The Shiny forms of Galarian Articuno, Zapdos, Moltres are very familiar

Pokemon Sword and Shield’s Crown Tundra is just around the corner and lots of details have been revealed ahead of time. Among them are the Shiny forms of the much anticipated Galarian Kanto birds – Articuno, Zapdos, and Moltres.

When it comes to Legendary Pokemon there are few more recognizable than Articuno, Zapdos, and Moltres. So, when they were nowhere to be found in the Galar region trainers were unsurprisingly upset.

Fast forward several months though, and lots of those missing Pokemon have since been added. For Legendaries, however, trainers have had to wait until now – The Crown Tundra DLC release.

The Kanto birds aren’t among those returning legends though – at least not their original forms. Instead, Galarian forms are coming which gives the iconic trio a new lease of life.

• Read More: Calyrex fusion forms revealed ahead of Crown Tundra DLC release

While we don’t know if the original forms will be added at a later date, we do know that for the time being they won’t be. It looks like this omission has been noted by the developers because the Shiny colors of Galarian Articuno, Zapdos, and Moltres are interesting, to say the least.

A nod to the Kanto region

The new Galarian forms may have different types and colors to the originals but each of their Shiny forms are immediately recognizable. That’s because each Shiny is the color of their original version.

So Galarian Articuno comes from purple to ice blue, Zapdos from orange to yellow, and Moltres from red and yellow to black and red. It’s a nice touch from the Pokemon Company which acknowledges their origins.

• Read More: Leaks claim to reveal Crown Tundra length & Shiny Legendaries

The information comes from Pokemon HOME which has accidentally released details ahead of time. One trainer summarized all of our excitement with a good old capitalized tweet: “THE SHINY VARIANTS ARE BASED ON THE KANTONIAN FORMS. THAT’S [AWESOME].” We couldn’t have said it any better, FranSunstar.

Now we just have to hope they aren’t shiny locked so trainers can do the unenviable task of repeated encounters!