Unbelievable Beginner's Luck: Pokemon Soul Silver Newbie Strikes Gold on First Playthrough

Highlights

Getting a Pokemon infected with Pokerus is incredibly rare, but one lucky first-time player managed to get it in Pokemon Soul Silver.

Pokerus enhances a Pokemon's effort values (EVs) gained in battles, doubling them without any drawbacks, and the effect lasts indefinitely.

Despite the fortunate outcome, the fortunate individual who acquired Pokerus never engaged in Pokemon gameplay again, and Game Freak might eliminate this condition in upcoming game releases.

A fan recently shared on social media how their friend had an incredibly lucky experience while playing Pokemon. Right from the start of the game, their friend managed to infect their entire party with Pokerus in just a few minutes. This story amazed and even made some fans jealous, as many had spent years trying to achieve the same benefit from this little-known Pokemon condition.

Pokerus, originally introduced in the Generation 2 games, is a virus with a very low chance of infecting a Pokemon after each battle. While this may not sound desirable, there are actually no negative effects to contracting Pokerus. In fact, it doubles the effort values (EVs) that the infected Pokemon earns from battling. After four days, the Pokemon will recover from the virus but will permanently keep the EV boost, becoming immune to reinfection.

Not every hardcore fan has been fortunate enough to encounter Pokerus during their years of playing the games. However, there was one first-time player of Pokemon Soul Silver who was lucky to come across it right at the beginning of their playthrough. Reddit user KingOnixTheThird shared a story about how they introduced this DS remake of Pokemon Silver to a friend, who then obtained a Pokemon with Pokerus while visiting Violet City. For reference, Violet City is the game's first major city that players usually reach in about an hour.

According to the friend, the lucky player had no idea about the significance of Pokerus. Interestingly, the friend had been playing Pokemon games since 2005 and never contracted the condition legitimately. Despite the player's stroke of luck, KingOnixTheThird revealed that they never played Pokemon again.

In the classic Pokemon games, the chance of a pocket monster being infected with Pokerus after each battle is 1 in 21,845. This rarity makes it three times less likely than encountering a shiny Pokemon in the wild, which has a 1 in 8,192 chance of occurring.

From Generation 4 onwards, obtaining a Pokerus-infected creature became easier with the implementation of online trading features in the popular RPGs developed by Game Freak. However, it appears that the Japanese developer may be considering removing the condition altogether. This is evident in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, the last two mainline installments in the series. Although these games still recognize pocket monsters with Pokerus that are traded from previous games, the condition no longer offers any gameplay advantages and cannot be contracted through battles.