Pokemon Legends Z-A Shiny Hunting Guide

Shiny Pokemon in Pokemon Legends: Z-A appear at 1 in 4096, or about 1 in 1024 once you own the Shiny Charm from Mable's Research. The standard method is to stand in a Wild Zone and keep resetting its spawns, either by fast travelling or by resting on a bench, until you hear the shiny chime. Side Mission 17 also hands you a shiny Mareep early in the story.

Shiny odds

Game8 describes the charm as roughly quadrupling your chances, and Serebii puts the exact figure at 1 in 1,024.38.

How to spot a shiny

You do not have to check every Pokemon by eye. When a shiny comes within range, a chime plays and a sparkle appears, and a sparkle effect keeps circling the Pokemon afterwards. That matters for species whose shiny colours are hard to tell apart from the normal ones.

Getting the Shiny Charm

The Shiny Charm is the Research Level 50 reward in Mable's Research, the very last one, right after a Master Ball at level 49. Research tasks cover a wide spread of activities: catching Pokemon of each type, surveying all 20 Wild Zones, evolving Pokemon, sitting on benches and at cafes, winning battles and smashing Mega Crystals.

Expect it to take a while. Nintendo Life says you probably will not reach level 50 before the post game unless you focus on research, and that without the Mega Dimension DLC you need to defeat 1,000 trainers, which is only practical by repeating the Infinite Z-A Royale. The DLC adds new research tasks that count toward your score instead.

The fastest hunting methods

Game8's recommended loop is to stay in one spot and keep rerolling what spawns there:

• Fast travel. Travelling away and back resets a Wild Zone with a fresh set of Pokemon.
• Rest on a bench. Sitting on a bench inside a Wild Zone also resets it and saves the travel time.
• Use the stairs in Wild Zone 3. Walking up and down the stairs behind the Alpha Litleo resets the spawns there.
• Run away outside Wild Zones. For Pokemon that only appear on the streets, move away until they are off screen to despawn them and reroll.

Once you find one

The game stores up to 10 shinies in place around the city, so one you spot will not vanish just because you leave. Past 10, the oldest is replaced. Scaring a shiny off or knocking it out removes it, and Game8 warns that some species flee when they get nervous. Save before you throw a ball.

A free shiny Mareep

Once you reach Main Mission 08, Side Mission 17, A Shiny Mareep?, becomes available. Talk to Duve just outside the northern entrance to Wild Zone 1. Finishing it pays 3 Pretty Feathers and 500 Poke Dollars and leaves a shiny Mareep in the zone that stays until you catch it. You can only catch it after the mission ends. More missions like this are in our side quests guide.

Shiny locks

Serebii's rule is that Pokemon you receive as gifts, or meet in the story or in requests, are shiny locked, so do not reset for a shiny hand-out. Wild spawns are different: our best starter guide explains where all three starters appear in the wild after the story.

Sparkling Power in Mega Dimension

The Mega Dimension DLC adds Sparkling Power, a Flavor Power that comes from Ansha's donuts, more often from sweet ones. It only works in Hyperspace, and it has three levels. Levels 1 and 2 only raise the odds. At level 3, the first Pokemon of the matching type to appear on that trip is guaranteed shiny, so match the donut's type to your target. Cobalion, Terrakion, Virizion, Latias and Latios can appear shiny in special Hyperspace Zones and respond to matching Sparkling Power.

For the rest of the game, start from the Legends: Z-A hub.