Want to know how to get Surfing Pikachu in Pokemon Stadium? With the iconic N64 title making its way to Nintendo Switch Online, not only might you wonder how to get it, but also why. It's a true classic, and you'll be able to find the original here, but it's complicated.
The Surfing Pikachu is an iconic Pokemon from the Yellow version of the original Gameboy games, where it was seen riding a wave in the opening animation despite not being able to learn the powerful HM move naturally. The iconic surfing mouse still appears in games to this day, with a very rare and valuable trading card emerging in the late 90s, too.
How to get Surfing Pikachu in Pokemon Stadium
As we mentioned, the Surfing Pikachu is simply a Pikachu that learns the move Surf. In the original Pokemon Stadium, in order to get this combination, you'd need to jump through some very specific hoops.
- Complete the Prime Cup MasterBall Division in Round 2
- Have a Pikachu on your team as one of the three Pokemon chosen for each battle.
- The Pikachu needs to be one that comes from Pokemon Green, Red, Blue or Yellow GameBoy versions. Pikachu that are a part of Rental or Registered teams were not eligible to learn Surf.
Now that Pokemon Stadium is coming to Nintendo Switch Online, we don't know exactly how this is going to be done. The original game had the Transfer Pack. This allowed you to transfer a Pikachu from a Red, Blue, Yellow or Green GameBoy game directly into Pokemon Stadium. We don't have that functionality on Nintendo Switch just yet, but there are a few ways that we might be able to do this in the future.
The first way that we could see this being possible is by utilizing Pokemon HOME, which allows us to transfer Pokemon between games. This isn't the most likely option because Pokemon Stadium requires the Pikachu be from very specific titles that would require a long and, at this point impossible, chain of transfers to get an original Pikachu up to today's Pokemon HOME system.
The more likely option is that Red, Blue and Yellow versions of Pokemon will be released for the Nintendo Switch Online's GameBoy player. Then Pokemon Stadium would leverage console save data to recognize if a Pikachu exists on one of those games and allow you to transfer it to Stadium.
We've seen this functionality in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet with the Rotom phone cases looking for save data from Pokemon Let's GO, Pokemon Sword and Shield, Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, or Pokemon Legends Arceus.
Be sure to check back as we'll update this guide with any new information that drops on how we can get the Surfing Pikachu in game. If you're looking for more Pokemon Stadium content, then be sure to check out our guides to the Petit Cup and the Poke Cup, which are two of the activities that you can do in Pokemon Stadium.