The Poké Radar is arguably the easiest way to hunt for Shiny Pokémon. Its last appearance was Pokémon X & Y in 2013, and it’s now made a return for Pokémon Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl. Just like in the originals, you’ll obtain the Poké Radar after completing the Sinnoh Pokédex and upgrading to the National Dex. The radar does make shiny hunting easy, but there are still several intricacies to learn. Today, we’re going to be discussing all of them!
Poké Radar Mechanics
The Poké Radar lets you start chains of Pokémon encounters. Your goal is to either defeat or capture 40 Pokémon. Then, you need to activate the Poké Radar over and over again (without encountering a Pokémon) until a sparkling patch of grass appears. There’s a bit more to it than that, though! First, stock up on Poké Balls, Super Repels or Max Repels, and make sure you’re not on your Bicycle. To optimize your chaining, you might want to temporarily remove all of your registered key items save for the Poké Radar itself. Remember, if you so much as hop on your Bicycle, the chain immediately breaks. It also breaks if you enter a new area. Don’t cross any area boundaries!
Once those are all set up, you’ll need to find a large patch of grass. Once you’re standing in the grass, activate the Poké Radar and then enter one of the patches. If you want to hunt the Pokémon that appears, great! Capture the Pokémon (or defeat it, but capturing works better) and more patches of grass will shake. Again, your goal here is to capture the Pokémon and continue the chain — and for the highest chance of continuing, you’ll need to enter a patch of grass that’s four tiles away (according to Anubis).
All in all, for the best Shiny Pokémon odds, you’ll have to capture 40 of the same Pokémon in a row. Unfortunately, there’s a small chance that your chain breaks after capturing a Pokémon, and that’s entirely left to luck. In addition to Shiny Pokémon, you’ll sometimes find patches of grass that are shaking faster than usual. You’ll find Pokémon with Hidden Abilities in these patches, and there’s a 1 in 128 chance for one of them to appear each time you use the Poké Radar.
Chains are very prone to breaking early in this game, and only about 5% of them will make it all the way to 40. A potentially faster way does exist, though! Instead of going all the way to 40, continue capturing Pokémon until your chain reaches 17. From there, continue resetting the Poké Radar over and over again.
At this point, your odds of encountering a Shiny patch are roughly 1 in 496 per reset of the Radar. In summary: once you reach a displayed chain of 17, run around for 50 steps and use the Poké Radar again. If there’s no Shiny patch, repeat until there is. It may take a while, but the odds that you encounter a Shiny Pokémon via this method are actually slightly more favorable than hunting via Masuda Method!
Exclusive Pokémon
Additionally, there are several instances of Pokémon that can only be found on the surface via the Poké Radar. A few of them are different depending on the version of the game you’re playing — for more information, feel free to check out our version exclusives guide! Here’s a full list of radar-exclusive Pokémon, sorted in National Dex order:
- Both genders of Nidoran appear on Route 201.
- Venonat and Venomoth appear on Route 229.
- Mankey and Primeape appear on Route 225.
- Slowpoke appears on Route 205 in Shining Pearl.
- Grimer appears on Route 212 in the swamp area.
- Tauros appears on Route 209.
- Ditto appears on Route 218.
- Sentret appears on Route 202.
- Togepi appears on Route 230.
- Mareep appears at the Valley Windworks.
- Hoppip and Skiploom appear on Route 205.
- Sunkern appears on Route 204.
- Wobbuffet appears at all three of the lakefronts.
- Stantler appears on Route 207 in Shining Pearl.
- Smeargle appears on Route 212.
- Tyrogue appears on Route 208.
- Miltank appears on Route 209.
- Larvitar appears on Route 207 in Brilliant Diamond.
- Mightyena appears on Route 214 in Brilliant Diamond.
- Ralts and Kirlia appear on Route 203.
- Nincada appears in Eterna Forest.
- Loudred appears in Mt. Coronet.
- Aron appears in the Fuego Ironworks in Brilliant Diamond.
- Torkoal appears on Route 227.
- Trapinch appears on Route 228.
- Swablu appears on Route 211.
- Baltoy appears on Route 206.
- Kecleon appears on Route 210 in Brilliant Diamond.
- Duskull appears on Route 224.
- Snorunt appears on Route 217.
- Bagon appears on Route 210 in Shining Pearl.
And that’s as far as exclusive Pokémon go! We have much more content available for Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl, and you can find a full list of it below. If you have any questions or just want to discuss Pokémon, you’re welcome to join our Discord community. Good luck and happy hunting!
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