On October 15, 2020, I published an article commemorating what was then the 20th anniversary of the North American release of the second generation mainline Pokémon games, Pokémon Gold and Silver (see Winds of New Beginnings: Pokémon Gold & Silver). In so doing, I told the story of how I acquired Pokémon Gold on launch day and offered my take on the elegant town slogan for the player’s starting point, New Bark Town in the English releases (Wakaba Town in the Japanese version). Five years have passed since October 15, 2020, meaning that it has now been a quarter-century since Pokémon Gold and Silver became officially available in North America. I decided that it would be fun to revisit the American launch of the generation two Pokémon games, thus commemorating the games and that The New Leaf Journal is still going strong since I first weighed in on the subject. Today’s theme will be shiny, specifically a shiny Drowzee.
Introducing Pokémon Gold and Silver
I was a big fan of Pokémon and the generation one games and thus was looking forward to Gold and Silver.
Understanding the early days of Pokémon requires understanding that the information environment for games, especially games coming from Japan, was very different in 1998 and 1999 than it is today. Pokémon Red and Blue were released in Japan on February 27, 1996, more than two years before they landed in the United States on September 28, 1998. I received my copy of Pokémon Red for Christmas in 1998. But while kids stateside were digging into Pokémon Red and Blue in 1998 and 1999, Nintendo and Game Freak had already made available a demo of Gold and Silver at a Japanese video game exhibition in November 1997. Bits and pieces of the upcoming generation two Pokémon games made their way to America across the world wide web, contributing, along with the myriad glitches in Pokémon Red and Blue, to the genesis and spread across American classrooms and playgrounds of some peculiar urban legends regarding Red and Blue. As I noted in my article on Bill’s Secret Garden, the circumstances which allowed for the spread of these Pokémon urban legends were a distinctly late 90s phenomenon.
Pokémon Gold and Silver were released in Japan on November 21, 1999, just one month after Americans and Canadians were able to purchase Pokémon Yellow, which was a new take distinctly Pikachu on Pokémon Red and Blue, on October 18 of that same year (fun fact: Yellow was released in Japan on September 12, 1998, 16 days before North American stores stocked Red and Blue). The Pokémon phenomenon had died down in my school by the start 1999-00 school year. As a result, I do not have personal context for whether the 1999 summer vacation and the actual release of Gold and Silver in Japan (which led to the flow of information establishing that the “PokéGods” were often nothing more than ordinary Pokémon being introduced in the second generation games) had tempered some of the enthusiastic theorizing about Red and Blue that we saw in late 1998 and early 1999. Unlike most of my classmates who became too cool for Pokémon (they had that one right, never heard much from the “Pokéman” again in the United States or abroad), I was very much looking forward to Gold and Silver.
My Golden Pokémon Memories
I ranked Pokémon Gold third on a list of games which left the biggest impression on me, only trailing Pokémon Red and Harvest Moon: Back to Nature. I discussed back in my 2020 retrospective what it was about Pokémon Gold that stuck with me, so I will add some additional context here instead of re-inventing the Poké Ball.
Despite my having fond memories of Pokémon Gold and Silver (I eventually received Silver and completed a second generation two play-through in it), I conceded back in 2020 that “I do not remember my first play-through of Pokémon Gold as well as I remember my first play-through of Pokémon Red” (I demonstrated my memory of Red in the big impression article). But while Pokémon Gold lags behind Red in my first run memories, only it, and not Red, can boast about inspiring the site tagline of this humble online writing magazine. But I digress.
What if I told you that I have one uniquely shiny Pokémon Gold memory that did not make it into my 20-year retrospective? I present to you, after a characteristically lengthy intro, the story of the shiny purple Drowzee.
Shiny Pokémon in Gold and Silver
Pokémon Gold and Silver introduced many concepts to the core Pokémon games that remain in place today. One of the more notable generation two innovations is shiny Pokémon.
From generation two on, every Pokémon has an alternative color scheme. They came to eventually be called shiny, likely because when they are encountered in one of the Pokémon games, there is a sparkling visual effect with a little jingle. On a surface level, shiny Pokémon are not materially different than non-shiny Pokémon save for their coloration and special effects. However, in the case of Gold and Silver, shiny Pokémon were less than optimal for battling (at least competitive battling) due to how shiny-ness was determined.
If shiny Pokémon were not better (or indeed were worse) on the Pokémon battlefield than non-shiny Pokémon, why would someone want one? The shiny Pokémon play on the collection aspect of the Pokémon games. Just like children wanted the Base Set Charizard card because it looked cool and was rare (comparatively speaking, of course) despite the fact that it was unexceptional in the context of the card game meta at the time, it was and still is fun to collect unusual and rare Pokémon.
Speaking of rare Pokémon, shiny Pokémon had to be unusual to tempt trainers to hunt for them. The math involving shiny Pokémon varies and some Pokémon games have mechanics which make it possible to make it more likely for shiny Pokémon to appear. But as a general matter, shiny Pokémon are rare. In generation two, which is the generation we are concerned with here, a random wild Pokémon encounter had a 1/8192 chance being shiny. (See Bulbapedia article for details.) The reason why shiny Pokémon in generation two were not good competitively was because shininess was determined by Determinant Value stats, heretofore “DV” stats, which were hidden statistical values assigned to each Pokémon in the generation one and two games (the modern equivalent of DVs are Individual Values, or “IVs,”
which I discussed in an article featuring on generation eight Pokémon battles between me and Victor V. Gurbo). This also explains why shiny Pokémon were not “good” in generation two. DV for each stat (HP, Attack, Defense, Speed, Sp. Atk, and Sp. Def) could be any value between 0 and 15, but in order for a Pokémon to be shiny, it had to have a DV of exactly 10 in Defense, Speed, Special Attack, and Special Defense, and an Attack of 2, 3, 6, 7, 10, 11, 14, or 15. While it goes without saying that there is a range in shiny Pokémon, a shiny Pokémon is required to have a DV of only 10 out of 15 in four out of six stats – which is fine for normal in-game play but less than stellar for competitive multi-player.
Every Pokémon Gold and Silver player is guaranteed to have one chance to acquire a shiny Pokémon. There is a shiny Gyarados (red) that the player must battle, and can optionally catch, in the second half of the first part of the generation two games. I will have everyone know that I caught and used that red Gyarados in my play-through. The mandatory red Gyarados was included to introduce the shiny Pokémon concept to players since the horrific odds for randomly encountering a shiny made it more likely than not that most people would never bump into one during a normal play-through. (Pokémon Crystal, which is the third take on Pokémon Gold and Silver, includes an in-game-event Pokémon egg with a much higher than normal chance of hatching shiny.)
There are two ways to “shiny hunt” in Gold and Silver. One is to keep triggering random Pokémon encounters until those 1/8192 odds tip in your favor. The other is through breeding Pokémon. Pokémon Gold and Silver also introduced Pokémon breeding, another innovation which persists to this day and one that has had a much more significant effect on Pokémon game-play than shinies. While DVs are not visible, they can be inferred from a Pokémon’s visible stats and other factors. Through Pokémon breeding, it is possible to narrow the range of stats that a Pokémon off-spring may have. If done correctly, a skilled Pokémon breeder can ensure a 1/64 chance of hatching a shiny Pokémon. While that is not great, it is certainly better than the 1/8192 chance of stumbling upon one in the wild.
(There is a way to actually guarantee a shiny Pokémon by sending a shiny back to the generation one games, where it will keep its DVs despite generation one having no concept of shininess, and force a wild Ditto to transform into your shiny Pokémon before catching the Ditto and sending it to the future generation two, but that is well beyond the scope of the instant article. Also beyond the scope of the instant article is my article on Ditto graffiti seen in Brooklyn Heights, but I recommend you give that a read.)
My Shiny Pokémon Gold Encounter
I read video game magazines and had strategy guides back when I was playing Pokémon Gold and Silver. While I cannot say that I remember what precisely I thought about shiny Pokémon at the time, I was no doubt aware of the long odds of finding a shiny beyond the mandatory red Gyarados. To the best of my recollection, I never took the time to wander around areas where one encounters wild Pokémon and spend hours trying to find a shiny (that would have really burned through AA batteries back in the day). Perhaps I would have if I had the mettle I demonstrated in recent years to do things like play through a visual novel 43 times to trigger the true ending, unnecessarily spend time trying to catch a Dragonair in Pokémon Yellow’s Safari Zone, or wandering around Viridian Forest for more than an hour looking for a Caterpie. I also did not try to breed shiny Pokémon. In fact, to the best of my recollection, I did not engage in any Pokémon breeding in my youthful Gold and Silver runs.
This, I was almost certainly surprised when there was something unusual about a certain wild Pokémon encounter. I encountered a Drowzee. Drowzee is a rather pedestrian first-stage psychic Pokémon which gives off a tapir appearance and, according to the Pokédex, puts people to sleep and eats their dreams. It evolves into a Pokémon named Hypno, which lost quite a bit off its once-formidable offense in the transition from generation one to two. While I personally like Drowzee and Hypno, I would not venture that they were particularly notable or popular among the cast of the first two generations, although their first anime season appearance was memorable enough that I remember it with some specificity. I did not use one in any of my early game runs. But this is not about using Drowzee. We are concerned with Drowzee’s coloration.
Drowzee has a yellow upper body and brown lower body. You can see how it appears in Gold. But the Drowzee I encountered that one time did not look like that. My Drowzee came with a sparkling effect and a jingle. If that did not get my attention, I would have likely noticed that this Drowzee had a purple head and torso. I was surprised and had not been wandering around looking to catch Pokémon. Fortunately, I did not accidentally run from the battle or knock out the 1/8192 Drowzee. Even more fortunately, I had some version of Poké Balls on hand and was able to add a very rare Drowzee to my collection.
I did not end up using the Drowzee in the game beyond sending it out to see what it looked like from the trainer’s perspective. One reason I did not use it was because I caught Drowzee late in the game and Drowzee was at a very low level compared to my party. Had I caught a shiny Pokémon earlier in the game or one that was close to the level my team was at, I suspect I would have added it to my party like I did the red Gyarados. But, alas, the timing was not right for fair Drowzee. It is also possible that I would have put some effort into training Drowzee had my classmates played Pokémon (I certainly had at least one Link Cable). Again, alas, if anyone in my class played Pokémon Gold and Silver in 2000, they were not admitting it. I will note that my friend Victor V. Gurbo was also playing Pokémon Gold at the time and we actually attended school across the street from one another (literally, not figuratively, across the street), but we would not have so much as a conversation until we were acquainted in high school in 2006.
My Shiny Pokémon Memories
Having conceded that my memory of first playing Pokémon Gold is much less sharp than my Pokémon Red first-run memories, one may think that I would not be able to pin down anything about my shiny Drowzee encounter other than the details I provided above. Not so! I previously wrote about being able to ascertain with some confidence precisely when I acquired Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life with reference to the 2004 NBA Finals. In the case of purple Drowzee, I need not look outside my own memories and reference materials on Pokémon Gold.
In the previous section, I specifically noted that I encountered Drowzee late in my Pokémon Gold run—near the end-game to be precise—and that it was at a much lower level than the rest of my party. Because of how Pokémon Gold is structured, this helps us narrow things down significantly. Moreover, I will note that I have a slight mental picture of the in-game area where I encountered Drowzee, as being a relatively narrow rectangular patch of tall grass (wild Pokémon appear in tall grass) oriented lengthwise with the area outside the grass being visible above me.
Drowzee is only available in the wild in three areas in the generation two Pokémon games: Johto routes 34–35 and Kanto route 11. As I explained in by Pokémon Gold and Silver retrospective back in 2020, the first half of the generation two games takes place in Johto, which is a new region, and the second half takes place in Kanto, which is the location of the generation one games. Drowzee appearing on Kanto route 11 in Gold and Silver makes sense since that is the sole location where Drowzee appears in the generation one games.
This information is more than sufficient for me to say with near absolute certainty that I encountered shiny Drowzee on Kanto Route 11. Moreover, based on my hazy recollection of where I encountered Drowzee, I have annotated an image of the Route 11 map (courtesy of Bulbapedia) with the purple Drowzee sprites on the two most likely places the encountered occurred.
I was lucky to stumble upon a shiny. I am sure that many children back then were not so fortunate. Surely that shiny encounter would be a sign of many shiny encounters to come!
No More Shiny Pokémon?
I have played through to completion at least one version of every mainline Pokémon generation except 5 (Black and White, Black 2 and White 2) and 9 (Scarlet and Violet). In those runs, I have no doubt encountered thousands of wild Pokémon. The baseline shiny Pokémon odds improved, from 1/8192 to 1/4096 beginning in generation six. To make things better, the odds in generation VIII are just 1/1024 for those who completed the base-game Pokédex, which I am proud to say I did in Shield. My odds were better with some Pokémon due to a mechanic in Sword and Shield which increased the shiny chance for Pokémon based on how many times you battled them.
But the last shiny Pokémon I randomly bumped in a Pokémon game I completed is a purple Drowzee almost 25 years ago.
To be sure, this is not to say I did not catch any shiny Pokémon in games I completed. I caught a shiny Wingull in Pokémon Moon (generation VII) using an SOS Battle (a unique mechanic) trick to reduce my shiny odds to 1/315 (it did not take as long as my Caterpie hunt last year in Pokémon Red). I caught a shiny Magikarp in Shield during a max raid event. But at no point did I happen to bump into a shiny Pokémon in the wild.
Had I known that I may never recreate that Drowzee encounter I had back in late 2000 or early 2001, perhaps I would have made better use of it.
But what if I was very careful in my word choice just now?
Dull Technicality?
I said “played through to completion” all but 5 mainline in the previous section.
I noted in a 2023 article on imagination in Pokémon Red and Blue that I had purchased Pokémon Violet, which is one half of the mainline generation IX games. I have yet to get too far in Violet, only having completed one badge before a combination of being busy and the game’s irritating performance issues on what is now Nintendo Switch 1 sapped my motivation to continue for the time being. But perhaps my motivation was sapped by a very soul-crushing event.
I managed to become briefly stuck in one of the very early areas of Violet when I was exploring. To be sure, I blame the game’s jittery frame rate. But I digress. While I was distracted trying to become un-stuck, I bumped into a wild Pokémon. That Pokémon was a Surskit, a water-bug Pokémon introduced in generation III. While I never actually used Surskit, I am partial to it. My heart is with the first two generations of Pokémon, but generation III has some great designs. In any event, I was just mashing through encounters, and I hit the button twice to attack without processing that the Surskit’s entry had been accompanied by a jingle.
And so the shiny Surskit fainted before I could catch it.
Who can blame me for not finishing (or doing much more than starting) my Pokémon Violet run after I accidentally knocked out the first random shiny encounter I had in 23 years because I was distracted trying to fight the game’s physics and frame-rate to get unstuck from somewhere?
While this did sting, I will note the shiny Surskit, while an improbable encounter so early in Pokémon Violet (this was before I even made it to “school,” much less the first gym badge) was less improbable than Drowzee. I rolled a 1/4096 for the Surskit while my purple Drowzee in Gold was 1/8192. Whenever I get around to playing through Violet (perhaps until I talk myself into getting a Switch 2 for the improvements), I think I know what I need to shiny hunt for redemption.
Shiny 5- and 25-Year Anniversaries
I enjoyed revisiting my purple shiny Drowzee encounter and my purple-shaded shiny trauma from Pokémon Violet to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the American release of Pokémon Gold and Silver. Gold and Silver are not without their niggles, but I dare say they are the pound for pound finest original entries in the mainline Pokémon series (one could, and many have, made a fair case that the Pokémon Heart Gold and Soul Silver remakes for Nintendo DS are the best mainline Pokémon games of any color). No Pokémon game has quite recaptured the magic of beginning a Pokémon journey from Pallet Town in generation one and following that in the town where the winds of a new beginning blow in Gold and Silver, ultimately concluding with a (Gold and Silver spoiler alert) battle against the formerly player-controlled protagonist of Red and Blue. In addition to its impressive scope, Gold and Silver has a rustic, cohesive aesthetic that has yet to be topped in the mainline Pokémon series (albeit I will confess to being a fan of the generation VII Sun and Moon setting, if only it were not so restricted). The modern Pokémon entries still owe much to Gold and Silver, and while they show their age in many respects, Gold, Silver, and Crystal remain fun to play today – the winds of new beginnings still rustle the evergreen leaves of New Bark/Wakaba Town.
