Shiny Starter Pokémon In Sun & Moon: What They Look Like and How to Get Them

Fun fact: you can actually get shiny versions of all the starter Pokémon in Sun & Moon! It's tough, and it might take a while, but here's everything you need to know about how to catch them and what they look like!

Scroll down to see what each of the shiny starters look like, and what their evolved forms look like. Swanky!

How to Get a Shiny Starter (Faster Than Normal)

The process of actually choosing your starter Pokémon is, sadly, locked within a cutscene that lasts roughly two and half minutes. That means that attempting to get a shiny starter is going to take a serious time investment as you reload and reload and reload.

Huge credit goes out to YouTuber SmkGaming05 for all the information about the soft resets! You can watch his video here or scroll down for our text version of the directions.

First, you'll need to save your game right after your bridge encounter with the Tapu Koko guardian Pokémon and right before you talk to Lillie about heading back to town. Your screen will look something like this:

Pokemon Sun and Moon save point location before choosing starter Pokemon

Save there so you can return when you soft reset. Talking to Lillie will start the cutscene that includes the starter selection process. If you don't get a shiny right away, this is the best save place you'll have to return to.

Here's how to soft reset your Sun & Moon game to speed things up:

Hold down the Left and Right bumpers
While holding bumpers down, press Start or Select
Your game will reset, skipping the initial boot up time and opening scene

Tips for getting your shiny starter:

Set text speed to Fast
Smash the A button as much as you can to skip dialogue
Odds are 1 out of 4096
When you pick your Pokémon it will not appear to be shiny until you pick it!

To quickly reiterate that last point – when you first see the Starters all lined up in a row, they will always appear the same, even if one is a shiny:

Pokemon Sun and Moon starter selection screen showing all three starters

In the above picture, one of those could be a shiny!

Now, you won't actually find out until you select your Pokémon and have the opportunity to give them a nickname. So, if you see this screen, then Rowlet is NOT shiny:

Normal Rowlet nickname screen in Pokemon Sun and Moon

But, if you see a Rowlet with a different coloration, like in the tweet below, then you've got yourself a shiny Rowlet:

@SciresM to any one asking if starters are locked no but SR time is long as hell pic.twitter.com/cPglWyBPSE
— Evo2587 (@Evo2587) November 11, 2016

But, again, GOOD LUCK. The chances are 1 in 4096 that you get a shiny starter and each attempt will eat up around 2min 30sec. 4096 attempts, then, could take 170+ hours! Of course, you could get one after only 10 minutes of trying, but you won't know until you try.

There is, however an easier, but cheat-y way get all the shiny starters into your Pokédex with QR codes, which you can learn more about on our other article.

Below is each shiny version of each starter and their evolutions, plus their QR codes.