Pokémon Green/Red Demo Beta Discovered

[Sonictrainer]

The Group of Hackers, known as Team Spaceworld on Twitter, that found a early Demo of Pokémon Gold/Silver managed to get their hands on a early Demo of Pokémon Green/Red and did a livestream of it. The demo has similar and new beta Pokémon designs and ideas like in the Gold/Silver one and the number of Pokémon was 180 instead 150.

https://helixchamber.com/2019/02/16/what-dreams-may-come/

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Missingno. was never Ho-Oh, Lugia, Nidogod, Pikablu, Togepi, Yoshi, Charcolt, or Venustoise…….. it was these guys. And we’re so glad to have them back. For the most part, we only got back sprites, not front sprites, so we had to take some liberties as to what these Pokémon resembled or were based on, and recreated them. We also made up the names, even for ones that had known Japanese names, like Crocky or Cactus. For the purpose of clarity, there will be no fanmade content in this article, apart from the names (for easy comprehension).

There’s only three Missingno. left, not counting revisions that were overwritten or the Fossil/Ghost sprite slots

21 (Ohmega), who we all know and love, isn’t here because Mew overwrote its spot! However, its name is found in the cry list. Omega is based pretty heavily on robotic kaiju such as Mechagodzilla.

Red and Green’s early sprite style often resembles super-deformed versions of kaiju characters.

31 (Roardan) – Gyaoon (originally Gyace), the second Capumon, has had a rocky history, and seems to have inspired Tyranitar. Its backsprite probably reflects the changes that were made to its design by the time of the Tajiri Manga poll, as its head spikes seem to be smaller, but it still has the same eyes that the Capumon version did. As we already know, Gyaoon was plucked from slot 1 of the list fairly early on and caused a small restructuring of the index order, but perhaps another Pokémon was in that slot in the 30s, and then it was deleted to make room for Gyaoon’s newer design.. and then even that was deleted. Woo-hoo.

32 (Nidoreign) is probably just an earlier spot for Nidorino. Like Shellos and Gastrodon, maybe Nidorino and Nidorina were once one, but…. How would that even work? Why is it here? Nidorino and Nidorina’s final spots are very late, right after Raticate; perhaps Nidorino overwrote a third Rattata-line evolution…?

50 (Bloonder) – Barunda ended up being in a different slot than our hypothesized slot 81 (which is where Trixy/Mikon is). All of the Pokémon seen in the Tajiri Manga were pretty close together index number-wise, it seems. Jigglypuff was probably the other potential design for Barunda as there were (a) and (b) designs at the time of the manga poll, and it survived to tell the tale.

52 (Freezeti) – You can say a lot about this one right away. Its design is sure to bring up some… conversations. The missing ‘Ice Punch Yokai’, and possibly Jynx’s male counterpart, Freezeti is very unfortunate. We think it was inspired by “Woo”, a similar yeti-like kaiju with a dark face from Ultraman. Woo was actually a female of its species, which may explain the nature of Jynx, and perhaps also the reason for Freezeti’s removal. As a bonus, if its name is really “Buu” (seen in the Tajiri Manga poll as a name on the ballot), it’s an obvious play on “Woo”. It stands between “Elebuu” and “Buuber” in the index, completing the trio. If there’s anything that we’ve learned from this, it’s that the Game Freak staff adored Ultraman. Our interpretation involved making it a yeti with a round body similar to the other two Oni, adding an icy crest to its chest, and making the face a different color and design to match modern Jynx.

56 (Scaribou) – Deer’s here. Its backsprite doesn’t suggest that any changes happened to it before it was canned. Its early moveset implies that it knew at least one Psychic move and also the earlier Thunder Wave, so it may have gone on to be Stantler later on.

61 (Trampel) – “Elephantko” is here! Now we know for sure that it had four tusks. Its name, which we still don’t know the beginning of, could be a pun on a famous elephant in Japan named Hanako. Judging by how the next elephant Pokémon was Ground, it stands to reason that this one was too.

62 (Cragodile) – Crocky’s backsprite has spikes on its head rather than hair – a design alteration that was visible in the Tajiri Manga, drawn on top of its original sprite. As a result, we had to ‘shave’ the front Crocky sprite. There wasn’t too much to interpret for the rest of it – we gave it the Rock-type, one that will stare you to stone, like a cockatrice…. Crockatrice.

63 (Blottle) and 122 (Pendraken) – A squidlike evolutionary family. Blottle is a little like Omanyte. Pendraken resembles a myriad of squid designs in other video games, like Blooper from Mario, or Squishy from Kirby. Blottle seemed to have been a standalone Pokémon with no evolution for a while before Pendraken was added. It could have been based on an ink pen. Flash was originally called “Squid Ink”, further supporting this theory. Looks like the victory goes to Octillery.

67 (Stacktus) – Cactus is back as usual and so is its cry. From our previous research, we still think it could have been a resident of the desert seen in the concept art/potential missing tiles, if that idea ever got out of the concept stage.

68 (Maws) – Jagg is Jagg, nothing wrong with that.

69 (Bittybat)… nice. The mystery of the identical Zubat cry is solved – Zubat probably had a deeper cry at some point to match this. It seems like GF had a hard time making this guy, looking like a Halloween decoration over here. We gave it a mouth with one fang. You’ve gotta start somewhere.

79 (Cheep) and 80 (Jabetta) – These two are a little confusing – they seem to be birdlike at first glance, but then you also notice the fins. It seems to be based on a flying fish or betta fish… or the Cheep-Cheeps from Mario. They likely had legs or feet due to their movesets and were probably Water/Fighting.

81 (Trixy) – Oh, GF. You were gonna have Mikon from the start, which explains the Pokedex entries being like that even in the first generation, but you cheekily dropped the (Poke)ball – twice! Mikon doesn’t fit with our hypotheses or the patterns we had made, but we didn’t know about any of those other pre-evolutions existing, either. Its cry is strange and seems unfitting for the Vulpix line. Either way, we’re glad it’s here.

What ARE you?
86 (Ribbito), 87 (Croakozuna), and the art of trying to decipher a backsprite that was virtually only a head: the newest bestselling biopic. The topknot on 86 gave away that it was something Japanese-based. We originally had ninja crickets (based around Substitute originally being called “Cast-off Cicada Shell”), with the orbs on the head being eyes. We also had the Kokana/Kasanagi Beedrill prototypes, but that didn’t seem to fit, either (and it’s unlikely that the Beedrill line got moved around when it was redesigned). We eventually went with sumo frogs instead… After all, it’s surrounded by Japanese culture-based Pokémon like Ninetales (kitsune) and Pikachu (daifuku). It’s not like the Poliwrath line was gonna get any froggier any time soon, either.

All in the Family
94 (Bawligua) and 95 (Cryithan) are next to each other and have their own cries, and 174 (Skimper) was added near the very end, with no cry at all. This lizard- or dragon-like family was a three-stage evolutionary line…. And, to be honest, the third evolution looks like it belongs in Bubble Bobble or Kirby. Either way, they ended up being based on Chinese water dragons, which are lizards common to China that spend time in watery areas and are popular as pets. 94 and 95 are right by Sandshrew and Sandslash – the pangolins – so the China/Pacific area as a theme seemed reasonable to pursue.

115 – Nothing. Whatever was here was gone in the version we received. The sprite from the GCCX video is too blurry to make much of it right now, either. We gave the slot to Madame, since it fits with this section’s pattern of giving evolutionary relatives to Pokémon, and it seemed to make sense that the previously Flying-type user Giovanni would have had a Farfetch’d, with his badge somewhat resembling the leek that Farfetch’d has.

121 – This one is also missing. It was likely an evolution of something in the 60-80 range – possibly even Crocky!

127 (Weirduck) – Psyduck had a middle evolution… which was probably cut for redundancy and/or balance reasons. Its cry is strange, and may have been some sort of error or typo, as switching around two of the numbers gives it a cry that makes more sense. Maybe its Japanese name was Zuduck, if it was a mirror to the Zubat line (Kobat -> Zubat -> Golbat, Koduck -> Zuduck -> Golduck).

134 (Coinya) – Kounya! Kounya! Its backsprite looks more like it was standing up at this point, instead of in Spaceworld, where it was lying down. 134 was also spotted in the GCCX video, but we’re not sure how well it matches up with the blurry sprite, which is mostly unrecognizable right now.

135 – Another empty slot. We didn’t do anything with this. Considering some sprites like Venusaur and Cloyster were moved to later slots, 135 may actually have been Weezing, as its sprite does seem to fit the blur.

137 (Decilla) – It shares a cry base with Gyaoon, so… it’s probably Baby Gyaoon!! As a pre-evolution, it could have been the original occupant for slot 31 before Gyaoon took it over… Its disgusted expression is so precious. It resembles the Substitute doll a bit, doesn’t it?

140 (Magnetite). It’s similar to “Nidoreign” – its backsprite is like Magneton with some differences, like missing the magnets on its other orbs, and it just doesn’t seem to make sense as a standalone Pokémon. Index-wise, Magneton was very early, this guy was somewhere in the middle, and Magnemite was fairly late. They seemed to have been trying out something here, and it was probably cut due to redundancy or maybe balance reasons. We didn’t know what else to do with it, so we gave it legs.

146 (Guardia) – This is the one we were all very shocked by. The common fan theory that Cubone is a baby Kangaskhan came true, in a twisted sort of way; now it seems like they were always meant to be linked together. In the end, Guardia would have become a loving parent to its baby Cubone, maybe even having adopted it (after all, it still has a skull on its head.) We made two interpretations of the backsprite: one was with it holding the baby, and the other was with it having a pouch like Kangaskhan. We can’t tell for sure what’s going on in those pixels. It’s named after Marowak’s really cool old localized name.

156 (Koijack) – You know, Gyopin makes a bit more sense now that we know it was the original first step in this evolution tree. It got as far as having a moveset and evolution data, too!

159 (Kotora), 160 (Gaotora), and 161 (Gorotora) – Like we said. It’s Kotora. But….. we weren’t expecting a three-stage line. Raitora seemed to have been originally two different Pokémon. Because of the added stage and the backsprites’ differences, we had to redesign the magnificent Raitora and split it into “Gaotora” and “Gorotora”, mirroring the Pikachu line.

162 (Charcolt) – Like Mikon, this one also corroborates the Pokédex entries. It seems like Puchicorn, Kotora, and Gyopin’s evolutionary families may have formed a trio!

172 (Blastyke) was a real toughie to figure out. We thought it was some sort of cow or pig initially, as the circle on its nose resembled a nose ring. This led us to think it was a pre-evolution of Tauros. Then we realized that the nose ring was actually a bubble. And the things on its back were bubble CANNONS. Blastoise had been given a pre-evolution when Totartle was still the final evolution for Wartortle. There were just too many turtles.

FEAST YOUR EYES
175 (Gorochu). We thought we saw a walrus / With icy hide and horn / We looked again (at the prototype evolution table), and found it was / Gorochu, long forlorn! Oh, for all the joys of life, we have Gorochu! And, uh, it only has one horn, not two! We also don’t know what the spikes at the back are – they could be a tail, or perhaps a cloud, like some people have theorized since Gorochu’s description seemed to be Raijin-esque.

181 (Totartle) is, as shown in the evolution list, Wartortle’s true evolution, right where we hypothesized it to be. Yay! It has only one (unknown) move, but Squirtle and Wartortle had a lot of fighting moves, so it seemed to be pretty martial. Totartle was probably the intended to be the last Pokémon designed, as 182-184 take up slots for Ghost and the two fossil skeletons, which were not intended to be catchable Pokémon. The Oddish and Bellsprout lines were probably added very late because there weren’t enough Grass-types to balance out the game.

BUT WHAT ABOUT ALL THE OTHER CUT POKÉMON? 
Omega is the only MissingNo. that we knew only from external information (the NHK broadcast), and its spot was eaten up by Mew. All the other designs, like the Kokana line, old Dragonair and Poliwrath, etc. probably never took up a different slot since they were edited into the existing Pokémon. As for the blank spaces, we still really don’t know – the blurry blobs from GCCX aren’t giving us any more hints right now as to the identities of the remaining missing Pokémon.

 

[Ricochet]

I like the Bengal tiger.

[Kellodrawsalot]

So we finally have a glimps of what Gorochu was supposed to look like

[Vec]

Not even back then they though of the Kangaskhan baby...

[Tracker_TD]

So yesterday I pointed out this unused trainer, "Shinjuku Jack", bore more than a passing resemblance to Jacky from SEGA's Virtua Fighter. 

...turns out the reference is even cleaner cut than I thought!

 

Sugimori is a huge SEGA nerd so this isn't surprising at all to me, but it's awesome all the same.