🤍🖤💙 retconned shinies 💙🖤🤍

one of my big fascinations with shiny pokemon are how they can change between
generations, whether that be through small gradual changes that were probably
missed as new sprites or models were made, or what seem to be intentional retcons. there's even more in the console games, but those are outside my wheelhouse for now.

this is my page documenting some of the most interesting "shiny retcons"
i noticed, with comparisons from me! (all my own subjective opinions, of course)

GEN 2

			suicune is one i don't think was an active change, but the way it looks throughout the games is WILDLY different. it starts pastel, lavenders and dull blues, which then turned into dark blues while keeping the light body. by the time we get to the modern day 3d models, it looks almost identical to regular suicune, but dark blue instead of dark purple.
GEN 2	GEN 3	GEN 8

			this is the first one on the list that i think was purposefully changed, which is fascinating cause ponyta might be one of the most wellknown shiny pokemon of all time (being featured in legends arceus)
			ponyta started brown and rapidash started purple, and they were changed to light blue and grey respectfully. i could kindof see how rapidash could become grey, but ponyta's change had to be deliberate. in gen 3 they were significantly paler than their originals too, not anymore.
GEN 2	GEN 3	GEN 6

			ampharos is an interesting one to me because looking by them side by side they don't look too different, but if you look at GEN 2 ampharos by itself, the colors are different. the skin is silvery, and the accent color is a rich purple.
GEN 2	GEN 3	GEN 6

			in GSC, shiny celebi's accent color is purple. it was actively changed to green, possibly because they wanted to use shiny celebi as a character in MD:EOS? but that theory doesn't hold much water because the change happened in gen 3, not 4.. active change nonetheless!
GEN 2	GEN 3	GEN 6

		this is the most obvious shiny retcon, to me. the original shiny is blue and red (matching vileplume, its split evolution sister! SO CUTE!!), and they just retconned it to be pink/purple out of nowhere. my most charitable read is that it's a reference to its GS normal coloration, which had pink flowers (in C, the flowers are red), but that's me stretching. they just retconned this shiny to be completely different, and in my opinion more forgettable.
GEN 2	GEN 3

				omanyte's shiny is supposed to be black, they're lying to you. omastar i could see how it could be interpreted as a dark purple, but not the base "water-type shiny" magenta they changed it to.
GEN 2	GEN 3	GEN 2	GEN 3

		if a pokemon fan knows about how gen 2 shinies were retconned, this is probably the one they know about. yeah, they just wanted charizard to be an awesome black and red dragon, i can't deny it!
GEN 2	GEN 3

			another obvious "rule of cool" shiny retcon to me. what, was the green and purple not good enough for you?! (i can't blame them. gold and blue arbok is BEAUTIFUL it was one of the first shinies i ever hunted8U23). its notable they didn't change ekans too, even though it's gen 2 shiny is also green.
GEN 2	GEN 3	GEN 6

			the entire cyndaquil line was victim to this retcon, though i'm just showing typhlosion for brevity. their purple flames were reinterpreted as a brownish red body and normal flames.. dissapointing. but the old shiny may live on in generation 8's hisuian typhlosion! that's an awesome callback, intentional or not.
GEN 2	GEN 3	GEN 8

				it's well known than gen 6's 3d models washed out a lot of shiny (and non shiny!) pokemon, making their colors duller, and shiny lanturn is often used as the prime example of this. the difference in it's sprites to its model is apalling!
				but something not mentioned much is that lanturn's gen 2 shiny kinda sucked. it resembles the gen 6 model far more, though i don't think the model was an intentional reference. i think it got retconned to be magenta going into gen 3, and then that shiny got washed out in 3d. huh!
S/G (2)	C (2)	GEN 3	GEN 6

			most of what i'm about to say applies to togepi too! but only gens 4 onward for togekiss. because of gen 2's limited palette, normal togetic has red + black spots.
			these were always supposed to be blue and red, but they aren't ingame. so the change to blue + black in the shiny looks great. later games just swapped the blue and red.
GEN 2	G/S (2)	C (2)
			there were some interesting side effects of swapping the red and blue in generations 3 and 4, notably stray pixels of the mouth getting colored blue. this happened to togepi too. but for a few generations the yellow/beige tint was more noticable than the colors swapping.
			the yellow tint is interesting too because it doesn't look like it was intentionally part of the gen 2 shiny, just a side effect of them changing the main colors n keeping the shiny ones. but now in gen 8, it's barely tinted because they changed the way they did shading.
GEN 3	GEN 4	GEN 8

				i don't think houndoom's (and houndour, their color palette's are identical between games) shiny change was intentional, despite how drastic the change is. i think this was their honest best try at interpreting the gen 2 shiny's colors, they just did a bad job. try again please.
				after gen 3 houndoom's shiny looks like gen 3's, and i think they're way lamer than the silver and blue that gsc had. the BRIGHT red in the mega's shiny is pretty cool though, i like that.
S/G (2)	C (2)	GEN 3	GEN 6

			this one was more a change of base umbreon than of changing the shiny specifically, but it was still a decision someone had to make. in gen 2 umbreon's eyes and rings are the same color (due to sprite color limitations).
			when going to gen 3 someone had to decide shiny umbreon's eyes were yellow now. a good decision, shiny umbreon is well loved! but i wonder if some people would love the darker richer blue rings and eyes more...
GEN 2	GEN 3	GEN 6

POST GEN 2

				armaldo (and a lot of the post-gen2 cases!) is interesting because the change in the shiny was a consequence of a change of the original pokemon's design, that ended up having bigger ramifications.
				armaldo has an darker armored stomach that wasn't that noticable in the original design (and didn't feature in gen 3 era art), but in the shiny was this beautiful blood red. it's removal is far more noticable than the original armaldo's tummy plating, and will be deeply missed.
GEN 3	GEN 4	GEN 5	GEN 6

				glaceon is a case where the actual shiny never changed, but due to changes in normal glaceon, it lost most of its impact and is now regarded as barely different.
				in generation 4 glaceon was a lot darker than it is nowadays, making the perfect white of the shiny stand out amazingly. but they changed glaceon to be lighter, so much so that the shiny looks like its just a hue shift to be less teal, with barely any difference in what used to be the most striking part of the shiny.
D/P (4)	P (4)	GEN 6	GEN 8

			these multicolored magnets are only visible in magnezone's platinum sprite, not D/P (before) or since. it's preevolutions, magnemite and magneton always have colored magnet ends, but magnezone only has them in one game, not even one generation.
			in platinum the magnet ends are white and light blue, matching the palette and looking amazing. these are unique from shiny magnemite or magneton, which have darker black magnet tips when shiny. they also lightened up magnezone making the change between the shiny and the regular not as noticeable.
D/P (4)	P (4)	GEN 6
			EDIT: a new discovery! in all of the 3d games, magnezone's magnets light up while attacking. me saying they stay solid black before was wrong.
			but starting in the 3d games, shiny magnezone's magnets light up the same red and blue as the original. in gen 8 and 9, along with getting a metallic texture, the eye is a far darker blue.
GEN 7	GEN 8	GEN 9