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.
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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!
I don't often cover generations after 2 due to a lack of information, but some recent findings with Pokemon HOME have finally given me something to look at. This is some rather new information brought forward by a Twitter user, but I wasn't sure about bringing this article up due to a lack of info. Thanks to an old friend named Eric though, he dug up a Reddit post that brought me to a source for some extra spicy stuff to put together for a new theory.
Back in 2012,Nintendo laid down new trademarks for their Pokemon receiving Mega Evolutions. At the time random (due to Black and White 2 being on the horizon), this included all of the XY Mega Evolutions. It also included Latias and Latios who were in the code of said game, but not released until ORAS. In addition, in 2013, Aggron and Absol were also added to this list. However, there was one, significant outlier: Jynx, who never received a Mega at all. Nobody knew why Jynx was on this list at all. So, what gives? There has been for a while, a long-running idea that Jynx possibly had a Mega Evolution cut back in the day due to this article. And thanks to a tweet by Mattyoukhana_, this has finally received some significant validity. In Pokemon HOME, an unused cry was found that was strikingly similar to Jynx's, with a Mega reverb to boot;
Those who played Generations 6 and 7 should absolutely know what that reverb is: it's a trademark of a Mega cry. My theory, is that this is a removed asset from Pokemon X and Y. Some have said it's a Galarian evolution, but the reverb and echo simply don't match that. Given the trademarks, the context here is clearly different. Besides, if this were the case, where's all the other content from the DLC?
A day later, we also got this tweet stating that Jynx is highly likely to be an alternate form. This lines up with how Galarian and Mega forms are put into the game. In fact, through hacking, it is possible to have Mega Evolutions stored in exactly this way through both Bank and Home. So it definitely isn't Gigantamax.
So, why was this removed? Those who have followed this blog know that I have covered Jynx's controversial aspects in-depth on a good few occasions. Back in 1997 over to around 2001, Jynx was the recipient of a good deal of backlash by critics of the Pokemon series. This prompted a change in design, having its skin colour changed from black to purple. It's not unknown to my readers that Jynx's previous role in Gold and Silver was cut, likely due to this controversy. Jynx also hasn't appeared in the anime since 2006, in "Mean with Envy". Jynx is, to put it bluntly, Game Freak's problem child.
So, why would Jynx have been the intended recipient of a Mega Evolution? Well, by this time, the controversy had pretty much completely died down. Electabuzz and Magmortar received evolutions in Diamond and Pearl after all three gained Baby Pokemon in Gold and Silver. Clearly there is some inconsistency here. Jynx, Magmar and Electabuzz have all been seen as a trio in the past, while Pinsir, Scyther and Heracross are another. So, giving it something to make up for this seems quite logical. However, due to how controversial Jynx is, it was left in the dust. For all we know, there could just be a Mega Jynx design in Game Freak's old design vault. Maybe even that Mega Flygon that was also dropped. In fact, the very quote that is used here implies it was planned since XY; "...Flygon has had the potential to have a Mega Evolution since XY, but we were unable to complete a design and so it was dropped from consideration."
In which case, well, why don't we see Mega Flygon on the copyright list? Simple answer here is, well, he was cut early on. All the Mega Evolutions noted here must have been confirmed and/or had designs sorted. Filing a trademark isn't exactly cheap. This would strengthen the idea that Jynx, once again, likely has a Mega form all tucked away in Game Freak's vault. Obviously though, this is all speculation.
However, on this trademark list, we don't see Blaziken at all. I believe that Mega Blaziken may well have replaced Jynx after this discrepancy, as well as to foreshadow - and to build up hype for - ORAS. Far less risky and far more profitable. Jynx is simply not an easily marketable Pokemon, up there with Kadabra. Even the Kanto lovers have a common distaste for it. Can this Pokemon ever catch a break? So, what do I think of this? Well, as a person who's looked heavily into Jynx's history, I would love to see a redemption arc in this PR train wreck. My friend who tipped me off on this is actually a bit of an enthusiast! Jynx is among the most interesting Pokemon in the series, and almost viable to boot. Access to Fake Out, a very accurate sleep move in Lovely Kiss, very nice special attack, and a fairly good speed stat of 95: just 10 points away from breaking the dreaded 100 threshold. An old OU titan in Generations 1-2, and an underdog in Gen 3, seeing Jynx return to the Smogon Singles metagame would be pretty nice. I'd rather see ol' Tauros though, personally. I have requested The Cutting Room Floor, cut content enthusiasts, to have a look through XY to check for this cry. I'm not exactly savvy in datamining anything past GBA, but there are some individuals eager to try and seek out this cry in the data. Or perhaps, something more. Should anything occur, I will post a follow-up article as soon as possible. I have also contacted Mattyoukhana_ for comment. 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! |
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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