Z-A’s DLC Alleviates The Shiny Grind For $30

Pokémon Legends: Z-A’s Mega Dimension DLC is out now, and one of the less publicized things the expansion adds is new Research Requests. These are mini-quests that, upon completion, raise your Research Level and unlock new rewards like attacks to teach your monsters and items to help you level up faster. At the final level, you’ll unlock the Shiny Charm, which raises the rate at which alternate-colored critters show up in the overworld. Legends: Z-A made acquiring the Charm a notorious grind, and now Mega Dimension makes it much simpler, but this handy bit of rebalancing is locked behind the $30 paywall of the DLC’s asking price.

To unlock the Shiny Charm, you have to reach Research Level 50. At a glance, this doesn’t seem that difficult, until you complete all but the last request and realize that you’ve come up short of reaching the final level. The remaining request you have is to complete 1000 battles. To put the scale of that accomplishment into perspective, I’ve put about 60 hours into Legends: Z-A and have only hit around 570 battles. I’m not trying to get the Shiny Charm, so I haven’t been grinding to try and complete this request, but some folks have, and it’s a major time investment. 

It looks like if you have the DLC, you may not have to do 1000 battles pic.twitter.com/3BxmF9dv7D

— Austin John Plays (@AustinJohnPlays) December 10, 2025

Now that Mega Dimension is out, if you progress through the early bits of the story, you’ll unlock a wave of new Research Requests, allowing you to make your way to Level 50 with relative ease. That’s cool for anyone who hasn’t put a ton of effort into the grind. If you have already done it, though, you’re probably feeling some type of way. If you don’t want to do that grind and still want the Shiny Charm, you’re also probably angry that you have to pay a sizable chunk of change to get it more easily

Pokémon Legends: Z-A has had no shame when it comes to paygating some pretty major stuff. Mega Dimension is one side of the problem; the other is that Mega Stones for popular Pokémon are rewards for online ranked battles, which require a subscription to access. I guess the silver lining on this particular one is that you don’t have to pay for this to get the Shiny Charm. Maybe boot up a show you’ve been wanting to consume as second-screen content as you grind, though.