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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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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