Pokemon GO players are in for a treat this Halloween season as the hit mobile game is set to feature several events throughout the month of October. Not only will players get to participate in Pokemon GO's October Community Day featuring Timburr, but the Harvest Festival and Halloween Events will also be running during this month as well. The Harvest Festival is first in this line-up of events and features the introduction of the Gen 9 critter Smoliv and its evolutions Dolliv and Arboliva along with their shiny variant for players to try and catch.
Shiny variants of Pokemon are a hot commodity among Pokemon GO players, and most in-game events tend to feature a higher chance of them appearing for dedicated players. What makes shinies to coveted are their rarity along with the alternate color palette they have compared to their normal forms. While some critters have much more distinct shiny variants, others have shiny coloring that is too similar to their regular form for many players' taste, but Smoliv has a unique shiny with a fun reference in its design, so players will want to make sure they catch one during the Harvest Festival event.
Shiny Smoliv Differences Explained
As its name implies, Smoliv is a Grass/Normal-type critter based on an olive, which gives its body a light green coloring with a greenish-yellow olive on its head. This green olive is likely based on the Manzanilla olive as it shares a similar coloring and shape, but it could also be based on the Picholine or Cerignola olive as well. When it evolves into Dolliv, the creature retains the same olive coloring just with two olives instead of one, but when it evolves into Arboliva, these olives change to a purple color likely in reference to another type of olive, specifically the Kalamata olive.
In contrast to its regular form, Smoliv's shiny variant swaps the green color of its olive to that of a black olive, which are a type of ripe olive that are commonly found canned or on foods like pizza. This is a fun reference to the fact that there are different kinds of olives while also giving Smoliv a distinct shiny variant that is easily discernable from its regular form. It is interesting to note that both Dolliv and Arboliva share the same black olive color in their shiny variants despite Arboliva having a different olive color from Smoliv and Dolliv in its regular form.
Smoliv's body color changes only a little bit in its shiny form compared to its standard form, taking on the greenish-yellow of its olive in that form. Similarly, Dolliv and Arboliva's bodies only change slightly in their shiny variants, simply gaining a darker green compared to their base forms. However, the stark contrast in olive color between regular and shiny variants is enough to make Smoliv and its evolutions stand out among the crowd of shiny critters and is enough that shiny hunters in Pokemon GO will definitely want to add them to their collection.
Aside from Smoliv, there are a handful of other mons that will have increased shiny chances during Pokemon GO's Harvest Festival including Bellsprout, Exeggcute, Petilil, and Cottonee. Additionally, the different forms of Burmy will be rewards for Field Research tasks during this event, and each one also has an increased chance to be shiny. Between the introduction of Smoliv and its evolutions along with increased chance to find it and other mons as shiny variants, there are a lot of reasons for players to check out Pokemon GO's Harvest Festival event when it begins on October 12 and runs through October 17.
Pokemon GO is available for Android and iOS.