GameShark is how I first stumbled on to the internet. I was looking up "the codes". I was really upset when GameShark's UBB instance went dark. Years later, I returned to look at some favorites and found that I could easily use all these programming skills I've developed to directly hack games.

https://github.com/kanzure/pokecrystal

So things like "beat the Elite Four 16,383 times" turn out to be definitely false. Also "mash A to increase the chances of catching" is also unfortunately wrong.

But at least you can just directly look at the WRAM file to see where actual values are stored:

https://github.com/kanzure/pokecrystal/blob/master/wram.asm

These can easily be converted into the old school GB/GBC gameshark codes by prepending 01, then a two-digit hex value , then a little indian (reverse) two-byte address.

So if you wanted to hack level 80 with a GameShark code you would look up and find this:

    PartyMon1Level: ; dcfe
        ds 1 ; just one byte

to come up with:

    0150FEDC

(0x50 because 0x50 == 80)

The GameShark was a really educational device. At first I didn't know what I was looking at, but then I realized it was giving me memory dumps and byte/address search tools. And then for some reason all of the subsequent devices after N64/GBC were just terrible, and I couldn't get an address searcher without a modchip?? No clue.