If you're lucky enough, there's a small chance you'll get a shiny version of one of the starters upon beginning your journey in Pokemon LeafGreen and FireRed. It's a lottery, and even though the odds are slim, winning it has led players to a prison of their own making by resetting the Switch version over and over and over to finally get a win.
The two games arrived on Nintendo system on February 26, less than two weeks ago, and there are people who've spent most of that time trapped in Professor Oak's laboratory, playing through the initial dialog ad nauseum. Their hope is to eventually land on a shiny pocket monster when it comes time to pick their starting companion, and to be fair to the truly diehard, they're succeeding.
"Now I can play the game," one player posted on Reddit, revealing they'd done a ludicrous 12,108 soft resets to get their shiny Bulbasaur. "Finally got the shiny bald lizard," another fan exclaims, after sinking 84 hours into earning the coveted shiny firebreather.
After 84 hours 😭from r/PokemonLeafGreen
Sadly, one member of the community stumbled on a shiny Squirtle, easily the most pleasing to the eye, with his green shell, and reset out of impulse. "I'm going to cry," they posted. I would too, absolutely hard luck, and absolutely a mistake I'd be prone to. Muscle memory is hard to negate.
Shinies were introduced back in Silver and Gold, as particularly rare versions of the monsters we know and love. They have an alternate color scheme, and the only way to get them is by finding and catching them - you can't grow or evolve one. Hence, dedicated trainers take it upon themselves to find them at any and every opportunity.
Even if the process is maddening. "It has been 40 hours," another player posts. "Am still at Oaks. I wanna get out and starting to doubt myself." Whether you consider this worthwhile is very much up to you.
