The Insane History of Beta Pokémon Gold & Silver

Pokemon Pokemon Pokemon it's still going strong this is spaceworld an annual trade show held by Nintendo from 1989 to 2001 where many of the company's most successful consoles and video games were first showcased to the world but 1997 space world is perhaps the most notorious as it was the first time Pokemon fans got a look at the sequels to the incredibly popular Pokémon red and blue and this wasn't just a peak or a trailer as trainers could actually play a demo of the Gen 2 games and experienced The Wonder of Pokémon Gold and Silver for the first time with its adorable roster of new starter Pokémon Chikorita kusu and honoguma I have a feeling we're not in jot anymore despite the Gen 2 games apparently being close to 80% complete at the time the space World demo of Pokémon Gold and Silver was vastly different from the games that ended up releasing almost 2 years later some Pokémon look slightly or entirely different from their final versions and certain creatures even ended up getting completely removed from the final games a lot of tals and characters were also not like their final counterparts but perhaps the biggest change was that these games were originally meant to release on the Classic Game Boy not the Game Boy Color which hadn't even been announced at the time different sources claimed different reasons but regardless what the actual cause may have been Pokémon Gold and Silver ended up getting delayed and during this time completely overhauled leaving the space World versions of Pokémon Gold and Silver apparently lost forever that is until May 26th 2018 out of absolutely nowhere an anonymous internet user release the ROMs of these elusive space World demos to the world but how exactly did this Anon obtain these long thought to be lost treasures well back in March of the same year an individual hacked into Nintendo's internal Network and among the files discovered happened to be the 1997 prototypes of Pokémon Gold and Silver this hacker would later leak the ROMs on Discord and the internet quickly got to work uncovering every little hidden detail about these demos and boy were there a lot of differences so if you guys are excited for this deep dive into Pokémon history don't forget to hit that like button and without further Ado this is what could have been Pokemon Gold and Silver I briefly mentioned that these games were originally meant to release on the Classic Game Boy but they could also be played in color using the super Game Boy attachment which is actually how people at space World got to experience it so of course that's how I'm going to play it too so after a brief introduction from Professor Oak the demo drops you straight into the starting town no choosing your name or gender here even your starter Pokémon gets randomly selected for you on my first play through I happen to get the fire starter honoguma which roughly translates to Flame bear the other starters you can potentially get are kusu which literally just means cruise and then there's Chikorita which looks exactly how it does in the final version there's some supposed beta artwork of the starters floating around the internet that show a slightly different version of ch with no legs but it turns out these are actually a Fan's drawings of what he remembered them looking like after playing the space World demo so it seems Chikorita was the only starter finalized at this point in development except for one little difference with its middle stage Evolution what the hell is even that I'm really not sure what game freak we're cooking with this design especially considering how Meganium looked the same as it does now thankfully we don't have to look at this Abomination much longer since none of the starters or wild Pokémon you catch in this demo are able to evolve to make sure people at space world didn't hog the controller too long these demos had a few other restrictions in place for example you can only heal using potions as PCS were inaccessible and Nurse Joy will flat out refuse to help you at the Pokémon Center if all your Pokémon happen to faint the game will actually boot you back to the title screen and did I mention you can't save here I thought nuzlock were brutal so with all this in mind I finally started my adventure in the Prototype jodo region this place isn't Newark Town though instead we find ourselves in silent town and the demo lets us explore the whole first route known then as Silent Hills wonder why they changed that name data miners were able to extract the entire map of this beta region then known as nion which is actually one of the formal names of Japan and upon closer inspection you might realize this map literally is Japan but the weirdest thing about this map is the fact that the entirety of Kanto has been condensed into a single City more on that later something I was pretty surprised about is the fact this demo had a working day and night cycle despite the fact that most people playing it would I'm assuming be playing during the day cuz like this was at a convention either way different Pokémon do appear at night and I was quite shocked to find some pretty strong ones in the very first route like I definitely wasn't expecting giraffer EG which in the beta seemed to be cosplaying as one of my favorite childhood cartoons tun another thing that kind of surprised me were the version exclusive Pokémon in Gold I kept running into beta hoppip but didn't see a single one in silver Instead encountering This plump pink version of Merill and while I'm not the best at recognizing Pokemon cries I'm pretty sure every single creature here sounds like neeran now the trainers in this demo won't fight you unless you talk to them first which is a bit strange I don't think that was ever intended to be in the final version but I guess in the demo they wanted to give players the choice if they want to focus on fighting or just catching Pokémon not that there's a lot of them I mean after this Forest there's just one more area where you'll find your rival and promptly get kicked back to the title screen if you talk to him so on my second playthrough I was given the water starter kurusu I decided to try and fight as many of the trainers as possible and some of these people had some insane Pokemon I mean why does this guy have a slow King in the first route some other honorable mentions were this fire breather with Magby which was looking extra spiky compared to its final form and then there's ladyb which looked exactly how it does now but green for some reason in Silver version trainers also had different Pokémon like the fire breather with Magi became a fisherman with quill fish and the very last trainer had a DA fan which seemed to be basically finalized even this early into development not too surprising since it was one of the first gen 2 Pokémon reveals in Pokémon the first movie to wrap up my experience with the original space World demo I want to talk about a few Oddities I experienced or I guess things that just weren't quite finalized like the EXP bar matching with the color of your HP just looks kind of weird and I'm glad they eventually settled on a totally different color for it the type chart was also pretty weird I mean with the introduction of two new types I guess it took them a while to figure out exactly how they would interact cuz at least in this demo dark type was actually weak to normal while being strong against itself steel types were actually immune to themselves and weak to water as opposed to fire type which does make some sense I mean steel has a tendency to rust but not always melt I also caught a sunfl at one point and the demo apparently thought it was shiny I did some research and supposedly both Pikachu and sunflora were hardcoded to display the shiny Sparkle animation when sent out in the demo but while editing I noticed a different colored sunflor to the one I caught so was this a shiny I also ran into a monochrome rata which didn't have the shiny Sparkle despite clearly being differently colored from the standard rata so is this a shiny according to the wiki shiny Pokémon are programmed into the demo but don't have that sparkly intro animation so let me know what you guys think did I actually find a shiny or not but of course everything you've seen so far is just the tip of the iceberg compared to the heaps of hidden data found within these space World demos thankfully we can access all these juicy bits of Pokémon history through something known as the debug menu there's a couple interesting options here such as a battle tester and a list of every Pokémon but the one I most want to check out is field this is a tool developers use for bug testing that basically allows us to enter the game in god mode with access to the full Pokedex the ability to walk through walls and a whole bunch more features that never made it to the final gold and silver games so let's dive into it all right so if we hold B we can walk at Double speed we basically have running shoes in Pokémon Gold when they didn't even exist yet but these are special running shoes because they also allow you to walk through walls which is pretty insane can we walk through our mom oh my gosh we totally can that means we're now free to explore beyond the end of the demo so let's walk right past our r and into what would eventually become Violet City immediately you'll notice that while there are NPCs roaming around you can't actually talk to them or interact with any of the signs or items in the Overworld by pressing B and start at the same time we can access another menu with some pretty cool options like teleport which lets you teleport to any City in the game I happen to pick one with a spooky haunted forest Vibe and I'm pretty sure that's the Slowpoke well which I guess makes this the beta AEL town but again there isn't much to do in these towns and there are no wild Pokémon in the Grass either at least not around these parts you might remember on the map we saw that one of the cities is called Kanto region and it just so happens to be directly east of the starting town so I decided to check it out and to my surprise there were actually wild Pokémon programmed into this route of course they were way too powerful for my level eight starter but still cool to actually see something working as intense did that wouldn't last for long though as when I made it to Kanto what I found was a mess of random buildings and Roads leading to Nowhere that barely even resembled the original region it's nice to see the idea was already in place cuz revisiting Kanto is one of the coolest parts of Gen 2 but boy am I glad they expanded on it cuz this tiny version would have just been sad I got bored of roaming around these ghost towns pretty quick and decided to mess around with the debug menu a bit more which led me to find the bike why is it so slow though for some reason the bike actually feels slower than walking but you can ride it inside buildings which is pretty neat F you Professor Oak I do what I want thankfully this isn't the only way to get around beta jodo because we also have a skateboard oh God what's happening oh jeez uh so it's seems the skateboard was a bit broken at this point and the only way to control it was by holding down the B button then it's actually kind of cool zipping around the region on something other than the bike it's a mystery why this skateboard was cut from the final games but I think it could have worked as like a postgame exclusive that lets you jump up Ledges or just to set Ethan apart from the other main characters but that about wraps up my adventures in debug land as everything else was kind of just empty and clearly unfinished so I went back to the main menu and decided to finally check out what you've all been waiting for the mini games okay maybe not what you were expecting but still worth checking out as the space World demos had a bunch of mini games that probably for good reason ended up being cut from the final versions first up is Pokemon poker I can see why this was cut since game freak would eventually move away from promoting gambling to kids and I have no idea how to play poker so moving on we have this Sliding Puzzle game which likely inspired the similar puzzle found in the ruins of Al this beta version felt way more complicated though so I gave up pretty quick next we have a memory game that's pretty much what you'd expect apparently this game is still in the code of the final games but was never used I mean it's pretty boring so I kind of get it there's also a picross game but like poker I have no idea how to play so interestingly enough they did eventually make an official Pokémon picross game so go play that if you want finally we have the classic slot machines which did make it into the final games but were eventually laid to rest in the English versions of the remakes because again kids gambling no bueno it's okay voltor flip is better anyway but there's actually a hidden six miname that can only be played by waiting long enough on the title screen which thanks to super speed means no time at all in this game you play as Pikachu and continuously Run and Jump to collect musical notes despite how simple it is somehow this was the most fun out of all the mini games so I can see why most of them ended up getting scrapped anyway it's actually time for what you've all been waiting for this time for real let's check out the full Pokedex of beta gold and silver the full list of every Pokémon can be accessed from the main debug menu and while you do get a back Sprite there's no description or types here so I definitely prefer going into field mode and just booting up the Pokedex 151 should be m which means the next Pokémon after is Chikorita still have no idea what they were thinking let's check out honoguma Evolution that's pretty freaking cute and then the final form is actually super sick too what I want to say I might like this more than the syn Quil line here's the water starter though which is definitely giving poo Vibes but its evolution is definitely lean more towards a plesiosaur or Lochness Monster inspiration than sea lion and I believe they all remained grassfire water type just like the final starters one of the most notable differences in this decks is the ridiculous amount of baby Pokémon like I know this generation introduced the concept of Pokemon Eggs and breeding but still there were way too many babies and for Pokémon that definitely didn't need pre-evolutions oh my God okay see if Clea looked like this in the official games I could definitely see its ties to outer space a lot more then we got Pichu who was looking a little extra round but then again so was Pikachu really a baby Paris as if Paris wasn't pathetic enough already okay I shouldn't say that cuz in Legends archus Paris are crazy I thought this was a pre-evolution of ditto but apparently it's a pre-evolution of grimer I mean it is cute at least oh my God is that a goldine pre-evolution why and then we got beta mime Jr I don't think that was its name at this point but it's just so silly looking this is like something out of Adventure Time look at his silly little face a few of the evolutions were pretty laughable too like the alternate Bells Sprout is freaking hideous I am glad that thing didn't make it into the final games I believe this is supposed to be a ditto Evolution which again is just like why would ditto ever evolve it's such a gimmicky Pokemon that I don't know why it would need an evolution but there were also some Evolutions that really impressed me wo wo woah hold up you're telling me over quill was planned since all the way back in Gen 2 it's a pure water type even though it has a little lightning bolt on its forehead weird though we did eventually get surfetch this beta version known as Madame has a totally different vibe going it could have even been a split Evolution like male turns to surfac and female into this wait a minute what was Pinsir originally meant to evolve too that's sick actually looking at it this might have been the inspiration for Heracross oh my God is that blissy well it certainly looks more like a fairy type I'm going to need someone to explain to me what they were thinking with Porygon 2 supposedly it looks like the mascot of Mr donut which is a popular donut chain in Japan I I don't think that was the inspiration here though it's just really weird there's a few Pokemon that just looked kind of different remade looks more like a gun which I think was the point like that part of it is supposed to to look like a revolver and Octillery definitely looks more like a tank here oh beta Tyrogue dude I actually really like this concept maybe not as Tyrogue but just as a standalone fighting Pokemon it's just really cute but it's Evolution I'm not so sure about I believe the hoppip line was originally meant to look more like cats with their Japanese names all containing the word Neco which means cat you can definitely see it in their faces oh my God beta poly Toto I love this guy like I actually wish well no I do like how poly Toto ended up looking but this also could have been a Pokémon we also have snobble which was actually a pure psychic type at the time and didn't have an evolution and finally we have the beta Pokémon that I wish made it into the final games this seal is really interesting because it was actually meant to be the first water and fire type which of course we didn't end up getting until Gen 6 with Volcanion and that's a legendary so the fact we could have had a water fire type since all the way back in Gen 2 is really interesting to me ooh I heard about this little fish though it's like a sunfish Pokémon that evolves into this shark that was supposedly a scrapped idea from gen 1 but was also scrapped from gen two so I guess it just wasn't meant to be I don't know why it evolves into this thing though like the shark was way better it did not need another Evolution oh my gosh this is probably the cutest unreleased Pokémon to this day and it's EV ution is even more adorable I mean I guess it looks a little too close to the base form but with some slight adjustments I could totally see this being in an official game now despite looking like a ghost type I believe this is actually a dark type pre-evolution to giraffer rig which is where its whole two bodies thing comes from this is two little ghosts attached together at the hip or tail this one is actually a pure dark type that ended up getting scrapped but we did later get a dark type cat Pokémon oh all the way in Gen 5 I got to say I kind of like this design more just cuz it's cuter I've never been a huge fan of perin but I believe this is a pure Ghost type based on Voodoo dolls which is a bit of an iffy inspiration for a Pokemon then again haunted dolls do exist oh this is a really interesting one it's basically the shell on slow king's head is its own Pokemon and there's official art depicting this so it might be the closest to Canon out of all these beta designs oh and it's called turban you can probably guess why known in Japan as Wolfman this would be my runner up for beta Pokémon that I would want to be real and finally we have the legendary dogs or legendary beasts whatever you want to call them Ry N andu I don't know why they only had half their name at the time but the designs are actually pretty fire raicho kind of reminds me of luxray and tastes pretty cool too giving a fox-like Vibe and suun reminds me of of that one character from Full Metal Alchemist if you know you know and finally we have a Grass Type legendary beast nope it's actually an evilution so this is basically beta Leafeon two generations before it would actually end up coming out but I wonder how this would have changed the future games like would we have gotten even more Evolutions in Gen 4 or maybe glacon would have never existed now if you like any of these beta Pokémon and wish they we in an actual game I have some good news for you with the demo being so clearly unfinished attempting to play it like a normal Pokémon game was basically impossible this made some people wonder what a finished version of the space World demos could have been like and eventually inspired a ROM hacker by the name of level three to create their own game with Sprites pulled Straight Out of Space World features from the demo ROMs being fully implemented and all 251 Pokémon obtainable able in a single file Pokémon super gold 97 was born this ROM pack is without a doubt the best way to experience the original space World demo as a fully playable game however there was eventually a successor using Pokémon Crystal as its base another fan would create Pokemon GS 97 reforged which of course meant more advanced graphics and remastering of certain gameplay elements to make the whole experience feel slightly more polished all three of these ROMs offer a unique way to experience The Wonder of these space World demos and as always you can find the links to download and experience these games for yourself in the description below but there's one last little detail to talk about before we wrap up this retrospective 2 years later Pokémon Gold and Silver would return to space world with a brand new demo now at this point the games had been totally revamped for the Game Boy Color and pretty much complete compared to the 1997 demos but there were still a few interesting differen is to the final games this is where the infamous beta Whooper comes from which did sort of eventually Inspire Claud sire well at least that's my head Cannon aeral was gold for some reason which did end up being its shiny palette oh my God I just realized this is beta sunkern I feel like I've seen this somewhere before Teddy Ursa was definitely a lot simpler than its final version and sneez still wasn't quite finalized but they were getting closer I mean not really but finally we have celby I can definitely tell they wanted to recreate the Mystique of Mew but its beta design was so far from what we ended up getting it almost reminds me of sigth like the spikes on its head overall a lot more twisted and love crafty and looking I was originally just going to play one of the ROM hacks for this video but quickly fell down a rabbit hole researching these mysterious demos and really enjoyed seeing how some of these beta Pokémon eventually made their way into future games so let me know what you think of these hidden gems of Pokémon history are there any other beta Pokémon you wish could be made official let me know in the comments below and don't forget to hit that like button if you enjoyed thank you so much for watching and I'll catch you in the next [Applause] [Music] one

Channel: MunchingOrange

Views: 46,447

Keywords: Pokemon, Pokemon Retrospective, Pokemon Beta, Pokemon Gold and Silver Beta, Pokemon Video Essay, Pokemon History, Spaceworld 1997, Pokemon Spaceworld Demo, Nintendo Giga Leak, Nintendo Space World

Id: RaXCg7qZNlo

Length: 23min 21sec (1401 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 18 2023