You hear how this guy is screaming with all his might when he finds the shiny Ponyta? The guy in the video only had to try twenty five thousand times for his shiny. That’s a quarter of what O’Connell had to go through.

“I always thought that if it ever happened—which I was sure was impossible—I’d simply breathe a sigh of relief, catch him in my prepared Masterball and put the game away forever,” O’Connell said. “Instead, I blinked a couple of times, and then just... kind of started screaming and whooping for a good five minutes like all those embarrassing kids on YouTube.”

He could barely contain his excitement.

“After I caught him and managed to stop my hands from shaking enough to dial her number, I phoned my girlfriend—who was on holiday at the time—to let her know. Whilst she was disappointed she hadn’t been there to see me pee my pants, I think she was hugely relieved it was all over,” O’Connell said.

He shared some pictures of the shiny Mewtwo with me, which O’Connell transferred into Pokémon X&Y so that he could use Pokemon Amie—a feature that lets users pet and feed their Pokemon.

“I’ve already EV trained it...[the Mewtwo] has a 30 in special attack and decent stats all round, except for its attack stat. I’ll just use it as a special sweeper, it’s pretty nuts that it turned out great.

“I know I earned that sucker, and that means a lot when you’ve been working at it as long as I have,” O’Connell said.

“I’ve seen four pairs of Pokémon games release, changed careers numerous times and had relationships come and go,” O’Connell said, when reflecting on how much has happened during his search for shiny Mewtwo.

So, was it worth it?

“Somehow, hell yes,” O’Connell said. “I plan to be using this Mewtwo ‘til the day I die!”