I've known for a couple years now that catch rates for Shadow Pokémon in Pokémon Colosseum and XD weren't actually identical to the usual catch rates for Gen III. Now, thanks to Patreon patron Pacguy64 for suggesting it, StarsMmd from Project Pokémon, and a lot of headaches over in-game testing that didn't seem consistent with the ripped data, the Gen III/IV Catch Rate Calculator finally has a Shadow Pokémon checkbox, which you should check when trying to capture Shadow Pokémon in the GameCube games.

The basic rundown is that the actual capture formula is identical to the other Gen III games, except for Colosseum having a provision to make the tutorial Makuhita a guaranteed capture, but the actual catch rate values used for the Shadow Pokémon specifically are overridden to create a more sensible gradient from easier captures early in the game to more difficult captures later - thus, your second capture in Colosseum, Bayleef, Quilava or Croconaw, will be generously bumped up to a catch rate of 180 instead of 45, while lategame Tyranitar gets bumped down from 45 to 10, even lower than the legendary beasts who are at 15. I've implemented these overridden values into the calculator so that it'll use those values if you check the Shadow Pokémon box, and also listed them under the capture rate section on the Gen III/IV Capture Mechanics page.

Comment on this - View comments

The Favorite Pokémon Picker now includes the new Pokémon and forms from the Isle of Armor DLC. While I was at it I also swapped out the actual Home icons (which had some artifacts around the edges especially in dark mode) for some higher-quality downscales of the full Home artwork. I think I went through it pretty thoroughly but as always, let me know if anything's off.

Some locations in the Gen II Locations trigger a server error at the moment, as in these locations the conditions that apply differ between Gold and Silver versus Crystal. I'm working on it but it's being a bit stubborn thanks to the way it's currently put together; hopefully I can get a fix in tomorrow, but in the meantime, I'm aware of it.

Comment on this - View comments

There is now officially a Gen II Locations tool for finding encounter information for the original Gold, Silver and Crystal games. Technically this has been sort of working since the database update the other day, but I just made it work properly and put it on the menu.

Alongside this, I updated the location tools in general a bit; they're now finally within the site's main layout, and the UI is smoother to use with less clicking required. The update's not entirely perfect (I really want to also replace the autocomplete functionality, and make the forms take up less vertical space), but this'll do for tonight.

Comment on this - View comments