The Pokémon hype is wild and overflowing at the moment with the recent reveals of Pokémon: Let's Go, Pikachu! and Let's Go, Eevee!, but forgive us for just a moment as we take a quick look back to Pokémon Gold and Silver - and how they could have been very different.
Fans at The Cutting Room Floor have managed to get their hands on an early build of the second generation games, originating from Nintendo's Space World promotional event in November 1997. The build contains a whole host of monsters that were seemingly originally planned to be a part of Gold and Silver but were eventually scrapped.
For 'starters', if you'll excuse the pun, two of the three starter Pokémon are noticeably missing, with other characters filling their place. Instead of the Cyndaquil and Totodile evolution chains we've all come to know and love, these little fellas act as the fire and water offerings for players to choose from.
There are also more evolutions and babies of Generation 1 Pokémon, suggesting that the games were originally going to feature more of an emphasis on the original monsters. In this image below, you can see baby versions of Vulpix, Goldeen, Paras, Meowth, Grimer, Growlithe and Mr. Mime - none of which ever made the final cut. Of course, Pokémon Diamond and Pearl did eventually introduce Mime Jr. - a baby of Mr. Mime - and the design is rather similar to this early sprite (far-right).
If you're interested, you can check out all of the designs in this fan made spreadsheet. There are lots of weird and whacky creations including one that looks like two Gastlys chained together, Slowbro's tail as a standalone Pokémon (rather than Shellder's usual design), evolutions of Weepinbell, Farfetch'd, Ditto, and Pinsir, and some early concepts of the legendaries.
It's unlikely that we'll ever see any of these creatures make it into the games, but maybe some of the designs will be reworked for the next core series games coming in 2019?
[source eurogamer.net, via tcrf.net]
Comments 52
How long until someone creates a ROM hack of Gen II with all these sprites?
Unrelated: Blazblue CrossTag Battle is available in Japan and apparently has the english language to it if you download the game. So anyone who cant wait for it: you know what to do.
Related: Some of these actually look cooler than some of the original Designs imo. Wouldve loved to see baby meowth in game. It's so cute
@AlexOlney Hopefully not long. That Cyndaquil replacement looks sweet.
I was staring at this for too long. Farfetch'd was originally intended to have an evolution . . . in Gen 2!
Why was this scrapped and forgotten? Farfetch'd deserves better than that, Game Freak! #JusticeForFarfetchd
Anyway, some of these are really cool. Kingdra's design here is much more appealing to me than the final tube-nose variant they went with. So many questions.
I see Slowbro's tail (the shell on it) as a Pokemon which makes me wonder why it hasn't become a Pokemon itself? We know that a slowpoke evolves when a shelder clamps on its tail but what is that thing that shelder turns into? Why does it turns into that when it clamps on a slowpoke tail.
Ladies and gentlemen, Belmitt:
@AlexOlney About 2 hours probably.
Some of these I like. Some of them I am kinda glad they scrapped.
Man this is amazing, I love beta stuff and this is one big pool of delicious beta stuff to dive right into. I can't wait until hackers turn this playable. If they can work with all those randomizers, they can work with this too!
As if Jynx wasn’t problematic enough... I can definitely see why Bellossom got a revamp!
Whoever leaked this, I salute you.
Yeah. Some of these I wish had happened. Especially some of the evolutions for 'Mons that didn't get one (that Farfetch'd one needs to happen at some point). One that stuck out to me was the Noctowl design. I wish they had stuck with the one on here.
@AlexOlney There's already a link to play the actual ROM in the spreadsheet, but it seems it is in Japanese and takes some fenagling.
Also, am I the only one who really likes the original Legendary Dag designs?
I am really curious about the thing under beta Xatu.
This is the most interesting thing I've seen all month. This is just crazy.
First of all, I neeeeed the the baby version of meowth! (Or any of those baby versions, they really are amazing.)
@JTMnM I'm thinking the same thing, but with pinsir too. Then there is the metal type ditto evolution. I don't really know how that would work though.
Remoraid also appears to resemble a gun more in this demo design, which makes far more sense considering it evolves into a Pokémon based on artillery. Additionally, one of the Pokémon in the right-bottom corner seems to be an early design of Lickilicky
EDIT: Only just realised that that one before Slowking is an early Politoed. Difficult to make out in black and white, but once the GBC palette is applied it's much easier to see
Prototype #198, the black cat with the crescent moon.
That's pretty much just Luna from Sailor Moon, I can see why they cut it.
I really want to know how that Metal Ditto evolution would work.
@JTMnM Farfetch'd is so under rated! It is easily one of my favourite gen 1 Pokémon. I always hear people gush about other gen 1 Pokémon, but not Farfetch'd.
@Balladeer How does Jynx hurt your sensibility exactly?
Yeah I'm good with the final design choices on the existing ones. Some of them would be giving 10 year old me nightmares (mostly Girafarig).
Some crazy looking designs.
Some of those look awesome Gold and Silver will always be my favourite Pokemon game
This is amazing, I see a lot of preevolutions and evolutions both unusued and some that would reappear later.
Also MEOWSY, Meowth had a pre evo and it's adorable!! 😵
@link3710 My guess is that it would still transform into other Pokemon but remain a steel-type. Cool idea but would probably be far too OP. Who knows though?
Did anyone see if Raichu has an evolve form that was scrapped? I loved the trippy mega evolution they did with Alakazam.
I love these! Why was baby Meowth never a thing? I also think I prefer Totodile and Cyndaquil to those two, but I wonder what a world with those would be like as well.
...Also, Farfetch'd still totally deserves an evolution.
Some of those are awful sprites. It's weird, considering they upped their game in Yellow, with most sprites looking a lot better than the early Red and Blue stuff. These looks like they come straight out a 90s ROM hack.
0/10 none of these designs are based on garbage, ice cream or key rings.
It could well be possible that Mr Iwata requested for the axing of these prototype Pokemon, in order to make room for Kanto to be squeezed into Gold and Silver versions.
This is super cool. I wish they had been able to include more in the first two games. Sadly hardware limitations and all as well as time and budget reduced things. But many of these old designs seem like they could have done well. Baby pokemon were still a mistake IMO. So I am glad no more made it in besides the few that did, they serve no function but to annoy you as they can't be bred and have bad move sets and stats and doesn't further the game in any meaningful way.
I hope to see gen 8 do more to expand on older pokemon from generation 1-4 in general. Alolan forms were a great way to make old pokemon new, interesting and viable and I hope they keep that trend up, while also adding evolutions like this scrapped farfetch'd evolution. Such neat stuff.
These will be the "Alola" forms for gen 2 in Pokémon 2019
@Sun_wukong Unlikely. The unused Pokémon were replaced by others, as the number in the demo's Pokédex is the same as the final game
Some of the already existing Pokemon from Kanto have different sprites in the beta, too. Not too fond of the spreadsheet layout for looking at the different sprites, though.
@Octane it's entirely possible that several of those were made before yellow's. (Gold and Silver were likely already in development before Yellow).
As you can see in the original gen 1 pokemon, many are reused from Blue, and many of the remade and new sprites follow similar design cues to those from that game.
So it's likely that they started with Blue as a base, and the art style evolved from there. Yellow fell somewhere in the middle.
It does seem to lend more credence to what GameFreak was saying about making a pool of Pokémon and drawing from it for each generation. Some of these Pokémon were used and/or modified for later generations.
Examples:
Huntail ended up being a Generation III Pokemon. Tangrowth and Mime Jr. showed up in Generation IV. Also, bottom left rodent Pokémon looks very much like Dedenne from Generation VI
@Ernest_The_Crab Leafeon is also a thing in this demo which is amazing, proto-lickylicky is here, farfetch'd evolution looks almost identical to swanna, Rinrin looks like a precursor purrloin and glameow, wolfman looks like it became snorunt, etc.
And if we want to go even deeper, the concept of a living panda doll (stufful & bewear) can be seen here with the strawdoll pokemon and its evolution.
@Yosheel Pinsir's evolution (I think?) also looks a bit like Mega Heracross. Double Ghastly Pokémon was also giving me some Spiritomb vibes especially with that aura around it.
It's also quite interesting seeing how they proceeded with some of the designs. The Hoppip line had a bunch of limbs added (with Jumpluff looking very different). Ledian also had some pretty massive changes to its design. End result was something more anthropomorphic.
@Ernest_The_Crab and pinsir's scrapped evoltuion looking similar to (mega) heracross gets better when you consider it likely ended up becoming heracross.
Also quite amusingly, the original porygon 2 looks quite a bit like sun!Castform
I HATE the beta Porygon2 design. That is just awful and Porygon2 is one of my absolute favourite Pokémon of all. I'm a bit indifferent to Porygon-Z, but I'm glad that the Porygon family has a complete evolutionary line (well, barring a mega form). Porygon2 is also the first time I have trained up a Pokémon that I had no intention of fully evolving (I trained a Porygon2 /w Eviolite and Porygon-Z together in Pokémon Black Version 2).
@Ernest_The_Crab : Plus this leak explains why the Ledyba line is categorised as the five-star Pokémon. Beta Ledian appears to have five stars on its back. I prefer the Beta design as I really hate the fact that they had to ruin Ledyba by anthropomorphising it. I love Ledyba, but couldn't care for Ledian (I feel the same about Skiddo, who is absolutely adorable, but it evolves into butt-ugly Gogoat.
I really like the beta Lickitung evolution here, which maintains the silliness of its pre-evolved form. Lickilicky from Gen IV looks a little too... regal and dignified for my liking (at least when compared to Lickitung).
Anyway, have an EGG:
Aww! I want a baby Meowth right meow! :3
So Celebi was "legendary Eevee".
@Markiemania95 Octillery also looks a lot more like a tank here, with the shells acting as armour and helmet.
@Silly_G beta lickylicky also looks quite regal, just in another sense. It looks like a sultan instead of a prince.
@ogo79 I think someone at GameFreak doesn't like the N64. The player kid had one in this 1997 Pokemon GS demo, but when Yellow released next year they regressed the protag to a SNES and I think no console in the released GSC. And it has never appeared in a mainline game, I don't think.
@Sun_wukong And then after they added Kanto, they could add Slugma where nobody would find it and it can get confused for a Hoenn mon. (there's probably a few more of those)
I hear Chimecho gets mistaken as a Gen 4 mon, which is further understandable.
@KingMike you can win consoles for your room in GCS by using mystery gift. NES, SNES & N64. And the virtual boy.
Baby Meowth and Growlithe are just adorable!
@Yosheel Did not know that.
VIRTUAL BOY? So I guess that would be the first time it appeared in Europe.
As I hear, Nintendo whitewashed it out of the Melee localization presumably because of PAL regions.
@KingMike
haha
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