I've been a Pokemon shiny hunter for 16 years, but nothing could have prepared me to join 70+ players trying to find as many rare creatures as possible in 60 minutes

A sea of Nintendo handhelds, a crowd of locked-in Pokemon players, and enthusiasm to rival the crowds watching the main events that folks generally come to a huge Pokemon tournament to watch – I've never seen a shiny hunting event like this before, and unexpectedly taking part in it has given me a newfound appreciation for a community I've always sat on the outskirts of.

When attending the Pokemon Europe International Championships this year, I had a mission – watch VGC caster Charlie Merriman's retro shiny hunting challenge in person. It's starting to become a bit of a tradition now after its first appearance at one of the previous North America International Championships, bringing fans together to look for rare, sparkly Pokemon with alternate color palettes as a group, for one glorious hour of challenging those 1/8,192 odds.

I choose you

"We started over there under the premise of, if you got 8,192 people together, and everyone did one encounter, how many shinies would you find?" Merriman tells me. "Obviously, that's an impractical number, so we just gather as many people as we can and try to hunt for an hour and see how many we can find."

Despite spending literal hundreds of hours of my life looking for sparkly 'mons, it's never something I've ever participated in en masse in a group like this – I've watched more videos and streams than I can count of other folks' hunts and finds, but going into this, one thing I wasn't expecting was the sheer scale of the hunt. Heading toward the location, I anticipated stumbling across a small group huddled around a table, surrounding a pile of handhelds. What I found was significantly larger – spread across three long rows, with a crowd of over 70 active hunters armed with over 100 systems.

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Nintendo DS and Game Boy Advance systems went on as far as the eye could see, with folks diligently racking up random encounters and recording how many pocket monsters they'd seen, and hoping that perhaps on the next one, they'd be able to contribute to the group's growing number of sparkly trophies. That's obviously easier said than done, especially in the games permitted for the event – Generation 5 and below – where the odds were as stacked against us as they could possibly be.

"I think shiny hunting in the modern games versus the older games, they are two fundamentally different activities," Merriman explains, asked about the appeal of traditional full-odds hunts. "These days, it's all about you're gonna get the shiny at some point, probably within about half an hour. Back in the day it was very much, the idea is that they're so rare that you probably have a playthrough and never find one. There will be the odd person who will just hit those 1/8,192 odds and get a shiny Pokemon."

So, with just an hour on the clock to find some shinies, the best way to boost those odds is simply by getting more people to join in. I'll confess, I initially wandered over to the group intending to be nothing more than an observer, but things quickly changed.

The hunt is on

It's at this point that I have to give my thanks to content creator Professor Rex and his brother, who, after speaking with me the day before, were quick to jump to the rescue after I admitted I had no consoles or games on me to participate.

Rex immediately produced a 3DS and New 2DS XL out of his stash of hardware for me to borrow, and given that I had a pair of hands that weren't doing anything, and there was no way I was denying my assistance to the cause.

With that, the stage was set – armed with a copy of Diamond and Pearl in each hand, I positioned myself on a bike in two patches of tall grass, hoping to net the team a shiny Shinx or Starly as a last-minute participant. While everyone remained focused, however, there was still plenty of time for chatter – folks told stories of their woeful shiny hunting failures, while others spoke about how they'd all met through Pokemon (one particularly sweet couple told me that they'd met at EUIC 2025, and were clearly still going strong on none other than Valentine's Day the year later).

The sense of camaraderie was intense – over the course of the hour, there were three glorious cheers as someone, somewhere amongst the sea of hunters finally found what we were all looking for. Reactions were instant and intense – the successful hunter would announce their find, and everyone else would erupt on their behalf.

Perhaps the very greatest moment came when streamer Simon "Shmon" Van der Borght – not the organizer of the event, but certainly its biggest hype man – ran into a shiny Trubbish when in the process of (jokingly) yelling at us all to hunt faster. The sheer bewilderment on his face as he realized what he'd done, followed by the widespread celebration as he loudly announced "SHINY," was one of my favorite moments of the entire weekend, and I can honestly say I've never seen anyone more excited to find a blue bag of trash.

It's this sort of excitement I like to cite when people ask me what the big deal is when it comes to looking for shiny Pokemon, given how long it can take to get any reward for your efforts. "It's easy to see shiny hunting and think, 'what is the point in this? It must be so mind-numbingly dull just doing encounters over and over again.' And I totally get that," Merriman admits.

"The secret is that the shiny hunting is the thing you're doing on the side, rather than the main activity. The main activity is watching a film, watching YouTube, listening to a podcast, listening to music," he continues. "Shiny hunting is just keeping your hands occupied, and then the encounters fly by, and before you know it, you might have this really cool thing that barely anyone else in the world has."

I feel similarly to him, as he explains that "the fact they've been lurking in these game cartridges just waiting to be discovered all these years is what appeals to me," but the event itself has also given me a different perspective on the community surrounding it. In that room, everyone mattered, and everyone's contributions were welcomed. Sadly, in the 196 encounters I accumulated, I wasn't able to beat those classic 1/8,192 odds myself, but I still felt a huge sense of accomplishment.

After all, that near-200 encounters contributed to a far larger number: a whopping 18,508 Pokemon seen over the course of an hour. With three shinies encountered – a Magikarp, Totodile, and Trubbish – as a group we collectively managed to come in under odds each time, and the shared excitement made everything worth it.

But what exactly is it about shiny hunting that brings folks together like this? Is it the reassurance of having that support in the face of adversity? Is it simply a case of everyone's hype feeding into each other and creating something that feels far bigger than it is? "I think part of it is that it's just, anyone can take part," Merriman says.

"Literally, you turn on your game, you run into some Pokemon, that's all you have to do. I think it's also definitely the nostalgia. I think this entire event is testament to the power of nostalgia," he continues. "I mean, yes, we're playing in the newer games, but you've got fans from eight to 88 in this venue, and it's wonderful to see how many people are getting involved. It's not just the shiny hunting, I think this is why Pokemon's popularity endures. There are so many ways to get involved."

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