2nd Gen Shiny starter hunting in Pokémon Crystal

[ShinyHunta]

I am starting a new playthrough but this time I hope to start with a shiny, preferably shiny Totodile. I am using the mGBA emulator so you could say it's not completely legit, but mainly because I don't have the time to play the game in real time (have to use the turbo in emulators to speed things up). I have been trying the soft reset method to obtain a shiny starter and although the emulator speeds things up a thousand times, it's still disheartening to see that I have not seen a single shiny in all my playthroughs, save for the Red Gyarados at the Lake of Rage. This leads me to believe that the turbo function in emulators is somehow messing with the RNG. I shall highlight my strategy and observations below.

The Strategy

1. The usual first-time startup, talk to mom, set time etc.
2. Go to Elm lab and mash through the first-time interaction.
3. Perform an in-game save while facing the Totodile Pokéball.
4. Select Totodile, mash through the dialogue, check Pokémon stats for shiny, soft reset and repeat.

Now comes the illegitimacy of the run, due to using an emulator. The emulator on PC allows for almost instantaneous skipping of dialogues, tasks that would take 5-10 seconds performed in under 1 second and you could maybe count the large display that allows me to see things clearer and sharper. All these factors allow me to perform each cycle in 3-4 seconds, which means 1800 resets in an hour. How, you ask?

The Emulator Advantage

1. First off the mGBA emulator allows for unbound speeding up of the ROM, and you have the option of toggling it, which means it will always be on during the entire shiny hunt. This allows for faster text, faster selections and faster resets.
2. Starting with the Pokéball selection, I mash the A button till I get the first confirmation "Do you want Totodile?"
3. After selecting Yes, I have a button set to autofire the B button which allows me to skip all the dialogue with Prof. Elm in under 1 second.
4. After this, it takes me 1 to 2 seconds to check whether Totodile is shiny, some extra time for my slow brain to make sure I'm not resetting over a shiny.
5. Of course, it's not shiny, so I reset the game using the mGBA shortcut Ctrl+R which to me looks identical to the A+B+Select+Start method of resetting, but I need you guys to confirm if it's the same thing or not. I'm assuming since it's starting off with the entire Pokémon Crystal startup it should be doing the RNG the same way.
6. It loads into me standing in front of the Pokéball ready to select, and the process repeats.

Although the emulator allows me to do in a few hours what would take most people months, it feels like this is exactly why I would never get a shiny. I have been doing this for over 6 hours and haven't encountered a single shiny starter and so far I have not mistakenly reset over a shiny either, not once. On average, you could say I have performed 4 × 1800 = 7200 resets and that is the lower end, the worst-case scenario. I'm pretty sure I've done more than that. It feels like the emulator is causing me to have worse odds compared to legitimate methods. My theories are below.

Failure Theories

• I always assumed the shiny calculations were triggered by a certain action, such as a Pokémon wild encounter or the point you select starter Pokémon. I'm starting to think it's more like the RNG is constantly ticking based on the frames and actions in the game, and the emulator turbo is making it harder to hit the target. Imagine a pointer moving along a slider with 8192 bits and you have to press a button at an exact bit to get a shiny. A perfect analogy would be as follows: You have a gun and have to shoot a moving target successfully to win a shiny Pokémon. Now imagine time is sped up 1000 times faster, how likely would it be to hit the target now? I assume that is what is happening when I use the emulator turbo. Please tell me I'm wrong.
• I have used the Universal Pokémon Randomizer to enable trade evolutions and instant text speed. Apart from these tweaks, I have changed nothing else, nothing to make the game easier or different. Could it be that this ROM hack has somehow disabled shiny Pokémon for me?
• In a previous playthrough, I was grinding Unowns for EV and never encountered a single shiny, further reinforcing my theory. You could say I took down over 10000 Unowns per Pokémon. Of course, the turbo was on the whole time.

I would like your opinions. My only practical option would be to continue with the turbo since I really don't have the time to do it at the normal speed. Besides, I am only playing these games for nostalgia reasons and the turbo allows me to max EVs for my Pokémon in practically under a day. Honestly, all I need to know is if I really do have the same 1/8192 chance to get a shiny which would motivate me to keep trying. If I get my shiny starter my next true effort will only be for shiny legendaries.

TL;DR: I am hunting shiny Pokémon using a modified ROM and emulator turbo and I feel it's making my odds worse.

 

[redZAPDOS]

I play pokemon Crystal Clear on both mGBA & on real hardware swapping the save files throughout from cart to HDD when needed to speed up chaining to get better odds for shinies or for playing slots in x8 trying to get some easy wins when on PC. I can tell you in my experience resetting using mGBA & johnGBC has not stopped the soft resetting working the way it should. I also used save states, creating one at the Continue, New game screen. Which seemed to be one menu enough for the game to roll its rng the way it should for soft resetting ( I had observed pokemon starters IV EV change so thats what all i needed to know )

I Hope this information helps