The ultimate Pokemon Emerald completionist is finally ready to tackle the first gym after 20 months of hunting shinies for a challenge so brutal even using a bot barely helps

Sep. 1, 2024

They can finally move on after finding a second 1-in-819,200 acorn

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The entire Pokemon series is a completionist’s dream – with the whole concept being to, y’know,catch ‘em all, there’s always plenty to do for those dedicated enough to fill out their entire Pokedex. Butwhat if you wanted to take things a step further?

You might think that employing a bot to do all of these random encounters and catch the shinies would make the challenge redundant, but I promise that’s absolutely not the case. In fact, the whole concept is so difficult that only now, almost 20 months in, it’s become possible for 40 Cakes to take on the first gym. Their bot found hundreds of shinies in that time, though, so what was the problem?

Wanna know what the worst part is? Eventually, 40 Cakes will need to find athirdone to get Seedot’s final evolution, Shiftry – the hunter was only exempt from this before the first gym badge since they’d need a Leaf Stone to evolve it, which can’t be obtained at that point. Unfortunately, while you can find wild Nuzleaf in Emerald, too, they also only have a 1% encounter rate, so 40 Cakes will befacing those awful oddsno matter where the bot looks.

I can’t imagine how long this challenge is going to take to complete given what a journey it’s been so far, but if you’re interested in keeping up with it, it’s being streamed constantly over on thecreator’s YouTube channel. Who knows, maybe in another year, 40 Cakes will finally have that shiny Shiftry.

Be sure to check out our list of thebest Pokemon gamesto see where your favorite ranks.

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I’m one of GamesRadar+’s news writers, who works alongside the rest of the news team to deliver cool gaming stories that we love. After spending more hours than I can count filling The University of Sheffield’s student newspaper with Pokemon and indie game content, and picking up a degree in Journalism Studies, I started my career at GAMINGbible where I worked as a journalist for over a year and a half. I then became TechRadar Gaming’s news writer, where I sourced stories and wrote about all sorts of intriguing topics. In my spare time, you’re sure to find me on my Nintendo Switch or PS5 playing through story-driven RPGs like Xenoblade Chronicles and Persona 5 Royal, nuzlocking old Pokemon games, or going for a Victory Royale in Fortnite.

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