New Gen 1 Pokemon prototype materials have surfaced

[The Shadow Knight]

A large new information dump of gen 1 Pokemon prototype materials has been released by the people over at Helix Chamber.

The full article is available here.

Some eye catching elements include:

A summary of what the Missingno. in the final game used to be

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Prototype trainers

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Stitches of prototype maps

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These and more are discussed in great detail in the article, please check it out!

This twitter thread explains how this information has come to light




For people who are out of the loop on this story:
This article has more details on the way this information was initially revealed.

ERAsaur's statements on the matter:

There was a stream of a romhack with these assets inserted back into it beforehand. It was intentionally supposed to be presented as coy and was just a special surprise for a charity marathon. People either loved it or hated it or really hated it.

The assets were verified by HelixChamber when the person was able to identify something nobody else had ever seen back during the summer (Kotora's back sprite). We would not run this story if we weren't sure. As was mentioned on Twitter everyone has the right to be skeptical, and if you feel more comfortable waiting for this to be verified by some future Game Freak interview or shot of an old design document like Omega a few months ago, so be it. However, we are positive this is real.

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Yep, the stream's hack was meant as a way to show off the assets and how they could have fit into the game. It was being (jokingly, in an obvious way) pitched as Pokemon Green, the one we never got and people constantly seem to misunderstand. About halfway through we were going to have someone break the act and explain what was going on buuuuuuuuut you know, scheduling conflicts related to the run being delayed over an hour. We're all deeply sorry for how that turned out and we even dropped the article and posts a bit earlier than we were going to in response, but I know that's not enough.

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[Sasliquid]

Ah my nostalgia bones

 

[QisTopTier]

Holy shit red originally had a fucking whip LOL

 

[ERAsaur]

...except questions, of course. Might have to wait until tomorrow because wow what a night.

But yeah, we give you the gift of Gorochu.

 

[lvl 99 Pixel]

Not too surprised by the whip for some reason

 

[Qikz]

It's cool that gen 1 had some designs that actually came back later like the balloon one.

 

[SolVanderlyn]

Red Belmont up in here

 

[Little Old Man]

Can you imagine Ash using that whip on his Charizard? The series would have have ended with his death

 

[Deleted member 25140]

Kangaskhan is Cubone confirmed?

This is amazing, everyone's favourite ball tiger from the gen 2 prototype was originally planned for gen 1 all along? Crazy

 

[Farrac]

I live for this

 

[Aleh]

They tried the fat tiger design for both gen 1 and gen 2 and still scrapped it twice? :(

 

[Patitoloco]

Holy shit red originally had a fucking whip LOL

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Oh boy, they went places lol

 

[Tregard]

Big fan of Baloonda

 

[wiill64]

This stuff is so interesting to see. I love seeing all of these early Pokémon designs.

 

[Benzychenz]

So Cubone 3 is basically Kangaskhan.

 

[Kouriozan]

Is Cubone 3 holding its child, man that would have been really dark.
Funnily enouhg, there the elephant mentionned in Ghastly pokédex description.

 

[The Shadow Knight]

They tried the fat tiger design for both gen 1 and gen 2 and still scrapped it twice? :(

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We've known for a while now after some sprites were deciphered from old documents. It being originally a 3 stage line is new info though!

It getting cut from two generations is one of Pokemon's biggest cases of wasted potential. In my very personal opinion of course.

 

[Uncle at Nintendo]

Damn that baller ass mouse/tiger thing was a gen 1 protomon as well as a gen 2 protomon. It has such a cool design, sucks it never became a real pokemon.

 

[Punished Dan]

Love the early Pokemon art in general.
Old concepts, seeing Gen II for the first time (Pikablu etc)
Old TCG stuff though is just the best. THE BEST

 

[Pokémon]

They tried the fat tiger design for both gen 1 and gen 2 and still scrapped it twice? :(

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Same with some of the babies (Vulpix, Goldeen and Ponyta). RIP

 

[Trisc]

Would Red's theme be Vampire Killer, Beginning, or Divine Bloodlines?

 

[Theorymon]

Holy shit here's Gorochu, the scrapped Raichu evolution! Well, at least its backsprite

Also, the idea of Silph Co changing from the Pokemon League, to a postgame dungeon with every gym leader and Mewtwo at the end, to what it is now is pretty interesting!

 

[Linde]

Is there any evidence that this is in fact real?

 

[Baircade]

Ice Yokai would've been another Jynx moment....

Gawd I love stuff like this!!

 

[Plywood]

This is really cool, thanks for posting.

Holy shit red originally had a fucking whip LOL

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Lmao, that's one way to keep them under control.

 

[Pokémon]

Sucks that there are no frontsprites in the rom. :(

I hope we will get the rom at some point so we can play around too.

 

[lvl 99 Pixel]

Lmao, that's one way to keep them under control.

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They repurposed the that here. Don't worry, Pokemon still being whipped as part of training.
The added Lollypop makes it worse.

 

[Bardoon]

That betta fish can join the other scrapped concepts I hope are used someday.

 

[--R]

God help us all.

 

[Plywood]

They repurposed the that here. Don't worry, Pokemon still being whipped as part of training.
The added Lollypop makes it worse.

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jfc, Nintendo noooooooo

lol

 

[Shepherd]

Damn, imagine how much of the "gen 1 designs are so much better" talk we would have prevented had baloona been released as a gen1 Pokemon...

 

[Deleted member 82]

That elephant looks dope. About to slap your shit with its trunk.

 

[Aleh]

Damn, imagine how much of the "gen 1 designs are so much better" talk we would have prevented had baloona been released as a gen1 Pokemon...

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If the gen 1 crap we already got didn't prevent that, nothing would have.

 

[Hours Left]

You mean we almost got that cute, fat, round lightning tiger line TWICE? But were denied??

😭

 

[Deleted member 2474]

So, uh, what is the source for any of this and why should I believe any of it?

 

[JahIthBer]

I question the legitimacy of this a little bit, anyone can make a bunch of assets like this for their rom hack or whatever, also the fact we get this just after Silver/Gold beta is questionable too maybe.
We need to see the rom but the collector has ran off.

 

[Axe]

A male version of Jynx?

Hoo boy.

 

[TheRaidenPT]

Holy shit red originally had a fucking whip LOL

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That looks insane

 

[It’s Time To Go]

That Red design looks similar to LT surge or the rocket grunts.

 

[Biggad]

Where do they get that from??? How is that surfacing now over 20 years later, what's the story there

 

[Red Devil]

This Red is straight up poacher.

 

[Pokémon]

So, uh, what is the source for any of this and why should I believe any of it?

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This twitter thread might explain a thing or two.



https://twitter.com/helixchamber/status/1097431442265653248

 

[lvl 99 Pixel]

jfc, Nintendo noooooooo

lol

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They also had a dude whipping them in the early anime, but the difference was he was kind of a jerk character and not your friendly neighborhood move tutor.

 

[ChaserX]

There's a timeline where Baloonda exists instead of Drifloon. I imagine that timeline would still complain about Trubbish or Klefki.

 

[Desmond]

Love this sort of stuff.

So cool.

 

[Protodude]

Wait I'm confused. The comments at the article suggest this is a fanmade ROM hack?

 

[Deleted member 2474]

This twitter thread might explain a thing or two.



https://twitter.com/helixchamber/status/1097431442265653248

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So... some shady collector has gen 1 protos, leaked a few assets to this group of Pokemon fan historians, then disappeared into the night, and the fans decided the best way to reveal all this is by sticking the assets into a ROM hack and streaming it without explanation?

What a clusterfuck.

 

[The Shadow Knight]

This twitter thread might explain a thing or two.



https://twitter.com/helixchamber/status/1097431442265653248

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I plopped this into the OT for clarity, thanks!

 

[Inspirit]

Wait I'm confused. The comments at the article suggest this is a fanmade ROM hack?

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Same I'm kinda confused now...

 

[Axe]

Link to the assets if anyone wants to look at them more in-depth.

I'm a bit suspicious of this whole thing though because of this:


It's all a bit weird really.