It is possible to catch a shiny version of Great Tusk though it won’t sparkle or look any different than it normally does.
Spotting and catching shiny pokémon can prove quite the task in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, let alone when they don’t display their usual traits.
A dedicated researcher first noticed this phenomenon when they encountered Arven’s pokémon during the Path Of Legends storyline.
Although dataminers have discovered that Arven’s pokémon are shiny locked, meaning they can’t spawn as shiny, it turns out that’s not entirely true.
At the time, the dataminer explained that this stems from the game generating two pokemon: one that’s the ‘display’ version prior to a cut scene and then the one that you actually battle.
In this case the display pokémon is not shiny-locked, whereas the battle version is, which is just an accident of the game’s design.
The shiny-locked rule usually applies to legendary and titan pokémon, too, but the same player, Anubis, seems to have discovered that’s not the case for all titans.
Wondering how you “saw” a Titan species shiny in the Dex? It’s similar to how Arven’s Pokémon can randomly be shiny.
After the first stage of a Titan battle, the game has a 1/4096 chance to generate a Titan that’s shiny. It won’t sparkle, but it will register in Dex. pic.twitter.com/UnIbYbJiuP
— Anubis (@Sibuna_Switch) January 31, 2023
In this example, I set the Great Tusk shiny and battled it. There’s no way to tell it’s shiny in the battle.
Before battling it, I had 5 shiny Pokémon seen on my Profile. After I lost the battle on purpose, I had 6 shiny Pokémon seen on my Profile and shiny Great Tusk in Dex. pic.twitter.com/421x9iqVwG
— Anubis (@Sibuna_Switch) January 31, 2023
The player claims that at the end of the first phase of the Great Tusk titan battle, there is a 1/4096, or 0.02%, chance for the game to generate a shiny titan.
The shiny titan won’t sparkle but it will register as one in your pokédex. Moreover, it will count towards the total number of shinies you’ve encountered, which explains why some players may have a higher number of battled shinies than they have caught or come across.
If you’d like to try to ‘shiny hunt’ titan pokémon there’s a few steps you need to follow.
‘If, for some reason, you want to shiny hunt the titans, it’s sufficient to save in front of the second stage and reset the game if you didn’t get it shiny in the pokédex,’ explains Anubis.
Anubis also emphasises that the shiny titan you’ll catch won’t be as strong as the normal creature and will most likely come with lower stats.
It will be super rare though and, in the end, isn’t that the most important thing?
