2nd Gen The Red Gyarados

acatfrommars

acatfrommars

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    [PokeCommunity.com] The Red Gyarados

    Pokémon GSC are the first games which most players are introduced to their first shiny Pokémon. Before playing through Generation 2 I had no idea what a shiny Pokemon looked like or even that these type of Pokémon existed. To my surprise, I enter the Lake of Rage and see a Gyarados that is red. At first I am perplexed, shouldn't Gyarados be blue? Later on I realize that Team Rocket has performed experiments on the Lake and that is why the Gyarados is shiny and agitated.

    To me, this opened up the door to a brand new concept of Pokemon. Not only were there different type of Pokémon, but there were even a rarer type of Pokemon which existed. I wanted to obtain as many shinies as I could and I did so in Pokémon Diamond. Did anyone else develop this fascination when they first played through the game? When you saw the red Gyarados at The Lake of Rage, did you catch it? Share your stories on meeting the red Gyarados.
     
    Fun story that, I originally thought shiny Pokemon were a glitch in the system, that was until I encountered the Red Gyarados in Crystal. (I played backwards, from Diamond to Crystal, etc)

    I wasn't really into shiny Pokemon back when I originally found the Red Gyarados; I thought they were a hassle to get, especially after learning about the chances of catching a shiny Pokemon, so I never bothered with them after seeing the Red Gyarados.

    I did indeed catch the Red Gyarados, sadly it saw only limited use due to me having a Feraligatr. I still thought it was cool, but only caught it because it was a shiny Pokemon, and I thought it would've been cool to have. :p

    My story was that my Ampharos kept hitting it with critical hits from Swift, I'd effectively 2HKO Gyarados by accident. At least my Ampharos had Thunder Wave, so I'd usually switch out into Feraligatr to spam Bite, and flinchax Gyarados into submission, in a sense. I then spammed my Poke Balls, and after a few, caught the unusually coloured sea snake Pokemon.
     
    The first time I encountered Red Gyarados was in the far 2000 playing a corrupted Pokemon Gold rom. It was very interesting to know there were "special and particular" pokes who shine everytime they join the battlefield. Then I bought a Pokemon Gold cartridge where I found not only the Red Gyarados, but also a silver Rattata, golden Pidgey, pure blue Tentacool, silver Magnemite, orange Geodude, blue Psyduck, golden Elekid (egg in Crystal), and green Tauros.

    Of couse I caught all these shinies. I discovered that shinies had better fixed DV vaules than anyother normal poke but they weren't perfect as well, but hey, having a shiny poke was more than just an ingame eyecandy, they were powerful in the attack side (15 Atk, 10 the rest). I gladly remember my golden raticate doing an awesome work againt the Elite Four :)
     
    I loved the Red Gyarados and that you basically get a free shiny without having to look. I used it a couple of times in my play throughs. It's a beautiful shiny.
     
    When I had first encountered this Pokémon, I actually thought it was a legendary. I was only a kid back then, and had never seen a Gyarados before; if you were in ny shoes, you would have been thinking the same, I'm sure. XD; Captured it as soon as I encountered it, and used it on my team for a good while. Eventually, I wound up removing it, because, well, I just didn't like using legendaries (it's not one of them, I know, but like I said, I used to think it was).
     
    I don't remember how I reacted to Red Gyarados as a child playing Silver, but I've never captured it. I rarely use Pokemon given to the player through an event, and this qualified as one. I'm actually not a big fan of Gyarados, so that was a contributing factor. Liked the idea by Game Freak to bring more attention to shiny Pokemon, because I doubt they were very well-known at the time of GSC's release.
     
    I was really excited when I encountered the Red Gyarados on my two playthrough of Gold and Crystal. But for some reason I don't remember being confused about its existence - I must have already known about shiny Pokemon at that point.

    The Gyarados always made its way on my team :) I honestly don't remember what Pokemon I used on Crystal but I remember on Gold I had a team of Quilava, Ho-Oh and the Red Gyarados.
     
    I have always caught the shiny Gyarados because A. It's a free shiny and/or B. It's a good member for teams/a good HM slave. I don't remember how I first reacted, though it's likely I was either surprised or just didn't really care XD I think being told that Team Rocket meddling with the Pokemon in the Lake of Rage also lowered my surprise, making me think it was just this Gyarados that was special until I learned that all Pokemon had a shiny form.
     
    Even though the Red Gyarados was kinda cool, it was terrible to use in battle because it had virtually no attacks to use its big Attack stat with. Kinda nice that the game gives you a shiny, though.
     
    There being a Red Gyarados could not have made more sense. The color really emphasizes the atrocity it's supposed to embody (as opposed to the normal blue). It was still rather disappointing to use until HeartGold/SoulSilver came out because of the Water Type being a part of Type 2 group (in RBY/GSC) and Gyarados having a high Attack instead of a high Special Attack. Many pokemon's classic move pools were rendered dysfunctional post-GSC and weren't adjusted (like Gyarados' with Hyper Beam crossing from Attack to Special Attack), which really hurt Gyarados's late-game development and made it so much less of an Atrocious Pokemon. However, by the same token, HM07 Waterfall became a great move to teach it, so I made sure my Red Gyarados had learnt it ASAP.
     
    I captured the Red Gyarados and used it a few times. Of course, I was always irritated by the fact that in the originals, it was male due to the way shininess was calculated. At the time, I only captured female Pokemon for some reason (hey, I was young!) and would disregard the males unless I absolutely HAD to. But for that, it was a red Gyarados, so I caught it regardless of gender.

    Shinies are awesome, but I've never hunted them due to how difficult it is. All I really do is hope whenever I breed, that my egg hatches into a shiny. Pretty much try to breed my Japanese Ditto with anything I'm breeding at the time. But that's never happened before. In X/Y though, I found two without even looking! So that's the only time I've legitimately gotten my own shinies besides the free red Gyarados.
     
    I always caught it, but didn't realize it was shiny until I learned about shinies around Gen IV. I don't think that I used it much, even though I always picked Cyndaquil. :3
     
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