Are Pokemon Scarlet & Violet Starters Shiny Locked?

With Pokemon Scarlet and Violet finally released to the public, people all over the world are experiencing a new adventure. There are a lot of new Pokemon to find in Scarlet and Violet and one thing that players want to know as soon as possible is what the starter Shiny Pokemon looks like.

Finding Shiny Pokemon is no small feat because of how rare they are and players will want to get shiny starters as soon as possible. But, are the starters in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet shiny locked? We will go over that question and what that means here.

What Is A Shiny Lock?

In the Pokemon series, there are a lot of static Pokemon encounters. For example, every time you boot up a game of Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, you will always encounter the three starter Pokemon in the same spot.

This makes it easy to shiny hunt these three Pokemon. All players would have to do is sit there and soft reset their game over and over until one of the starter Pokemon is a shiny one.

There is a 1 in 4096 chance to find a shiny Pokemon. Some players will never find a shiny Pokemon during a normal playthrough of the game. So to find a shiny starter, players will sit there and soft reset their game repeatedly to find shiny Pokemon. Some players would sit there for weeks without even starting the game to find a shiny starter Pokemon.

To prevent a situation like this from happening, some static encounters are shiny-locked. That means no matter how many times a player soft resets their game, they will never encounter a shiny Pokemon.

Are The Starters In Pokemon Scarlet And Violet Shiny Locked?

Yes, the starters in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet are shiny-locked.

That means players do not have to sit there for hours to weeks on end trying to get a shiny version of a starter Pokemon.

But that does not mean that you can never get a shiny version of these Pokemon. Players will have to get far enough into the game to be able to breed Pokemon. Once they can do so, players can breed the starter Pokemon until they get a shiny from an egg. That is currently the best way to get a shiny starter Pokemon in Scarlet and Violet.

For more on the game, check out our dedicated section to Pokémon Scarlet and Violet news, guides, and more!

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