7 rarest shiny in all pokemon games

Key recommendations

• Shiners from the Gen 1 games were incredibly rare because they were actually Pokemon with perfect IVs ported over to Gen 2 to be revealed.
• Event Pikachus in Pokemon GO are some of the rarest shiny ones, only available for a limited time, making them hard to find.
• Getting a shiny Spinda with the same model as another is virtually impossible due to over four billion unique combinations.

While the Pokemon games always have the same shiny odds (1/8192 in the earlier games and 1/4096 in the newer games), there are some shinys that are harder to get than others. This could be because most encounters are shiny blocked, or it could be due to the rarity of the Pokemon.

Fortunately, games have various methods to increase the chances of running into a shiny (even if some of these ways are unconventional). Here is a list of some of the hardest Pokemon to find as a Shiny Pokemon and an explanation of why they are so hard to find.

Updated November 6, 2024, by Hamza Haq: Over the years and through dozens of different iterations of Pokemon games, it's become abundantly clear to fans that, at least in terms of base difficulty, these games will always be aimed at kids. And while there's nothing wrong with that, and gym combat can be good fun, it offers literally no challenge to someone even remotely familiar with the franchise and previous games. To remedy this, fans of the franchise have come up with their own unique ways to enjoy these titles through self-introduced challenges. Some went the Nuzlocking route, which drastically increases the challenge, while others went the shiny hunting route, making creating a living dex of shiny Pokemon the whole point of the game. Even this pursuit has become easier in recent years with Nintendo is drastically increasing the chances of finding shiny Pokemon in newer games like Scarlet and Violet. That being said, not all shiny Pokemon are easy to get. In fact, some of them can be downright impossible to find without jumping through some crazy hoops. The list has been updated with two new entries to highlight some new Pokemon that fall into this category.

Note that this article will not cover any of the shiny locked Pokemon.

7 Pikachus with hats from Pokemon GO

These event Pokemon are rarer than you think

One of the most popular event Pokemon in Pokemon GO is Pikachu. There are countless versions of Pikachu that have been added for specific events wearing different costumes or hats. These can be the hats of different Pokemon protagonists or from different regions in the games, or they can just be a way to promote something like Detective Pikachu Pikachu.

Regardless of which version of Pikachu you're looking at, these events are some of the rarest in Pokemon GO and the entire Pokemon era. This is because they are only available for a certain amount of time, and most of the time if you miss Pikachu, you want him. It's rare for the game to go back and bring an older Pikachu back for an event, making it rare to find one if you missed the event.

6 Any Pokemon from the Gen 1 games

Glitters weren't really a thing

There was no shiny Pokemon during Pokemon Generation 1. In fact, shiny Pokemon didn't really take off until Generation 2, and during that time, the developers called them “Rare Pokemon”. During Gen 1, Pokemon would be shiny if they had perfect IVs, which is no easy feat at all. Since IV calculation wasn't a thing back then, and it's not like players could train their Pokemon to be perfect, they had to naturally find them with perfect IVs.

To even see if your Pokemon was shiny in Gen 1, you would need to transfer it to a Gen 2 game, where it would either be shown as a shiny Pokemon or not. Considering the Pokemon needed perfect IVs to be shiny, any Pokemon in a Gen 1 game is rare. In addition, players would then have to transfer them to a Gen 2 game, which could have cost the player something shiny if they didn't transfer their Pokemon.

5 Brilliant family of the three Mausholds

1/100 chance of getting a regular family of three Mausholds

Maushold evolves from Tendamaus at level 25 with two possible evolutions: Family of Four Maushold or Family of Three Maushold. Family of Three is a rare evolution and only has a 1% chance of happening. This means, on average, one in a hundred Tendamaus evolutions will result in a family of three Mausholds. These are absurd odds, staggeringly so for players hoping to brilliantly hunt down the rare Maushold family of three through Tendamaus' evolution.

As a result, while the Shiny Family of the Three Mausholds isn't actually time- or region-locked like some of the other Pokemon on this list, the process of cultivating it is so incredibly tedious that only the most dedicated Shiny hunters have the patience to sit down and grind it out. Even in the latest Pokemon Scarlet and Violetoutbreaks are of no help since Maushold cannot spawn in the wild, and the only way to get them is to evolve wild Tendamaus.

4 Shining Jirachi

Requires ownership of two consoles and physical copies of now unavailable games

To even start hunting Shiny Jirachi, players need a way to find one. Unlike the main legendaries, Jirachi is not available in the main game. To catch a Jirachi, players will need the following items: a Game Boy AdvanceA Nintendo GameCubea link cable to connect the GBA to the GameCube, a copy of the Pokemon Sapphire/Rubyand a copy of Pokemon Colosseum Bonus Disc. Without any of these items on hand, there is no way to even begin hunting Jirachi.

Once all the items are in place, players must start a new save file Pokemon Sapphire/Ruby on the GBA and progress through the game until they get the Pokedex (8-10 minutes of gameplay). Next, connect the GBA to the GameCube with a running link cable Pokemon Colosseum Bonus Disc and select the Special Gift with Jirachi option. Check if the Jirachi they got was shiny or not. If not, reset your save file and start over. This process is not only time-consuming and exhausting, but also expensive; the items needed to get one are no longer sold directly from Nintendo and must be purchased from a third party, which isn't an insignificant hit to the wallet.

3 Shiny Team Mystic Lapras

One chance ever

In April 2023, players were able to complete the quest “A Mystic Hero”, which saw Team Mystic's Blanche asking players for help. After completing the mission, players had the chance to catch Lapras in her signature Team Mystic outfit. However, they could only complete the quest once per account and only had a singular encounter with Lapras, so this meant that shiny hunting was almost impossible for players.

The reason this is such a rare shiny is that it was only available from April 13th to April 17th, 2023. Players had to play during this time and only had one chance to get this rare shiny. If he hadn't gotten busy and completed the quest, he would never have had a chance to see the Pokemon, much less have a chance to catch one. Next, they needed that Lapras to be shiny, which defied all odds.

2 Shining Manaphy

The Pokemon Ranger Egg

To get a shiny Manaphy, players will have to work hard. This Pokemon, while available in Pokemon Legends: Arceus, it's a pretty rare Pokemon overall (in fact, it's one of the rarest). Players could only obtain Manaphy in a specific way. To get a Shiny Manaphy, players had to own it Pokemon Diamond & Pearl or Pokemon Platinum. After getting these games, they would need to Pokémon Ranger game that hadn't already been used to get Manaphy.

Each game disc of Pokémon Ranger it only had the ability to give a single Manaphy, meaning if players got the Pokemon once from a disc, they could never get it again. After beating the game, the Manaphy Egg can be transferred to Generation 4 games, where if players are extremely lucky, a shiny manaphy might hatch. However, since the egg could only be obtained once, this was an almost impossible feat for players.

1 Glowing Sparkle (at least two identical)

There are over four billion patterns

Spinda is a normal type Pokemon from the third generation games. Pokedex entry for Pokemon Ruby it says “All Spinda that exist in the world are said to have completely unique spotting patterns. This Pokemon's shaky, wobbly steps give it the appearance of dancing.” Additionally, all other Pokedex entries state that no two Spinda are the same except Pokemon Y, which says, “The odds of two Spindas having identical dot patterns are less than one in four billion.”

This means that it is almost impossible for two players to have a Spinda with the exact same model and both are shiny. Given the insurmountable odds of having two Shining Sparks be exactly the same, it's safe to say that it is technical the rarest shining that could ever exist. Players can safely assume that they probably have the only Glowing Spinda in existence that looks exactly like the Spinda they caught.