The 10 Worst Shiny Pokémon of All Time, Ranked

Shiny Pokémon are a big part of the Pokémon franchise’s long history—especially if you’ve been lucky enough to encounter one of these special Pokémon on your own. Shiny Pokémon are especially rare palette swaps that have a 1/8192 chance of occurring in the wild (or 1/4096, if you are playing Pokémon X and Y or beyond). And if you’re dedicated enough to fill out your entire Pokédex, depending on the game, you will receive a Shiny Charm for your efforts, which further increases these chances to 1/4096 (1/1365 in Pokémon X and Y or beyond).

I’m what the community calls a “Shiny hunter” myself. I’ve sunk countless hours into finding these rare palette swaps and adding them to my collection, but as someone who’s seen almost every Shiny Pokémon and has caught many of these rare Pokémon, I know that not every Shiny is created equal. Some color swaps look really great, while others are downright awful. Some Shinies barely even change from their original. Here are 10 of the worst Shiny Pokémon of all time—ranked from being decently passable to absolutely awful.

10. Avalugg

The main purpose of a Shiny Pokémon’s palette is to stand out compared to its original, so expect to see a lot of barely-different Shinies on this “worst” list. Avalugg is one of the least offending because its change is still fairly noticeable, being it swaps its white sections with a bright yellow. Although this change is noticeable, yellow isn’t exactly a color that seems to fit well with an iceberg-themed Pokémon, especially considering what this color may bring to mind. Overall, this Shiny ranks least-worst for still being fairly noticeable and somewhat inoffensive all around.

9. Ursaring

The general consensus within the Pokémon community is that green Shinies are downright awful, and this opinion holds for almost every green Shiny there is. While there are some notably good green Shinies (Tangela, Espeon, and Scizor to name a few), Ursaring is not exactly flattering in a bright shade of green. The Pokémon doesn’t look entirely awful with green, hence it’s much lower on this list, but it’s just not a fitting color for what is effectively a giant grizzly bear. Still, the shade of green itself isn’t horrible, and Ursaring does not keep this color when it evolves into Ursaluna, which also saves it from a higher placement.

8. Tranquill

Another green Shiny unsurprisingly makes its way onto this list, but this time for a completely different reason. Though Tranquill’s minty-green color is still a fairly nice color to look at, it faces one huge problem: It doesn’t fit in with the rest of its evolutionary line at all. Pidove’s Shiny is a little more bluish, while Unfeazant’s two Shinies are much better than Tranquill’s. The color choice for this Shiny seems like it came completely out of nowhere, and given that it just doesn’t fit in with the rest of the line, it’s not exactly a great Shiny. Similar to Ursaring, green just isn’t a color that fits Tranquill.

7. Xatu

Aside from the few truly offensive green Shinies, there are also quite a few Shinies that look terrible just because they’re barely any different from their originals. Natu and Xatu are both effectively the same Shiny, so for simplicity, let’s talk about Xatu. Though this difference became a little more noticeable when Pokémon made the jump from sprites to 3D models, noticing a Shiny Xatu is still incredibly hard, and that’s mostly because its colors barely change. The most noticeable thing about this Shiny is how its red bands change to orange, but if one’s not looking for that, they could easily miss this Shiny.

6. Pichu

From here on out, we’ve got some Shinies that warrant a bit harsher criticism. Pichu is also an offender of the “barely looks any different” group. However, this spry little Baby Pokémon does have one saving grace that puts it below some of the worse Shinies. The most noticeable iteration of this Shiny is in its original games Pokémon Gold, Silver, and Crystal, where its sprite takes on a much more orange hue, as opposed to its modern color that’s not very different at all from the Pokémon’s normal coloring. The jump to 3D models definitely made this Shiny worse with age, but it’s still at least more noticeable than many of the other offenders later on this list.

5. Garchomp

So, storytime. It’s 2012, and I’m playing Pokémon White 2 almost every single day, making use of the Global Trade Station (GTS) to get my hands on Pokémon I don’t have yet. I put a Luxray on the GTS, asking for a Garchomp, and receive one. Pokémon White 2 has a Medal Rally that awards you medals for accomplishing different tasks, and I end up receiving the Lucky Color medal—which is given for befriending a Shiny Pokémon. At first, I’m confused, because I don’t remember finding a Shiny Pokémon. Then, I check the Garchomp I just got, and sure enough, it’s Shiny.

This Shiny is a whole minus-10 saturation from its original coloring, so it’s extremely hard to notice and is considered a bad Shiny by most people within the Pokémon community, for good reason. Although Shiny Mega Garchomp is much more noticeable with its bright pink color, this Shiny is consistently disliked for its all-too-subtle coloring.

4. Zapdos

Of the three Kantonian Legendary Birds, Zapdos’s Shiny is the least vibrant and noticeable, and like many of the others on this list, it too suffered from the jump to 3D models. Though the sprite versions are only slightly more noticeable, Zapdos’s Shiny coloring is just downright awful. It barely stands out and makes this bird pale in comparison to Articuno and Moltres. Even giving it the vibrant orange most Electric-type Shinies have would have been much better than this palette, but alas, we are stuck with this barely-noticeable bird.

3. Elekid

Many of the Baby Pokémon suffer from having Shinies that are almost completely identical to their original counterparts, and Elekid is undoubtedly one of the worst offenders. If you thought Garchomp was bad, Elekid’s minus-3 saturation tweak from its original palette is so ridiculously hard to notice that for every encounter you have hunting one of this Baby Pokémon, you’ll likely be staring extra hard at your screen just to notice its Shiny animation. Considering that the rest of its evolutionary line has a very pleasing orange color for Shiny palettes, Elekid’s Shiny is all-around a huge bummer.

2. Igglybuff

Elekid’s Shiny woes pale in comparison to Igglybuff. Somehow, it keeps getting worse—though there are a few Baby Pokémon that manage to avoid this trap, Igglybuff is not one of them. Across all of its games, its color difference is so subtle that you’d be staring at your screen intensely just to notice this insanely slight difference. Given that the whole point of Shiny Pokémon is to be significantly different in appearance than their original palettes, Igglybuff sticks out like a sore thumb as objectively one of the worst Shiny Pokémon of all time. But what could be worse than Igglybuff?

1. Regice

Regice was once a much more noticeable Shiny. In its sprite form, normal Regice’s ice was a dark periwinkle-bluish color, with its Shiny palette having much brighter blue ice. This, unfortunately, got ruined when the games made their jump to 3D models, and Regice’s ice became almost the same exact hue as its Shiny palette, resulting in this horrible Shiny in the modern games. Now that Regice’s Shiny has been reduced to being so subtle that it barely exists, it reigns supreme as undoubtedly one of the worst Shinies of all time.

(featured image: The Pokémon Company)

Have a tip we should know? tips@themarysue.com