tournaments. Its shiny form is a very nice change from regular, and the red and gold of the tail go together nicely.
Even though Poochyena may not be the most sought-after shiny from this generation, its similarity to a German Shepherd puppy makes it one of my favorites. The gold-brown body with the darker brown face and feet is a cute mix for this Pokemon, and the eye colors contrast well with its body. However, with Pokemon like the Ralts line, good colors are all it takes to make it popular with a large number of people. Blue with light pink stands out, and carrying the same color scheme through the entire evolution line is a good way to ensure that every one of the Pokemon is popular. Since Ralts can also evolve into one of two final forms, Gardevoir and Gallade, both males and females have a Pokemon to like.
While Jirachi’s shiny form just switches blue for red, the new colors compliment the yellow of its headpiece better than the regular blue. This Pokemon is very hard to obtain as a shiny because only one third generation event enabled it to be obtained. The WISHMKR Jirachi had the possibility of being shiny, but the odds were half that of the normal odds of finding a random shiny Pokemon in the wild. Even though a shiny Jirachi is very rare, it is worth trying to trade for one to add to your collection.
Cute Pokemon aside, one shiny stands out as the best of the entire generation. With an originally great design, its shiny form makes it look just that much better. The black body of Rayquaza gives added contrast to the red and yellow accents, which gives a spectacular color combination. This Pokemon is very popular because of those colors, and luckily it is available in many games. Of the most recent games, Heart Gold and Soul Silver both have Rayquaza available in the game after the first legendary from the third generation has been captured, Groudon for Soul Silver and Kyogre for Heart Gold, the other legendary Pokemon has been traded over, and Professor Oak has seen both of them. It may seem a bit complicated, but afterwards Rayquaza can be soft reset so with luck a shiny one will appear.
Throwing cuteness aside yet again, a second Pokemon vies with Rayquaza as having an awesome shiny form. Metagross’ silver and gold body give no illusion of cute; it is tough through-and-through. The big gold “X” is the most prominent feature of the Pokemon, and the golden claws on its feet make good accents. With Pokeradar chaining in Diamond, Pearl, and Platinum, a shiny Beldum is easy enough to capture, and it can evolve into a shiny Metagross with only two level-ups.
So few Pokemon from this generation have unfavorable shiny forms, making it difficult to pick any specific examples out as they are so few and far-apart. A few like Seviper and Zangoose deserve an honorable mention, along with Aron and its evolutions. While they may have a fair amount of popularity and very unique shiny colors, there just isn’t enough space for any in-depth discussion about them, so an honorable mention will have to be all they can get currently.
The Ruby and Sapphire era definitely made the right color choices for the shiny Pokemon of the generation. Many of them make great additions to any collection, and a majority can be obtained without too much effort in the games. Though personally, I would have liked to see more than just one of these Pokemon being turned into shiny events.
Tags: Groudon, Heart Gold, Jirachi, Kyogre, Nintendo DS, Rayquaza, Soul Silver