My Quest to Hatch a Shiny Pokémon
How many hours? How many eggs?
“Madness lies on Route 5, a party full of Pokemon Eggs…”
- A Pokemon Trainer (probably)
Since March of 2020, I’ve been hatching Pokémon eggs. I’ve done everything in Pokémon Shield. I’ve beaten the story and each of the excellent DLCs. I’ve put together a competitive team, cultivating IVs and EVs in the franchise’s slightly convoluted way. Once I reached the other side of the content provided to me by Game Freak, I set out on a new quest.
I wanted to hatch a shiny Dreepy.
Preparation
Shiny Pokémon are a hot commodity. The feature was introduced in the Second Generation. They are functionally the same Pokémon that we know and love, but their coloration is shifted. For some Pokémon, the color design is barely changed. For others, it’s a massive shift.
Their rarity and unique look make them special. As each generation of games has come along, getting your hands on a Shiny Pokémon has become easier and easier. Before I set off on my mission to hatch Dreepy, I had 10 Shinies. I’d received them in trades, Special Events, and caught them in the wild. My favorites are Shiny Charizard, Metagross, and Dragonite. All special, but not quite right. I wanted a Shiny that I made, IV trained with the right nature. I wanted to hatch the egg myself, there on the long path beside the Pokémon Nursery on Route 5.
Before I began this quest, I did everything in my power to increase the odds. The base odds of hatching a Shiny are 1 in 4096. After I completed the Pokédex and received the Shiny Charm, my odds increased to 1 in 1365.33. I got a 6 IV Japanese Dreepy and slid into the Masuda Method. Odds increased once again; 1 in 512.
To increase my hatching speed, I threw a Pokémon with the ability Flame Body at the front of my party. That would half the number of steps it would take to hatch an egg. I even downloaded an app that I planned to use to track the number of eggs hatched (because that’s not an in-game feature, which drives me crazy).
I had my boosted bike and every star had aligned. Nothing could stop me now. I would hatch my first Shiny.
The Height
Dragapult is one of my favorite new Pokémon. He joins the ranks of all the other glorious pseudo-legendaries from across the Generations. I was motivated to hatch and train a Shiny version. He would be my partner as I continued Raiding and completing both of the DLC’s Pokédex.
I hatched eggs while my wife and I watched episodes of The Office. I hatched eggs while I surfed YouTube, or when I was too tired to focus on anything taxing. It was a relaxing activity, and it helped that my motivation was sky-high. It went on like this for the first 100 to 200 eggs. This was the height of the process. I was confident. I’d done everything that I knew of to increase the odds, and those odds were in my favor. 1 in 512? That’s nothing.
The Reality
But as people like to point out online, those odds guarantee nothing. They are pure RNG, like hitting the slots in a casino or scratching a winning lotto ticket at your corner store. Those first few weeks turned into months. I’d take a break to play something else when I got burnt out. During this time period, I was packing and planning to move to another country, which ate into my downtime. The summer came and went. I flew to the UK, spending two weeks in quarantine. All the while, I hatched eggs; Boxes upon boxes of Dreepy, each with their regular coloring. I would Surprise Trade some and release the others. Most of them had 5 perfect IVs. Some had all 6, and they got their own box. At some point, I stopped using the app. It was too much to track, and that growing number was doing bad things to my fragile brain.
I considered giving up. But how could I do that? How could I disrespect the hours I’d spent? The hundreds and hundreds of eggs hatched!? I wish I had a number I could give you, an estimate to put forth. I would hatch an entire box of Dreepy and then release them all. That was the system for a while. For an entire summer and part of a lockdown fall. Until…
It happened.
November 15th, sometime in the AM. A Shiny Dreepy, hatched there on the well-trod path of Route 5. It had the ability, had the IVs. He was not a perfect Pokémon, but he was (shiny) mine.
I literally cheered when I saw it, mashing the screenshot button to capture that famous sparkle. I hatched eggs from March to November, on two continents and across dozens of hours.
My quest was over.
My Dragapult is my lead companion as I journey across The Crown Tundra. The time I spent doing this may seem excessive, but it speaks to the magic that the Pokémon franchise brings, that countless other people have also undertaken this mission. I hope that I can carry forward this Dragapult into future games. Pokémon feels like an eternal franchise, and I will be there every time.
Now… What should I hatch next?
