What's the earliest you've gotten a shiny before?

[Sheep]

Maybe you found a shiny on Route 1 in LeafGreen right after getting catching items (me!), or the third egg you hatched was shiny. What was the earliest shiny you remember getting?

 

[Hero-of-Time]

In Pokémon Let's Go Pikachu, after catching a lot of bulbasaur and Pikachu in Viridian forest trying to get ones with good IVs/nature, right after leaving and getting to that patch of grass right in front of Pewter City, shiny Rattata. No gym badges at the time. Was actually how I found out those games had overworld shinies.

 

[Devalue]

Three early ones from playthroughs:

1. A Mankey just before Hala in Moon (level 9-12). Was not purposefully fighting wild Pokemon.
2. A Helioptile on Route 9 of X/Y (level 15-17). Happened during last year's Get-Together challenge event.
3. A Tympole in Pinwheel Forest of Black (level 12-17). Occurred on the very first playthrough of the game.

Cannot think of any intentional shinies that went super fast. Might have been quick on a Steenee in Scarlet/Violet in an outbreak (no sandwich)? Possibly on some shiny raid event in Sword/Shield too.

Hm. Counts a shiny Salandit as half-intentional. Wandered over to the outbreak, mainly to stockpile its material (for preparedness, not a particular need). Kept an eye out for the shiny. Found it slightly before (maybe just after?) the message when you get full shiny odds for the outbreak. Now owns a level 100 male Salandit that wants to beat a 7-star Tera Raid.

 

[Explorer of Time]

The only shiny I've ever caught was an Oddish from the Hoenn Safari Zone. Sadly, I no longer have it.

 

[TwilightBlade]

My earliest shiny in a playthrough was a shiny Cottonee a few hours after midnight release of Pokemon Black and White. This shiny was my first encounter in Pinwheel Forest. I bought Pokemon Black specifically to use a Cottonee in a playthrough. You can imagine my excitement! Here is the original blog post here:
https://www.pokecommunity.com/blog.php?b=10275#comments

My second earliest shiny was a Dewgong in Let's Go Eevee in a playthrough before the Elite Four. I almost missed it since the colors are so subtle.

 

[Alex_Among_Foxes]

The earliest I've ever found was in my most recent playthrough of Scarlet, where I found a shiny Scatterbug before I even spoke to Nemona at the first Pokecentre!
It became one of my six for the whole rest of the run!

 

[Bekauzen]

mine was a Starly in Legends Arceus. I think I was maybe 1 hour into the game. Ringo carried my team well! ^^

 

[Squirtkipfan01]

try Shining pearl before i even did a single gym
just suddenly a shiny shinx after thinking "everyone uses a shinx in gen 4, i wanna be different!'

 

[stringzzz]

Well, I wasn't actually able to catch it, so I realize this doesn't totally count. Regardless, wanted to share the story. In RSE, you get to choose your starter when you find the professor from that generation being attacked by a Poochyena. I was soft-resetting my Ruby version one day in an attempt to get a shiny Mudkip. Instead, in that first battle, the damn Poochyena turned out to be a shiny! In case you don't know, you have no way to catch it in that first battle, so there was nothing I could do. (>_<)

But getting back to what this thread is really about, I think the earliest was a random shiny Shuppet encounter in my UM version. It was in that abandoned or haunted house where you typically find Mimikyu and some others, and I think I was just level grinding when I randomly found and caught it. I think this was about midway through the actual game.

 

[Harmonie]

I think I ran into a shiny Pokemon in the first area of Legends: Arceus.

 

[SteCisGreendog]

Mine has to be shiny Geodude in Oreburgh Mine on Diamond. The runner up was the shiny Psyduck 3 hours in Scarlet, found by a river in the South Province outside Mesagoza.

 

[Angel-of-Light-Kelly]

I found a shiny wooper, in the Soulsilver Safari Zone (I thought on a route that lets you catch it normally, but I guess I was luckier than I thought). I had NOT reached the obligatory Shiny Gyarados yet, so I didn't know what a shiny even was.

Another time was finding a shiny Impidimp in Glimwood Tangle, while I was trying to get a Galarian Ponyta to appear. I would battle the background ones because I could, and one of them ended up being Impidimp

 

[Maserati777]

During my play through of Scaret I found a shiny Lechonk in the first area you could find it.

 

[Nah]

Pretty sure it was in Violet when I caught a shiny Lechonk and Toxel on the same day pretty early in the game (it was in the southern province and I hadn't gotten any badges yet).

 

[ReKoil]

In Violet I bumped into a shiny Pawmi in the very first area right after getting Pokeballs while on my way to meet Miraidon for the first time of the playthrough.

 

[Zed01]

The earliest shiny I've ever seen in a playthrough was the uncatchable shiny Weedle during the catching tutorial in FireRed.

The earliest one I've caught was a shiny Wurmple in Alpha Sapphire right after helping Wally catch his Ralts.

My earliest shiny from an Egg was a shiny Flabebe in Y on the second Egg but it was the Masuda Method odds.

 

[Reginald Cosmic]

I've caught one shiny Pokémon in the official games, and I unfortunately no longer have that Pokémon due to losing the cartridge. That said, I caught an early game shiny Pokémon in a fan creation. The odds were probably adjusted to double the normal rate, but I don't remember. I'm pretty sure it was Renegade Platinum, but it could've been Pokémon Zeta. Unfortunately for me, it was a shiny Whurmple, so I definitely wasn't using it on my team.

 

[icycatelf]

I think my earliest random Shiny was a Koffing in the Burned Tower (Crystal). Quickest Shiny hunt was a Pidove (Black 2) after only four eggs iirc.

 

[VisionofMilotic]

Not counting pokemon I was actively hunting i.e soft resetting for starters or other gift pokemon like the odd egg, the earliest shiny I came across was a shiny rattata by Castelia City in White 2, so a little before the 3rd gym. Not my favorite, but a shiny is a shiny, and it had a more appealing color in those 32 bit graphic that. I had myself a gold mouse.

 

[Zeostar]

Metapod - Viridian Forest.