How to shiny hunt in Pokémon Legends: Z-A

If you’re looking to score shiny Pokémon in Pokémon Legends: Z-A, there’s quite a few ways to get one, though it mostly involves running around the city and resetting spawns. These rare, sparkling, alternate-color versions of Pokémon are hard to come by, since it’s a 1 in 4,096 chance to spawn one, but as you run around the city, you’ll be encountering thousands of Pokémon — meaning that you’re bound to run into one eventually.

Pokémon Legends: Z-A does bring back the “shiny sound” from Pokémon Legends: Arceus, so as you’re running around, make sure you’re listening for a special twinkling sound effect that will tell you that there’s a shiny in the area.

Players are constantly innovating new efficient methods for shiny hunting, but below we explain how to shiny hunt in Pokémon Legends: Z-A at a basic level, as well as some tips you should know as you hunt.

Update (Dec. 18): We’ve added a section on how to shiny hunt using donuts and Hyperspace portals in the Mega Dimension DLC.

How does shiny hunting work in Pokémon Legends: Z-A?

While yes, you can just encounter shiny Pokémon as you run around the city, if you’re explicitly looking for a specific Pokémon, you’ll want to find a place where the Pokémon spawns, and then rapidly reload that area.

There are a few ways to reset/reload an area:

• Fast travel to an area. Even if you fast travel to an area you’re already standing it, it will completely reload the map.
• Fast-forward time on a bench. This will skip forward to the next part of the time cycle (day or night), while reloading the area.
• Go in and out of a doorway that reloads the area, such as the staircase in Wild Zone 3 or the entry to the Lumiose Sewers.
• Run out of range of the Pokémon so it despawns, and then run back closer to it so it spawns again. Most Pokémon will show up when you’re around 50 units within range and then vanish when you get about 75 units away from them. You can track the distance by pinning the location of the Pokémon you’re hunting on the map.

From there, you pretty much just want to keep resetting the spawn of your desired Pokémon until you get lucky. It’s definitely a very different method from what we’re used to, as this involves more mindless button spamming and RNG than using sandwiches in Scarlet and Violet. In Legends: Z-A, there’s no breeding, so there’s no Masuda method. It’s all shiny hunting from organic encounters!

Image: Game Freak/Nintendo, The Pokémon Company via Polygon

According to the Pokémon expert Anubis/Sibuna_Switch on X, the game will also save up to 10 shiny Pokémon encounters on your map. This means that if you spawned a shiny Pidgey and you didn’t quite notice it, the Pidgey will actually stay there until you either catch it, defeat it, or make it fly away. Up to 10 Pokémon will retain their spots on the map until you get rid of them through the aforementioned methods, so you don’t have to worry too much about missing shinies that are out of your sight.

How to shiny hunt in Pokémon Legends: Z-A

Shiny hunting in Pokémon Legends: Z-A is all about resetting the spawns in your area, and as mentioned above, there’s quite a few ways to do so. Once you figure out the best way to reset the area with your target Pokémon in it, it’s pretty much just a matter of patience and button mashing. Here’s how to shiny hunt in Pokémon Legends: Z-A:

1. First, figure out what you want to hunt and where it shows up. Mark its location on your map with a pin.
2. Second, try to either find a reset point (see above) within 50 units of that pin.
3. If you can’t find that, then you’ll need to seek out a path that brings you to and from that Pokémon quickly (ideally without the use of ladders or too much parkouring). This path ideally will bring you within 50 units of the Pokémon you are hunting and 75+ units away from it.
4. Once that’s sorted out, either spam the buttons to reset the area (passing time on a bench, going into a building, fast traveling, etc), or run back and forth to respawn the Pokémon you’re hunting quickly.
5. You can opt to check in to see if the Pokémon you’re hunting has appeared shiny as often as you’d like, though some players only check every 30 minutes or so.
6. Eventually, with some luck, you will hopefully hear the shiny sound effect as you approach your target, and your shiny hunt will be over.

If you’re having a hard time finding a spot to reset for your favorite Pokémon, Austin John Plays actually put in the work and has a location for each Pokémon (or at least a Pokémon in each evolution line).

However, if you want the fossil Pokémon, the shiny hunting method is a wee bit different…

How to shiny hunt the fossil Pokémon in Pokémon Legends: Z-A

If you want Tyrunt, Amaura, or Aerodactyl, your shiny hunting method is going to be different. You will need to just keep restoring fossils until you get the shiny, and unfortunately, these Pokémon are not affected by the Shiny Charm, so you’re stuck at a base shiny rate.

To get them, you can do the following:

1. Buy 10 or so fossils for the Pokémon you want from the Stone Emporium. You’ll need the Jaw Fossil for Tyrunt, the Sail Fossil for Amaura, and the Old Amber for Aerodactyl. You can buy more if you want to reset the game less often.
2. Head to the second floor of the Pokémon Research Lab and manually save.
3. Talk to the man in front of the fossil restoration machine, effectively just spamming the A button until all the fossils you bought are restored.
4. If you didn’t get a shiny, close the game and repeat step three until you get your shiny.

This one is obviously a bit tougher and more annoying than the other methods, but alas.

Note that if you have the Mega Dimension DLC, you can get fossil Pokémon in Hyperspace Lumiose, so you do not have to do this method.

How to shiny hunt with donuts and Hyperspace portals in Pokémon Legends: Z-A — Mega Dimension

Image: Game Freak/Nintendo, The Pokémon Company via Polygon

If you own the Mega Dimension DLC, shiny hunting has a bit of a twist. You can now make donuts to boost shiny rates, similarly to how Pokémon Scarlet and Violet had sandwiches, but these donuts only boost shiny rates within Hyperspace Lumiose. Before you get into the weeds shiny hunting, we recommend getting far enough in the story to unlock high-tier berries and the Hyperspace Butter, allowing you to make donuts with up to eight berries.

Here’s a quick breakdown of how to shiny hunt using portals and donuts:

1. Make a donut with the relevant sparkling power (more on that below) for the Pokémon you’re hunting, which will increase the shiny rate for a specific type or for all types, depending on the donut you rolled. For example, if you’re shiny hunting Zangoose, you’ll want a donut that has sparkling power for normal-types or for all types.
2. Reset portals by changing the time of day on benches until you get a portal for the Pokémon you’re shiny hunting.
3. Go to a Pokémon Center and heal your Pokémon. This will create a back-up save.
4. Go into the portal using your shiny donut. If your donut has level three sparkling power, it’s guaranteed for a shiny that matches the donut’s type to appear near the map’s entrance.
5. Reset the spawns on the map by doing the same thing you do in regular Lumiose City: running far enough to despawn the Pokémon and then close enough again to respawn them. You can use horizontal holovators to help expedite this process.
6. As your calories begin to dwindle down, make sure you’re checking around and catching any shinies that may have spawned while you reset the area.
7. If your hunt was unsuccessful, close the game.
8. Re-open the game and press Up on the d-pad and the X and B buttons at the same time while on the title screen. This will revert your save back to the Pokémon Center, getting rid of any weird autosaves that may have happened while you’re in the portal.
9. Repeat from step four until you get the shiny you want.

This method is mostly the same as the regular method outlined above, but you’ll just need to be mindful of the time limit you have within the Hyperspace portal. There are many instances of players seeing a shiny in the distance as their time runs out, so don’t let that be you!

The toughest part of this really is making the donut, which we explain how to do below.

Sparkling power donut recipes in Pokémon Legends: Z-A — Mega Dimension

Image: Game Freak/Nintendo, The Pokémon Company via Polygon

Getting a donut with sparkling power is somewhat random. According to Pokeos’ donut maker tool, donuts can start rolling sparkling power level one at 100 sweetness and level three at 400 sweetness. We recommend using Hyper Occa Berries (60 sweet), Hyper Chople Berries (55 sweet), Hyper Haban Berries (85 sweet), or Hyper Tanga Berries (95 sweet) to make them. We also recommend using the aforementioned donut tool to help plan out your donut min-maxing.

Note that it is possible not to get a sparkling power buff when you make your donuts with these berries, but rather one of the other sweet-oriented buffs (alpha power, humungo power, or teensy power). If you only have a few berries to work with, you’ll want to reset your game until you get the power you’re looking for, which can be done by doing the following:

1. Head to a Pokémon Center and heal up, creating a back-up save.
2. Go to Ansha in Hotel Z and make a donut with at least 400 points of sweet flavor.
3. If you don’t get the sparkling power you want, close the game.
4. Open the game and press Up on the d-pad and the X and B buttons at the same time on the title screen. As mentioned above, this will revert your save back to the Pokémon Center.
5. Repeat from step two until you get the donut you want.

This process is a little tedious, but since the game autosaves after you make a donut, you do need to go through this whole rigmarole in order to properly get your ingredients back and try again.

Sparkling power donuts increase the shiny rate, with each level improving the rate, according to Anubis/Shibuna_Switch on X. Ideally, you’ll want sparkling power level three for all of your hunts, as this does also grant an additional guaranteed shiny upon portal entry.

Shiny hunting tips for Pokémon Legends: Z-A

Image: Game Freak/Nintendo, The Pokémon Company via Polygon

If you’re going hard in the paint, here are some tips that you should make sure to keep in mind as you hunt:

• If you plan on doing a lot of shiny hunting, you should get the Shiny Charm. It does require you to complete most of Mable’s Requests (including completing the Pokédex and doing 1,000 battles), but it also quadruples your chance of finding a shiny (up from 1 in 4,096 to 1 in 1,024).
• Shiny hunting is a game of patience. You can see well over 4,000 Pokémon without seeing a single shiny. It can take hours of resets to find your shiny target — or it can just take one single reset. If you’re about to start hunting, be prepared for the long haul.
• Don’t forget to check your surroundings for other shiny Pokémon that you haven’t necessarily been targeting. You never know when you’ll find a spare shiny Fletchling or Bellsprout that just happened to be within your respawn radius.
• Unfortunately, gifted Pokémon and most set encounters are all shiny locked in Pokémon Legends: Z-A, which means they cannot be shiny. This includes the starter Pokémon, any Pokémon you get from side missions, the three Legendary Pokémon you can catch in the post-game, and the two gift Pokémon you can also get in the post-game (which we will not spoil in this guide).
• There are a few legendaries that can be shiny hunted in the DLC. Latios, Latias, Virizion, Terrakion, and Cobalion can all be reset until they show up shiny.
• Yes, there is third-party hardware that will automate the shiny hunting process for you, whether it’s a tool that allows you to macro a string of commands or a controller with a “turbo” function that will spam one button repeatedly for you. This is safe and won’t lead to a “ban” from Pokémon or anything like that. (Personally, we just wouldn’t recommend buying a controller or hardware just for this, unless you plan on doing a ton of shiny hunting.)
• There are also some very specific methods that may have you defeat a Pokémon, wait an exact number of minutes before it respawns, save the game, and then spam reloading the save until it respawns as a shiny. However, since respawn timers in this game seem to vary, this involves some personal testing and timing depending on what you’re hunting for.

Again, shiny hunting constantly evolves, and expert players are always seeking out faster, more complex methods to get their sparkling rarities, but the tips and methods we list above should help you find dozens of shiny Pokémon — at least it did for us!

Looking for more on Pokémon Legends: Z-A? We have a beginner’s guide to help you get started, as well as a type advantage chart, if you’re having a hard time remembering what’s good against what. We also have guides on how to find other early game Pokémon to help you on your journey, like the Kalos starters, the Kanto starters, and even an early spot to find Eevee. If you’re seeking out even more, we have an interactive map of Lumiose City, too.

We also have guides on special evolutions that require more than just leveling up, like Inkay and Malamar, and a list of when you can unlock all of the Mega Stones you’ll need to Mega Evolve.