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.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
About meSo I really, really like researching Prototype Pokemon information. That's about it. I also do things on Smogon, I guess. Archives
January 2021
Categories
All
|