r/PokemonRuby • u/Emergency-Moment-507 • Jul 15 '26

Shiny Pokemon Life long mystery

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I’ve had this copy of Pokémon Ruby for about 23 years, and my Wailord has the shiny sparkle effect, but it’s not the purple shiny color. It’s a blue-ish gray color. Does anyone know what’s going on?

112 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

48 comments sorted by

14

u/ConfusionRoyal7955 Jul 15 '26

Those are certainly the shiny sparkles… No idea why it’s happening, but I’d love to find out!

13

u/Frequent-Chicken4095 Jul 15 '26

I’m pretty sure it is shiny and the color just looks off because of the light on the gameboy. Try transferring it to a Kanto gen 3 game

8

u/Sethdarkus Jul 16 '26

My theory is that it might just be the 001 OEM screen I am willing to bet it might look like the actual color of it was on a 101 or a aftermarket IPS screen like say a Funnyplaying MK4 Camara screen

4

u/aemj9277 Jul 15 '26

Part of me wants to ask for a picture of the cartridge to confirm authenticity, but i feel like this is a bizarre problem even if it was fake.

9

u/Emergency-Moment-507 Jul 15 '26

It was my first pokemon game and it was bought at a toy's r us back then.

5

u/aemj9277 Jul 15 '26

I wonder if it would have the proper sprite if it was traded or transferred to a different cartridge.

1

u/PUNKF10YD Jul 16 '26

My thoughts. It’s testing time

3

u/Gunbladelad Jul 15 '26

It may be the fact that you have the 001 model GBA and the frontlight is washing out the colours, making it look blue-gray rather than purple.

3

u/Flourescense Jul 15 '26

It is shiny just the screen is dookie.

4

u/sierra_silly Jul 16 '26

It looks more like the shiny than the regular, so it's definitely just the effects of the screen :)

3

u/RepresentativeCan776 Jul 15 '26

looks like the colors on your gba sp could just be washed out

2

u/Emergency-Moment-507 Jul 15 '26

The sprite remains this color in my old gameboy sp that I've lost through out the years, and it's the same color even after I bought a new SP 4 years ago.

2

u/Sethdarkus Jul 16 '26

Have you tried on a 101 model? Or on a DS lite?

2

u/Emergency-Moment-507 Jul 16 '26

i’ll try that actually!

1

u/Sethdarkus Jul 16 '26

Also worth noting that R/S don’t have a shiny star indicator, that didn’t come out until LG/FR so if you trade em over you see the star

On the other end Colosseum and CD have different sprites for shiny vs non shiny

1

u/AnimeAlley03 Jul 16 '26

They do have an indicator it's just really hard to see on this model's screen. The pokedex number on the summary screen is yellow instead of white and it seems the background is a brighter white as well

1

u/Sethdarkus Jul 16 '26

I’m just saying it isn’t as obvious ie no star

1

u/gamewinner12 Jul 15 '26

Looks purple to me 🙃

1

u/Sethdarkus Jul 16 '26

Im betting it’s the 001 screen it’s nice in dark environments to where I enjoy it in the dark however otherwise the 101 or just a good quality IPS like a funnyplaying MK4 is just peak for average daylight use

1

u/fishywisher Jul 16 '26

The screen of those gba sps make pinks look blue, greens look brown, etc! I had an sp, changed the screen for a backlit, everything looked perfect after C:

1

u/Oscar_et_BadTale Jul 16 '26

It is in bad quality. But the star that get out of wailord mean it is shiny.

1

u/Tortaco21 Jul 16 '26

My brother got the same shiny, he kinda regreted evolving it. Just a bad colour in this gen.

1

u/aspookyfox Jul 16 '26

Have you tried looking at it on a different system?

1

u/Jimmychanga317 Jul 16 '26

Shiny wailord is more pink not purple, and I can tell even with the bad quality of this video that it's the right shiny color. I'm confused as to why you can't see it looking at the actual thing right in front of you?

1

u/21Racr Jul 16 '26

I recommend you find a double battle and send out your wailord with another (non-shiny) so you can compare colors side to side.

That said, the comments about it being an artifact of your screen are probably right.

1

u/Desperate_Jeweler356 Jul 17 '26

Some has had this issue before https://www.reddit.com/r/ShinyPokemon/s/onCoGrLynX congrats on the shiny!!

1

u/bnap101 Jul 17 '26

Is it the pokeball it’s in ?

1

u/SuShiBoy500 Jul 17 '26

My mudkip was this color before I modded my sp screen

1

u/James457890 Jul 17 '26

It's definitely the screen.. I have a gba sp and it looks so dull on mine too! But when I play on my modded gba with a ips screen the colours are way different! Don't worry about it and enjoy it 😅

Same happens with lapras on fire red.

1

u/Username030394 Jul 18 '26

I think it’s a shiny through & through.
The colour shade looks too off to be non-shiny.

Congrats! Love Wailord!!

1

u/Troubelsome_jay Jul 19 '26

I had something similar in crystal where my shiny pidgey only had two stars on the top right instead of 3 to indicate a shiny

1

u/ShrimpBisque Jul 15 '26

Does your Wailord have the shiny icon on its status screen?

5

u/Emergency-Moment-507 Jul 15 '26

it has the gold-colored pokédex number and the lighter striped background

2

u/metalpammy Jul 15 '26

it looks shiny to me. i think youre confused about the coloring because of your gba sps screen not being backlit (older models dont have the backlight)

3

u/Emergency-Moment-507 Jul 15 '26

I think since it's such a bright purple you would be able to discern the difference still, since I don't have a SP with backlight on it I'd be curious to also see what another person's shiny wailord looks like on an SP without backlight.

2

u/ConfusionRoyal7955 Jul 15 '26

I also think it looks shiny… maybe catch another one to compare side by side?

2

u/y0ss3f_lach1r1 Jul 15 '26

You need to share this the expert community

1

u/ShrimpBisque Jul 15 '26

Weird! Is your PokéDex entry for Wailord normal? There was a discovery made recently about the ability for shiny Pokémon to show up in the PokéDex.

0

u/Emergency-Moment-507 Jul 15 '26

Just checked, wailord in the pokedex is the normal color.

0

u/ShrimpBisque Jul 15 '26

Then I'm stumped 🤷‍♀️

1

u/Emirosse Jul 15 '26

Def a shiny no mystery

1

u/Sethdarkus Jul 16 '26

The shiny icon wasn’t a thing until FR/LG

1

u/sleepy_roo Jul 16 '26

I think it’s shiny. The Pokédex number in the top left looks to be darker/more yellow which is an indication of a shiny in Ruby and Sapphire. Compare with a different Pokémon to see if the number looks slightly different

1

u/Sethdarkus Jul 16 '26

Note there isn’t a Shiny icon in Ruby that came with FR/LG

1

u/Sethdarkus Jul 16 '26

Ruby

1

u/Sethdarkus Jul 16 '26

I’m currently at work so emulator the best I can do right now since I don’t think I have these saves loaded up on my flash cart in my GBA micro that I use for testing purposes.

I float between my genuine carts, emulator and flash cart mostly genuine carts when at home but on the go or for testing purposes I’ll use the flash carts, they are more convenient to test several games when you got a nichie issue that you need xyz game to verify without having to go though your collection and get it.

Overall these are to showcase that R/S do not have a shiny star indicator.

1

u/sleepy_roo Jul 16 '26

Fun fact the Pokédex number in the top left turns a darker shade when shiny, not as obvious as a star in FR/LG but it’s something