In my last post I talked about my six favourite shiny Pokémon and while I was looking into all the designs for them it reminded me of the fact that while many shinies look great there are still plenty which do not. While they may stand out, they stand out in a bad way by poor colour choices and become not as aesthetically pleasing as one would hope. Here are five shiny Pokémon that I think fall short of bringing anything to their shiny forms.
5) Onix
There are unfortunately a LOT of Pokémon whose shiny forms fall under the category of ‘The Green Ones’ and while there are plenty of Pokémon where this colour works, such as Tangela, there are a considerably higher amount of green shiny Pokémon which can only be described as gopping. Onix is the worst offender, mainly due to the fact in the Orange Islands arc of the Pokémon anime we were introduced to the Crystal Onix, an Onix made of crystal instead of rock that was white/blue in colour. Why couldn’t this have been the shiny version? It was an awesome look for Onix, not to mention since it was made of crystal it was literally shiny!
4) Komala
There nothing inherently wrong with Komala, and that’s sort of the point. The only difference between a regular Komala and a shiny Komala is the colour of the small tree stump it’s hugging, with a regular colour being your typical shades of brown to depict wood. Instead, here the stump of a shiny Komala is white with pink detailing and while I actually have to admit I like that pink on white look, it serves literally no purpose for the actual Pokémon. Komala’s shiny form is forgettable, to the point that it is unnoticeable, and the fact that it could be called a shiny form is debateable.
3) Gengar
Everyone’s favourite ghost boy should be white in colour to match its Mega and Gigantamax forms. Hell, the whole evolution line should be, but instead Gengar’s shiny form is almost exactly like its standard form, a slight darker shade of purple. While the colour itself by no means looks bad it’s simply not a good choice for such a popular Pokémon and it is somewhat surprising that it hasn’t been changed, especially with the drastic change it undergoes when both Mega evolving and Gigantamaxing.
2) Slakoth
Much like ‘The Green Ones’ there is another designation of ‘The Pink Ones’ that has to be addressed. Like the green shiny Pokémon there are some that are pink and it gets pulled off successfully (Sneasel I’m looking at you here). I’d argue there are more pink Pokémon that look gopping than green, and that in of itself is damning. The biggest issue I have with a shiny pink Slakoth is the fact the colour does not continue in both of its evolutions of Vigoroth and Slaking. It truly seems like someone looked at Slakoth and went “oh no we need a different colour for this Pokémon’s shiny form”, clicked the paint fill tool on Photoshop, selected hot pink as a colour and dropped it on the main part of Slakoth’s body.
1) Leafeon
As I mentioned in my last piece, until writing it I was convinced that Leafeon’s shiny form gave it an autumnal aesthetic, swapping its green leaves for a crisp brown with a slight reddish hue. Leafeon’s actual shiny form is an uninspired design where it legitimately seems like someone just upped the brightness level on its sprite a wee bit. I said it once and I’ll say it again. The fact Leafeon’s shiny form does not depict the colours of autumn is a travesty. @Pokemon, please fix before Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl.
Let me know in the comments who are your least favourite shiny Pokémon. If you’d like to see my rambling about Pokémon on a more regular basis you can follow me on Twitter @LeeLee108 and I’ll likely have more Pokémon thoughts and writings on the way soon. Thanks for reading!