The Best Pokemon Facts on YouTube #2

[Music] did you know pokemon diamond and pearl were planned to be the ultimate pokemon games to unite game freak behind this concept director junichi masuda made a summary outlining the philosophy and attitude he wanted for the new games in an excerpt published on his blog masuda describes the game's world as the world of tomorrow the world of the distant future an ideal world also an ultimate world masuda summarized his hopes for the game with two symbols a diamond as a symbol of love and a pearl as a symbol of happiness masuda wanted people from all over the world to come together and made this a reality with the global trade station for the first time in the series history players were able to trade pokemon online pokemon diamond and pearl had many firsts for the series such as 3d technology deciding how to implement 3d visuals took game freak a long time as they wanted to ensure this new approach worked with pokemon's art style while the team tried to create the best looking visuals they could using the hardware they were also concerned about accessibility they wanted players to understand the game easily like in previous pokemon games the overworld was based on tiles so that players can easily navigate the world diamond and pearl were also the first games in the main pokemon series to use touch screen inputs the lower screen's interface was carefully considered and designed to be used without a stylus the first time masuda saw shigeru miyamoto using a stylus on a prototype ds he was struck by how unnecessary it seemed he reasoned that people should only need a stylus in two scenarios when the screen is too small or when the user needs to manipulate small objects he felt that touching the screen directly was a lot more intuitive and that it didn't make sense to call it a touch screen otherwise when he suggested the game be played using the player's finger masudo was met with resistance game freak staff feared the screen would become smudged and dirty masuda argued that children were unlikely to care how dirty their console was and that the obsession with cleanliness was a japanese mindset he even took pictures of people playing the ds using their fingers little by little game freak came around to his way of thinking graphically takao uno was unsure about using his thumb to touch the ds's screen at first but over time changes to the ui reduced those fears the options on the lower screen were all color coded and made extremely large so the player could make selections without taking their eyes off the top screen the big bold buttons also made it easier for young children to play the games as they may not have learned to read yet the fight command was made especially large with the pokemon's four moves hidden behind it the commands were laid out this way so that players would need to move their finger as little as possible when choosing their attack another priority for designers was to help attract new people to pokemon nintendo's strategy with the ds was to broaden the console's appeal to include casual gamers president and ceo of the pokemon company sunikazu ishihara welcomed the approach he felt that it was a perfect fit for pokemon a series designed with younger children in mind the ui on the lower screen was designed to draw attention and pique the curiosity of people nearby masu to imagine the ease of use could draw people closer together a grandfather may lean over his grandchild's shoulder to touch the screen and while the child may be annoyed at first it may create conversation between the two the sinnoh region where diamond and pearl takes place is based on hokkaido the northernmost island of japan snowy areas were added to make the setting feel more northern than previous generations the day and night cycle returned from pokemon gold silver and crystal to take advantage of hardware improvements on the ds the ds has an internal clock and was able to display hundreds of times more colors than the game boy advance making a night and day cycle a natural fit one mechanic which game freak reconsidered was the physical and special stat split in the first three generations of pokemon all attacks of a certain type were either physical or special for example all fighting type moves were physical while all water type moves were special this meant that pokemon like gyarados a water type with a high physical attack was unable to reach its full potential diamond and pearl instead split moves into physical or special categories based on their context game freak's efforts paid off as the release of diamond and pearl saw a surge in popularity of competitive pokemon in 2009 the pokemon company even began hosting the video game championships a competition that saw champions from a number of local regional events come together to battle while the games were announced for a 2005 release diamond and pearl were pushed back to a december 2006 launch in japan despite this the game's shipped with a number of bugs most notably a glitch where the player could surf on certain tiles and clip through the wall and out of bounds crafty players discovered that by moving a certain number of steps while out of bounds and then saving and reloading the game they could spawn on the overworld in places they weren't supposed to this allowed them to catch certain mythical pokemon like darkrai and shaman who were supposed to be locked behind a special nintendo event these bugs were removed in the international versions of the games while all of these areas would be made accessible through nintendo events the hall of origin where the player could catch arceus was not the azure flute which was needed to access the area was never distributed in an interview with nintendo world report masuda revealed that after the game was complete he decided the azure flute was too confusing for people and kind of hard to understand and so he chose not to distribute it whether he was referring to the flute's mechanics or its in-game context is unclear pokemon diamond pearl and platinum also received some censorship across the world the game corner was made inaccessible in european and korean versions of pokemon platinum to comply with the new pegi regulations regarding gambling and one story in the game titled sinnoh folk story 3 was altered in all regions in english the book found in cantalave library alludes to the idea that people used to marry pokemon because the two were so similar in the western version this was altered slightly instead of marrying people in pokemon were instead very close and ate together at the same table pokemon diamond and pearl's localization also contained scattered references toward internet humor and leet speak with many characters using words like owned and noob translator no bogus awara was a member of the something awful forums and referenced online culture in the games one of nobe's inclusions can be seen with a painter on route 208 who names their painting my pokemon is fight this is a reference to my tank is fight a humorous book on second world war inventions written by something awful user zack parsons diamond and pearl were already designed to be the ultimate pokemon games but game freak knew that platinum had to be stronger it was decided that giratina should embody anti-matter as it was a counterpart to the time and space embodied by dialga and palkia masuda explained to game designer takeshi kawachimaru that there was an anti-matter world a paradox of time and space that exists in relation to dialga and palkia he tried to convey his idea by explaining complicated physics concepts and using the image of an upside down mount fuji reflected off a lake surface while kawachimaru didn't understand the concept at first he felt that he was eventually able to capture the idea's essence in the distortion world cino's new pokemon were designed to surprise players art director ken sugimori was conscious that not every new pokemon idea was necessarily good he wanted players to believe that all new creatures were different to the older ones but that they were all still pokemon they were designed to look a little awkward to players at first uno drew from his personal experiences using his everyday life as inspiration he started his design process by looking at the sinnoh region and deciding what kind of pokemon would live there the strongest pokemon were designed first and many pokemon ideas were suggested by the team to create and maintain a strategic balance evolutions were given to pokemon that looked like they ought to evolve and also to pokemon that would make the game more fun if they evolved for example haunch crow is an extension of murkrow haunch crow's broom-like tail and beard-like feathers also invokes witch and wizard imagery as well as crows and ravens however some of its appearance and name is reminiscent of a crime boss in particular hauntch crow's english name uses the word hancho which is derived from the japanese term for squad leader or boss in japan this reference is flipped with the pokemon's name being donkarasu this is a combination of don the leader of a mafia syndicate and karasu the japanese word for crow completely new pokemon such as luxray may take inspiration from the tiger as well as the lynx or lion it may even be based on the constellations of lynx or leo due to shinks and luxio having star shapes on their tails luxray could draw more inspiration from the lynx however in some european folklore the lynx could allegedly see through opaque objects luxray also has this ability which can be compared to x-ray vision linking in with lux ray's etymology luxray's japanese name rentorar is likely a combination of rontogen a unit of exposure to ionizing radiation named after its discoverer as well as torah the japanese word for tiger as well as a roar sound burme wormadam and mautham are all based on the bagworm family of moths burme is based on the moths earlier pupa stage of development whereas wormadam and mautham are based on developed female and male bagworms respectively their unique setup of males and females evolving into different pokemon was based on the fact that only male bagworms fully mature the female bagworms are often underdeveloped in their final stages which often have vestigial wings legs and mouths did you know fans predicted the announcement of pokemon heart gold and soul silver a week before their official reveal the japanese tv show pokemon sunday teased a big announcement for the following week behind the presenters were two confetti filled balls one gold and one silver something viewers quickly picked up on the precedent set by fire red and leaf green led many to correctly guess that gold and silver would be the next games to be remade perhaps because of this nintendo decided to reveal heartgold and soul silver three days early the development of heart gold and soul silver was influenced by many of the series past successes the original titles were made to be the ultimate pokemon games as nobody on the team thought the series would continue after gold and silver they thought the series would decline in popularity based on previous trends however the success of gold and silver demonstrated the series staying power and so producer sunikazu ishihara founded the pokemon company to manage the series brand and marketing despite their eventual success the games weren't created without issue developing these special pokemon blue and yellow games led to setbacks and production of the original gold and silver to help fill the gap made by these delays ishihara approved the release of the pocket pikachu a pedometer with a screen where pikachu would appear happier the farther the player walked an enhanced version known as pocket pikachu color gold and silver was also released after gold and silver creatures inc were later involved in making the pedometer bundled with the 2008 nintendo ds game personal trainer walking ishihara again was involved in the project and even used the pedometer in his personal life by attaching it to his dog's collar during walks one day during a walk the device fell off and ishihara assumed it was lost until he found it a month later in a muddy puddle he was impressed that the device was still fully functional and wanted to use it with heart gold and soul silver ishahara's idea would become the poker walker a pedometer bundled with the games that allowed players to walk their pokemon internally it was considered something of a successor to the pocket pikachu as the pocket pikachu color launched after gold and silver the team wanted to release a similar device alongside the remakes to show how both the tech and pokemon had expanded the team were encouraged to bundle the pokewalker with heartgold and soulsilver after the success of the wireless adapter that was bundled with fire red and leaf green interestingly development of the wireless adapter for pokemon fire red and leaf green gave the hardware team valuable experience with wireless technology which they would later use while designing the nintendo ds the proposal document for the poker walker was about three times thicker than the document for the pocket pikachu though the poker walker dropped many features from the original some additions exceeded expectations originally the plan was to have a handful of pokemon that could be sent to the pokewalker but this was expanded to include every pokemon the pokewalker was also influenced by the pokemon anime the concept of pokeballs shrinking in size was pioneered by the anime and the look of the pokewalker was deliberately meant to match the size of the shrunken pokeballs the size was also altered to improve its ability to withstand water inspired by ishihara's dog walking story the pokewalker ended up being more impressive than the pedometer it was based on in a study conducted by iowa state university several different pedometers were tested for accuracy when used by someone walking on a treadmill in comparison to top brands like digi walker and sensewear the poker walker was actually found to have a significantly lower margin of error making it one of the most accurate pedometers on the market at the time the researchers who conducted the study also praised the poker walker for helping to make exercise more appealing to children by incorporating video game functionality another interesting detail is that the music used in the pokewalker menus is actually a new rendition of the music heard when using the gameboy printer with pokemon yellow gold silver or crystal the gb sounds feature let players listen to the original game boy music as they played however several of these tracks had to be painstakingly recreated as they didn't exist in the midi format and tracks such as unknown radio posed even more problems as they were programmed to work directly with the gameboy's chiptune audio hardware additionally some new tracks had to be composed for some areas cerulean city didn't have its own unique music in generation 2 and other areas like route 47 and the global terminal didn't exist in the original games composer go ichinose had difficulty making new battle themes for ho-oh and lugia which both used the standard wild battle theme in gold and silver he asked the original game's composer junichi masuda to give him an idea of what lugia's theme should be masuda played him just three or four notes but these were enough to convey the feeling of the theme and ichinose finished the song with ease ho proved to be more difficult as he envisioned it being a peaceful creature the difficulty came when trying to convey the serenity in a climactic battle theme ichinose submitted many proposals but each one was rejected as it didn't reflect the power and glory of ho-oh the deadline was met although ichinose had to tone down the track's peacefulness heartgold and soulsilver were also influenced by the release of the nintendo dsi which launched a few months before the games many more pokemon were added to the games to accommodate players that were unable to trade from the game boy advance games due to the dsi's lack of a gameboy advanced cartridge slot the games also have several regional differences the sages featured in the games had their designs changed but only for the korean versions the sprites had their prayer beads removed and a red robe added on one of their shoulders and they were renamed to ascetics these changes were most likely done for religious reasons there's also a glitch that's exclusive to the japanese versions in the slow poke well there's a place where the player needs to use strength in order to push a boulder out of the way in the japanese version the player is actually able to push this boulder into the water even when surfing the player can continue to freely push this boulder around in the water although it ultimately doesn't do anything in the japanese games the game corner used the slot machine mini-game that had been a staple of the series since red and blue however the international versions of heart gold and soul silver used another mini-game known as voltorb flip this was due to a change in european legislation that automatically earned any game with gambling a 12 plus rating the data for the game corner area can still be found in the international version alongside an unused map icon for the poker gear this icon resembles crystal the female playable character from pokemon crystal perhaps suggesting her design was planned to appear in the remakes instead of lyra the game has other potentially cut content the internal list of attacks that pokemon can learn officially includes 467 moves if the player hacks the game to give a pokemon a move numbered 468 469 or 470 the moves will actually work as special attacks with a base power and accuracy of 110 pp using moves numbered above 470 will simply cause the game to crash which could indicate at least three more moves were planned at some point in development many files relating to the underground from diamond pearl and platinum can be found in the data for heart gold and soul silver suggesting this feature was meant to make a comeback at one point there are two notable unused items also hidden in the game's files the first is a photo album that would have held any photos the player took during the game in the final release photos are simply stored in the player's pc making the album redundant the second unused item is known as the lock capsule which according to its in-game description can only be opened with a special key when hacked into the game the item does nothing its original purpose was to be transferred to pokemon black and white where the player could take it to mr lock in castilla city in order to receive a tm for the move snarl if the player obtains the legendary pokemon arceus through a special giveaway in heart gold and soul silver they can access the signo ruins area where they receive their choice of a level 1 palkia dialga or giratina it's actually possible to visit the signo ruins a second time but only if the player has a second arceus obtained from an in-game event in pokemon diamond and pearl that went unused meaning that this second trip is normally impossible should the player hack the game to make the event happen the hiker who greets them will have new dialogue welcoming them back and the player will be able to obtain one of the two pokemon that they didn't choose the first time round heartgold and soulsilver were also programmed with built-in anti-piracy protection if the game detects that it's being played on an emulator it will simply freeze at the start of a pokemon battle and leave the players pokable spinning in this episode we'll be talking about an add-on to the pokemon series called the pokemon mini not to be confused with the pocket pikachu you may be wondering just what this thing is and we wouldn't blame you for that so allow us to give you a little rundown the pokemon mini was a console designed and manufactured by nintendo specifically made for pokemon centric minigames the system was unveiled in september 2001 at a nintendo event called the nintendo show held at westminster hall in merry old london england it was advertised as a major pokemon announcement the mini was released in north america in november of 2001 with a japanese launch nearly a month later and later still in europe being released in march of the following year it's possible that australia may have been the first market the mini was available in with classification for the system's launch title cited as october 3rd 2001 though the release in the region isn't well documented the pokemon mini aptly holds the title for the smallest cartridge-based nintendo system ever made with it weighing in at a grand total of 70 grams battery and game cartridge included the cartridges themselves are roughly the size of a postage stamp even with its small stature the console boasted some impressive features especially for the time it included an internal real-time clock and timer being able to keep track of time even when the system was off it also had an infrared sensor for multiplayer games with one game in particular able to support up to 10 players at a time it also came with a built-in rumble feature as well as a shock detector which lets you control pokemon on screen by rattling your hand like a quote pokefan possessed the console's battery life also clocked in at a whopping 60 hour lifespan with the use of a single aaa battery the mini came with one game and was available in three different colors whooper blue chicory to green and smooch and purple a few of the most popular pokemon according to nintendo uk the console wasn't as big a success considering it carried the pokemon name marketing was practically non-existent for the system and it came out the same year as the game boy advance despite some of its technical prowess it couldn't compete with the gba's capabilities and was seen as more of a toy than a gaming system the pokemon mini could be found stocked in stores for roughly a year factoring in all markets only 10 games were developed for the console and of that total only japan received the entire library four games made their way to north america and five were released in europe north america saw the likes of pokemon pinball mini a pinball style game where pokemon like diglett took the place of a pinball plunger the self-explanatory pokemon puzzle collection and pokemon zany cards a collection of card games featuring characters from the pokemon anime pokemon party mini came bundled with the system and served as a showcase of what the console could do utilizing all of its features across six mini-games games that were japan exclusive included a platform racer hybrid called pokemon race mini an adventure game called togepi's great adventure a sequel to pokemon puzzle mini featuring 80 new puzzles and a follow-up two-party mini featuring the pichu brothers characters that made their debut in the anime short pikachu and pichu shown alongside the third pokemon movie the last game released for the system was pokemon breeder mini in december 2002 a virtual pet style game similar to a tamagotchi the mini was released during the second generation of the pokemon series with gold and silver having released the year before in north america with breeder mini in particular the system briefly overlapped into the third generation as it features the starter pokemon from ruby and sapphire which released in japan a month prior there's evidence showing a couple mini titles were considered for a wider release but it's likely these plans were hampered due to the system's low sales puzzle collection volume 2 had been classified by the esrb under e for everyone and would have gone under the similar title pokemon mini puzzle collection volume 2 but it ultimately stayed in japan similarly pokemon tetris the game which received localization outside of japan but did not see release in the united states also received an esrb classification and would have been titled pokemon mini shock tetris while every other game for the mini was developed by japanese studios jupiter or denisha pokemon tetris is the one game in the mini's library to be developed by nintendo themselves as an aside it's also the last game where jinx is depicted with its original skin coloring this version of tetris is regarded as one of the best games released for the mini and has a high asking price on the second hand market the european release is especially elusive with only a few thousand copies ever being printed the pokemon mini concept would be tackled one more time the following year showing up on the nintendo gamecube release of the game pokemon channel where it likely received the most exposure the game has a built-in emulator for the mini and games are obtained through the shop and squirtle channel where the player can buy various items the games available for play are altered or stripped down from their original versions half of the games came from pokemon party mini and it's likely the remaining three from the collection weren't ported over due to the unique nature of how they controlled and played on the original hardware pokemon channel also featured an all-new game exclusive to the title called snorlax's lunchtime where the player helps a snorlax decide what's edible and what isn't if snorlax tries to chow down on a pichu the game ends while the mini didn't leave much of an impression it did find another lease of life in a different realm of the gaming scene with the advent of the console receiving an emulator on the gamecube it allowed people to understand the hardware better eventually leading to a homebrew scene among hackers a group of coders under the name team pokeme went under the hood and developed a flashcart demo called shizzle in 2004. this demo was first shown off at german demo scene breakpoint in 2005 and excited to the community showcasing 3d effects and many other features previously thought impossible on the mini they've since made the tools available for others to create their own games and a number of titles are available for the system with a few more in development at the time of this video all games are featured on team pokemon's website pokemonmini.net the community has also taken the time to preserve the original hardware with scans of some of the original game's instruction manuals as well as enhance the console itself with customizable colors and even a mod to introduce a built-in backlight over the years the team has also taken the five pokemon games released only in japan and given them full english translations with the final game being translated in may 2019 all games are available via flashcart or emulation including the gamecube exclusive snorlax's lunchtime the team also covered news of a pokemon mini prototype that was up for sale on ebay in 2016. the seller had said the system wasn't working anymore and it came with a cartridge reading sample 01011 it's not known what this cartridge might have held be it an early prototype of a final game an unreleased game or possibly something else entirely as the person who bought the system has remained anonymous ever since did you know while the name pikachu may seem like it's inspired by the pica a mountainous road the name actually comes from two japanese onomatopoeias according to series creator satoshi tajiri the name is a blend of pikapika the sound for electricity sparking and choo choo the sound for mouse squeaking similarly pikachu's evolution raichu comes from rai japanese word for thunder and chew as the series mascot pikachu has received a lot of public attention the character has appeared on airplanes as a balloon in the macy's thanksgiving day parade and even as an official representative for japan's soccer team during the 2014 world cup but unthinkable as it may seem today pikachu was not always planned to be pokemon's biggest icon in an interview with time tokyo tajiri revealed that pikachu only became the face of pokemon during the pre-production on the animated series tajiri said when they did the anime they wanted a specific character to focus on pikachu was relatively popular compared with the others and potentially both boys and girls would like it they heard a lot of opinions about this it wasn't my idea pokemon's first manga adaptation named simply pokemon pocket monsters didn't initially star pikachu predating the anime by about five months the book instead featured clefairy as the protagonist red's partner according to joseph tobin in the book pikachu's global adventure the rise and fall of pokemon clefairy was chosen to make the book more engaging because of this it's possible that clefairy could have been the face of the series if it weren't for pikachu's popularity and focus tests and since the character is yellow a primary color it was theorized that pikachu may be more recognizable to younger audiences there was also less competition among yellow characters at the time with the only standout example being winnie the pooh another surprising fact is that series artist kim sugimori didn't design pikachu he simply did the final illustration for the character instead pikachu was designed by atsuko nishida who allegedly helped design around 30 of the original 151 pokemon like most pokemon in the anime pikachu communicates by saying some or all of its name however unique to ashes pikachu are recognizable phrases that have specific meanings pikapi for example means satoshi which is ash's japanese name pikachu's speech was also once planned to be even more diverse originally pokemon were supposed to gradually learn japanese over an extended period of time with pikachu planned to speak similarly to a baby these ideas were of course scrapped pikachu's voice actress akui otani was initially disappointed by her lack of a full speaking role this disappointment left her when she realized her performance was being heard by audiences worldwide due to a misunderstanding atani thought she was auditioning for the part of pikachu's rival meowth she appeared the audition with the wrong script and nearly missed her call to audition for the character atani's voice was also featured as an easter egg in pokemon stadium 1 and 2 and is used instead of a traditional cry if the player imports their pikachu from pokemon yellow pikachu did eventually learn the language of humans speaking in a comically deep timber voice in the adventure game detective pikachu birth of a new team the fan made english trailer by the youtube user teal hollow one imagined how a western version might sound dubbing pikachu with lines by american actor danny devito the trailer helped spark a push to have devito voice the character but the actor publicly declined stating he'd never even heard of pokemon [Music] pikachu's impact can be seen extensively in the real world each year the island nation of new way releases commemorative coins depicting characters from various franchises these coins were made to heighten global awareness of new way in its economy and have featured franchises such as star wars doctor who and various disney properties in 2001 the country released commemorative pokemon coins displaying bulbasaur charmander squirtle and of course pikachu the coins have since become collectors items fetching a high price online another example of pikachu's fame took place in the lower district garden of new orleans where a 5 foot tall pikachu sculpture appeared overnight the statue appeared on july 31 2016 during the height of pokemon go's popularity it remains unclear who was responsible for the stunt or how they erected the statue without anybody noticing the statue was removed soon after and the anonymous artist auctioned it off the sculpture was sold for two thousand dollars and the proceeds were used to restore the park's fountains pikachu even influenced the naming of a retinal protein the protein pikachurin was discovered by researchers at the osaka bioscience institute in 2008. pikachurin is essential for transmitting visual electric information to the brain and is important for tracking moving objects without this protein information would take many times longer to reach the brain the protein was named after pikachu due to the character's association with electricity and speed and its discovery will potentially lead to better treatment for vision disorders pikachu's fame soon led to the pokemon getting its own game hey you pikachu this was one of only two games to use the nintendo 64's voice recognition unit and the only one released in the west however the title was never released in europe a number of alterations were made to the game's american version most of which relate to cultural differences in the japanese version of the game shoes can be seen outside a glass door of the player's room it's customary in japan for people to take their shoes off before stepping indoors the shoes were removed in the american version as this custom is less common the game also references the nintendo 64 which can be found in the player's home and while the n64 looks accurate in the american version the model in its japanese version is fairly inaccurate the console has two grey lines running down it and its cartridges resemble that of an american super nintendo when the nintendo ds was unveiled at e3 2004 a line of tech demos were shown to illustrate the system's features one of these games simply titled pikachu ds was compared to heiyu pikachu by those who played it similar to the n64 game the player interacted with pikachu in various ways this time using the ds's touchscreen in the us tv spot of heiyu pikachu a girl asks her brother how he knows pikachu is a boy although this wasn't a feature at the time it is now possible to tell what sex a pikachu is at a glance one of pikachu's signature moves volt tackle is named voltecker in japanese the name references a move used by pulseman the hero of game freak's previous project before pokemon pulseman's voltaker is named after the signature move of the tatsunoko character techaman volteka did you know hitmonchan is named after jackie chan in the english versions of pokemon but that isn't the case all around the world in japan hitmonchan is named after japanese boxing champion hiroyuki ebihara and in france he's named after mike tyson in total there were six different language versions of pokemon's first generation japanese english french german spanish and italian and they're all different in their own unique ways some deviations were pretty minor like how the tv in palette town is playing the movie stand by me in all six versions except for in france the game's french translator was a huge anime fan so he changed the tv's description to an episode of dragon ball but other changes were more significant like the one that gave birth to bim a poke god exclusive to the german fandom for today's episode we managed to hunt down some of the translators who worked on pokemon red and blue and they spilled the beans on how it all went down back in the 90s so i hope you'll forgive any mispronunciations on my part as we explore how the first generation of pokemon games were changed all around the world pokemon first launched in japan in early 1996 as pokemon red and green these versions feature the original 151 pokemon sprites none of which were ever used internationally about nine months later red and green were followed up with pokemon blue a new and improved version with updated graphics and fewer glitches in pokemon blue all 151 pokemon were given brand new sprites and trees grass signposts stumps and lots more visual details were upgraded as well and there were other small changes like new pokedex entries and a new layout for the unknown dungeon all the international versions were mostly based on japanese blue so the unique details only present in red and green like the original sprites weird glitches and old graphics were never seen outside of japan much to everyone's surprise pokemon became a massive success in japan even game freak was shocked when it climbed to number one on japanese sales charts the games got so unbelievably popular that nintendo decided to export the franchise overseas starting with the largest economy in the world the united states instead of red and green the games would be called red and blue this was a marketing decision as those are the colors of the american flag and could perhaps boost sales in the region but there was more to consider beyond just the game's titles localizing pokemon for the american market was a huge investment and nintendo viewed it as a gamble that was probably going to end up losing them a lot of money in 1999 pokemon company ceo ishihara shed some light on the situation at the time it was widely believed that american kids would never want to play games with a lot of texts so we thought pokemon only had about a 10 chance of success outside japan the first time we showed off some pokemon in the us we were told they were too cute the staff in america submitted their ideas for replacement designs but we just couldn't believe the kind of stuff they were proposing they turned pikachu into something like a tiger with huge breasts it looked like a character from the musical cats when i asked how is this supposed to be pikachu they said well look there's its tail right there seriously that was the kind of stuff being proposed but fortunately gamefreak put their foot down and refused to change the pokemon's designs if they hadn't the results could have been disastrous the pokemon designs were left intact but nintendo did end up changing most of the pokemon's names all the big words the ones in all caps like character and pokemon names cities items and attacks were created by nintendo of america staffer hiro nakamura with some help from nintendo treehouse and an assistant but all the small words comprising about 99 of the game's texts were all translated by just one man a canadian freelancer named nob ogasawara we got a chance to interview nob for this video and he explained to us how exactly it all went down he was working for some gaming magazines as a foreign correspondent in japan until one day he was lucky enough to get poached by nintendo of america to come work freelance as a video game translator a year later nob's bosses invited him into their office to quiz him on his pokemon knowledge fortunately he was already a big fan of the japanese games so he aced their test and they brought him on board but before we get any deeper into this story i'd like to point out that translating as an art form not a science a translator's skill personality and even their hobbies can all affect the way translation comes out in the end in a lot of ways red and blue weren't only shaped by game freak they were also shaped by translators like knob for example in the japanese games when you reach viridian city your progress is blocked by an old man lying on the ground his granddaughter says you have to wait for him to sober up then after you've delivered oak's parcel he's back on his feet and says looks like i was pretty drunk my head hurts knob cut out all the booze talk in the english version instead having the girl say he just hadn't had his morning coffee yet likewise in japanese there's a hiker who laughs maniacally because he's stoned on magic mushrooms but knob changed this text so the hiker just had a bad case of hay fever and in celadon city there's a house with a buddhist shrine inside which nob changed the description of to make it a diglett sculpture to be clear none of these changes were ordered by nintendo knob changed them all on his own and he even made some minor changes to series canon in japan there's a scientist in the silfco building who says there's another silphco branch along the pacomanaya tangaska river in russia but in english the scientist says the other silth branch is actually antixi in russian no man's land which is located about a thousand miles distance from the river why did nob change the canonical location of southco's russian branch he says it's because pakamanaya tangaska river was just too long and taxi is much shorter at just five letters but in hindsight he now says he actually regrets making this revision some of nob's favorite music movies and tv shows made their way into red and blue as well a rocket grunt who wants you to join his gang on nugget bridge says he's gonna make you an offer you can't refuse an iconic line from the godfather and a hiker in the rock tunnel says hit me with your best shot then after you defeat him he says fire it away two lines from the chorus of pat benatar's hit song hit me with your best shot initiating a battle a pokemaniac shouts pokemon fight ready go referencing the 90s anime mobile fighter g gundam where mobile suit battles always begin with the fighters yelling gundam fight ready go but for all the changes knob did make there were also some changes he wanted to make but nintendo didn't allow for one knob wanted to change mr mime's name because he anticipated that pokemon genders would be introduced in future generations which of course is exactly what happened in gen 2 awkwardly resulting in lots of female mr mime in viridian city there's a girl who's nicknamed her spiro in japanese is called oni-chan to better fit with american culture nob changed spiro's nickname to britney named after britney spears so it was something like britney spearow however the higher ups didn't like this joke one bit and changed spero's nickname to spiri and told knob that any more of these sorts of shenanigans would end in instant termination there's a lot of knob in gen 1 but as a freelancer it wasn't until gen 3 that he finally got enough clout to start making the big decisions knobs english translation was later used as a base and localized for the german french spanish and italian markets each language was handled by one or two translators apiece all working side by side at nintendo of europe hq in germany of the seven translators the most famous and historically significant is julian bartikov of france according to julian nintendo originally wanted to use the japanese pokemon names in europe because they thought it would be too complicated to trademark hundreds of names across different countries but julian explained to nintendo that the japanese names weren't going to play too well in france he told them squirtle's japanese name zenigami sounds like the french word for stoner and charmander's japanese name sounds like the french slang word for feces nintendo didn't seem to fully trust julian but ultimately they gave in and they let him give all the pokemon new french names and thanks to julian france may have ended up with the best name localizations of any region better even than the english games we interviewed julian and he told us that he implemented as many legends and fairy tales into pokemon names as possible for example he named the legendary bird trio after the nordic gods odin and thor as well as ra the egyptian sun god the french name for beedrill drew inspiration from the three musketeers dartanian and he named gyarados after leviathan the bible's gigantic sea serpent he named farfetch'd can articho which means duck artichoke this confused a lot of fans because farfetch'd actually holds a leak not an artichoke but julian says this was actually his idea of a prank a way to trick fans into thinking that farfetch'd had an evolved form that wields an artichoke knob almost got fired for nicknaming a spiro after britney spears but julian had a lot more freedom to make his mark on kanto in english versions there's a far-fetched nickname ducks but julian changed his nickname to julio named after himself of course and he nicknamed a few more pokemon after some of his best friends and just like knob julian injected many of his own interests into the games as well one of koga's lackeys in the fuchsia city gym references a japanese show that was popular in france at the time space sheriff gavin he says i want to be a ninja and jump from tree to tree like on tv like exhaust the space pig and in french the attack minimize was renamed lilliput because in the 18th century book golfer's travels golfer was taken prisoner by a town of tiny people on an island called lilliput there are many more details that make the french localization truly unique probably too many to count but suffice it to say julian had a huge impact on the pokemon franchise in france thanks to julian germany ended up getting unique pokemon names as well like how geodude was renamed kleinstein after the famous german physicist albert einstein but the name kleinstein works on another level as well because in german kleinstein means small stone most english speakers are familiar with the magic incantation abracadabra alakazam but in germany magicians say abracadabra sim salla bin so the germans changed alakazan's name to simsala but the final word of the incantation bin was missing so german kids were convinced there was a secret fourth evolution called bin american playgrounds were rampant with rumors for the so-called polka gods like mew3 and peekablu but in germany ben was one of the most sought after poke gods of them all lance the dragon trainer was renamed siegfried after germanic mythology siegfried the dragonslayer who killed the cursed dragonfafnir and bathed in his blood just like most everything made in germany their localization was efficient and accurate a pretty straightforward german translation of nob's english translation it didn't contain too many errors but also maybe didn't employ as much imagination as the french version unlike the other four languages italy and spain didn't get their own unique pokemon names they simply reused the english names we'd always wondered why so we got in touch with italian localizer elena fogozzaro who explained that nintendo already had an organized structure in place for translating french and german but not for italian and spanish in fact elena and her partner leonardo were the first italian translators that nintendo hired for any game ever translating red and blue into italian and spanish at all was an experiment for nintendo an experiment they didn't think would pay off but nintendo's lack of confidence ended up having consequences that echoed into the future to this day italy and spain still don't have unique pokemon names after passing on gen 1 it would have been weird to start in gen 2 so recycling english names just became the norm every localization has some mistakes but the italian and spanish versions have a particularly bad reputation for containing lots of translation errors for example in spanish when you hook a pokemon with a fishing rod like a magikarp for example instead of the game telling you the hook magikarp attacked it says el malvado magikarp attacko which means the evil magikarp attacked the attack slam was translated as portazzo which instead of something like a body slam actually means to slam a door as a result spanish kids grew up thinking that fish pokemon were evil and the pokemon routinely slammed doors on each other in italy the attack pound was translated as libra the form of pound used for weight measurements or for describing british currency glare was translated as bagliori which instead of a fierce gaze is the definition of glare that refers to a harsh light reflection like when sunlight shines on a tv screen spanish and italian fans have long wondered exactly how the translators made so many obvious mistakes when we asked elena she painted a picture of a translation process mired by disorganization and a lack of information starting from day one elena and her partner were actually hired to translate red and blue from german into italian and traveled to nintendo of europe headquarters to do just that but when they arrived they discovered the games weren't in german they were actually in english luckily they could speak english as well so they told nintendo they could do the translations anyway despite them essentially being hired for the wrong job elena told us everything was very badly organized for translation at that time we barely had a computer just one pc for two translators after waiting for two days we were given several lists of words to translate without any information zero context and with space limitations the lists were very long but due to secrecy reasons nobody told us what they were for nobody told us these were attacks or items or stats everything was mixed up and really difficult to understand in other words they were a handed list of words like slam and pound out of context and were only given a few weeks to complete the job so it's really no surprise that the spanish and italian versions turned out the way that they did the european localizations were all based on nob's english translation so a lot of the changes knob made were repeated around the world including some mistakes the most famous mistake can be found on cinnabar island in japanese red and green there's an npc who trades you an electrode for your raichu in japanese blue this was changed to trading your kadabra for his graveler and afterwards he'd say your cadabra evolved because of course cadabra evolves into alakazam when traded the english version of red used the original raichu electrode trade from japanese red but the devs used the text from japanese blue where the npc says your kadabra evolved they swapped out kadabra's name with raichu in the dialogue but failed to realize this resulted in an impossibility with the npc now saying the raichu you traded to me wouldn't evolved two decades later game freak revealed that raichu originally had an evolution named gorachu that was cut from gen 1 due to a lack of cartridge space this led some fans to believe the dialogue about raichu evolving was a reference to gorachew that the developers accidentally left in the game but in reality it was just a coincidental translation error did you know many of the creatures made for the pokemon series first and second generations were revised or simply scrapped altogether while some pokemon were slightly redesigned there have been whole pokemon lines that were removed or cut down even late into development sometimes these cut pokemon would appear in later generations but several never saw the light of day before we begin i'd like to give a special shout out to the helix chamber dr lava and the countless fans who dedicated their time to the research of pokemon beta content my name is ben bertoli and joining me today is push dustin we hope you'll join us as we dive into the unknown it's important to keep in mind that many of the names and illustrations used in this video are not official they are however based on real in-game sprites and concept art unearthed by fans over the years when it came time to choose what monsters would make the official roster for the first two pokemon games red and green game freak decided to hold an intro intracompany poll some of the pokemon mentioned in this video first premiered in images replica in that poll seen in the satoshi tajiri manga a full resolution image of the poll was never released but that hasn't stopped fans from trying their best to squeeze every detail from the smallest of images it's at this time that we feel the need to know that many of the pokemon listed here in this video have names that are very descriptive of the creature and were never localized nor finalized we will be using the official names whenever possible but please keep in mind decent amount of these pokemon never received actual names plants and animals both living and extinct are perhaps the biggest influence for pokemon so it's no surprise that many of the monsters that didn't make it were modeled after various forms of wildlife some of the best examples include kuroki a crocodile with luxurious hair dia a deer covered in alien looking spikes jagu a hammer-headed shark with a harpoon-like nose and kakutatsu a captivating cactus creature the monstrous gown was also scrapped this pokemon was likely inspired by godzilla and its name is rumored to be based on the kaiju's iconic screech and then there's barunda this literal balloon pokemon just didn't have what it took to rise to the top and it seemed that jigglypuff would go on to take its place as the original balloon pokemon not every pokemon was ousted after their initial design early designs of the weedle and poliwag families were actually shown off on gamefreak's website in 1997. the post has been archived by polka fans and shows a number of drastic differences the first design found on the old website was actually one of dragonair who was updated with a sleeker look weedle kokuna and bidro would be updated in order to make their final evolution cooler while the poliwag line was also updated to make sure its final evolution polywrath lined up with the design of its previous stages and appeared stronger in a bombshell interview from summer 2018 it was revealed that game freak had initially planned a second evolution for pikachu after raichu this final form was named gorochu and would have featured fangs and a powerful horn the backsprite of this fabled evolution would eventually be uncovered showcasing its glorious horn for all the world to see according to pokemon character designer ken tsugimori gorochu was cut from the games due to issues regarding gameplay balance what a shame in february 2019 a compilation of assets from pokemon's first generation were leaked online the pokemon prototype preservation site the helix chamber documented this early build and its lost pokemon due to game freak's optimization during ren and green's production it was only the pokemon's back sprites that survived zames clark known online by his handle wacko was reportedly responsible for leaking the prototype along with other beta content at the time clark was only 24 years old and he managed to avoid jail time receiving a 15 month jail suspension instead clark was also rumored to be the source behind the gold and silver space world demo leak and the discovery of generation 4 beta sprites when the helix chamber showed off their recreations of the back sprites in the stream in february 2018 there is some controversy among better pokemon fans this was due to multiple factors the first was that helix chamber didn't clarify that some of the assets in the rom hack were unofficial there are also issues with the way that information was presented some sites such as nintendo soup mistakenly stated that some of the content in the stream was official after the live stream the helix chamber clarified that only the back sprites were replicas while the front sprites were completely fan made they also clarified which content was recreated and made the decision to remove any fan-created content from their website this helped clear up confusion despite the fact the front sprites weren't retrievable there was and still is a wealth of knowledge to be found from the back sprites one example was a snow yeti possibly named boo it's speculated this phantom may have been a male counterpart to jinx it seems a zubat pre-evolution may have also been planned for a long time fans were confused about the duplicate zubat cry present in the game with the prototype leaked light was shed on the extra cry and fans were able to see what this baby bat would have looked like speaking of pre-evolutions it appears vulpix was going to have a baby form as well named mekong in what is referred to as the space world leak this baby fox would have had only three tails the pokedex entry for vulpix in the final version of generation one reflects this as it says at the time of birth it has just one tail the tail splits from its tip as it grows older it seems baby forms of both meowth and ponyta were also planned to show up in the original games other pokemon lost their later evolutions psyduck had a middle evolution stage before golduck at one point which fans lovingly refer to as weird duck marowak also had a third evolution which was scrapped the back sprite seems to show this newest stage holding a baby cubone finally giving the cubone family the happy ending it's so desperately needed this parent holding child design also lined up with the theory that the pokemon kangaskhan was originally going to be part of the cubone line that being said it seems the final cubone stage and kangaskhan coexisted at one point squirtle evolution's poor turtle and blastoise were originally two different families of pokemon in the leaked assets a baby blast choice and a beefed up wartortle can be found in the end these families were merged by game freak during pokemon red and green's development possibly for balancing reasons or to make wartortle and blastoise more cohesive the second generation of pokemon is easily the best documented when it comes to cut and beta content this is due to the previously mentioned gold and silver prototype leak this leak is usually referred to as a space world demo as it resembles the content that was previously seen in the demo for nintendo's then yearly gaming showcase known as spaceworld japanese fans who were lucky enough to attend the show in 1999 were given the chance to play an early version of gold and silver which had a number of differences from the final game it also revealed a lot of crossovers with generation 1 likely due to the development times being so close together some of the sprites found in the leak were identical to pokemon blue which was a revised version of pokemon red and green in japan gold and silver formally introduced pre-evolutions to the series which meant that some players favorite pokemon got adorable baby forms as well as those in the final game meowth ponyta and vulpix's pre-evolution were visited in gold and silver's initial stages the leak showed that tengela had a baby form and a second stage evolution planned tangela would eventually see a second stage called tengro in a later generation but tangrove and the better version would be drastically different other abandoned babies include paris grimer goldeen growlith and dudul a baby version of mr mine was also cut but the concept would be visited again in a later generation the second generation giraffe rig also had a pre-evolution which looked like two spooky ghosts attached in the middle some baby forms were kept but still were drastically changed picchu clefa iglypuff smoocham ethakid magby and tairog would see redesigns before the launch of gold and silver baby pokemon weren't the only ones who didn't make the official roster some evolutions and entire lines never made it past the prototype stage those that lost evolutions included quillfish weepinbell lickitung farfetched and ditto some of these like far-fetched and liquiton would eventually see second-stage evolutions down the line both quite different from their original designs weepinbell and ditto were planned to have evolutions tied to items evolving with the help of a poison stone and a metal coat respectively this planned metal ditto looked especially silly with its pointy head and gaping mouth pincer had a planned evolution that almost looked like one of evangelion's angels porygon 2 also changed substantially going from a lion made of spheres to a smoothed out version of the original porygon an overgrown leafeon was set to appear but was nixed before launch the pokemon jump fluff blissey artillery and polytone featured decently drastic changes throughout development the three legendary dogs riko entei and suicune would all be redone to appear more powerful and a bit less emo a fair share of gen 2 starters and their evolutions were reworked drastically chikurita's second form bayleaf was revised to look more like a dinosaur the entire fire starter line was originally based on a series of bears and the water started line was set to resemble a trio of seal-like dinosaurs the totodile line would replace these designs in the end but another sealed pokemon popplio would show up in generation 7 as a starter other water pokemon included the first draft design of remoraid who resembled a revolver and bommushika sea lion pokemon who balanced a flaming ball on its nose bomoshika would have been the first fire and water type to exist in the pokemon series a combination that was seen many years later in generation six's mythical volcanion a full line of aquatic pokemon were cut with each stage representing a different undersea creature manbo the sunfish evolved into ikari the anchor-tailed shark and finally rotesu an elongated anglerfish there's a fan theory that akari may have been originally planned to inhabit johto's lake of rage ikari means both rage and anchor in japanese so it's possible the feisty shark was set to be the lake's big draw but was instead replaced by the iconic red gyarados along with the akari line there were plenty of other pokemon that never made it to the final game this included a creepy voodoo doll and its even creepier evolution that seemed to be the corpse of a dead panda a two-stage werewolf family and the female cat rindrin and its evolution baloolin were nixed a pokemon based on slow king's shell crown was also cut the electric tiger pokemon kotola in its evolution reitola both seen in prototypes for the first generation returned in the space world demo league both would be cut once more with the newer generations there would be less information about cut and prototype pokemon this is because fewer assets would be leaked and the developers were more careful in sharing details and artwork you

Channel: DidYouKnowGaming?

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Keywords: pokemon, pokemon facts, pokemon easter egg, pokemon red, pocket monsters, pokémon, did you know gaming, didyouknowgaming, dykgaming, dykg, gaming, pokemon diamond, pokemon heartgold

Id: wMhGor7cNcI

Length: 57min 40sec (3460 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 29 2020