Pokemon Legends: Z-A has an enormous, unavoidable grind if you want the shiny-boosting Shiny Charm, but fans are already finding ways to avoid doing the work

Pokemon Legends: Z-A involves a truly enormous grind for completionists, as well as anyone keen to find as many ultra-rare shiny Pokemon as possible, but fans are already finding ways to streamline the process and even avoid the work entirely.

In the new RPG, players can complete research tasks to boost their Research Level for some sweet rewards. These are mostly Technical Machines (TMs) to teach your team new moves, but if you make it all the way to the final reward at level 50, you'll be gifted a Shiny Charm – a key item which permanently (and significantly) buffs your chances of finding rare, sparkly Pokemon with alternate color palettes.

Different research tasks – like catching set numbers of certain Pokemon types and smashing Mega Crystals found across the city – are worth different amounts of points, meaning you don't actually need to finish absolutely everything if you want the final reward, but there's one you can't avoid. That task? Win 1,000 Pokemon battles. To put it into perspective, I've spent 45 hours in the RPG, racked up during the course of our Pokemon Legends: Z-A review and beyond. I've totaled around 400 wins, meaning I'm not even at the halfway point, and others are running into the same issue. Thankfully, folks are working on solutions.

Content creator Reversal has taken to Twitter with the "FASTEST way to get 1,000 Battles in Pokemon Legends Z-A," noting that if you visit Restaurant Le Nah after completing the side quest there, you can pay 3,000 gold to fight three low-level trainers. For each batch of three, it "should only take you 2-ish minutes to do," which is likely going to be faster than running around fighting high-level trainers during the Z-A Royale if you've already made a lot of progress through the game.

Meanwhile, fellow content creator Professor Rex has taken things a step further – using the same restaurant strategy but with a twist that allows you to complete the entire process AFK. Combining the power of a turbo controller that's continually pressing the A button with a 3D printer pressing the left trigger button to target enemy Pokemon, the robot-powered solution will do the entire thing for you, although Professor Rex notes there is another way if you don't have all the same tools to hand.

"If you use a Garchomp or any strong Pokemon holding the Rocky Helmet, you will eventually win battles, it'll just be a lot slower," he notes. The Rocky Helmet does a bit of damage to Pokemon who make contact with the 'mon holding it, so you'll gradually deplete their health over time. However, as Professor Rex says, you'll still need a turbo controller to mash A in order to flick through the text between fights and start new battles.

It might be a bit of a cheeky solution, but hey, it works, and it'll definitely help speed up the process if you don't fancy manually powering through the fights.

Be sure to check out our Pokemon Legends: Z-A tips for even more pointers.