The moment Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness landed on Nintendo Switch 2 through the Nintendo Classics program, players skipped the story beats, ignored Shadow Lugia, and went straight to doing one thing: resetting their game over and over again for a shiny Eevee.
The beloved GameCube RPG developed by Genius Sonority is now accessible to anyone with a Nintendo Switch 2 subscription, no standalone purchase required. It is a huge deal for fans who have watched second-hand physical copies balloon to eye-watering prices over the years. Getting to play it for effectively free through a subscription is a win by any measure.
But the community had other priorities from day one.
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The Soft Reset Grind Nobody Can Quit
Here's the thing about shiny hunting in Gale of Darkness: it is nothing like the streamlined shiny systems in modern Pokemon titles. There are no Shiny Charms, no chain mechanics, no clever shortcuts. You get your starter Eevee, check if it is shiny, and if it is not, you reset the entire game and do it again. That is the whole method.
The XD subreddit has become a live feed of these journeys, with players documenting exactly how many resets it has taken them. Some got lucky within a few hours. Others spent an entire day grinding through the opening sequence before "Peevee" finally appeared with that distinctive golden shimmer.
What makes this especially bittersweet is the dead end waiting at the finish line. Gale of Darkness on Nintendo Switch 2 has no Pokemon Home compatibility, meaning any shiny Eevee caught exists in a closed ecosystem. It cannot be transferred anywhere. The reward for potentially hundreds of resets is bragging rights, full stop.
Shiny Fever Is Bigger Than Just One Game
This obsession is not isolated to Gale of Darkness. The recently re-released Pokemon FireRed and LeafGreen on Switch are dealing with the exact same phenomenon. Players are locked into soft reset loops at Professor Oak's lab, waiting for Charmander, Squirtle, or Bulbasaur to appear shiny before they will take a single step into the world.
The odds there are set at 1 in 8,192, which works out to roughly 0.012 percent per encounter. One player reportedly crossed 12,000 resets before a Shiny Bulbasaur finally appeared, which is statistically unlucky but not unheard of. Others in the 1,000-reset range started questioning whether the grind was worth it at all.
"Around 2 hours in, I realized I'd rather just play the game," one Reddit user admitted, which is honestly a reasonable conclusion.
Then there is the player who soft reset after successfully landing a shiny, accidentally erasing the exact outcome they had been chasing. It is the kind of moment that belongs in a cautionary tale. Almost certainly, someone in the Gale of Darkness community has done the same thing.
What This Means For Players Jumping In Now
For anyone picking up Gale of Darkness fresh through Nintendo Classics, the shiny Eevee chase is entirely optional. The game holds up as a genuinely interesting Pokemon RPG with its Shadow Pokemon mechanics and a darker tone than the mainline titles. You do not need a golden fox to enjoy it.
But if the shiny hunt is calling, go in with realistic expectations. The key here is patience, and lots of it. The community is sharing their reset counts openly, which at least makes the grind feel a little less lonely. Make sure to check out more:
