im not even a battle frontier fan but this is objectively the funniest outcome
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Game Freak hit with another hack, info leaking
- Thread starter Yung Dramps
- Start date
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I don't know if definitive ORAS Battle Frontier evidence leaking would be a good or bad thing honestly. Yes it would generate some pretty heinous DiscourseTM but also people would stop taking that stupid Masuda smartphones quote seriously
broke: I hope there's battle frontier evidence
Woke: I hope it explains whatever Project AZOTH was meant to be
Bespoke: I hope we see the Mega Flygon concepts that there was art block on
Woke: I hope it explains whatever Project AZOTH was meant to be
Bespoke: I hope we see the Mega Flygon concepts that there was art block on
So in 2021 we got a chunk of Gen 3 Pokedex entries / Pokemon category names + also a couple names (iirc). What we did not have was any sprites or the other chunk of (WIP) names.
Now, we finally have sprites and WIP names (in the tweet in this post; I think that some of the Pokemon use their new final sprites rather than their WIP sprites):
There's also a few reference blurbs for Pokemon with dex entries so this helps fill out concepts a bit. One of the documents also provides etymologies to names it lists.
General thoughts:
- The mysterious "Black Rock" Pokemon is no less mysterious knowing what it looks like or more dev info. It's based on okiagari-koboushi (tumble dolls) but there's nothing helpful here. Tottaa (totter?) and Kurobosshi (Kuro + corruption of boushi).
- beta Sharpedo is posed like the shark anchor Pokemon that they had in gen 2, which they apparently really wanted
- They really wanted a squid Pokemon, apparently for a long while.
- The childrearing Pokemon is a lot more obvious as to what it is. Reading dex entries I could only imagine that it was like Kangaskhan, but I guess it's a little bunny? Named Makkii (Mama + lucky? idek) and Ubausagi (Uba (wet nurse) / usagi / ubau (steal) maybe)
- The tokonatsu / everlasting summer pokemon is, uh.... not what I would have expected. One name given for it is Galby (Gal + baby), another as Biskyal (from hibiscus + gal, so that's what its flower is supposed to be)... This is gamefreak's third attempted foray into gals / ganguro / yamanba / etc. (Jynx / Smoochum being the first two) and I have absolutely no idea what compelled them to do this again even after the backlash Jynx received overseas. There's some sugimori art which tones it down a lot but the sprite is not at all subtle. There's also a suggestion that this would have evolved into the spider lily Pokemon that eventually was reused for Gardevoir's concept.
- The shrub pokemon looks like a shrub. I'm not sure what I expected. More sprinkler theming? Pody (????) or Kanbokku (the word for shrub, slightly corrupted).
- The Pokemon that sounded kind of like Kricketot from dex entries is the little rabbit with the bell / noisemaker horns. Very cute and not at all what I had imagined. Its species name here is the せいれい (kana) Pokemon and this was initially ambiguous to "spirit" (精霊) or "dragonfly" (蜻蛉)... it's now unambiguously the former. Katakata (clacking noises) and Komari (木間 "koma" (the space between trees) + fairy)
- If anybody knows what the Pokemon between Surskit and Elhawk is supposed to be, I'd appreciate the info. One WIP name is Rikugin. It looks like if Lileep had Kine from Kirby sticking out of it. For all I know it was partially recycled for Lileep but its name doesn't have anything to suggest that it relates to sea lilies (which Lileep unambiguously is).
- The "Ko-oni" / "Imp" Pokemon is the little black ball with a face / pointy oni monocorn. The bit about lightning strikes following it is more understandable now that we know that it's an Electric type! Its name is either Kodomon or Kodomin, the latter apparently being a reference to the moss Pokemon (Mossmii), which, given their unrelatedness (???) is difficult to parse.
- The moss Pokemon looks like it's covered by moss. Wow. (Mossmii)
- Banette apparently predated Shuppet.
- Breloom was certainly a Pokemon with, uh, a design.
- Trapinch was apparently retconned into being the first form of Flygon. There was a proper prevo to Vibrava but this was removed. If anybody wondered, its name is objectively based on "Nutcracker". Flygon itself was unambiguously intended to be a dragonfly but this was at some point changed with its species name made more ambiguous to せいれい (as with Komari, interpretable as "spirit" or "dragonfly").
- There was a mantis shrimp Pokemon that got replaced by Dusclops.
- Elhawk is the Latiken concept that eventually became Blaziken. Very much a Fire/Flying-type at this point. Weird state of flux where name etymology listed is for Elhawk and name listed is final jp Blaziken.
- Don't know who wanted the bowling pin / bottle penguin but they certainly got it.
- Don't know who wanted the flying book either. This one is a bit overdone.
- The flower Pokemon with elements of Ralts in its Pokedex entry and legless beta Sunflora in its design is, uh... a flower. Its names (Flaane (flower + neru, to sleep) and Flapooto (Flower + Teleport? Pot?) aren't very enlightening. Apparently a Psychic type so reuse for Ralts is not crazy.
- Makuhita was part of a three stage line. Not obvious whether the middle or the bottom got kicked out, but seemingly the bottom.
- The musical scale Pokemon is a tadpole / musical note. This is a common gimmick in Japanese works since the name used for musical notes is the word for tadpoles, but this wasn't obvious from the dex entries. This concept was apparently natural enough to reuse for Tympole. Really curious if this relates to the clef Frog from earlier.
- The chick with flowers on its ears was pretty clearly recycled into Torchic. Its name suggests that it's a chick.
- The sightseeing Pokemon finally appears... and it's a plesiosaur! I think the reason this got cut a second time was because visually it's a bit too similar to Lapras. This is a Flying type and in practice I think it might have been closer to a sky whale in concept based on commentary. This could have also been cut for being, you know, similar to the literal whale Pokemon. Kind of an interesting intersection of sky whale x plesiosaur x parade float / blimp / plane. Has perhaps the worst-aged WIP name I can imagine in "Plapass" (portmanteau of plane and compass). Other WIP name is Ploon (compare to Jigglypuff Japanese name but also elements of plane or balloon in there). I feel like aspects of this ended up in Wailord and the Lati twins.
- Real Pokemaniacs would know that Skitty lives in holes in trees according to its Sapphire dex entry. It's a cat. Why the hell would a cat live in a tree? Well, if you look at Skitty at this point, it's very clearly not a cat. It's a squirrel. That big tail? Squirrel tail. It's been a squirrel cat this whole time and it's been under our noses the whole time.
- Electrike was part of a three-stage evolutionary line and its name shifted around a bit. Electrike has the name Ryuu (current), Manectric has Electrike's name, and Manectric2 is Raiou (compare final Raibolt for Manectric).
- Spinda and Ludicolo's relationship to one another (as Tapple) is cemented a bit more here. Nothing super valuable here but its name directly changes from Tapple to final jp Spinda depending on where you're looking. Tapple is also apparently just based on "tap" (as in tap dancing). Spinda became Spinda + Ludicolo and then eventually spawned Mr. Rime later. I'm now less confident that it was literally a bird at any point, though, so maybe Ludicolo's beak was only because it was deliberately designed (with reused flavor) to be an evolution to Lombre. The whole line was apparently strung together from three relatively unrelated Pokemon (and the same is also seemingly true of Seedot).
- Lunatone came before Solrock and Solrock was made explicitly to be a counterpart to Lunatone. They weren't made simultaneously.
- For whatever reason Lairon is based on a tatara (a type of foot furnace) and I guess this kind of makes the typing make sense? This also explains the references to coal later on. In hindsight I'm not sure what part of this, if any, made its way into Torkoal's concept.
- Evolot or Pippaa (corruption of pip (seed)) are various names given to the lottery Pokemon (the little cream colored dog / horse). To me it looks like a raffle drum (the body being the drum and the head being the handle) but lord knows what the hell it's supposed to be. It was supposed to evolve into "various Pokemon", whatever that means, and I can see why the concept was scrapped.
- The snowman moth is called Snow-un (not sure what the un is; best I got is 雲 (cloud) or 運 (luck)).
- The magnet crab is called Shiomagne (shio being either salt or the tides; maybe related to the area with the shoal salt / shoal shell). It's a crab with a magnet. I don't know why "crab with facial hair" was a concept that GF really wanted to move past WIP but they finally got their dream with Crabominable and Kingler G-Max.
- The two pump tank Pokemon are named Punk and Tamp. Real creative.
- No idea what the purple... panda? Ferret? thing is. Parts may have been reused for Zangoose later. Name (Paootsu) is not helpful except maybe to suggest panda.
- The mystery green Pokemon with Rayquaza's head is, well, a mystery. We have a name (Suiba) and that's it. Your take is as good as mine.
- Taikuun seems to have been split off conceptually into Altaria and Rayquaza. Original sprite has it as something between a cross of a white, comparatively birdier Rayquaza with an Altaria-like head on it. Called Oolong in one WIP name and Rairai (from light line, believe it or not) in another. For context, oolong is literally spelled "crow dragon" or "bird dragon" in Chinese. The "snakelike Chinese Dragon pokemon" got split off into Rayquaza and the "birdlike dragon Pokemon with a beak" was retained to be Altaria. Altaria and Swablu were, surprisingly, two unrelated Pokemon that were linked together (or, I guess, Altaria morphed into something more representative of a Swablu evolution).
- The Pokemon after Shuppet that looks like a Luigi's Mansion ghost is called Shaboh (rhymes with shadow... portmanteau of Shadow and I think the bou part of Kagebouzu (Shuppet)).
- I think that's a cymbal monkey. No, its name (Panpamu) isn't helpful.
- The box turtle is called hakogame. This means box turtle.
- Poochyena (368 in the dex entries) was apparently originally a Normal-type. Hilariously, called Wang.
- Bizarrely, the names of Latios / Latias are from timaeus and critias. No, I don't understand either.
- The durian Jerboa looks like Togedemaru, down to the little triangles for the spikes. Its WIP name is Togebyon (from toge (spike) + byon (springy noises))
- Yes, that is scraggy. They really liked this concept and its name pun (Zuruuzu; wordplay on zurui and zuruzuru) is also reused in final scraggy / scrafty's name.
- The archeopteryx / raptor Pokemon is literally amaura colors Grovyle.
- The dog is called Eidog (ei = british). Not quite Herdier but not far off either.
- Castform was amalgamated from what appears to be like 5 separate Pokemon. There's one that kind of looks like rain castform or normal castform (named Weathery), there are three different weather forms (named Sunsun, Zaazaa (rain noises), and Gohgoh (strong wind noises)), and a fourth one that looks like a sentient smurf hat (which has Castform's beta name of Powawa). Honestly I'm not even sure that Powawa was intended to be Castform or if it was specifically the hail form, Gohgoh was the sandstorm form (it looks like a brown twister but also does ultimately resemble snowy Castform).
- The flying fish right after Weathery is called Teinkii (presumably a corruption of "tenki", weather). I have no clue how else to interpret it.
- The polar bear is called Sunohra (portmanteau of snow and... aura?)
- The baby skunk is called "Heppii" (portmanteau of baby and something else? if it's a skunk, maybe 屁 (he; fart)?) and the big skunk is called "Spunk" (? "Supanku"). Not 100% sure they're skunks. The baby might have been reused partially for quadruped non-squirrel Skitty.
- Finally, we get to see what the spider lily Pokemon looks like and I'd say this is a pretty good explanation for why Gardevoir is green! The whole "does it have legs" thing also carried over to Gardevoir's design and was intentionally there from the start.
- The tomato hat one is actually supposed to be a walnut. This doesn't help at all.
Everything else after that big gap between Volbeat and Treecko seems to have been concept first sprite / name later. The Pokemon listed there all ultimately make it in.
- Oh, and not sure if this is an error of some sort, but Mudkip's name is listed as being derived from gengorou, the name for cybister japonicus (a type of diving beetle).
I'll try and add little edits to this post later.
Now, we finally have sprites and WIP names (in the tweet in this post; I think that some of the Pokemon use their new final sprites rather than their WIP sprites):
There's also a few reference blurbs for Pokemon with dex entries so this helps fill out concepts a bit. One of the documents also provides etymologies to names it lists.
General thoughts:
- The mysterious "Black Rock" Pokemon is no less mysterious knowing what it looks like or more dev info. It's based on okiagari-koboushi (tumble dolls) but there's nothing helpful here. Tottaa (totter?) and Kurobosshi (Kuro + corruption of boushi).
- beta Sharpedo is posed like the shark anchor Pokemon that they had in gen 2, which they apparently really wanted
- They really wanted a squid Pokemon, apparently for a long while.
- The childrearing Pokemon is a lot more obvious as to what it is. Reading dex entries I could only imagine that it was like Kangaskhan, but I guess it's a little bunny? Named Makkii (Mama + lucky? idek) and Ubausagi (Uba (wet nurse) / usagi / ubau (steal) maybe)
- The tokonatsu / everlasting summer pokemon is, uh.... not what I would have expected. One name given for it is Galby (Gal + baby), another as Biskyal (from hibiscus + gal, so that's what its flower is supposed to be)... This is gamefreak's third attempted foray into gals / ganguro / yamanba / etc. (Jynx / Smoochum being the first two) and I have absolutely no idea what compelled them to do this again even after the backlash Jynx received overseas. There's some sugimori art which tones it down a lot but the sprite is not at all subtle. There's also a suggestion that this would have evolved into the spider lily Pokemon that eventually was reused for Gardevoir's concept.
- The shrub pokemon looks like a shrub. I'm not sure what I expected. More sprinkler theming? Pody (????) or Kanbokku (the word for shrub, slightly corrupted).
- The Pokemon that sounded kind of like Kricketot from dex entries is the little rabbit with the bell / noisemaker horns. Very cute and not at all what I had imagined. Its species name here is the せいれい (kana) Pokemon and this was initially ambiguous to "spirit" (精霊) or "dragonfly" (蜻蛉)... it's now unambiguously the former. Katakata (clacking noises) and Komari (木間 "koma" (the space between trees) + fairy)
- If anybody knows what the Pokemon between Surskit and Elhawk is supposed to be, I'd appreciate the info. One WIP name is Rikugin. It looks like if Lileep had Kine from Kirby sticking out of it. For all I know it was partially recycled for Lileep but its name doesn't have anything to suggest that it relates to sea lilies (which Lileep unambiguously is).
- The "Ko-oni" / "Imp" Pokemon is the little black ball with a face / pointy oni monocorn. The bit about lightning strikes following it is more understandable now that we know that it's an Electric type! Its name is either Kodomon or Kodomin, the latter apparently being a reference to the moss Pokemon (Mossmii), which, given their unrelatedness (???) is difficult to parse.
- The moss Pokemon looks like it's covered by moss. Wow. (Mossmii)
- Banette apparently predated Shuppet.
- Breloom was certainly a Pokemon with, uh, a design.
- Trapinch was apparently retconned into being the first form of Flygon. There was a proper prevo to Vibrava but this was removed. If anybody wondered, its name is objectively based on "Nutcracker". Flygon itself was unambiguously intended to be a dragonfly but this was at some point changed with its species name made more ambiguous to せいれい (as with Komari, interpretable as "spirit" or "dragonfly").
- There was a mantis shrimp Pokemon that got replaced by Dusclops.
- Elhawk is the Latiken concept that eventually became Blaziken. Very much a Fire/Flying-type at this point. Weird state of flux where name etymology listed is for Elhawk and name listed is final jp Blaziken.
- Don't know who wanted the bowling pin / bottle penguin but they certainly got it.
- Don't know who wanted the flying book either. This one is a bit overdone.
- The flower Pokemon with elements of Ralts in its Pokedex entry and legless beta Sunflora in its design is, uh... a flower. Its names (Flaane (flower + neru, to sleep) and Flapooto (Flower + Teleport? Pot?) aren't very enlightening. Apparently a Psychic type so reuse for Ralts is not crazy.
- Makuhita was part of a three stage line. Not obvious whether the middle or the bottom got kicked out, but seemingly the bottom.
- The musical scale Pokemon is a tadpole / musical note. This is a common gimmick in Japanese works since the name used for musical notes is the word for tadpoles, but this wasn't obvious from the dex entries. This concept was apparently natural enough to reuse for Tympole. Really curious if this relates to the clef Frog from earlier.
- The chick with flowers on its ears was pretty clearly recycled into Torchic. Its name suggests that it's a chick.
- The sightseeing Pokemon finally appears... and it's a plesiosaur! I think the reason this got cut a second time was because visually it's a bit too similar to Lapras. This is a Flying type and in practice I think it might have been closer to a sky whale in concept based on commentary. This could have also been cut for being, you know, similar to the literal whale Pokemon. Kind of an interesting intersection of sky whale x plesiosaur x parade float / blimp / plane. Has perhaps the worst-aged WIP name I can imagine in "Plapass" (portmanteau of plane and compass). Other WIP name is Ploon (compare to Jigglypuff Japanese name but also elements of plane or balloon in there). I feel like aspects of this ended up in Wailord and the Lati twins.
- Real Pokemaniacs would know that Skitty lives in holes in trees according to its Sapphire dex entry. It's a cat. Why the hell would a cat live in a tree? Well, if you look at Skitty at this point, it's very clearly not a cat. It's a squirrel. That big tail? Squirrel tail. It's been a squirrel cat this whole time and it's been under our noses the whole time.
- Electrike was part of a three-stage evolutionary line and its name shifted around a bit. Electrike has the name Ryuu (current), Manectric has Electrike's name, and Manectric2 is Raiou (compare final Raibolt for Manectric).
- Spinda and Ludicolo's relationship to one another (as Tapple) is cemented a bit more here. Nothing super valuable here but its name directly changes from Tapple to final jp Spinda depending on where you're looking. Tapple is also apparently just based on "tap" (as in tap dancing). Spinda became Spinda + Ludicolo and then eventually spawned Mr. Rime later. I'm now less confident that it was literally a bird at any point, though, so maybe Ludicolo's beak was only because it was deliberately designed (with reused flavor) to be an evolution to Lombre. The whole line was apparently strung together from three relatively unrelated Pokemon (and the same is also seemingly true of Seedot).
- Lunatone came before Solrock and Solrock was made explicitly to be a counterpart to Lunatone. They weren't made simultaneously.
- For whatever reason Lairon is based on a tatara (a type of foot furnace) and I guess this kind of makes the typing make sense? This also explains the references to coal later on. In hindsight I'm not sure what part of this, if any, made its way into Torkoal's concept.
- Evolot or Pippaa (corruption of pip (seed)) are various names given to the lottery Pokemon (the little cream colored dog / horse). To me it looks like a raffle drum (the body being the drum and the head being the handle) but lord knows what the hell it's supposed to be. It was supposed to evolve into "various Pokemon", whatever that means, and I can see why the concept was scrapped.
- The snowman moth is called Snow-un (not sure what the un is; best I got is 雲 (cloud) or 運 (luck)).
- The magnet crab is called Shiomagne (shio being either salt or the tides; maybe related to the area with the shoal salt / shoal shell). It's a crab with a magnet. I don't know why "crab with facial hair" was a concept that GF really wanted to move past WIP but they finally got their dream with Crabominable and Kingler G-Max.
- The two pump tank Pokemon are named Punk and Tamp. Real creative.
- No idea what the purple... panda? Ferret? thing is. Parts may have been reused for Zangoose later. Name (Paootsu) is not helpful except maybe to suggest panda.
- The mystery green Pokemon with Rayquaza's head is, well, a mystery. We have a name (Suiba) and that's it. Your take is as good as mine.
- Taikuun seems to have been split off conceptually into Altaria and Rayquaza. Original sprite has it as something between a cross of a white, comparatively birdier Rayquaza with an Altaria-like head on it. Called Oolong in one WIP name and Rairai (from light line, believe it or not) in another. For context, oolong is literally spelled "crow dragon" or "bird dragon" in Chinese. The "snakelike Chinese Dragon pokemon" got split off into Rayquaza and the "birdlike dragon Pokemon with a beak" was retained to be Altaria. Altaria and Swablu were, surprisingly, two unrelated Pokemon that were linked together (or, I guess, Altaria morphed into something more representative of a Swablu evolution).
- The Pokemon after Shuppet that looks like a Luigi's Mansion ghost is called Shaboh (rhymes with shadow... portmanteau of Shadow and I think the bou part of Kagebouzu (Shuppet)).
- I think that's a cymbal monkey. No, its name (Panpamu) isn't helpful.
- The box turtle is called hakogame. This means box turtle.
- Poochyena (368 in the dex entries) was apparently originally a Normal-type. Hilariously, called Wang.
- Bizarrely, the names of Latios / Latias are from timaeus and critias. No, I don't understand either.
- The durian Jerboa looks like Togedemaru, down to the little triangles for the spikes. Its WIP name is Togebyon (from toge (spike) + byon (springy noises))
- Yes, that is scraggy. They really liked this concept and its name pun (Zuruuzu; wordplay on zurui and zuruzuru) is also reused in final scraggy / scrafty's name.
- The archeopteryx / raptor Pokemon is literally amaura colors Grovyle.
- The dog is called Eidog (ei = british). Not quite Herdier but not far off either.
- Castform was amalgamated from what appears to be like 5 separate Pokemon. There's one that kind of looks like rain castform or normal castform (named Weathery), there are three different weather forms (named Sunsun, Zaazaa (rain noises), and Gohgoh (strong wind noises)), and a fourth one that looks like a sentient smurf hat (which has Castform's beta name of Powawa). Honestly I'm not even sure that Powawa was intended to be Castform or if it was specifically the hail form, Gohgoh was the sandstorm form (it looks like a brown twister but also does ultimately resemble snowy Castform).
- The flying fish right after Weathery is called Teinkii (presumably a corruption of "tenki", weather). I have no clue how else to interpret it.
- The polar bear is called Sunohra (portmanteau of snow and... aura?)
- The baby skunk is called "Heppii" (portmanteau of baby and something else? if it's a skunk, maybe 屁 (he; fart)?) and the big skunk is called "Spunk" (? "Supanku"). Not 100% sure they're skunks. The baby might have been reused partially for quadruped non-squirrel Skitty.
- Finally, we get to see what the spider lily Pokemon looks like and I'd say this is a pretty good explanation for why Gardevoir is green! The whole "does it have legs" thing also carried over to Gardevoir's design and was intentionally there from the start.
- The tomato hat one is actually supposed to be a walnut. This doesn't help at all.
Everything else after that big gap between Volbeat and Treecko seems to have been concept first sprite / name later. The Pokemon listed there all ultimately make it in.
- Oh, and not sure if this is an error of some sort, but Mudkip's name is listed as being derived from gengorou, the name for cybister japonicus (a type of diving beetle).
I'll try and add little edits to this post later.
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There's a google doc of all the pokedex info on betamons and last I checked it was pure Flying-Type? I could be wrong but that was what it said when I was parusing it.
Also I wonder how feasible a format using all of these cut Pokemon would be lol
OH THIS. if mega flygon is in any capacity not worse looking than mega manectric... it better be bad enough to justify the cut
The truncated notes, codenames and I assume some translation awkwardness makes it hard to fully parse, but it kind of sounds like the original intent of Megas was "fusions"? The way they talk about it twice in a row does make it seem like fusions but the way they talk about it elsewhere makes it sound different.
Sounds like a Rock Type Emboar mega (or proto-mega) might've gotten scrapped, assuming it wasn't an off the cuff example.
Sounds like a Rock Type Emboar mega (or proto-mega) might've gotten scrapped, assuming it wasn't an off the cuff example.
Basically:
-B2W2 was going to have new Pokemon.
-One of the themes was going to be "Fusion", like Kyurem
-The "Mega Mewtwo Y" in the Genesect movie was a Fusion, likely Mew + Mewtwo, originally.
-Due to the hate towards BW1, despite as they acknowledge perfect scores from Famitsu, they deliberately decided to pander
-New Pokemon for B2W2 was canned and they shifted a lot of them to "Beauty" XY
-Megas were explicitly for fanservice
-Unova didn't get any Megas (until ORAS, and only one) deliberately
EDIT: THIS IS MISINFORMATION, CONSULT LATER POSTS
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All very interesting, wonder if there might be some old sprites or concept art of the "BW2 with new Pokemon" phase of things
Pretty interesting they were considering new Pokemon mid-generation as far back as BW2. I suppose ORAS' new megas were a compromise in that regard.
Honestly probably for the best the fusion concept didn't get off the ground, beyond Kyurem of course, since it all seems like it'd be pretty awkward. Refining the concept (temporary inbattle forms) into megas was probably for the best.
Considering it seems a small number of XY mons were originally intended for BW2, I can't help but wonder which ones they are.
I would not be surprised if Noivern was one of those mons. Considering Noibat is a two-stage mon with an insanely high evolution level scaled to it being found late, which is very in-line with the game design ethos of the Gen 5 roster, especially the likes of Mienfoo, Pawniard, Rufflet, and Vullaby, and in general the Gen 5 mons evolve by level-up but the later you find them the higher the evo levels are, and Noibat+Noivern fits right in with that.
I can't help but wonder who else would've been in BW2 otherwise among the Gen 6 roster.
I would not be surprised if Noivern was one of those mons. Considering Noibat is a two-stage mon with an insanely high evolution level scaled to it being found late, which is very in-line with the game design ethos of the Gen 5 roster, especially the likes of Mienfoo, Pawniard, Rufflet, and Vullaby, and in general the Gen 5 mons evolve by level-up but the later you find them the higher the evo levels are, and Noibat+Noivern fits right in with that.
I can't help but wonder who else would've been in BW2 otherwise among the Gen 6 roster.
First thing that came to mind is Hawlucha honestly. Fits way better with Unova's multiculturalism theme than PokeFrance
It's difficult to tell from just this but it kind of sounds like this was early enough along that things like levels and such probably weren't fully started on yet, so while it is possible (after all, could get some clarifying concept art...) I wouldn't necessarily look at Noibat's level to evolve as proof of anything.
I do wonder if they'd necessarily have another bat Pokemon after already introducing a new bat Pokemon that same gen though.
I think all of them are listed as single types. I'm not sure if this was what they intended as their "primary" type? Things like Lotad (which is explicitly a lotus) is listed as water only rather than a pretty logical water/grass.
Ah you know that last comment there, about the T-rex (clearly Tyrunt/Tyrantrum) fitting in beauty, I had read that at first as just wondering if a design they were working on for XY would be good to go for, but I guess it'd make more sense if it was asking "Is this pokemon we were working on for the sequels, the T-Rex, fit in beauty?"
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Man it's so easy to fall into extensive theory crafting, but...you know..
The Therian forms were always a bit interesting. There was -to my recollection- no indication in BW1's code that they were earmarked for getting forms unlike Kyurem or in DP how Giratina, Shaymin & Rotom all were. I always felt like they got these very distinct, varied designs in a response to the trio being seen as too "copy/paste"....and well perhaps that's still true, but now I wonder if they might have been repurposed "fusion" ideas.
I really hope there's more documentation about how it'd all have worked and just where in the timeline they were being worked on, it'd be interesting to dissect.
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Man it's so easy to fall into extensive theory crafting, but...you know..
The Therian forms were always a bit interesting. There was -to my recollection- no indication in BW1's code that they were earmarked for getting forms unlike Kyurem or in DP how Giratina, Shaymin & Rotom all were. I always felt like they got these very distinct, varied designs in a response to the trio being seen as too "copy/paste"....and well perhaps that's still true, but now I wonder if they might have been repurposed "fusion" ideas.
I really hope there's more documentation about how it'd all have worked and just where in the timeline they were being worked on, it'd be interesting to dissect.
I just wanna point out that the "leak" about Gen 5 has XY's codename wrong. It's "kujira", we've known that for a while. So that info with a (big) grain of salt
If it is true, I would like to nominate Dragalge line as one of the Pokemon
It feels like it doesn't really fit much into Kalos personally and Virbank Gym is a Poison gym right on the waterfront, to me it'd make sense if Dragalge line was something intended to be used for this part of the game (with Dragalge being more toned down statwise ofc, maybe even a three stage with the middle evo at the gym?) or maybe just an encounter IDK
It feels like it doesn't really fit much into Kalos personally and Virbank Gym is a Poison gym right on the waterfront, to me it'd make sense if Dragalge line was something intended to be used for this part of the game (with Dragalge being more toned down statwise ofc, maybe even a three stage with the middle evo at the gym?) or maybe just an encounter IDK
I don't think that's as damning as you think. They also call Gen 5 "New York" and I don't think that's the codename for BW lol
This is a conversation that was supposed to be private dated 3 years before XY would even come out, and Beauty is the theme.
I think if this is called into question we also have to call into question the other transcripts where they aren't using specific codenames, and also that puts literally the terabytes of data into question considering this is all from the same leak. You can download these documents alongside the source code to games yourself.
I also will point out though that one of the things to look out for is these are machine translated. That can make problems.
You can still question if this is even from the leak considering there has not been a source path given or the original Japanese text.
Otherwise
It really is astounding the lore things we got from all this. All the old versions of the myths and things are just amazing even if some of them are far too cursed for their own good. Looking at you, Octillery story. It's especially neat seeing how some of those things still have repercussions later in the series. We still have the diagram of the legendary Pokémon even if it's in an updated form and we might not know if the same Pokémon it applied to then still apply to it now. The again they still kept the lore about Pokémon shrinking in size for Legends Arceus which was from 1995, so maybe much more of this lore is still in effect than we would think.
Fair point, I'm actually going out of my way to look for due dilligence, but it's hard because of the different files, the descriptions (written by others) doesn't directly mention what will have these kinds of things.
Spent 5 mins waiting for something to get out which was just dev plan documents I can't even read. Will continue to try, though.
Would help if I knew who "M" and "T" were beyond implications (Masuda?) I also don't know if this one is in the newer leaks or not, but in general if I even find any of these documents (all of these are formatted the same) I'd be happy.
edit: I had been gotten by the quota then I remembered how to easily get around it lol, so i edited that part out of message
i have a bad habit of not deleting reply stuff
Update: Centro took the post down, looks like he got bs'd
here's a debunk
here's a debunk
In this specific regard, the ones that I'd suspect is Pancham and Pangoro, especially with how much thematic overlap they have with Scraggy and Scrafty.
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