Game Freak director Junichi Masuda has revealed that the ‘Masuda Method’ will return in Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon.
The term is used to refer to a method in which players can increase the chances of hatching a shiny Pokémon from an Egg, simply by breeding two Pokémon from different nationalities – such as a Japanese Pokémon in an English game.
Introduced in Generation IV, this lowers the odds from 1 in 8,192 to 1 in 2,048, which represented a 75 percent reduction. This has since been reduced further in Generation V and Generation VI, continuing to encourage players to trade with Trainers from other regions.
“So actually the Masuda method isn’t really talked about in Japan a whole lot so one time when I was being interviewed someone asked me ‘is the Masuda method in the game?’ and I had to say ‘what is the Masuda method?’ I really didn’t know what they were talking about, so yes I was pretty shocked to find out that had spread, but like I say in Japan it’s really not something that’s talked about,” Masuda explained to Eurogamer.
“Originally, we wanted to encourage trading – we always have as part of the game, so we thought ‘how can we make people want to trade?’ So the idea of having people mate eggs of Pokemon from different locations to have a better chance of getting shinies was something we thought might be a really good way of doing this. Basically, the idea is to spread the joy of trading in Pokemon, but I didn’t actually think the name ‘the Masuda method’ would be given to it, so that was a bit of a shock.”
Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon director Shigeru Ohmori added: “We do want you to carry on trading with people from abroad and enjoying that aspect of the game, so as you can probably imagine, yes it will be in the game.”
Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon will release exclusively for Nintendo 3DS in North America, Australia and New Zealand on November 18th, and in Europe on November 23rd.
