So when Flabébé CD was first announced, I suddenly realized that I’ve been encountering a lot Kalos shinies lately since at the time of the news, we just came from research events that boosted the shinies of Amaura, Tyrunt and Swirlix. So I then researched a events that had increased shiny chances as a feature, and noticed that most of what were boosted were from Kalos. I then listed all the Kalos mons and grouped them based on the circumstances of their shiny rates, and I ultimately was surprised at how accessible most of Kalos’ shiny dex was at this point (assuming you participated in the events that boosted their chances).
From the shinies that were boosted from GoFest to the shinies that were boosted in research day, that's roughly 80% of Kalos' entire dex Niantic/Scopely has made accessible in the wild at some point (71% if you remove GoFest but it's still a high access rate for potentially free shinies) which I personally found interesting because all of these mons have unboosted shiny rates (1/512) outside of events. While some of this is already possible due to the usual Research Days and CDs over the weekend that are sure to boost the shiny rates, it's the week-long events that have changed things. From what I've gathered, Niantic/Scopely started adding increased shiny chances as an event bonus in week-long events as early as 2023, but it's only in 2024 that they've committed to it, and it's now a staple feature for most events in 2025 onward. This has been a welcome addition to gameplay ever since, and is now a big reason why majority of the Kalos shiny dex has been made accessible, as majority of the wild Kalos mons got a shiny boost via many week-long events.
Some notes regarding the mons with asterisks***:
- As far as I’ve checked, Bunnelby is the only mon with an unboosted shiny rate that has yet to have a global event that had its shiny boosted as a feature. It has not been featured as a Go-Fest Global spawn since its shiny debut in 2021. I even tried checking previous Safari zones and it's only been featured in eggs. Seems like they haven't featured it much yet as an event spawn, which is honestly impressive at this point.
- With regards to Spritzee, there was never a formal announcement for it, but reports here suggested that both Shiny Swirlix and Shiny Spritzee were both boosted during the Dazzling Dream event, which took place back in January 2024. This also marks the 2nd time shiny Swirlix was boosted.
- Shiny Binacle was first boosted in the wild back in GoFest 2022. It was boosted again during Sustainability Week 2024, but it was only available through eggs and not in the wild.
With that being said, it's quite possible that Niantic/Scopely are doing this considering Legends Z-A is releasing next month. Before ZA was officially announced back in February 27, 2024, we've only had an Inkay Research Day, and CDs for the Starters, Fletchling, and Noibat as the only accessible shiny Kalos mons at the time. Since the announcement however, suddenly all the remaining unboosted Kalos wild spawns had dedicated events that boosted their shiny chances. Curiously enough, only Helioptile and Litleo were the only featured Kalos mons in events for the rest of 2024, while the rest were featured throughout 2025, all of which (except for Scatterbug) were featured after the 2nd Z-A trailer released exactly a year later, now including Flabébé tomorrow. It ultimately feels like a big coincidence that majority of the mons they decide to increase the shiny rates of just happen to belong to the Kalos region and I think it's both interesting and funny
by thesqrrootof4is2