There Were 190 Pokémon!

[Zog]

So this is my long-speculated but now-confirmed theory about Red/Green's development, now put into a proper form.

Summarised, what I've found out is:

- There were originally supposed to be 190 Pokémon.
- 39 of these got removed after being added to the game and saved for Generation 2. However some of them might have never been intended to be used: this is kind of a strange area which I will go into extra detail on.
- We already know the order in which these first 190 Pokémon were made.

Here's what led me to form this theory:

The Index List and Missingno.s

http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/List_of_Pok%C3%A9mon_by_index_number_%28Generation_I%29

This is the bulk of the evidence. It's the order in which the Pokémon were added into the games, and since Ken Sugimori has apparently confirmed Rhydon as the first Pokémon designed, this can be seen as the order in which Pokémon were designed too. It definitely makes sense anyway... so yeah.

The most useful part of this list is how it follows a completely random pattern until 190, however each Pokémon is a valid Pokémon except for 39 Missingno.s dotted randomly throughout. Very importantly, these Missingno.s, when taken into the Time Capsule, are all read by the Gen 2 cart as a particular Gen 2 Pokémon, each Missingno. corresponding to a different one. These 39 Pokémon are the ones that were taken out after being added in.

Note how after 190 the list loses composure and just follows the Gen 2 Pokédex numbers. This implies those Pokémon were created afterwards, a statement solidified by the next evidence:

The Beta Artwork

Spot the odd one out? These are all the designs of Pokémon that definitely came out in Gen 2. And when you look at their numbers on the index list, things start to add up. That's Chikorita #191, Qwilfish #250, Marill #222, Girafarig #242, Cyndaquil #197 and... Tyranitar #183. Yeaaahh.

Asking Game Freak About It

So at the worlds this year I decided to ask Shigeki Morimoto, the guy who made Mew, about it. Since I asked him at the autograph table, where he would have his translator, I didn't have long so I can pretty much outline the exchange as this:

Me: "So in Red and Green, were there originally exactly 190 Pokémon?"

*Translator relays to Morimoto; he sort of jumps in his chair enthusiastically (lol) and seems very happy, grinning at me*

Translator: "Yes; we decided to save the rest of the designs for later"

Me: "So for example Ho-Oh was made for Red and Green first? Since it was in the first episode of the anime?"

*he hears Ho-Oh and looks confused, then then when the translator says the rest to him he remains the same*

Translator: "No, not Ho-Oh. He wasn't made earlier."

And then I say domo arigato and get rushed out by the queue building behind me, heheh. However what he said about Ho-Oh just doesn't make sense so I'm guessing that was an error in the translation. Since Ho-Oh is #49 in the list and appears in anime episode 1 it obviously had been made by that time so he probably tried to say Ho-Oh wasn't made for Red and Green, and was just in there with no real intention of keeping it in.

So yeah, those are my findings! I hope you all find them interesting.

 

[GREEN00]

Very interesting. This greatly strengthens the feeling I'd already held that gen 1 & 2 are the closest generations. GS's supposed new designs seemed a direct extention of GR's 151, in contrast to gen 3 and 4's paradigm shifts.

 

[manav95]

Well maybe the index listing is random

 

[Zacchaeus]

Yes they are interesting, and I don't know a single person who thinks Girafarig shouldn't look like

. It's a palindrome, the same front and backwards, so it should look the same front and backwards as well.

But I think there's a major flaw in your number 190. I think that I have the real original number and correction to your hypothesis.

On that list that you linked to, it has 255 index numbers. 4 of them aren't actual Pokémon, so 255 - 4 = 251 = the number of Pokémon in G/S/C. And if you believe the common rumor (found here), all generation 2 Pokémon were designed before the release of R/B/Y, and G/S/C were intended to be the closing to Pokémon. So I would work these bits into your theory

 

[Zog]

Nah it is 190: aside from how Morimoto actually said it was 190, look at what happens after that; the actual Pokémon that show up are junk data and the Pokémon they represent are the early Johto Dex in order. It's like the game automatically just fills in with the Johto dex. Also the beta sketches, all released around the same time, kinda prove it too.

Remember this isn't a hypothesis, Morimoto confirmed it for me! I did stress 190 when I talked to him, and since 190 is seemingly a random number that's probably why he reacted so strongly.

 

[Zacchaeus]

Remember this isn't a hypothesis, Morimoto confirmed it for me! I did stress 190 when I talked to him, and since 190 is seemingly a random number that's probably why he reacted so strongly.

He also stressed "No, not Ho-Oh. He wasn't made earlier" which was obviously a translation error, so I wouldn't be too sure

 

[Her0]

This is pretty interesting. It looks maybe raikou, suicune, and entei were made for the first generation along with skarmory and blissey.

 

[EpicTurtle]

They had raikou, suicune and entei made as well as the 3 birds. Could it mean that there were suppose to be more legendary s in the game o.O. Also it could be a possibility that arcanine was suppose to be entei.

 

[Luf]

I did the Ditto Glitch with a Pokemon of 214 to see if it would generate a Missigno. (The one with "Togepi"). However, instead, I battled a Fisherman as I expected.

http://www.smogon.com/forums/showthread.php?t=76269
^Here you can see my compiled list of what Specials generate what Pokemon (or glitches).

However, I do think you are right. I used the Ditto Glitch and caught a form of Missingno. with a Dex number of 251.

 

[Zog]

I did the Ditto Glitch with a Pokemon of 214 to see if it would generate a Missigno. (The one with "Togepi"). However, instead, I battled a Fisherman as I expected.

Ehh what I'm saying is only the Missingno.s were Gen 2 Pokémon that were taken out. So yeah that makes perfect sense with my theory since Togepi lies after #190. Actually read the OP por favor; most of it is going on about how it's only the first 190 in the index.

But seriously, Morimoto pretty much jumped in his chair in surprise when I came out with 190. Probably since there's pretty much no indication anywhere except the R/B index list. That, and "Yes" is considerably harder to mistranslate than "No we didn't plan on using him in Red and Green" or whatever he had intended to say. She was, like, a proper translator and all. :P

 

[Luf]

Ehh what I'm saying is only the Missingno.s were Gen 2 Pokémon that were taken out. So yeah that makes perfect sense with my theory since Togepi lies after #190. Actually read the OP por favor; most of it is going on about how it's only the first 190 in the index.

But seriously, Morimoto pretty much jumped in his chair in surprise when I came out with 190. Probably since there's pretty much no indication anywhere except the R/B index list. That, and "Yes" is considerably harder to mistranslate than "No we didn't plan on using him in Red and Green" or whatever he had intended to say. She was, like, a proper translator and all. :P

I actually did read the whole thing. I am actually agreeing with you because you can generate a Missigno. with a Pokedex number of 251 with a Special of 191 and 197.

 

[Torchickens]

Invalid Pokémon such as 'M, LM4, h poke, Q, X-x are the game's attempt of deriving 'garbage' data into the identifier's associated species name. In other words, data which is incremental to essential areas of the game, perhaps item data for example and it is erroneously translated into the Pokémon template for each of the (106-39) invalid Pokémon.

Identifiers which use the "MISSINGNO." error handler however, have completely formatted species data, they are all formatted in different ways. The name is recalled for completely blank species name data, i.e. (00,00,00...), whilst one of the more common identifiers we know has a Nidoran(Male) cry by default (which happens to be the first programmed cry i.d. 00) with a pitch of 00. Along these lines, yes there was always a huge hint that there were once 190 Pokémon planned for Generation I, backed up by the fact that these 39 Pokémon have identifiers which are in between those of valid Pokémon which appeared in the final game (there may have once been 40 formatted Pokémon identifiers, before the late: according to an "Iwata Asks" interview addition of Mew, whom now has an internal index number of 21.)

It reminds me of how I stumbled across the index number of a tentative 12th town/city by chance, which IIRC was previously implemented into Pokémon Brown by Koolboyman because the map pointers also consisted of formatted data, which could easily be modified without any harmful effects to the game code. The interesting thing is that it still has its own fly flag, so if you can manage to set the flag via a device such as a GameShark the game will allow you to fly to it, although unsurprisingly freezing the game with a white screen. Even its map co-ordinates and header are formatted, suggesting a unique "Lost Town/City". As such, if you look on the Town Map its co-ordinates are 0,0 (North west corner) and the game mistakes it as "PALLET TOWN" which shares a map header identifier of 00. Its located right before Route 1 but straight after Indigo Plateau. Furthermore, there is a list of PokéMart items not associated with any town in the final game, if forced open the player can buy Great Balls, Hyper Potions, Super Potions, Full Heals and Revives.

(I'm sorry if this qualifies as a bump, I read through the rules and considered it OK to post because it contributed a little to the article and it has only been about a month since the last reply)

 

[Bos]

The Da Vinci Code better look out I see a new bestseller.
Ah I see it now.
The 190 Generation by Zog.
Good research to backup a shaky idea, makes this thing half believe able. I always thought it was a tad sus how Ho-oh appeared in the first anime.

 

[Athenodoros]

I just saw Tyranitar there. Just imagine how the whole Psychic-oriented Gen 1 game would have been turned upside-down with Tar in it. It would have been completely different.

 

[ck49]

there was no dark type in gen1, so it would have been pure rock or rock / ground or something

 

[Badal]

Wow, this is some interesting stuff. Pretty cool how they designed stuff a while back and barely change it for later use

 

[Moo]

We dont know, but they could be doing this the whole time without us knowing :|

 

[Torchickens]

We dont know, but they could be doing this the whole time without us knowing :|

Shellos and Gastrodon, unused Sweet Honey reference in Gold/Silver. *shot*.

 

[Not Scicky]

Very interesting. This greatly strengthens the feeling I'd already held that gen 1 & 2 are the closest generations. GS's supposed new designs seemed a direct extention of GR's 151, in contrast to gen 3 and 4's paradigm shifts.

That's not just a feeling really. The pokemon haven't been designed by Ken Sugimori since Gen 2, he simply oversee's the design process, so there's a pretty clear difference between Gen 1/2 and the rest.

 

[NeosRaiga]

Ah I love little things like this..Not very interesting, EXTREMELY interesting! Seeing lugia in there makes a lot of sense..what with him and his trio of birds. Oh look dunsparce is in there too!

 

[Ferrouswheel]

Who wants to bet that if Ho-Oh and Lugia had been released, they would have gotten names like Ho-Cuatro, and Lugicinco?

 

[Pokérob]

Theres me thinking you went to worlds to play some pokemon. Whilst there, you made a hugely interesting debate occur and this is something huge to discuss. It might be worth having lengthly discussions about this, recording your findings, recording a bit of an interview of you with the makers of RBG and then you can make an interesting youtube documentary and get many hits.

Very interesting. Although the apparent cyndaquil looks like a pikachu.. :S

 

[Veles]

http://bulbanews.bulbagarden.net/wiki/On_the_Origin_of_Species:_Mew

This sort of breaks down saying that there really was only enough room for 150 Pokemon and the addition of Mew was only because there was some leftover space once the debugging tools had been removed. I can't speak of the accuracy of the article, nor can I claim much familiarity with the internal tables of the Pokemon Red and Green databases, but I'm not sure about the 190 thing.

Really sounds like 150 was the planned, 150 was all they really had room for, but we got an extra for fun.

 

[Feraligaber]

Really interesting. I enjoyed reading your findings.

 

[fighting103]

I love findings like this! It really adds to the mystery of RBY. I remember once I was surfing the web one day and found the same info (including the part about Rhydon being the first pokemon)