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=lcayQInk ... re=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
