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Space World 1997 demo for Pokemon Gold leaked

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Thanks to the combined efforts of both the person who got a copy of the demo and the hackers, the Pokemon Gold beta cartridge's contents are leaked, and we could see some tidbits in more detail! For one, you can see what Pokemon were planned in the games, but ended up being scrapped.

If you want to see more information of the game, this is the link to the spreadsheet.

The beta Pokemon sprites are in full display below, and I imagine it's going to be the one that interests most Pokemon fans:
DegnoNAVwAEUda7.jpg:large

From the image, we can see that more evolutions of old Pokemon were planned, but for one reason or another, they ended up being unused. For example, Weepinbell would have had an alternative evolution like Gloom had, and we could even have a Tangela pre-evolution AND evolution way before Roselia became the first Pokemon receive both of them at once.

Of course, we also got a look at how the new Pokemon looked like before changes were made. Tyrogue and Hitmontop looked a little odd, and I daresay it originally looked more like Hitmonchan than Hitmonlee. The Jumpluff family are lacking in limbs save for a tail, and you can even see how different the fire starter ended up being.

The new Pokemon might even have evolutions or pre-evolutions, and some of them are weird. Qwilfish could have had an evolution, but I imagine the design went on to be the basis of Whiscash. Girafarig could've evolve from a strange beast, but I imagine that would have been even stranger than Octillery's pre-evolution.

This stuff makes me wish there are some pre-release information on newer Pokemon, for example what Gardevoir looked like since it was an Amorphous Pokemon yet is clearly different from the other Pokemon in that group, or perhaps Cryogonal since it has Attract but lacks a gender.

Thank you for reading.
 
Recently an old gold/silver demo was leaked from 1997, it included interesting things
Here's some images:
http://is2.*********/vp/1527767942605.png
http://is2.*********/vp/1527763925199.png
http://is2.*********/vp/1527765349608.png
http://is2.*********/vp/1527762064851.jpg
http://i.********/vp/1527765411168.png
http://is2.*********/vp/1527765503392.png
http://i.********/vp/1527768080431.png
http://i.********/vp/1527765573259.png
http://is2.*********/vp/1527766152842.png
http://i.********/vp/1527768504751.jpg
http://i.********/vp/1527767951069.pnghttp://i.********/vp/1527769194451.png

What do you think of all the pokemon that were cut from this? Was it a mistake? Was the final pokedex good enough?
 
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The final Pokedex was definitely better. I'd say that Girafarig and Aipom shouldn’t have been altered, while the voodoo doll and otter deserved to be kept. I also like proto Noctowl (it actually had a different name) about as much as the final design. But that's about it.

I see babies for Vulpix, Meowth, Tangela, Paras, Ponyta, Grimer(?), Doduo(?) and Growlithe(?), and evolutions for Tangela, Pinsir, Lickitung(?) and an alternate Weepinbell one.
 
So you mean to tell me Farfetch’d had an evolution we’ve begging for this whole time and Gamefreak scrapped it? We can’t win man.
That was Farfetch'd's evolution? I thought that was a prototype of Lugia!

Thank you for reading.
 
That bird you compared to Farfetch'd/Lugia is called Madame, so it's neither.

What's more surprising is that the robot lion is... Porygon2! Check the names here. The otter before Ho-Oh is called Sneasel, too.
 
http://is2.*********/vp/1527770949200.png
Here's beta Johto, also is this confirmed to be real?
 
Tcrf.net is a very reliable source for beta information. There is a ROM which contains the demo events.
 
Damn, we're just rolling in the beta stuff lately. I love it.

I like a lot of the Beta Babies. Pichu, Cleffa, Igglybuff, and Elekid are all quite cute, and I'd almost say that Smoochum is an improvement. I'm not at all keen on that Bart Simpson Magby, however I LOVE that Tangela pre-evolution! Beta Tyrogue’s not too bad, either.

Beta Politoed is really nice, and I am very surprised to see that the Slowbro/Slowking version of Shellder was at one point its own Pokémon (Turbann)!

Madame and Kurstraw are really cool, Tigerette and Electiger are great, Wolfman and Warwolf are amazing, and Belmitt is a fucking god.

I actually like Happi more than Blissey. Plux (the Pinsir evo) is really interesting, as is the Murkrow with the witch hat. I don't necessarily prefer it to regular Murkrow (already a favorite of mine), but it's cool to see how it might have gone in a more magical direction.
 
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I like Rayleep, and prefer Gelanla to Tangrowth, as well as Likk to Lickilicky. I wonder if we'll get typings and stats soon, so that fan games can use these scrapped concepts without making up too much stuff. Pokedex entries weren't in the demo, unfortunately.

Just for the record, Tajiri said that they had to pick 100 out of 200 designs before the demo. I wonder if Totodile and others like it were in the unused pile first and then triumphantly moved over after 1997.
 
Okay, can't find that growlithe pre-evo and this leak seems to have significant backing so- here's my thoughts:

First off, confused about what's going on with Beta Bayleef there.

I'm kinda disappointed by Honoguma's front sprite (and really disappointed by Kurusu's) but I am excited to learn that Honoguma has the English name that I thought it would. Honoguma and Kurusu's second stages both look great, too, and I would love to see official art of them some day- final stages, though, are a bit of a miss for me, so overall I'm glad we got the Johto starters that we did. Still, wouldn't be the worst thing to get them one day in some form.

Not a fan of most of the early Baby pokemon designs (Pichu looks so bad) but it would be a total loss to not get Tangel one day. This beta art also seems to explain where that stupid swirl on Igglybuff's head came from, as here it appears to have been a curl of hair before it got redesigned to be a random marking.

Also Animon, uh...

alphonse-alphonse-elric-anime-fma-fullmetal-alchemist-Favim.com-106429.jpg
 
As my favorite Water-types, the Popplio line being potentially based on the original Totodile line is definitely music to my ears.

I'd love to see this demo completed. The beta Gold and Silver looks like a different game altogether, but I suppose that's not uncommon.
 
As my favorite Water-types, the Popplio line being potentially based on the original Totodile line is definitely music to my ears.

I'd love to see this demo completed. The beta Gold and Silver looks like a different game altogether, but I suppose that's not uncommon.
I don't see how Kurusu could have influenced Popplio, honestly... Popplio's a sea lion and Kurusu is a plesiosaur. There's really... no similarity between them, so I'm confused as to why they would have had any influence.
 
I don't see how Kurusu could have influenced Popplio, honestly... Popplio's a sea lion and Kurusu is a plesiosaur. There's really... no similarity between them, so I'm confused as to why they would have had any influence.
I'm referring to how the third evolution's name has the word "aria" in it. The speculation comes from here: The Space World 1997 demo for Pokemon Gold has leaked online I'm pretty sure Kurusu is indeed at least partially a seal.
 
This is an amazing resource, an absolute gold mine. I love the beat of the Gameboy era, it's got this amazing mystery around it. Seeing all these deleted Pokemon is a dream come true, and very bittersweet since we didn't get really any of them. I'm gonna post my guesses for the scrapped designs later in this thread, cos I reckon a lot got re-used.
 
Hmm... but Aquaria likely comes from Aquarius, rather than aria, which is a music term.
Thinking rationally instead of just going with what ERAsaur thinks, I don't see much of a music theme to the Kurusu line. It's up in the air as to whether any of the latest Pokemon draw from this scrapped batch.
 
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