Pokemon Pink Version
Image: via DrLavaYT

A new datamining effort has potentially revealed the existence of a scrapped counterpart to 1998's Pokémon Yellow for the Game Boy, with evidence suggesting a Pokémon Pink Version was at one time in development.

Source code from both Pokémon Blue and Pokémon Yellow has supposedly leaked online over the past couple of days. Dr. Lava, known for being a reliable source of scrapped video game content and Pokémon development information, says the source code is "almost certainly legit", going on to note that Pokémon Pink would have likely starred either Clefairy or Jigglypuff as its box art star.

Interestingly, the header of the Pokémon Yellow source code reportedly refers to the game as 'Pocket Monsters Pink and Yellow', with additional 'Pink' references being found elsewhere, too. A round-up of current finds on Resetera shows the following image:

Pokemon Pink
Image: via Camjo-Z / Resetera

Elsewhere, the Pokémon Yellow source code includes several audio files taken from the Japanese Pokémon anime, suggesting that Pokémon other than Pikachu were originally intended to receive their anime voices in place of the digital cries found in-game. These cries suffer from a very low audio quality, however.

It's amazing to think that we're still stumbling across discoveries such as this more than 20 years after the launch of the first Pokémon games. Feel free to share your thoughts on this potential bombshell in the comments below.

[source resetera.com, via twitter.com]