Greetings,

I've been a Pokémon fan since the first generation, and I've also been interested in Beta versions of software, so naturally both subjects had to join sometime. And that moment was in June 2006, when Ken Sugimori (the graphic designer of the games, the one that makes all the official art and who singlehandedly created most of the first 251 monsters) released through Pokemon France an image from his sketchbook, that was made when Pokémon Red/Green were just being designed.



This is the most us westerners will have for the beta project of the original Pokémon games. (Until now, most of the information on the betas of the different generation has been harvested from the released games, and then hacking the program to see unused items, best evidenced in the second generation games).

The left side of the image provides us a view of how the game would have been. Instead of a "first person view" of your Pokémon from behind, while the rival's pokémon would be seen from the front, it seems that battles would be seen from the side, using most probably the front-view sprites from the Pokédex. Menues for the battles seem the same, with the HP and name of the monster on the boxes above them, while the option menu being in the lower part of the screen (as it ended up in the final release).

The last screen seems to be the stats screen of the monsters, which looks just like the release version one.

On the second column there are the overworld screens, which look just like the final games overworld traveling. The rest of the page looks like concept art for both locations and monsters. For example, the central drawing could be Lavander Town's tower, while on the right side drawings of various Pokémon (most notably Ghastly and an earless Laprass) and an undisclosed location can be seen (maybe Celadon City, but the fountain was added only on the remakes).

As mentioned before, we know about the Beta version of the game thanks to the elements that weren't removed on the final release. The most important ones are the unused "Bird" Pokémon type (that supposedly was replaced by the "Flying" type but did make it to the final game in Missingno/'M's first type) and the also unused "Chief" trainer class (when unlocked with a Gameshark code, its sprite is that of a "Scientists" trainer). The most important element from the beta version that survived to the final release was that you could battle Professor Oak. His team consisted of a Tauros, and Exeggcutor, an Arcanine, a Gyarados and the final evolution of the player's non effective Pokémon (your rival got the one that is most effective against yours, so poor Porf. Oak got the one yours is most effective against). As the Pokémon on his team are high leveled, it was supposed to be fought after defeating the Elite Four, but this event trigger, as well as all other referene to this battle (except to the "Prof. Oak: Oh no! My Pokémon!" part in the script that is displayed when you defeat Oak) were removed from the game, making this battle impossible to encounter if not using a cheating device.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcayQInka-c&feature=related[/youtube]

Other minor elements that survived were usable badges and a Surf enabling item.

From pre-release images released by Nintendo of America, there seemed to be a "The" in the script of the beginning of the battles, being usefull in situations when you encountered trainers (like "The Lass wants to fight" or "The Burglar wants to fight") but making weird sentence when fighting named Pokémon trainers (Gym leaders, specifically).

The last difference between the beta and the released games were some of the Pokémon names. They range from the great sounding (Skulkraken instead of Gyarados) to the ridicously ones (Hocus and Pocus instead of Abra and Kada... forget it, both sound ridiculous for a powerful Pokémon).

So, that's all for the first generation Pokémon beta games. I'll post the other generations too.

If anyone has doubts, please ask them.

And no, I don't have the roms of the betas. I don't think anyone outside Nintendo has them.

-Commanderraf

Do you know any info about the G/S Betas. I know that the safari zone is in fact available, through goldmap/gameshark, and that they are some beta maps in it, which can also be seen through goldmap

Yeah, I'm planning on doing another post for each generation, and Generation II is where there is more info -hidden in the game, there are the maps you said for the Safari Zone, a proto-Cinnabar Island and another proto-Lake of Rage- but I'll be posting them each weekend.

So, just hang in there for another 5 days and I'll post the info on Gold/Silver/Cristal betas.

-Commanderraf

Carnt wait, thanks

Actually scratch that. Since I've been called to be an election official next Sunday (Midterm elections here in Mexico), I'll post the second generation info in a couple of more hours so I don't have an exhausting weekend.

-Commanderraf

While looking at my images for the Gold/Silver post, I found this one:



This could mean that early in the Red/Green development they did intent to have a playable female character.

-Commanderraf

I'm not trying to be a moderator, but double posting isn't allowed

Nice stuff, i never liked Pokemon much but that was interesting to read and see


IMO he just bumped the topic to make people notice new info, but i'm not a mod too...

Sorry about that, but after spending 3+ hours writing the Gold/Silver beta thing I didn't notice that I had been the last poster. Won't happen again.

And now another image I forgot to add: While not strictly beta material, as everyone knows, in Japan the first versions released were Red and Green, then Blue came as kind of a updated version and later Yellow. What most people doesn't know is that what the rest of the world got in their Red/Blue games is actually an adaptation of the Japanese Blue game. For example, many of the caves were fairly easy in the original Red/Green games, but they were made more challenging in the Japanese blue. For the rest of the world, Game Freak decided to use these tougher maps.

Another example are the sprites. In the original Red/Green you could see that this was a game made by a new company, while in the Japanese Blue (after noticing the success of the game) a little more effort was put into the front sprites of the Pokémon (but the back sprites remained the same, explaining why their quality is so low and several discrepancies between the poses the Pokémon have. The easiest example is Charmander, whose Red/Green front sprite depicts it raising its right arm, while its Red/Blue counterpart has both arms down. The back sprite for both versions has Charmander raising its right arm).



Just look at Wigglytuff and Mew... If the new designs helped anybody, it was Mismatching Eyes Wigglytuff an Hunchback Mew.

-Commanderraf

My! It's been a while since I last post in this thread, so I don't think anyone can argue that I'm bumping it.

And not after what I'm about to post.

As you may know I frequently visit 4chan, and the administrator opened a new board just for Pokémon some months ago. Since then this kind of post has been making its rounds:



The scans of a Japanese book called "Tajiri Satoshi, The Man who Created Pokémon". Although, as evidenced in the cover, this book covers the development history of other games besides the first generation of the Pokémon games, what has been posted on 4chan's /vp/ is the Pokémon part.

Besides being a description of the work of Tajiri creating and designing the games, it includes part of the beta artwork posted in the first post of this thread in a higher resolution.



But there is new art in that book, as well as part of the original sketches on different parts of the design of the game.



For example, here we have a concept drawing of the trainer and a Rhyhorn (the first Pokémon programmed, according to its index number http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/List_of_Pok%C3%A9mon_by_index_number_%28Generation_I%29 of the first games) as well as part of the intro.



Here we have the sketch of the pokéball jiggling after capturing a Pokémon, and its aplication in-game when a weird Pokémon placeholder -which I'm pretty sure it's a Game Freak in-joke- is captured by the trainer.



In this image the idea of the link cable is shown with a weird Pikachu and a moth-looking Pokémon (I remember that animation when playing the games back in junior high). Then it shows the first ideas for the Pokéballs: instead of opening up like a box with the hinge between the red and white portions of the ball, the original pokéball's white part slides into the red part, and the button isn't in the equator of the ball, but in the middle of the red part. Finally there's a sketch of what became a Pokémon Mart or the Rocket Game Corner's Prize exchange (since they have Pokémon in cages and *yegh* in jars).

Interesting to note that, in the dialogue below the shop scene, they refer to Lapras, albeit none is shown and, as the images before have already shown, most Pokémon weren't fully developed.



The town scene shown in the first post. It can be seen more in detail in the following images. It seems that the buildings were going to be more complex -with signs and different forms- than the ones released in the game.







The most puzzling image of all: a set of both the lobby (or as the image calls it, the "Check In") of a Hotel as well as inside one of its rooms. Maybe the hotel in Celadon was going to have a bigger role. But what is more strange is that the player's character seems to be a girl.

On the female player's character, beside the image already posted with Red, Blue and a Girl Trainer, this other image has surfaced:



Sorry for the small size, but that seems to be the only image available.

It show the female character's sprites: the overworld one, the one from the back regularly shown at the beginning of the battles and the front one, only shown in the Trainer Card part of the menu or when link battling with another human player. Many think this is the original female player from the second generation, but as shown in the post of that generation's beta development, the images of the development of that game were released in colour -albeit Super Game Boy color procesing at first- and this one is in black and white. Also, the Trainer Card screen is the one from Red/Green/Blue/Yellow.

I hope someone finds this interesting. I sure do, and I'm still on the lookout for more images like this in 4chan's Pokémon Board.

-Commanderraf

Woah cool stuff! I remember playing Pokemon Red back in the day Good times.

Hex 01 in R/B/Y is Rhydon, not Rhyhorn.

Sorry about that. Always -since the times of Red/Blue- I mix them up since they both were catchable in the game and have fairly similar names.

Oh, and if anyone is interested in the beta names for the original 150 Pokémon, here's an official poster with those names.



-Commanderraf

Sigh. This is a beta element from Crystal. Generation II. Not I. II. The full image:


EDIT: In addition to this, the Trainer Card screen is infact that of GSC, and the Magikarp sprite is that of Gold/Crystal. Note that the entire image is grayscale, not just the screenshots.

Not to mention the blatant Pokemon Communication Center, a feature present only in Crystal.

This one would be one of those betas I'd love to get ahold of. This, and Ocarina of Time...

I once remember a website from around the time of G/S's release. It mentioned he preordered and received a glitched copy of Pocket Monsters gold, that is, it was a cart send in error that had the gender switch still in. Knowing how many rumors flew around Pokemon at that time, no idea of how much truth can be put into it, but still, the fact it might be true still teases me.

It's been so long, and so many computers since (a now dead ME machine, when I'm using my two year old Seven machine.)