After 43 Hours of Pokemon FireRed and LeafGreen’s Worst Grind, I Miss Legends: Z-A and Scarlet & Violet

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Pokemon FireRed and LeafGreen are known for being challenging games, and that difficulty carries over to their versions on the Nintendo Switch. The Switch release isn’t much different from the original Game Boy Advance games, though some improvements have been made – for example, a game-breaking glitch involving Legendary Pokemon has been fixed. However, these remakes still have the worst odds for finding shiny Pokemon in the entire series – only 1 in 8,192 – and lack features like the Masuda Method and Shiny Charm which make shiny hunting easier in other games.

The idea of a challenging hunt isn’t inherently negative – some players actually enjoy the effort, feeling the reward is greater when they finally get a shiny Pokémon. I understand that perspective, and in theory, I agree. But because I really love shiny Pokémon, I struggle with grinds that can take 70+ hours, like finding a shiny starter in Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen. I simply don’t have that much free time. I was lucky to find mine after 43 hours of resetting, and that makes me wish I was still playing the newer games like Gen 9 and Scarlet and Violet.

Why Pokemon Legends: Z-A, Scarlet and Violet Are Better Than FireRed and LeafGreen

I lost count of how many times I had to restart Pokemon FireRed and LeafGreen trying to get a shiny starter Pokemon, but it took me about 43 hours to finally get a shiny Squirtle. I actually spent around 40-41 hours looking for a shiny Charmander, and I had to switch between starters occasionally to avoid getting burnt out. In the end, I got a shiny Squirtle instead, which was great because I like all three Kanto starters! The fact that I needed to change my focus to stay sane shows just how tedious the process was. Using a turbo controller that sped up the resets, I saw over 5,700 starters with an average reset time of about 27 seconds before finding the shiny Squirtle.

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A recent video by Papa Jefe, working with dataminer Anubis, revealed that trying to be too precise with timing during shiny Pokemon hunts in FireRed and LeafGreen can actually hurt your chances, because you end up encountering the same Pokemon repeatedly. I suspect my method of resetting every 27 seconds may have caused me to see the same Pokemon up to 40% of the time, potentially wasting as much as 17 hours of effort.

Getting a shiny Pokémon with odds of 1 in 5,700 is incredibly lucky, especially when others spent 10,000 or even 20,000 tries for just one. The commonly cited 1 in 8,192 odds are just an average, not a guarantee. Honestly, finding this shiny felt more satisfying than finding shinies in Legends: Z-A or Scarlet and Violet, even with methods like Sparkling Power items and Mass Outbreaks which boosted those games’ odds to around 1 in 512. But, if you’re asking if spending 43 hours to get a shiny Squirtle was worth it… I have to say no.

Pokemon Legends: Z-A, Scarlet and Violet’s Shiny Odds Compared to FireRed and LeafGreen’s

In Pokemon Legends: Z-A, making donuts can significantly boost your chances of finding shiny Pokemon, especially if you reach Sparkling Power Level 3 and have a Shiny Charm. You get the Shiny Charm by completing 50 tasks for Mable. Similarly, in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, you can improve your odds by combining Mass Outbreaks with special sandwiches and a Shiny Charm. Here’s a breakdown of just how much these methods increase your chances of finding those rare, shiny Pokemon:

  • Pokemon Legends: Z-A and Scarlet and Violet have base shiny odds of 1 in 4,096. That alone means you can theoretically find two shinies in modern games for every shiny in the Gen 3 Kanto remakes.
  • Pokemon Legends: Z-A‘s Mega Dimension DLC allows you to make donuts with Ansha, and if you combine a Sparkling Power Lv. 3 donut with the Shiny Charm, you can get odds as high as 1 in 585, which means about 14 times more likely to find a shiny than in Pokemon FireRed and LeafGreen. Or, if you will, you can get 14 shinies in Z-A for every shiny in FireRed and LeafGreen.
  • Pokemon Scarlet and Violet‘s sandwiches also come with Sparkling Power Lv. 3, and you can combine that with a Shiny Charm and defeating at least 60 Pokemon from a Mass Outbreak to get shiny odds as high as 1 in 512. This means that you are 16 times more likely to find a shiny this way than in Pokemon FireRed and LeafGreen, or that for every shiny you find in the Kanto remakes, you can find 16 in Gen 9.

And it doesn’t stop there! Because you can actually see Pokemon roaming around in Pokemon Legends: Z-A and Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, I don’t have to waste time running through every patch of tall grass or endlessly soft-resetting for a shiny. Seriously, that whole process used to take forever, and I can’t ignore how much faster it is now.

Pokemon FireRed and LeafGreen vs. Legends: Z-A and Scarlet & Violet

Finding that shiny Squirtle in Pokemon FireRed and LeafGreen was incredibly exciting, and I’m still thrilled about it even after a day! However, considering the time it took, it’s something I’d only want to do rarely. While discovering a long-sought-after shiny is amazing, it doesn’t compare to the satisfaction of finding one much more quickly – about 14 to 16 times faster, in fact.

Plus, these odds are just averages, meaning even with very low chances, you might not find a rare Pokémon in games like Z-A or Scarlet and Violet after playing for 40 hours – but the feeling of finally succeeding will be even better! Because of this, I believe it was a smart move to lower the base odds from 1 in 8,192 in newer games. Things move much faster now than they did in the early 2000s, and modern video games demand more of our time and focus.

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2026-03-26 00:04