Well, I haven't posted here in what, a year now? This thing hasn't been dead, I just haven't had things I'm interested in talking about. There were like 4 draft articles I had in the works (still have them, actually) but not one felt right to finish and publish for varying reasons. I may eventually release the WIPs and call it a day if there's interest. Oh, and I've been slowly accruing more responsibilities on Smogon, so that's a thing. However, I've been working on some stuff with The Cutting Room Floor, and with the scans finally finished, I'm able to cover them properly. Fans of the first generation's history may recognize this sprite sheet. It's from the November 1996 issue of Corocoro Magazine. This was the first look players had at the title, which would be up for mail order in October of that year. I go over bits of it here. However, some of the sprites are not what you would see in the final release, implying there were some revisions before or after the press release provided to Corocoro. I'm leaning towards after. For a very long time, we didn't have very good scans of these, mostly relying on photographs from zoidsland. This wasn't a bad thing - it was better than nothing - but the quality was...not great. So we have a collection of sprite scans that aren't of the best quality, to the point you can't even recreate them. How do you solve it when upscaling isn't really an option? Go out and buy the magazine yourself and scan it, of course! Well, erm, that's what I ended up doing on a whim. Why? Because seeing things like this ridiculously low-res Persian made me want to slash my eyes out, hahaha! Not all of them were like this, mind you, it was just...inconsistent. For the sake of clarity and because I don't want any random price increases, these magazines cost me almost nothing. The November 1996 issue cost me around £10 before postage, as did the December 1996 issue. Despite it taking a while for me to find someone with them, I do not believe these are actually rare in Japan considering the prices I saw them go for. The new scansWell, no more beating around the bush: you're here for the scans, yeah? For those wanting to see 1200 DPI scans of the sprites, you can use the following links to download them. The file size packs a punch of its own, so don't say I didn't warn you! I used an EPSON Stylus SX400 Printer-Scanner to do the deed, for those interested. It's nothing too extravagant, the printing part doesn't even work on it. But it scans japanese magazines from the 90s, which is all I need it for, eh? Anyway, here's a poorly-put-together compilation of the unique sprites for those who don't want to stare at those pages until their eyes melt out of their sockets. It's in JPG format so the quality isn't that great either. It'll do for the purpose, anyway. Some of these sprites are simply unrefined versions of the final;
RhydonRhydon's Blue JP sprite is very unique, and serves as a bridge between Rhydon's Green and Blue designs. Many tout Rhydon as a Pokemon near-unchanged since its inception, but this couldn't be further from the truth: it's actually very inconsistent. I've attached a timeline above that sums up these inconsistencies over time. There's more I haven't noted - including sprites - but at that point I'm really nitpicking. I'm not sure if Yellow truly removed the secondary horn as a part at the top of the head looks like it, but in that case, it was moved to god-knows-where...the perspective is really weird. Curiously, the Rhydon sprite from our little magazine has a breastplate akin to Yellow's, rather than RG's, though the eyes and secondary horn are clearly derived from the latter. On the flip side, the teeth are much like RB's. This is a very interesting intermittent design stage; you can look at this for ages and probably notice something else. RaticateThe Raticate sprite is quite clearly a less refined version of the RB sprite, but it's interesting for multiple reasons. It seems the Raticate sprite looked a bit smaller than the final, and the ears are drawn differently. Furthermore, the final Raticate sprite shrinks the middle whiskers, linking them with the upper row. But, there's an elephant in the room... There's a weird cowlick-like hair on its head, seemingly implying an unshaven appearance. This is shown on the GSC Scratchpad as well, only in a more pronounced fashion, implying that these designs are linked in some way. With this in mind, I believe that the Scratchpad Sprite is actually from the same time period as the early Blue JP one, considering that this design is never seen in any other material after the final game. It's not too difficult to make the assumption - the hands are near-identical among other uncanny design similarities - but that little hair really does it for me, at least. AlakazamAlakazam's sprite has a bit of history tied to it, and it's a bit difficult to present efficiently. I apologize if it isn't coherent enough... In Red and Green, Alakazam had a star on its forehead, which some say looks like (or outright is) the Star of David, making it a point of contention. Anyway, that could be worth its own article when thinking about the Abra line's history of weird controversies. Alakazam had this star removed by the time Corocoro Magazine dropped its December 1996 issue. Some may draw parallels to Uri Geller's accusations of antisemitism and unauthorized use of his image, with him citing its depiction in the Pokemon TCG. However, that controversy only started in 1999, and as such, Uri Geller's intervention had no bearing on this design change, which makes it more plausible to assume this was an attempt to simplify Alakazam's already complex design. It's not uncommon to see Game Freak alter Pokemon designs and remove features that made them difficult for children to take in. This especially applied in the early days when there was just a small Game Boy screen and a limited amount of pixels. Another thing I find interesting here is how Alakazam's RG and early Blue JP sprites have very similar artstyles, while the final design is very different in that regard. Not only is it more refined, the eyes are drawn in a much more pronounced fashion and everything is much easier to take in. Furthermore, the feet lack claws, something that is featured in every other Alakazam interpretation to date. It is also the first Alakazam interpretation to feature two toes, which is something that's now commonplace for it. Overall, this a very good example of how Game Freak refines their designs during development, often with the intent to simplify it. ConclusionWhile I could go on about these sprites, the rest would be more nitpicky and just draw out the length of this article. Besides, I'm sure everyone else would love to scrutinize these sprites further and provide their perspectives. I'm very happy to own both magazines and seeing these sprites finally have scans that give them justice is a fantastic bonus.
Unlike MicroGroup Game Review Vol.14, I've not scanned the rest of the magazine due to its sheer size and lower-quality scans generally doing them justice anyway. I got the magazines to scan the sprites, and I think it's all that's necessary of me. Better-cropped sprites and more comprehensive reviews will be on The Cutting Room Floor, so keep your eyes peeled for that! I'm sure they'll do it better than my caveman-quality MS Paint diagrams, anyway. I also have a friend looking to recreate the sprites as well, since you can make out the individual pixels perfectly, which should be very interesting. If that project is finished, I'll either update this article or write up a new one.
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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! But what do you mean, Papa Plague? We got Pokemon Blue! Hold your horses there, pardner. Because that Pokemon Green you keep talking about? You already played that, it's Pokemon Blue International bar the sprites. Yeah, as you can tell, this will be a very complicated article. So, let's talk about Gen 1 some more. I like Gen 1, you probably know it for the hilarious glitches. But did you know that we never got the definitive experience? Pokemon Blue JP, as I call it, is the Japanese Pokemon Blue. You see, we never actually got Blue: we got Green. I have a lot to talk about here, since there are also some sprites that never got released too. I was going to do this in 2 articles, but the sprites are pretty minor overall, and I didn't enjoy writing that small Game Boy Camera article. So as you can see, Corocoro has a small oddity going about. You see, Blue JP was initially released through there on October 15th 1996, a while after Red and Green were released that same year. However, in the two later magazines - November and December - show entirely different sprites. I have not seen a copy of Blue JP with these sprites, so I am assuming that there is an error here. However, this could also imply the existence of copies of Blue JP with these sprites. I cannot clarify this however. What we do know, however, is that Mewtwo was packing some SASS in that beta sprite.
Anyway, what's this about Blue JP being a different game? Well, it's quite the interesting debacle. You see, Blue JP (as said in that research image), was used for the scripts in Red and Blue International. Thus, we got those trades implied. You know, the Raichu and Poliwhirl evolving and such? This is because Blue JP was essentially a 3rd version, with different in-game trades to boot. Those version differences you see between Red and Blue, well, there were more in Blue JP. Ditto in Rock Tunnel, Rapidash in Cerulean Cave, Golem can be obtained via In-Game Trade, etc. There are many, but Bulbapedia sums it up quite well. I'd say that Blue JP is among the most friendly games to players. You can get Tauros, Golem, Gengar and Kangaskhan via In-Game Trade, all of which are amazing Pokemon. Hell, Tauros, Golem and Gengar can form a very good Gen 1 OU Team on their own. Kangaskhan was even nicknamed Rodan: a Godzilla reference! This is also the only way you can get a Lickitung in the wild: via the Safari Zone. Jynx can also be found in the Seafoam Islands. It is among the most complete of the Gen 1 Games, with only the Arbok Line, Ninetales Line, Primeape Line, Victreebell Line, and Magmar and Electabuzz missing. Nidoran wasn't available early game though (and Mankey completely gone), so have fun killing Brock with Charmander. Not too shabby, really. Hell, Porygon was cheaper in the Game Corner. It also fixed some minor glitches, such as Sabrina Skip. There is a patch available replicating the version differences, but I'm not sure if it patches out the glitches Blue JP did. No translation patch is directly available, however. Anyway, if you're interested in the version differences across the board, Papa Plague can provide!
The release schedule of Gen 1 was so hilariously bad, that it forgot a whole game. How fantastic is that? |
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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