After doing a very, very big spreadsheet, I found that almost every Pokemon in Generation 2 had some kind of change at some point in development. The only ones who didn't were ones like Yanma or Larvitar. So, here's a big look at some of the notable changes. If you want to know them all, view my spreadsheet here. Trust me, virtually every Pokemon had some change somewhere, and covering them all would be impossible in a single article, nor would it be particularly interesting. Meganium's Spaceworld Connection
Gold -> Silver Design ChangesHowever, rather than focus on Spaceworld connections, how about some Gold and Silver-specific stuff? I believe there is none more interesting than Magby. Magby's design between Gold and Silver is actually quite different. Namely, the belly pattern in Gold is not only different, but it also mirrors Spaceworld. This implies to me that the Gold sprites were made first, and Silver's later. This could have started around 1998, I think. Crystal then darkened the colors of Silver, but the back sprite across all 3 games still kept the old belly patterns. Lugia is another interesting case to look over. Its Gold sprite features talons, and a parting on the left wing. This meant that that wing...wasn't a hand. Silver would remove both of these aspects and remodel the face, which Crystal would build upon when using Gold's sprite for the animated one in its game. Gold's Lugia design was essentially very different. GS -> Crystal Design Changes
Raikou inspired me to go on this little journey, due to the head and weird cloud-cape colour being completely different. Essentially, this Raikou is a completely different design to the Crystal - and thus modern - one. It's a pretty popular bit to look at in the beta section of the Pokemon community, so covering this is a bit of a cop-out, but hey! So what does this mean?So these are just some of the changes I discovered. But, what does this mean? Well, essentially, Pokemon Gold and Silver may well have been rushed out the door. There are many designs that received significant changes in Crystal, many I didn't cover here (basically, view the spreadsheet).
I can sort-of date the Silver sprite additions through Magby and Lugia: it must have been around Late 1998 to early 1999, mid development, once the art style shift was done, and enough so that the Spaceworld designs were not completely changed (See: Meganium). The art style shift happened in 1998, but no Silver sprites were revealed. You can see that the sprites were not "presentable" until later given that only Pokemon Gold's sprites received any coverage at all (Prerelease TCRF page shows this). Naturally though, it's still very vague. I believe that the game was rushed out of the door due to the time it took for the game to be made at all, and that Poke Fever as it was called was slowly dying off. To maintain the hype, it made sense for the sequels to be forced out. Therefore, we got designs that did not match official artwork. Hell, some Silver sprites were the same as the Gold ones (eg. Sneasel, Spinarak, Ariados, Legendary Beasts), or had very small alterations (eg. Hitmontop, Togetic). Crystal took on a pretty arduous task of fixing all these disparities, and it did damn well. So there you have it, some light shed on one of the more interesting parts of Generation 2. What do you think? Do you see any designs that particularly interest you?
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Gastrodon is a fairly interesting Pokemon, and I don't often cover Pokemon beyond Generations 1 and 2. This Pokemon has quite a bit of interesting information about it, so I thought I'd compile it all so you can have a look. In Nintendo Power May 2007, it was said by Junichi Masuda that two "sea slug" Pokemon were meant to be in Ruby and Sapphire, but were cut. It's an interesting topic. There are actually two cut Pokemon in the Cry Order from the German Debug ROM, with fully functional cries. You can get the actual ROM here. Many often talk about Gastrodon and Shellos being in Gen 3 at some point, citing this magazine. However, this is false. The exact statement is; "There's also a sea-slug Pokémon that we weren't able to put in Ruby and Sapphire that we were able to put in this one, Pokémon Diamond and Pearl" It is highly likely that these unspecified Pokemon indirectly inspired Shellos and Gastrodon, like how Gyaoon inspired Tyranitar. I don't believe that these were the two Pokemon we got due tot he statement, though. There is also more evidence for this than one would think, so let's have a look. One case of a concept being completely revised for a game is Mantine, who was originally Haneei. This Pokemon was likely based on Glaucus atlanticus, or the Blue Sea Slug. In the end it became a stingray, more befitting its name (haneru means jump, hane means feather/wing, and ei implies stingray, thanks to TCRF). So it could be theorized that the concept of sea slugs being used for Pokemon could date back to Generation 2, given the appearance of Haneei (although you could say from the name that the evidence is a bit weak). Anyway, let's move on a touch. In August 2006, Pokemon Diamond and Pearl was in a debugging phase. How do we know this? Well, it leaked in June 2019. In this ROM, Shellos and Gastrodon had different Japanese names; Siiusi and Siidorugo, rather than Karanakushi and Toritodon. Gastrodon's name appears to be a reference to Dolgo, a Kaiju (thanks to Helix Chamber). These names were considered a mainstay it appears, as they made it into Pokemon Battle Revolution. In fact, the names made it into the final game under debug options. You may have also seen these sprites before, which are unused in Pokemon Diamond and Pearl as well. It is likely that these are our "Siiusi" and "Siidorugo", the old Shellos and Gastrodon, before they were changed into what they are now. You may notice that Shellos has the East Sea's back. This is because, well, at one point that concept wasn't exactly founded yet. The final game has a debug function talking about the forms. I like to think that they had a bunch of designs for these sea slugs that they liked, and chose to make multiple forms based on, well, the different sea's sea slugs. The Gastrodon here may have been one of the designs that they chose to cut. It makes a lot of sense, as compared to the final game and early Shellos, it's a bit out there. It would have been a bit redundant to have more than 2 forms as well, although the East's head patterns have no record of presence at this time. It could have been in their little Shellos-Gastrodon war chest, though! So there you have it, multiple generations of wanting sea slugs in Pokemon, amounting to the creation of Gastrodon and Shellos. And honestly, I'm glad it came out. It's a well-known competitive Pokemon in the VGC sector for its Storm Drain ability, and frequently finds its way onto teams to counter Rain. While it rarely ventures out of the lower tiers in Smogon, it has an OU tiering under its belt for Gen 5 and frequently travels through every tier above it in every game for one reason or another. While Shellos has significantly less competitive history, it's nice to see all of its development history, providing a deep inside look at how Nintendo designs their Pokemon.
This article should have been released far earlier, in hindsight, but here we go. The Spaceworld 1997 demo of Pokemon Gold and Silver contained a complete, albeit early, special split for Generation 1. I compiled a full scale look at the revision history of the special stats here, back in December. I used The Cutting Room Floor as well as my own data from my research doc to fully compile this information.
The Spaceworld Demo's stat changes to the Generation 1 Pokemon were quite interesting, especially considering the Nintendo Cup. Nintendo Cup 1997 was well under way by the time Spaceworld 1997 rolled around. Thus, these revisions of Pokemon can be seen as balancing opinions made by the developers prior to release. What is Nintendo Cup?
What is Nintendo Cup, you ask? It's a ruleset that Nintendo employed when doing tournaments for Pokemon Red and Green (and, naturally, Blue JP when that was released via Corocoro). The main one, Nintendo Cup 1997, is the most often played format for Generation 1 if you're not playing Smogon. This is technically the oldest competitive format for Pokemon to ever exist. The rules were as follows;
All this sound familiar? It should, because this was in Pokemon Stadium's Japanese versions as well as Pokemon Yellow! Pokemon Stadium made specifically to encourage players to enjoy Nintendo's competitive format. This essentially means that the Nintendo Cup formats are, well, extant. Pokemon Stadium JP, the original we never got in the west, featured Nintendo Cup 1997 and 1998. (Credit: Javier Dos S., who happened to have a gameplay video.)
Pokemon Stadium 2 - what we got as 1 - added further formats, specifically the ones from Pokemon Yellow's Colosseum 2. This includes Pika Cup, Petit Cup, and Poke Cup. And Poke Cup, well, is essentially Nintendo Cup 1997 but optimized for Generation 1. They unbanned Mewtwo, though, but this change didn't stay in Stadium.
The PAL and NTSC versions of Stadium 2 - what we got as 1 - removed Nintendo Cup 1998 and 1999, as we never got to play those. This made for a pretty odd menu in the international versions...
Through this we can see that Nintendo Cup was pretty big in Japan, although the formats after 1997 are notoriously bad. 1998 was only played on Stadium JP and capped levels at 30, and 1999 banned all Pokemon used by the finalists of 1997 and 1998. So their removal wasn't the worst thing, right?
Nintendo Cup returned in 2000 for Pokemon Gold and Silver, employing the same rules as 1997, only banning Ho-Oh, Lugia and Celebi, adding a Freeze Clause like Stadium, Item Clause, and having Destiny Bond and Perish Song fail when used by the final Pokemon. So how is this relevant?
Well, Nintendo Cup 1997 was going on right as Generation 2 was being developed. As a result, balancing can be clearly derived from what was popular. Let's put this together with some of the Pokemon they banned for 1999.
And as we know, many of these Pokemon did indeed turn out to be titans in the present day Smogon Gen 1 OU format; Tauros was even recognized as "The King of Gen 1". However, Hypno, Aerodactyl, Electrode and Dugtrio definitely did not deserve those bans...nor those nerfs. At least Aerodactyl finally got STABs to make use of in Generation 2, and Hypno got juiced with elemental punches to use in Tradeback Gen 1 OU as vengeance.
However, Spaceworld also did have some pretty insane Pokemon. Lapras had 95 SpA and 105 SpD, making it essentially better than its Generation 1 counterpart. Persian had 85 SpD to give it tangible bulk, Venomoth had 100 SpD, Ninetales had 100 SpA...there were a lot of great benefits. But then, we see Snorlax have 100 SpD, which was increased to 110 in the final, thereby helping solidify it as Nintendo Cup 2000 and Gen 2 OU's despotic king. This balancing was...definitely very odd. Earlier Revisions of Pokemon in the Spaceworld "Clones"
There is more, though. I noticed that Sui, one of the Spaceworld 1997 cut Pokemon, had 125 SpA and 50 SpD, the latter of which was dummied out like other stats (see Rinrin article). As it turned out, after comparing BST, it was found that the Legendary Beasts in the demo had their stats cloned from the Birds. Politoed and Slowking had theirs imported from their Kanto counterparts as well. However...
Sui's SpD turned out to be 95, and the SpA was 125. Given it was imported from Articuno (En and Rai were Moltres and Zapdos in every way, obviously), it can be concluded that this is an old revision of it. Articuno must have had 125 SpA and 95 SpD at some point in development...which would have actually made it viable in competitive play. Slowking was completely imported from Slowbro, but had his SpD at 50, 15 less than Slowbro's at the current stage in development, thereby leaving him strictly worse. I do have faith that Game Freak wouldn't do this - yes I am slightly unhinged to be saying that - but I feel we can conclude that he was not dummied out at all. While I did say Politoed imported Poliwrath's stats, he simply used Demo Poliwrath's stats and had no difference. If my conclusions are correct, what does this mean? Well, Demo Slowking and Sui's statlines are earlier revisions of Slowbro and Articuno. There's no other feasible explanation. I actually tweeted about this back in December when I was analyzing the stats.
This does once again line up with the influence of the Nintendo Cup meta if we look at how Slowbro and Slowking came out, though. Note that Slowbro was not banned in Nintendo Cup 1999. Slowbro came out with 100 SpA and 80 SpD, significant buffs from Spaceworld. Slowking came out with 100 SpA and 110 SpD, the latter of which was swapped with Slowbro's Def and Final SpD.
They must have been buffed due to their lack of prevalence at the time (despite how good Slowbro turned out to be). Slowbro wasn't banned, and he got quite a bit of love in Generation 2. This would have been to bring attention to him, and as we know it definitely did: he's been pretty viable ever since, hovering around UU and even being OU in Generation 6. So overall, it definitely seems that Nintendo Cup 1997 had a guiding hand in the rebalancing of Generation 1's Pokemon, and likely mechanics, for the next games. I believe this is where the stat changes came from, and find that this was a good insight into the balancing side of development. What do you think? Take a look at the spreadsheet I linked up above and imagine Gen 2 with those stats. Give me your thoughts! The mysterious Mew is known for many things: it can learn any TM or Tutor move, it's the first mythical Pokemon, it's a playground myth that turned out to be true, it's been featured in a number of movies, and has quite a bit of lore to it. Oh, and it's also known for having a really ugly original sprite that resulted in Pokemon Green getting the stereotype of having terrible sprites. But, did you all know that Mew has a history of revisions across Generations 1-2, moreso than any other Pokemon? Let's start at the beginning, Pokemon Red and Green. Mew was added over Omega in Index 21 to fill space, and was used for easy TM testing. Mew was kept in for release and later used as a promotional, "mirage" Pokemon. During this time, Mew looked like...this. Indeed, Mew embodied the fetus aspect of its design. This little jerboa embryo is often toted as an abomination, a creature that should have never existed. Me? I think it's hilarious and had a more dark tone. But yeah, this thing is what eventually became Mew's design today. The question is...when did it change, and why? The Red and Green Asset Leak contains a prototype Blue JP sprite for Mew, still featuring the little bump on its head and the creepy eyes. This was from Blue Version 1, I believe, given the file name. Given this is only in black and white, I also took it upon myself to colorize it like I did with Gyopin's back sprite. This version has been increased a bit in size so apologies if the scaling looks off. So really, there are two incarnations of Mew's original design. Despite this though, the official RG artwork for Mew does not show this. The very first time Mew received art had it in its revised design, as Ken Sugimori was redesigning Pokemon at this stage. Given Goldeen's horn change, we can deduce that these RG artworks were where the design changes began. However, RB did not always reflect these changes, as we saw with Goldeen's horn as well. Anyway, despite the odd discrepancies in design, when Pokemon Blue JP did the revised sprites in October 1996, we got the Mew we now know and love. No longer was it an odd fetus, it was now more a cat-jerboa-embryo-thing. But...due to the way Generation 1 handled the sprite changes, we still had the back sprite from Red and Green. It seems that when you commanded Mew yourself, you unleashed the horrible blighter to the international audience's poor eyes. How awful! Pokemon Yellow preserved this change as well, meaning Japan had 2 versions with the old Mew, and two with the new. Remember, Blue JP and Yellow were essentially Red and Green sequels in Japan. The international audiences received Blue JP's Mew, as well as Yellow Mew, meaning we never saw the evil fetus in the west until the internet dredged up Green from the depths of the ROM websites. However, prior to Yellow's release, there was one more Mew sprite. This was at Spaceworld 1997. This Mew featured a similar design to Pokemon Red and Blue's, and was used in the demo and the Mew distribution cartridges over there. The screenshot I have here was on a bilibili video, at 32:23. I had this image for comparison on an old article, but it had the wrong date! I've fixed it though. So overall, there are 5 known Mew sprites from Generation 1, not counting back sprites. The Spaceworld Mew, given its use on Generation 1 Distribution Cartridges, can be considered a Generation 1 sprite. If we consider it Gen 2 and count the ones from there, we have 8 Pre-Gen 3 sprites total, more than any Pokemon from that era.
So, while this was more of an info dump article than any real explanation, what do you think? Do you like the unreleased Mew sprites? Lemme know your thoughts! Gyopin is a curious little blighter who always seems to find its ways into leaks about Generations 1 and 2. However, I have never covered this little thing! Gyopin is a pre-evolution to Goldeen - a Baby Pokemon - whose first recorded appearance is in the Pokemon Red and Green Asset Leak. It was positioned at Index No.156, meaning that if you tried encountering it now you would find a MissingNo. in its place. Yes, this is an unmasked MissingNo.! However, it had no known name from that point in time, but these days we call it Gyopin due to its later appearances. The asset leak was released in February 2019, but held for an undetermined amount of time. We only have a back sprite of this little guy, and only in black and white too. However, I have taken it upon myself to make a speculative back sprite using the final Red and Green Goldeen's palette. This was with Bulbapedia's sprite. As a result, we wind up with this; The then-unnamed fish also had a learnset, but I have yet to translate these. I will however provide what I have;
This unnamed fish would later appear as Gyopin in the Spaceworld 1997 Demo leak that happened in 2018, released by the same person. This time, with far more completion; including a front sprite, a palette to actually look at, and a full learnset. (Credit: The Cutting Room Floor) Gyopin was Pure Water Type, with no stats (as in they were all dummied to 50), and a 50% chance to hold a Berry and a 5% chance to hold the old Mystic Water, the Wet Horn. It evolved more quickly than its Gen 1 counterpart, evolving at Level 16. As for learnset, here we are. Sourcing it from Team Spaceworld's research spreadsheet that I saved a copy of, before it was taken down. I use it for personal research records now. It's essentially Final Goldeen's, with no different moves from there. Levels are a bit different. Demo Goldeen learns moves more slowly by virtue of being a Stage 1 evolution. Gyopin is however a source of confusion for some, due to its design being a bit different to Goldeen. This, is a misconception. Goldeen originally had a spiral horn, which began being changed when Pokemon Yellow was released in September 1998. As a result, considering this fact, Gyopin's design actually makes perfect sense. Pokemon were often proposed in groups, meaning Gyopin was likely intended as a member of the Goldeen line from the very beginning. It just...got removed in the end. (Sprite Credit: The Cutting Room Floor - Gyopin, Bulbapedia - Goldeen) It gets a bit weird though. In all of Goldeen's official artwork from the era - even the Cardass art - I cannot for the life of me find anything showing Goldeen with a spiral horn. In fact, I couldn't find it for Seaking either, despite having the exact same spiral horn trait in Red and Green, and Blue JP. The closest I got to any reference was on some Cardass artwork for Seaking, but it's a bit of a reach. So, what does this mean? The spiral horn sprites for Goldeen and Seaking represent an intermittent design stage, like Gold and Silver's designs for Meganium, Spinarak and the Legendary Beasts being changed for Crystal. I believe that the artwork for Goldeen and Seaking must have been made after their in-game sprites were already finished, thus why their spiral horns were removed in Yellow and later just erased from existence. And, well, I think I can date this as well. I believe it must have happened during - and after - Spaceworld. Pokemon Yellow was released in September 1998, almost a year after Spaceworld. We have sprites showing the spiral horn in the demo, which was changed in the final. I also have a bit of a smoking gun, and that's Seaking's Spaceworld sprites. (Sprite Credit: The Cutting Room Floor) Notice the front sprite's horn: there's no spiral. They were in the middle of the redesign right as Spaceworld was going on. This leads me to believe that perhaps Gyopin and Goldeen have versions of their Spaceworld sprites without the spiral horn being featured as well somewhere, but...that's a reach, I feel. Well, why would they remove such an awesome looking design? I believe the anime must have been using the Red and Green artwork as a basis, as Goldeen had already been shown without a spiral horn. The first appearance was in Pokemon Emergency. In fact, this was its most iconic appearance that even led to Goldeen being featured in Super Smash Bros. doing the exact same thing: flopping on the floor. Thus, they must have changed it for consistency reasons. When did this air? April 8th 1997 in Japan, around the same time as when MicroGroup Game Review Vol.14 was released, doing commentary on the first episode of the anime: there was a lot of promotion going on. I believe Gyopin was removed for several reasons. It would have been extremely weak, and left Goldeen as one of the weakest middle evolutions of all time. Most Baby Pokemon reduce all the older form's stats by around 20, meaning its defenses would have been absolutely pitiful.
So there you have it: Gyopin, the Goldeen line's long lost baby, and part of one of many Generation 1 redesigns. What do you think? Personally, I wish that horn stayed, it adds a lot more personality to this line of Pokemon. Many often call Goldeen and Seaking basic, mundane and/or unimaginative. Personally I absolutely love Seaking, given my love for the more regal kinds of goldfish. Shoutout to Game Freak for giving it Swords Dance again in Sword and Shield after being deprived of it for 2 decades by the way. That was a Gen 2 event move, one of the most unfortunate casualties of the move to Gen 3. Left me super miffed. But anyway, that marks another mystery solved about not just Gyopin, but the entire Goldeen line! Out of all the Pokemon in the Spaceworld 1997 demo, most have their stats either unfinished, dummied out or otherwise. There is one, however, who stands out from the crowd: Rinrin. (Credit: The Cutting Room Floor, fan-made art by RacieBeep) Rinrin, in my opinion, may have been intended to be an alternative evolution to Konya, a scrapped pre-evolution to Meowth. This is because it is right next to Konya, a pre evolution to Meowth. It is the only Pokemon in the demo to have a true defined statline. Rinrin was a female-only Pokemon while Meowth was male, implying that there was an intention for gendered evolution. Konya would evolve at Level 14. Fun fact, Konya was also cut from Gen 1! Unlike most Pokemon in the Spaceworld dex however, Rinrin was finished. All stats but Special Defense were done (as SpD was dummied out universally, the split was still in progress). By using Meowth's Demo BST, we are able to devise what the SpD was. It was...low, but not unlike many Pokemon back then. (Source for these images are my private research sheets) Rinrin had access to Bell Chime, which was the prototype Heal Bell. Same effect, just a different name. This was actually its signature move. It would have been quite a desirable Pokemon given this, although it didn't seem like it would be too bulky, so it's definitely subjective. Access to Lovely and Sweet Kiss is certainly an eye-opener as well. Like every other Spaceworld Pokemon though, Rinrin had no TM learnset due to them still being used for debugging. Rinrin also had an evolution known as Berurun, evolving at Lv.28. This Pokemon would have been essentially a Persian counterpart. No stats are available, and it has largely the same learnset. You could technically replicate the stats through going +20 to each, as this is a common thing done for evolution, but know that it isn't definitive. (Credit: The Cutting Room Floor, fan-made art by RacieBeep) It is thought that the Rinrin line inspired Purrloin and Liepard of Gen 5. I do believe I see the resemblance, especially in regards to the idea of trickery being their forte. They have a lot of disruption-centric moves in their learnsets, so perhaps the concept of a deceptive cat got carried over! Game Freak has never acknowledged the Rinrin line in interviews to my knowledge, but Meowth has received Gigantamax, Alolan and Galarian forms, as well as an alternate evolution in Perrserker if it's Galarian. There's quite a lot of love for this cat, but still no Konya or Rinrin...
Yay, Plague von Karma is back!
Alright alright, you're probably wondering where I was. I've been labbing Smash Ultimate recently with a bunch of friends, it's tied my hands a lot. However, I have come back with some stuff from the Asset Leak after chatting with friends about it. So I've updated my MissingNo. Identification Sheet with the new beta Pokemon and also moved Gyaoon to its Asset Leak Index. You can find it here. So, what was different between my original and latest research?
And some new facts:
I may cover some of this in more detail at some point. This is very likely to be the last time I cover this magazine until someone translates the Hideo Kojima area of the magazine (someone is doing it for me, next week seems promising). Also, apologies for my inconsistent uploading of articles, I like to keep it spaced out but it gets a bit much sometimes. I have covered parts of "Hitmontop" before, but never actually went in depth or put it all in one place. So, it feels correct to put it here. Given the turtle has no real thoughts on it, I don't think it warrants an article (Unless I need filler...heh). This article is mainly to compile my thoughts, and to clear up any misinformation regarding this thing. So, let's begin this with what is the speculative history of Hitmontop. All the images here will be recycled from my previous articles, since there's no point in redoing them: they're fine! One thing I questioned in my initial research of the Spaceworld 1997 Demo back in June-July times, the biggest thing I questioned was the drastic difference in design. The only similarity was the concept of a spinning top, but even then it is quite the reach. Now, let's bring up the interview retranslation that Obskyr did. It has been agreed upon that the designs were never intended to be canon from the beginning: notice that Tyranitar wasn't in the Spaceworld Demo. It wasn't intended to exist up until after Spaceworld when the designs were looked over again. I believe that as a result, we can say the same for "Hitmontop", who I don't think is Hitmontop at all. Thinking about it, the only way that we can really explain the drastic design difference and the existence of Hitmontop in the Spaceworld Demo is that this Pokemon is not actually a beta Hitmontop. It never was. Hitmontop is based on a practitioner of Capoeira, an Afro-Brazilian Martial Art. Got to commend Game Freak for researching such an obscure thing tbh, pretty cool. Hell, the Japanese name is a homage to it. Anyway, getting off track. This weird Pokemon doesn't feature any implications of any kind of fighting style, and is simply a spinning top. If anything, I really think it looks like Clefairy. Here's an image I put together using my HQ scanned images of it; Ken Sugimori stated in the interview with the writers of the magazine, that he had the idea of a parallel universe when designing these Pokemon. They were not meant to be canon, but obviously Tyranitar really complicated this when Ken looked back at his old designs and thought "hey let's contradict this for a laugh".
So really, this Pokemon was never meant to be used from the beginning. As I said in my previous articles, this Pokemon was a throwaway design, just like the turtle and Tyranitar (god it still feels weird saying that). All in all, the most this Pokemon could have done is indirectly contribute to Hitmontop's inception: the concept of a spinning top, that evolved from there thanks to the drug-fueled beings that are Pokemon's designers. So, not Hitmontop. It's about as irrelevant as the turtle Pokemon that may or may not have become Tirtouga. Turns out we already did have some content from the Pokemon Gold and Silver Spaceworld Demo! These being from the Game Boy Camera, and the Mew Distribution Cartridge from the same event! So. let's start with the Game Boy Camera. As some of you know, Pokemon Green Sprites were also featured on the device. However, two sprites of previously unknown origin were also on the device. As it turns out, Chansey and Pikachu's sprites were actually from the Spaceworld Build of Pokemon Gold and Silver! They didn't have any color on the Game Boy Camera, but the resemblance is clear. There are no differences here, so it is unknown as to what actually happened here. However, why did they not simply replace all the Pokemon Green or Pokemon Blue JP (AKA Red and Blue Int) Sprites with the ones from Beta GSC? By this point, the redrawing of all the sprites should have been finished. Or was it scrapped and did the rebuild begin? Nobody knows. It appears that they may have wanted familiar sprites for users, but why did Chansey and Pikachu use these sprites? It is quite unusual, no? Now, what about the Mew Distribution Cartridge? Well, we happen to have clear-cut footage of it. We have to thank Porygon for this, as the Electric Soldier Porygon Episode resulted in a huge amount of smear campaigns. One of these campaigns resulted in a 40 Min News Coverage segment which showed the Mew Distribution Cartridge in full! This may be as a result of the footage, but the sprite does appear to have some minor differences. I am not sure whether what was used to bring Mew over was a Spaceworld Prototype or anything, really. Trade Experiments have proven that you CAN use the Prototype to trade with Gen 1 Games, as the trade mechanics are the same. Given the frame here, it can be theorized that a Spaceworld Prototype was used for the Mew Event.
Some trivia for those who didn't read that whole link: you can actually send a Spaceworld Prototype Pokemon from the Gen 1 Games all the way to Gen 7 if you transfer the saves from the Gen 1 cartridges. Another way would be to use a Gen 1 VC and replace the ROM with one of these prototypes and use the trade room feature. Regardless, you can send Spaceworld Pokemon over, as they are virtually the same as any other in Gen 1 terms. So there we go! We did get to see some Spaceworld Content before the ROM even leaked! Incredible! This is quite a big theory that has been proven true quite a few times throughout the discovery period of the Spaceworld Demo. I'll be giving my take on it, with help from The Cutting Room Floor and my own knowledge. A friend, Mooliecool, also helped me figure all this out a while ago as well. So, what are these similarities? Well, it runs deep and I'll have to explain from the ground up. It appears that Pokemon Gold and Silver were originally going to be set on an entire continent. In my article on The Jynx Controversy, you'll see that from Corocoro's December 1997 Issue they state the town to be Kyoto-like. For those who have read Corocoro before in any capacity, they like to hint things strongly, which are usually confirmations. In regards to the continent, it is deeply inspired by the real world. I identified it regionally in my Spaceworld Analysis in various areas, but TCRF went much deeper into it and managed to even tie the areas together perfectly. Now, with this in mind, I can easily go to the next part. You see, the north eastern area of the Spaceworld Demo's Pokemon Continent bears a striking resemblance to Sinnoh's Town Map. Note that this image was really sloppily done by myself, so chances are you'll have to try and recreate what I was trying to do here yourself if you want to see what I mean properly. Now, one thing I'd like to get straight here: no, I am not saying that it is a fully identical thing or anything. However, this specific area I put the image over is important. There are 4, possibly 5, areas which bear a resemblance to Sinnoh areas. Here's a comparison, with Town Map locations for convenience. I'd recommend zooming in or something to see the images from TCRF. Credited them accordingly for their comparison screenshots, and their bit on their wiki should give a sufficient explanation from them. They're much more credible than me at least. As you can see, there are 3 areas which TCRF went over as well as 2 others that I noticed. Now, the Iron Island one, at least to me, makes a lot of sense. It's connected to what can be seen as Beta Canalave City, only you use a Surf Route to get to it. It seems that it was more of a mine this time around, and the minecarts in the Final Game could well have been used here if I am correct. This would also connect Oreburgh City as a possible point of reference as well. Everything leads back to Sinnoh here, no? The fact Canalave City has a remixed GSC Credits Theme for its town music is even more of a flag for me. As for Pastoria City, I wouldn't say the maps themselves are similar. It's more that it appears to be a point of reference FOR Pastoria City. The structure has a mild similarity if you mirror it, but it's closer to Fuchsia at this point in development. I believe that the whole animal abuse controversy is what lead to the zoos being erased, and the rest can be attributed to change over the course of what is almost two decades at this point. The thing that put this on the radar for me is that is was in fact in the Sinnoh area on the map. Thus, it naturally gets at least a fair trial in my book. Now, the Sinnoh similarities don't end here. There's more, namely in the Pokemon found in the demo. As you can see here, there are 5 Pokemon that were scrapped in the making of the demo, only to be reused in Sinnoh. This is Ken Sugimori's "reuse all concepts" ideology from my MicroGroup Game Review Article in play, I think. They have all changed quite radically, which is once again from the almost 2 decades of being thrown around. Hell, we can see that prototype Mr. Mime Pre-Evo go from an egg to a clown child: kind of crazy, huh?
I believe that Hoenn and Sinnoh were both a part of an effort to complete the entire Beta GSC Continent, to complete the ambition that the game had. This is why they moved to Unova, then Kalos, then Alola: because they don't have the groundwork anymore. The continent now exists, there's no need to go back. This is why there are so many Johto throwbacks in Sinnoh, such as Weavile. They were adding Pokemon that were initially scrapped, since they were using the work they did on this demo. The reason Game Freak holds back designs is usually because they are unsatisfactory. It's clear why Nameru was held back: the thing is pretty darn ugly and looks like a King's Rock Evolution even though it isn't. I wish it was, I actually kind of like it. There's has some sort of a charm to it. Why am I talking about this? It's the reason why GSC was rebuilt to begin with. There's an interview saying that higher-ups did not like this demo, and thus they changed everything. Given the demo's progress, I'd say this happened a bit after Spaceworld. So the design of the region- no, the whole game, was unsatisfactory or hit a roadblock. However, it was never simply canned. It was reused, and we can see that in Hoenn and Sinnoh alike. It's kind of crazy how concepts work, huh? The more I look at this demo, the more interesting it becomes. It's not just a glimpse into the way Game Freak makes games, but a full, detailed look. |
About meSo I really, really like researching Prototype Pokemon information. That's about it. I also do things on Smogon, I guess. Archives
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