Red Gyarados - Johto

Sheep

In the Johto region main series games, specifically GSC and HGSS, you could obtain a Red (Shiny) Gyarados at the Lake of Rage when going through the main story!

Did this special Gyarados have a place on your team, or was it relegated to being used for HMs? Or did you box it entirely?

Darren

Sheep Gyarados was not my first shiny in Pokémon Crystal, that honour goes to a Wooper in Union Cave, which I managed to knock out with Poliwhirl's strength attack. Clearly it was stronger than I thought...

I do believe that Gyarados was on my team, at least temporarily! I don't have a strong connection with it though, so I assume it ended up in the box along with many other missed opportunities.

tkarispe

I thought the Red Gyarados was such a fun addition to the game, and it was really nice of the developers to include a guaranteed Shiny as part of the storyline. I enjoy keeping it on my team when I play the Johto games (unless I feel like drastically switching up my party). I guess I also like the in-universe idea of my character catching a force of destruction that's been all over the news and now we're buddies.

KomodoZero

As a tutorial into the new shiny mechanic to the game, it was a great addition. Though it's nature as a guaranteed encounter kinda lessened the impact a tad, it was far more impressive to get an organic encounter shiny than a fixed one.
I never did get a genuine shiny of my own until much, much later, and there was even one I found in Platinum's Iron Island which got knocked out by Riley. YOU KNOW WHAT YOU DID, RILEY!

Dragonfree

I assumed the red Gyarados was red because of the Red Scale; I never saw another shiny Pokémon myself in all the hundreds of hours I spent on both Gold and Crystal, so I first heard about it being a thing online and it sounded like one of those weird elaborate rumours. (On the other hand, I got Pokérus, which is a rarer event, organically on both!)

I never used the red Gyarados on my team because by the time I got to that point in the game I already had a full team of six that I was attached to, and my starter on both was Feraligatr so I already had a Water-type I was obviously not boxing.

Gabi

I kept mine in a box because I had a Vaporeon in my team and no Pokémon can replace a Vaporeon. 😉

On the note of guaranteed shinies: yes, I liked that too, and I liked how in Pokémon Legends: Arceus - which I am currently playing - there is a guaranteed shiny Ponyta. It felt like a nice callback to the red Gyarados, and a good chance to get a shiny for those who haven't played the old games.

And, staying true to the tradition, I never added the Ponyta to my team either. 😛 I mean, why would I, when I have an awesome Typhlosion?