Pokemon Yellow Easter Egg Surprises Fans Over 20 Years Later

Released in Japan in 1998, Pokemon Yellow incorporated a number of elements from theanime series, most notably giving players a Pikachu to start with, as opposed to Charmander, Bulbasaur, or Squirtle. Pikachu followed the player around just like Ash in the anime, and that has led to the discovery of an easter egg that many fans missed, the first time around! When players navigate Rock Tunnel, the area is pitch black, and only lights up if the player uses the Flash HM. However, if Pikachu learns the moves Thunder or Thunderbolt while in the cave, talking to the Pokemon immediately after leads to it briefly lighting up the area on its own!

Twitter user @ethandobbs shared a video of the accomplishment on Twitter, which can be found embedded below!

The Tweet above gained quite a bit of attention, with many fans pointing out that they had never seen it happen in the game previously. Given the specific circumstances needed for this to work in the game, it comes as little surprise that so many Pokemon fans didn’t catch it back in the day! Fans that want to try out the trick for themselves will be able to do so on the original Game Boy cartridge, or on the version that was released for Nintendo 3DS. It’s worth noting that the Pikachu trick only lights up the cave for a short moment, so Flash is still required for those that don’t want to navigate the cave in the dark!

Pokemon Yellow marked the first time that audiences were offered a “third version” of a previously released Pokemon game (not counting Japan’s version of Pokemon Blue). This became somewhat of a tradition for the series, as several other games offered similar offerings. Earlier this year, The Pokemon Company surprised fans with the announcement that they would forego a third version of Pokemon Sword and Shield, opting to offer additional content for the game as DLC, instead. It remains to be seen whether or not this will be the norm going forward, but that will likely prove to be the case.

Were you aware of this easter egg in the game? Did you own Pokemon Yellow on Game Boy? Let us know in the comments or share your thoughts directly on Twitter at @Marcdachamp to talk all things gaming!