Scarlet and Violet’s change to Shiny Pokémon isn’t just unpopular—it excludes groups of players

Pokémon Scarlet and Violet is the latest entry to the series that has dominated popular culture for decades. The game brings back a lot of the popular features that fans have come to love, but it’s also gotten rid of one of the important accessibility features that will now limit some players. The Shiny Pokémon no longer show a flourish or make a sound when spawning.

In previous games when players encountered a Shiny Pokémon, the game would give an indication by showing the creature with a unique flourish and sound notification. This small inclusion helped many players who have trouble differentiating between colors. With it missing from the game, many of these players will likely miss those same Pokémon.

Without this feature, players without visual impairments will have had a harder time finding these Pokémon throughout their games. Unless you have a comprehensive knowledge of how each Pokémon looks and can differentiate quickly, then you’re bound to miss multiple Shinies throughout your playthrough.

Those who can’t differentiate certain colors are at a double disadvantage, having to notice a Pokémon that looks different without being able to see the alternate colors. This issue is compounded by the fact that some Shinies are very similar in color to their normal versions, and many Pokémon are tiny, making it even more difficult to notice small Shiny types in the wild. This change has been called out amongst the community for these very reasons as it doesn’t make sense why Game Freak would take this out.

This isn’t the only accessibility change that Game Freak removed for Scarlet and Violet with options like the choice to turn off battle animations also not present for the last two games. While the battle animation change makes partial sense due to timed Tera Raid battles, the lack of Shiny notification seems to be something that will negatively impact the player experience for no good reason.

It could be that Game Freak felt that it was too easy to find Shiny Pokémon in the past couple of games. However, if that were the case, this feels like a major over-correction.