Pokémon Player Pulls Off An Insane, Accidental Shiny Hunt

I’ve watched a lot of Pokémon fans shiny hunt over the years, but somehow I’ve never actually witnessed what gaming YouTuber RaidAway just pulled off. Shiny Pokémon, the rare, alternate-colored version of the series’ monsters, were introduced in Gold and Silver, but because of how these rarities spawn in the early games, it’s possible that a Pokémon who originates from the first generation games can turn out to be Shiny when they’re traded over. RaidAway encountered an example of exactly that, and he did it with not just any monster, but a Legendary one from Pokémon Blue.

Moltres, like the rest of the Legendary Birds in Pokémon Red and Blue, only spawns once per save file. You’ll find this flame-covered fowl late in the game at Victory Road, and if you fail to capture it the first time you approach it, you won’t get a second chance in that playthrough. Shiny hunting Legendary Pokémon is notoriously a hassle, as you have to reset your game multiple times, retriggering the same battle over and over, to see if you can find a rarer version of the most sought-after monsters in the game. RaidAway didn’t have to do that with Moltres on Pokémon Blue, and wouldn’t have been able to, as there was no indication that the bird was Shiny in the old game. However, when he traded it over to Pokémon Crystal, he saw the Moltres for what it truly was.

How is this possible? Back in Generation II, Shiny status was determined by a Pokémon’s Individual Values, which are essentially the monster’s genetic disposition toward certain stats. So if your IVs for Attack, Speed, Defense, etc. landed on a specific number combination in the back end, they’d show up in a new color. These points still existed in the first-gen games, but it wasn’t until the sequels that they gained this additional trait. So that’s why a monster traded up can still end up being Shiny, even if you can’t clock that when you catch them in Red and Blue.

Shiny Moltres trades the yellow body of the original for a pink one, which means not only that this statistical anomaly is an impressive stroke of dumb luck, but that RaidAway also wound up with a prettier version of the bird. He explains on X that he was working on a Crystal Living Dex, which is a term for when a player has captured one of every Pokémon in one game. Typically, Shiny hunting is an arduous task that can take hours of banging your head against a wall until one shows up. But sometimes you get lucky and find one by accident. It’s just not often that it’s a Pokémon as rare as Moltres.