An electric-type Pokémon has no business learning Surf, the water-type HM that allows your Pokémon to carry you across the water. Let alone a tiny electric rat. As a child, I was a stickler for rules and structure. I refused to use a GameShark to get a Mew, which led to me battling a stranger on an airplane to earn one. But when using one became my only option to access one of the greatest mini-games ever, I gave in.

Not long after I got the limited-edition Pokémon Game Boy color bundled with Pokémon Yellow in October 1999, my sense of dignity and honor began to evaporate. In many ways, Pokémon Yellow is a weird experiment: it’s a remake of Red and Blue designed to simulate the experience of playing as Ash in the anime. You’re forced to use Pikachu as your starter. It refuses to go inside a Poké Ball. Like Ash, you encounter all three of the original games’ starters pretty quickly. This was only possible in Red and Blue via trading, so getting all three in my party already felt like cheating. Then I heard that Japanese players were able to access a surfing mini-game where Pikachu shredded over waves and did cool flips. I immediately gave in and bought a GameShark just to play Pikachu’s Beach.

Even the North American release has the mini-game within the code, but it requires that you have a Pikachu that knows the Surf move. Japanese players could obtain a surfing Pikachu at certain IRL events, but that wasn’t the case in North America. At launch, the only way to get one was with a GameShark.

All you have to do is talk to an NPC at the Summer Beach House on Route 19 to play Pikachu’s Beach. You control Pikachu atop a blue surfboard as waves of varying sizes come churning at you from behind. As Pikachu gets launched over each wave, you can press the left or right buttons on the control pad to flip him forward or backward, earning “Rad” points depending on the complexity of your moves. The higher your Radness gets, the faster Pikachu cuts across the waves, which in turn makes executing flips that much more challenging. It’s a clever little design choice that keeps the mini-game engaging for dozens and dozens of runs, and a modern version would feel totally at home in the tropical setting of the upcoming Pokémon Winds and Waves. The Gen 10 games could even expand upon the mini-game by offering a variety of beaches for Pikachu to test out his skills.

Beyond the cool-factor of this “Radness” points system, the pixel art on display in Pikachu’s Beach is incredible. The introductory screen depicts little Pikachu paddling out from the beach, his little yellow body contrasting against the waves. The game’s animation isn’t especially complex, but it feels mind-blowing compared to what’s going on in the rest of the game. Landing a flip with a little splash of seafoam as your points flash across the screen is incredibly satisfying. Perhaps best of all is the “Hi-Score” screen you get at the very end, which depicts Pikachu gazing out at the sunset, his surf board stabbed into the sand beside him.

Despite how much Pokémon Yellow wants you to care about Pikachu’s personality in the friendship system, it pales in comparison to the rizz he exudes as a master surfer. Playing Pikachu’s Beach made me care even more about him as a result. It’s just a shame that, in my case, I used the wrong GameShark code, and it eventually corrupted my data and wiped my save.

For those who had more patience than I did, Pokémon Stadium — which was released just a few months after Yellow for Nintendo 64 — introduced a legal way for those in the west to get a surfing Pikachu. You just had to win the Master Ball-tier of the Prime Cup, which was the hardest tournament in the game. Maybe it’s time to dig out my N64, Stadium, and my Transfer Pak to see if I can make it happen before Winds and Waves launches next year. After all, there’s no better way to play Pikachu’s Beach than on a TV using Stadium’s Game Boy Tower emulator.

© Polygon