Pokemon Gold 1997 Prototype discovered: Many scrapped pokemon designs within

A fair amount of you probably already know by now, but it's nice to have a thread over it to shoot the shit about it.

TCRF webpage on the prototype, currently lagging probably due to all the hits its getting lol: https://tcrf.net/Proto:Pokémon_Gold_and_Silver/

Here's a spreadsheet getting updated as more info gets found: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...ABpw-SO76uZt6WNSl0UsD5yq_dI/htmlview?sle=true

And here's a sprite sheet with all the unearthed Pokemon sprites with their proper colors

Possible new inspiration for the CAP stuff? :V
 

Clouds

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Intended Qwilfish evolution I'm assuming? Wonder why not just the Pokemon, but the entire idea of an evolution of it was scrapped. This prototype find is so cool. Awesome job to everyone involved in the research process!
 
It's mentioned as an evolution in the Spreadsheet. Also other interesting evolutions are Tangrowth, Leafeon, & Lickilicky showing up, Farfetch'd getting a Swan evo, Umbreon originally being Poison-type.

Also Beta Girafarig is the stuff of nightmares.
 
Next to Umbreon is something that looks like Slowking's "Shellder Crown" after being cast off. Alternative evolution to Cloyster perhaps?

Also really digging what looks like beta-Scizor - that looks like it might have retained the Bug-Flying typing of Scyther.
 
Next to Umbreon is something that looks like Slowking's "Shellder Crown" after being cast off. Alternative evolution to Cloyster perhaps?

Also really digging what looks like beta-Scizor - that looks like it might have retained the Bug-Flying typing of Scyther.
The shell is a standalone Pokemon(pure water) not related to Shellder or Cloyster (In a marginally related note, Slowking was also originally the evolution of Slowbro. Imagine Evolite Slowbro)

And Beta Scizor is indeed Bug/Flying. Additionally beta Heracross(whom was originally a Pinsir Evolution it seems) was pure Bug.

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Intended Qwilfish evolution I'm assuming? Wonder why not just the Pokemon, but the entire idea of an evolution of it was scrapped. This prototype find is so cool. Awesome job to everyone involved in the research process!
They were both pure Water originally, not Water/Poison.

Also remove the spines/bumps, add whiskers and fins, and make the lightning bolt "W" shaped and you got yourself Whiscash from Gen III
 
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Not a fan of all the baby mons, glad they went away from that, but some of those sprites are legit.
Also, I want Kurstraw (2 before Murkrow) as a real mon ASAP.
 
I've seen a few people consider the pinsir evolution a beta heracross, but I don't agree. I think there's enough design cues specific to Pinsir that tells me heracross was designed from scratch while the old pinsir evo was just thrown away.
Considering Scizor's look, I think what happened was they decided to turn it Steel typing, redesigned it as such, but thought it differed too much from Pinsir. Then, I suppose, rather than redesign Pinsir's evolution they decided to play up the beetle vs beetle rivalries and make a hercules beetle to contrast pinsir's stag.

Probably for the best, it's not that...great....
 
I'm actually digging some of these stuffs now.

The water and fire starter line looks like what we once knew in this list of unused Pokemon design. Kurusu and Honouguma.
However, we knew they never came to appearance. Looks like Cyndaquile-Typlosion's base stats being similar to Charmander-zardon's are due to rushed nature of the game?
Honouguma line is just so pretty though, they can easily rival Fokko/Fennekin line.

And then there's this pretty angelfish which seems to evolve to uhh... anchored shark and whatever else the next one is? Looks like a branch evolution. That anchorshark seems to later inspire Sharpedo and Huntail, the angelfish is scrapped (nuu), and the anglerfish (touche, da pun) is redesigned into Lanturn.

Graceful Arceus, glad they scrapped that beta baby Vulbit-err, pix. But looks like they have planned many other baby mon like that little puppy that could be baby-Gardy/Growlith?, laying baby Meowth (that seems like holed everyday coin), another Ponyta, baby? goldfish, baby Mr. Mime (redesigned into Mime jr. later), etc..
Looks like baby Meowth is scrapped because anime once shown Rocket trio's Meowth as baby.

Some seem reused into future designs.
Beta-Noctowl looks close to barn owl that inspires Rowlet and Dartrix.
That kite-bird right before Quilfish? seems to be redesigned into Mantine. While the scary face looks like it won't work really well in actual battle (due to it not viewable by opponent below). This "scary face" concept is taken by Masquerain later.
Some also diverged like Kamonegi-evo scrapped and reused into Swanna.

Some seemed to be redesigned to tone down the... controversial material.
After Houndoom?, there's this critter-in-pelt thing, redesigned to Swinub line? Well, the idea of pelt monster is....
And also Octank/Octilerry was literally a tank soldier and Remoraid was literally a barrel/revolver-gun, which was redesigned to suit the demography.
That cursed-doll (Ushi no toki mairi) thing and Kyonshi (chinese zombie) mon was scrapped. At least we got Muuma / Misdreavous to replace them.

And in the end before Unown is what seemed to be a pretty Leafeon. But it's not placed next to Espeon and Umbreon, seemingly designed by others before scrapped and reused by Nishida into actual Leafeon later. While it looking grass seems to inspire Celeby to continue the Mew-clone / mini-mythicals.

And no Lugia. It seems like they didn't plan it being two-version game, being the planned last game to end Pokemon? (thank Arceus they didn't)


Oh, came to read the spreadsheet and... interestingly, beta-Scizor's Japanese name is Scizors (close to current English name), before renamed Hassam.
That pretty Leafeon is planned to be Leafeon. But it's placement is odd, not with Espeon and Umbreon. It's name リーフィ Riifi / Leafie is even similar to エーフィ Eifie (Espeon), before later added an "a" into リーフィア Leafia along with グレイシア Glacia (Glaceon). Did Nishida originally designed it?
Thay also removed that Bomshika (that fireball seal). Amusingly, Water/Fire would had been really interesting while we here only have Volcanion to try that.
 
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They did plan on gold & silver versions (I believe a silver version of the demo was dumped earlier today), but it seems like Lugia either wasn't implemented in the build yet or they had no plans for 2 version mascots.
 
I came to read the base stat and.... HP/Atk/Def/SpA/SpD/Spe
Vaporeon: 130/65/60/70/110/65
Jolteon: 65/65/60/70/110/130
Flareon: 65/130/60/70/110/65
Espeon, Umbreon, and "Leafeon" is still dud plain 50s. Can't comment on that.
This must not be final, even for Kantonian mon.
Vaporeon and Jolteon's SpA currently reaches 110, not this lowly 70, while ironically their SpD is 110.
Vaporeon, I can understand because she's defense-oriented, but the Fragile Speedster slender-designed Jolteon having low SpA and high SpD makes no sense, unless they tried to have him play the sharp fur for defense (... wait, isn't that how Glaceon goes defense?)
Then again, we haven't had High Spe/SpD Vee yet, which may work as utility thing (but then again, chronic movepool syndrome would make one fail horribly on that)
And they also decided to add the numbers; originally this makes the Vees even more cripplingly overspecialised with 70 instead of 90 in a stat.
 
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DHR-107

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Kris also made a thread about this title here: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/pokemon-gold-and-silver-demo.3635890/ which seems to be more aiming at the competitive potentiality of the games had they come to fruition. Direct that sort of talk and most debugging/hacking expertise into that thread.

Meanwhile... Kurona and I spent a fair bit of time yesterday trying to figure out the "order of travel" as it were. The only section we aren't sure on is the Western half of the map. The loops/water routes on the northern edge are confusing and its difficult to work out how you would move through the areas. Also the listing of the Gym Leaders being in different cities did not help that.

(probably big but I'm not bothered)

Head West out of "New Bark Town" and follow the map across until you reach "Goldenrod". This is where we can't quite nail things down. We think you head north to Azalea first, but get blocked off by "Morty" (or his equivalent) and you have to then meet him out in the far West in the Pyramid City (Which bizarrely is called South). Explained away by either "new" Morty's fascination with the macabre/mystical (Pyramids do seem perfect for that), or maybe issues with Team Rocket out there etc. Hell, maybe it's even Kurt who you have to help out.

After helping them in "West" (Pyramid City) you surf across to the Ruins of Alph Town (Fount) and "finish" off the quest of aiding before heading back down to Azalea. From there you head east finally and open up the rest of the map. From this point on, I have no idea how you progress unless you gain access to Whirlpool soon after. Both of the routes to the North end up on Whirlpool blocked routes (granted the second one has a gap if you can pilot correctly). Before you loop back down to the south and come out of "Kanto" and head back to New Bark Town, which is bizarrely where Victory Road appears to be located.
 
I came to read the base stat and.... HP/Atk/Def/SpA/SpD/Spe
Vaporeon: 130/65/60/70/110/65
Jolteon: 65/65/60/70/110/130
Flareon: 65/130/60/70/110/65
Espeon, Umbreon, and "Leafeon" is still dud plain 50s. Can't comment on that.
This must not be final, even for Kantonian mon.
Vaporeon and Jolteon's SpA currently reaches 110, not this lowly 70, while ironically their SpD is 110.
Vaporeon, I can understand because she's defense-oriented, but the Fragile Speedster slender-designed Jolteon having low SpA and high SpD makes no sense, unless they tried to have him play the sharp fur for defense (... wait, isn't that how Glaceon goes defense?)
Then again, we haven't had High Spe/SpD Vee yet, which may work as utility thing (but then again, chronic movepool syndrome would make one fail horribly on that)
And they also decided to add the numbers; originally this makes the Vees even more cripplingly overspecialised with 70 instead of 90 in a stat.
Either the base stats were accidentally swapped or they did intend to split the Special stat the other way around (Slowking has a base 80 SpA and base 70 SpD).

About Espeon, Umbreon and proto-Leafeon only having base 50 stats... a lot of Pokemon do. As simple as their base stats not being decided yet, so they got placeholder stats. May also apply for Ho-oh as it has base 100 stats.

Lugia being completely absent makes me think starters were going to be in the cover yet again. That, or the legendary horrors dogs were going to be in the cover as main legendaries.

Umbreon originally being Poison type would explain why the Pokedex repeatedly reports on its poisonous sweat.
So Toxapex is pretty much an improved version of the Umbreon we never got.

What's odd is that Umbreon already has its final name.

By the way, the moves section has some interesting things. There is an attacking move that may raise Attack, as well as Belly Drum being a renamed Swords Dance (does it explain its odd behavior if it cannot halve HP?)
 
They did plan on gold & silver versions (I believe a silver version of the demo was dumped earlier today), but it seems like Lugia either wasn't implemented in the build yet or they had no plans for 2 version mascots.
There was only plans for Ho-oh, with it being the only "big uber" legendary like how Gen 1 only had Mewtwo. Lugia was made for the second anime movie (produced a couple years after this demo) and after that it was implemented into the games.

Their role in the games kinda corroborate this. Ho-oh has a bunch of lore while Lugia is just kinda crammed into some cave.
 
I came to read the base stat and.... HP/Atk/Def/SpA/SpD/Spe
Vaporeon: 130/65/60/70/110/65
Jolteon: 65/65/60/70/110/130
Flareon: 65/130/60/70/110/65
Espeon, Umbreon, and "Leafeon" is still dud plain 50s. Can't comment on that.
This must not be final, even for Kantonian mon.
Vaporeon and Jolteon's SpA currently reaches 110, not this lowly 70, while ironically their SpD is 110.
Vaporeon, I can understand because she's defense-oriented, but the Fragile Speedster slender-designed Jolteon having low SpA and high SpD makes no sense, unless they tried to have him play the sharp fur for defense (... wait, isn't that how Glaceon goes defense?)
Then again, we haven't had High Spe/SpD Vee yet, which may work as utility thing (but then again, chronic movepool syndrome would make one fail horribly on that)
And they also decided to add the numbers; originally this makes the Vees even more cripplingly overspecialised with 70 instead of 90 in a stat.
If you are reading it from the Google Sheet, it's written HP/Atk/Def/Speed/SpA/SpD… which is still off.

EDIT: And while most pokemon seemingly have either placeholder or fairly low stats... you have a few that were later removed that seemed mostly done. Like Anchorage which had 90 Hp / 110 Attack / 50 Def / 55 SpA / 50 SpD / 110 Speed for its base stats.
 

Kalalokki

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Sprite Leader
Since there's already a thread on the Pokemon sprites in Smeargle Studio, I figured I'd just talk about the notable Trainer sprites instead:

falkner.png

Falkner
Follows the overall style as the final game, with a bit longer pants, a headband, and that unidentified bird at its side.

bugsy.png

Bugsy
A lot less androgynous with a much more dapper style with his suit and all. Seems a bit unfitting for a guy who goes around catching bugs, but looks pretty cool otherwise.

morty.png

Morty
An angsty teen style, sort of a mix of Silver and current Morty. Def not a fan of this one.

jasmine.png

Jasmine
This one reminds me of some sort of 90s anime character mixed with the Mediums, still the same timid Jasmine but with a lot more flair to her.

kurt.png

Kurt
Now here Kurt has a trainer sprite of his own, which is also used as a placeholder for a lot of other trainers. Feels a lot like the grumpy old Kurt we all know and love.

fledgling.png

Fledgling
What a weakling this one is: a little crybaby with a big heart on his sweater. A lot more sad looking than the pre-schoolers that followed.

professional male.png
professional female.png

Professional ♂♀
I never understood why the Cooltrainers in Gen 1 had whips, and it seems like they were going to follow with that trend. The female is almost identical to the current one, while the male went more in the style of Falkner.

beauty.png

Beauty
Similar overall but with a more flashy 80s style of hair and clothing, not really an improvement in my book.

rocket male.png

Rocket ♂
Yet again with these whips, his pose also looks really odd and derpy. Not an improvement over the current one.

teacher male.png
teacher female.png

Teacher ♂♀
Here we have them as both male and female variants: male one looks like a typical strict nerdy type of teacher, with the female being a bit more curvy and for some reason almost falling over in her walk. Would've been nice to have the variety, we still don't have any male teachers to this day.

swimmer female.png

Swimmer ♀
Almost the same but is looking right in to the camera, which is not that common, and showing more of her body.

super nerd.png

Super Nerd
The best one of the bunch, hands down. I just love him curled up and smiling slightly, seems like a nervous wreck that just wants to be left alone. Seems a lot more in line with the weirdness of its Gen 1 counterpart.

Biker.png

Biker
While the current one is just rehashed from Gen 1, this one is one of the biggest sprites, with the bike being front and center and filling up the frame. The guy has more of a race bike outfit, with a pretty rad bandana. A clear 2nd favorite and a real shame it wasn't implemented.

burglar.png

Burglar
While the Gen 1 Burglar looks very chibi and childish, this one is even worse: chubby face, legs, and a real puckered mouth. Glad they made it better with the current one.

sportsman.png

Sportsman
We've had sporty trainers in the later games, but this one is more of a dedicated athletics guy, almost like he's gonna run a marathon. The pose is really nice and energetic, easily making this guy my 3rd favorite out of these.

soldier.png

Soldier
As Pokémon was becoming more and more child-friendly, having an actual soldier trainer might've been too much in the end, leaving Lt. Surge as the only real military guy present. He looks a lot like the Engineers, but a bit more stern and serious.

That's it for all the sprites that I thought were worth mentioning, but there's still some interesting tidbits on other trainer classes:
  • Giovanni was back and seems like his trainer ID is taking up the slot of an Elite Four in the real game, as does Misty in this demo. Might not mean anything as there's 2 unnamed Elite Four members further on in the list, but interesting nonetheless.
  • Seems to be a couple of trainers referencing Japanese variety shows: male and female Geruge members. No idea what they are about.
  • Some other new unused trainer classes include: Prodigy, Manchild (lol), Rock Climber (separate from Hiker), Kung Fu Master, Fortune Teller, and Hooligan.
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am I the only one thinking that the "Leafeon" might be how Celebi suppose to look? also Baby Meowth looks so cute. I wish it was in the game.

Edit:
Legendary "Dogs" being legendary dogs originally might explain why so many magazines claimed they are dogs at the time.
 
Except it's called "Leafy", which follows japanese eeveelution name conventions, so it's meant to be an early Leafeon... or whatever the english translation team would have called it.
On top of that it actually evolves from Eevee with Leaf Stone, so it is not a standalone Pokemon and thus not a beta counterpart to Celebi.
 
I wonder if the reason not-bayleef is so...different, while Meganium is pretty much final is because they were in the process of updating the lines. Perhaps at the time of the demo, they had only ironed out & implemented Meganium (& Chikorita)

We've all seen that Happa concept art floating around for a while where it looked more like a potato. I think the lack of an elongated body would flow into "blossomole" pretty nicely and then it might have gone somewhere else entirely.
 
I'm now waiting for that delicious moment when some bored modder takes this and makes a complete version out of it.

Replacing all the placeholder base stats and move data is going to be difficult to think, though.

Also, I just noticed one of the HMs was going to be a 90 BP Rock-type version of Iron Head. And here we are, with Rock-types still begging for a widespread strong physical move with 100% accuracy.
 
I'm now waiting for that delicious moment when some bored modder takes this and makes a complete version out of it.

Replacing all the placeholder base stats and move data is going to be difficult to think, though.
At least for the babies it'd be easy to look at the current base form and backpedal from there, and we have a plethora of babies as reference points.
 
If you are reading it from the Google Sheet, it's written HP/Atk/Def/Speed/SpA/SpD… which is still off.

EDIT: And while most pokemon seemingly have either placeholder or fairly low stats... you have a few that were later removed that seemed mostly done. Like Anchorage which had 90 Hp / 110 Attack / 50 Def / 55 SpA / 50 SpD / 110 Speed for its base stats.
I do know that, and moved the Speed to the end for easier format.
 
So Toxapex is pretty much an improved version of the Umbreon we never got.

What's odd is that Umbreon already has its final name.
I have a feeling that no, Umbreon didn't have its English name at that time, only known as Blacky and evolving with Poison stone, before they decided Dark is better and go with Lunar theme. This may make sense as to why Espeon is often referred as Sun Pokemon with Sun revolving around her despite the design not saying Sun so much (compared to Solrock, Ulgamoth / Volcarona?, or Solgaleo).
 

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