One of the things that hurt my brain the most during my Spaceworld 1997 Analysis was this one magazine that was already a source of skepticism. However, with another look, I have think I have solved the mystery. MicroGroup Game Review Volume 14 was released in April 1997. It contained an interview with Ken Sugimori, a very notable artist in the Pokemon sphere for designing a majority of the cast and trading cards. However, few people actually look at the contents of this interview, and more fuss over the cover...and for good reason, because it is truly odd. Now, clearly you can see that this is a very unusual cover. Two of these Pokemon are never seen anywhere in GSC, and the trainers are definitely nonexistent as well. However, Tyranitar is featured with a slightly more modest design. Unlike many, many people who speculate on this, I do know the contents of the magazine. I am seeking to obtain a copy for myself to see if there is anything other than what is currently documented, although the price is slightly steeper than I expected. For any interested, Amazon has a good few copies going for ~£60 GBP. Anyway, enough about that. Let's get to the point. Firstly, let's look at the cover before we go on about the contents. So people speculate that the turtle is what would later become Tirtouga. Personally, I agree! I see the resemblance, and many Pokemon get redesigned during development anyway. Tyranitar is likely one of the cut Gen 1 Pokemon (specifically, Gyaoon). Then there's the Hitmontop-like thing, which I'll get to in a bit. One thing that strikes me as odd here is that, well, not one of these are even featured in the Spaceworld 1997 Demo, which was sent out to said event on November 21st 1997. Not even a single MissingNo. can be found, although there are two Glitch Pokemon: an egg and a block. They resemble the glitches other than said MissingNo., such as The Q Glitch or 3TrainerPoke $. So they would be garbage data, in my opinion. Regardless, none of these Pokemon from the cover are in the game at all. Now, some say that these are simply throwaway designs made for promotion. Now, this is partly true given Ken Sugimori designed the cover himself. While the theory is definitely something worth considering, the fact Tyranitar is even here and in the final game is a problem. But why isn't it in the demo? Was it a throwaway design? It couldn't be though, especially since it was considered in Gen 1 as Gyaoon, and in Capsule Monsters as "Godzilliante". Hell, this was the second Pokemon designed. These can't simply be throwaway designs. The two trainers are never seen again in any capacity, although there is space to theorize that the female trainer could be Misty. This is solely based on the Water Patch on her arm, although this also falls flat given the radical design change, the fact she is a member of the Elite Four in the Prototype and how Misty never had a proper sprite in the Spaceworld Prototype anyway. The male trainer? Some say it's Morty, but he had white hair and no headwear at all in the prototype. Beta Rival? He had his design from the beginning. These are either throwaway trainer designs or something simply put down shortly after the cover was made. Now for this...creature, the thing that gets people talking about this. Personally, I think that the designs on the cover were initially designed to be throwaway designs, specifically from one quote in the transcript (included Japanese since it's there); Q1.今回のイラストのコンセプトを教えて下さい。 Q1. Tell us about the concept behind your recent work. A1.普段着の人々が、格好良くて可愛いモンスター達と共存しているという「ポケモン」の世界観でオリジナルキャラクターを描いてみました。「ポケモン」のようで「ポケモン」ではない、アナザーワールドです。 A1. I’ve tried to create some original characters using the [same] Pokemon worldview, in which everyday people coexist with cool and cute monsters. It’s another world... like Pokemon but not Pokemon. The context was that the interviewer was questioning Ken Sugimori about his "recent work", which was the cover. It seems the interviewers were overjoyed at him making that cover. The website that archived the interview has gone down, but luckily some amazing person archived it all on Wayback Machine. Seriously, that website is an absolute blessing, otherwise so many pieces of the GSC Dev History would be gone. So it appears that Ken Sugimori was designing Pokemon in a "parallel universe" sort of sense. Thus "like Pokemon, but not Pokemon". It's hard to actually get your head around given the lack of detail, but oh well. Maybe one day someone will ask the man himself about the whole thing, who knows? It would be helpful. Anyway, if we look at this quote alone, it is easy to assume that these were throwaway designs. However, I feel there is more. Tyranitar, for example, got in afterwards with almost no change. It seems the spinning top idea got reused for Hitmontop. So what gives? I believe another question in this transcript tells us exactly what happened! Q3.また、そいうった創作のイメージはどういったところから得られているのですか。 Q3. Where do you get the ideas for those designs? A3.過去の自分の絵を、ハズカシさをこらえて見つめ直し「うわー! こりゃだめだ」と猛反省するところから。 A3. From an unflinching reconsideration and reexamination of my own past designs, no matter how embarrassing, no matter how much I feel like yelling, “Whoa! This is BAD!” It was in front of us all along. Ken Sugimori used the MicroGroup Game Review Vol.14 Cover as inspiration later on. There's no other way that this entire thing can be explained, especially with the Spaceworld 1997 Prototype in hand. Tirtouga, too, must have been reused in this fashion.
This would explain the radical design change on Hitmontop, and in such a short time. It was really bad, let's be real. He polished it until it sparkled as the annoying Doubles Pokemon we know today! Truly, Fake Out + Intimidate was a mistake. Look at Incineroar over there, eclipsing Landorus-T in usage. I don't think that this design was directly built off of, though: it's too different. I believe the spinning top concept was used, and the it eventually became Hitmontop over the course of the year. This would explain the primitive design of it in the Spaceworld Prototype: it wasn't finished, obviously. Naturally, this also explains how Tyranitar got in by extension. It all falls into place quite easily: they were not initially intended to be reused, but a second look was all it took to get them implemented. To think that at one point, we never were going to get Tyranitar. Now THAT would have shook the Gen 3 Metagame. A world without Sand Stream? A world without TSS- actually, that sounds alright. So, what about those trainers? Well, looks like they're in Game Freak's archives of scrapped designs, awaiting another look. I do think that the Male Trainer was reused in the anime, but I just can't remember where. I'm certain that I've seen something like that before, but I just can't find it. It's been bugging me for months. This is just how Ken Sugimori does things: he never wastes a single design. He will always look at his old works, and reuse them accordingly. The cover art is just another, more notable and visible, case of it. Now, if only some of those Spaceworld Designs could see some reuse... Anyway, that's all I have. Hopefully this is closure on the whole thing!
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So this is one of my bigger theories regarding the Spaceworld 1997 Demo for Pokemon Gold and Silver. For those of you who don't know, this was leaked quite recently. This is based on some facts from an old Corocoro Magazine that me and my friend translated when I was making an analysis of the whole thing. Jynx has a very interesting history as some of you may know, but I feel like there may have been a much bigger backpedal regarding it all. So, what's the theory? Well, I believe that Jynx may have played a role in the story of Pokemon Gold and Silver at some point. And trust me, I have plenty of evidence to support this. This specific Corocoro Issue (December 1997, shortly after Spaceworld happened at the end of November) has some hints dropped about it. I had a friend (credit to Sam Akechi on Facebook) translate segments of it after getting a clear enough image, and it says quite a few interesting things. For starters, the Kimono Girls were Jynx Trainers (which made some sense given they are based on Geisha Girls). The magazine drops a question stating something among the lines of Jynx being related to summoning Ho-Oh. Thus, given how the Kimono Girls help summon Ho-Oh in HeartGold and SoulSilver, we can see that there was definitely some kind of concept with it being summoned through forms of dance. Note that Jynx DOES hatch an Articuno Egg in Pokemon Snap: this concept was not new, and may well have been intended to be a cornerstone of the Pokemon's lore. Hell, the section of the magazine even shows Ho-Oh coming down as a result of a dance. Now, there is more to this than just Jynx being a dancer aiming to bring Ho-Oh down to earth. It also claims the city (Known as Old City in the Demo's Files and Debug Menu) is Kyoto-Like. Given we now have the demo available to us, there is much more to this phrase now than ever before. You see, the entire continent of the game is just like Japan, as you can see by an image I uploaded to TCRF right there. It's just at an angle. It is quite unusual, as even the Kanto Region was placed where the real-life Kanto Region would be. However, this is a theory for another blog post. Seriously, I have a LOT lined up for this blog. Obviously, Jynx had all but been swept under the carpet by the time the Final Game dropped due to the level of controversy spiraling from her face. Well, blackface to be exact. The controversy persists today, and for good reason: Japan does have a history of racist caricatures and that also persists to this day. Defenders say that she is based on a fashion trend, others say that she is a remnant of the racism of the Pre-2000s. Which is true? Well, that's not what this article is for, nor do I ever intend to go into it. Regardless, Jynx has been pretty much completely erased from the lore of the series, and chances are she ain't coming back...which is a shame, because I actually like the Pokemon. Fake Out and a decently strong Icy Wind does wonders in Doubles, y'know? Gotta end Landorus-T's life somehow. But Jynx had even more interesting Dev History in Pokemon Gold and Silver's timeline: she had a unique sprite in the Spaceworld Demo that was changed completely during development. Some sprites had changes like this, but few had entire aesthetics changed. The Venomoth Article I did before covered a change like this, but Jynx's changed her skin color to purple, much like how we see her today. The anime around 1999 had the same old black face, and the magazine still had Jynx with the black face. So clearly, this was a backpedal. So, is there anything else about Jynx that we can discuss here? Well, the level of backpedalling here is not to be underestimated. Hell, Sabrina's Jynx in the Gym Challenge TCG Set was even censored for international audiences due to the controversy.
Anything else to discuss here? Well, as of now I have nothing else to really say. However, if I do find more backpedal evidence I will make a Part 2 or Follow-Up Article to this. There is so much Dev History here, it's kind of crazy. To note, this is the article that brought The Jynx Controversy into the big news outlets, and also what made her get censored for years and years to come. So, this is my first Blog Post for this new thing. I was suggested to do this by a moderator on Helix Chamber, and hopefully this will last more than a week. My first topic will be Venomoth, a Pokemon that has an interesting development history. It was added at Index Number 119 in Pokemon RBYG, so around the middle of development as an evolution to Venonat. So, neither late nor early. So, what's the history? Well, Venomoth has a history of having its design switched around in Pokemon Games. When I say switched around, I mean flipped like a light switch. You see, in earlier iterations of Venomoth, it had some yellow spots on the back of its wings. Early artwork by Ken Sugimori proves this. Hell, it was even released as "Sabrina's Venomoth" when the Gym Heroes Expansion in the TCG dropped, Number 34/134. Now, what does this mean and why is it even important? Well, as we all know, Venomoth did not have this sprite in RBYG. In fact, the sprites were pretty awful. However, we never see this specific art in the game. Unlike with Kakuna, who we see with the arms in Red and Blue International but not in Red JP and Green for some reason. Nobody knows why he has arms, nor why there was so much promotional work showing it, but hey, you do you. Now, this would be where Venomoth's almost meaningless design change ends. However, the Spaceworld Demo has reignited this weird tale, since it actually uses the old design. As you can see, the sprites for RBG do not use the design. Nor does Yellow. Nor does GSC. But, the Spaceworld Demo tells us that not only did they intend to keep the derpy eyes, but it also wanted to keep the back wings from the beta design. It doesn't end there though, since the Back Sprite didn't have the back wing design while the Front Sprite did. The sprite was completely different and clearly quite complete and ready for shipment. Obviously this didn't happen, and the game was rebuilt the following year.
So now the question: what the hell was going on with Venomoth's design? Well, it seems they were torn between making it a moth and making it not a moth. Sadly, the latter won and now Venomoth is barely a moth at all. Nobody really knows why the design changed, nor why they were bringing it back for Generation 2 multiple years later. However, this sprite does pin down some development history dates for the Spaceworld Demo: it quite clearly started development in 1996. Early Planning began in 1995, as we can see that the MissingNo. removed had a relation to the Unused Kotora Line thanks to Helix Chamber's discovery. It can also be pinned down because the game was first revealed on 5th August 1996 in the Corocoro Magazine with a number of reasonably complete Pokemon: it took years for the RBYG Roster to be completed. Venomoth's early design was made in 1996 for Pokemon Red and Green's promotion, so all in all it is quite easy to see when this sprite was made. Thanks, Venomoth! But there is more on Venomoth, specifically with the Pre Evolution Venonat. Some believe that it is meant to be Butterfree's long lost Pre Evolution. Just going to say this is false. You see, Venonat was added very, very early as Index Number 65. It was originally not even going to evolve into or from anything, and it had a very big sprite to prove it. However, Venomoth was added at the aforementioned Index Number 119. That is why it was downsized for RBG. The Butterfree Line was added AFTER both of these Pokemon together. Caterpie is Index Number 123, Metapod is 124, and Butterfree is 125. As a result of this, it is impossible to say Venonat was ever meant to evolve into Butterfree: it was clearly intended to be in the Caterpie line from the very beginning. Thus, the relation between these two lines is purely coincidental. It's a real shame we never got the older design of Venomoth though. It looked really cool, and a lot more like the genus it is based on: Morpho. The spots gave it a bit more character and generally made it more interesting, y'know? Now, if only it got a Bug/Psychic Mega Evolution... |
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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