Similar to the previously unearthed prototype designs for Pokémon Gold & Silver, further discoveries seem to have been made about original Pokémon Red & Blue monsters. A fresh batch of prototype assets has been published by Helix Chamber which includes clearer, better-quality versions of previously uncovered goodies.
The whole story surrounding the anonymous origins of these prototypes should have keen pokéstorians on their guard, as it did Helix Chamber when the fan group was first approached, but the authenticity of the sprites has been independently verified against other data - all these assets appear to be legitimate.
We already knew from previous documentation that an earlier name for the gotta catch 'em all game was 'Capsule Monsters', but now we get a much clearer picture of a prototype title screen which shows an early pokéball as the 'O' in 'Monsters'.
Another picture shows an early version of what appears to be a Rhydon standing over the revised 'Pocket Monsters' logo:
There's plenty more to check out: an entire folder's worth of assets for fans to download and examine in detail, including an early Blastoise named 'Totartle' and analysis of the fabled Missingno – the well-known glitch that's easily found in-game – plus a whole sheet of early designs.
Head over to Helix Chamber for the exhaustive lowdown.
Think Pokémon would have taken over the world under a different guise? Are any of these prototype 'mon more interesting than Metapod? Drop us a line in the comments...
[source helixchamber.com, via nintendosoup.com]
Comments 23
That's awesome, but...is anyone planning to dump the ROM that these came from? 🤔
this is old news and gaming media just loves to dig these up time and time again as if they found something new
One thing does make me suspicious. Mew was only added in very late in the production in secret so that the person responsible was certain they would have the space left for it to be squeezed in. And yet the "prototype" versions appear to have the sprite data for it...
Doesn't quite add up.
@wonderclassic To be fair, Mew was mentioned (not by name) in the original design documentation that preceeds this ROM chronologically. Most likely it was cut, and that's how it was able to implemented last minute, since they already had it all sprited and programmed.
"these look pretty good"
*Spots mew"
"Aaaaaaaagggggggghhhhhhh"
@satanclause Yeah, it's from a whole 3 days ago. So unbearably old.
https://helixchamber.com/2019/02/16/what-dreams-may-come/
@wonderclassic the whole programming (moveset, event) for the mew might have been added at the last moment (after the code has been cleaned up), but that does not mean that some of it's prototypical sprite could not be drawn before. As you know, many sprites were changed and/or deleted. He might have simply said "Yeah, that's some old sprite". And then at the latest point (after the code was supposed to be finished) he added the rest.
Gotta love that straight up balloon
Wow! I spy quite afew pokemon from later generations. You can see the top of a balloon pokemon, which could have become Drifloon later on. Interesting stuff!
Whooooa! More Pokemon proto elements?! These are surreal!
@Yasume I'm assuming that it was the early form of Substitute. Then again, we see fossils and the ghost, so it might have been for a mini game or NPC interaction.
There’s a marowak-looking back sprite holding a baby. My guess is khangaskhan was really meant to be part of that line at some point.
Interesting indeed! The sprites that interest me the most are that scrapped tiger evolutionary line and what looks like a Marowak evolution holding a baby Cubone.
Edit: Beaten by literally twelve seconds on that second bit by @Delibheel.
Very neat stuff! One of them looks like some kind of 3-evolution chain of a tiger-like Pokemon or something? Only the back sprites so I can't tell if that was a thing from another generation.
@JackEatsSparrows
No it's much older than 3 days. As I said this news has popped up on gaming news sites several times over the past years
@satanclause No, it hasn’t. The Gold beta was discovered last year, but never have many of these assets seen here from Gen I been revealed before now.
That Wigglytuff is the thing of nightmares
@satanclause Mkay.
Hmm, the name "Capsule Monsters" may run foul of Jump Magazine in Japan as Yu-Gi-Oh! had been using the name in its manga series regularly by the time Pokémon had come out (probably trademarked it too as a Capsule Monster games was released after the manga hit the bigtime).
CAPSMON was created gamefreak remake from now Pokemon let's Go.
That Rhydon looks to have been intended to be the mascot makes a lot of sense. It's Pocket Monsters, and that sort was typical for mass-media directed to boys throughout the '60s-'90s (because of the influence of things like Godzilla and Giant Robots). Game Freak must have decided to shift direction a bit after they got Nintendo's funding and were able to expand their creative ideas and assets.
@satanclause wrong again. This is a different prototype from a completely different generation of games. This news is brand new
Can't believe the balloon got scrapped. Such creativity!
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