10/1/2022 15 Comments 398 to 400: Twinz to ???ID 398: Twinz (Tsuinzu, Kageboozu, Wobbuffet)Oh boy. Tsuinzu—which is pretty easily romanized to “Twinz”—is quite the mess of a Pokemon. Originally a two headed ghost Pokemon, Twinz went through multiple reworks, changing into at least four distinct designs before ending up as Wobbuffet, a concept that was completely new and had only minimal connection to the original designs. Next to Sneasel, Twinz probably has the most complicated design history of all the Pokemon in Gold and Silver; and like Sneasel, despite being an early design that appeared in Spaceworld 1997, Twinz (Wobbuffet) was still being worked on just a couple weeks from the final release. So lets strap in, because there’s a lot to cover. Twinz, like I said, isn’t a horribly complicated concept: in its initial draft, it’s two ghost-looking creatures, connected by their tails, fighting with each other. It’s unclear why it's in Period 2c: either there was some reason the team wanted to include it in the initial draft roster for Pokemon 2, and so they hastily created a sprite slot for it before they hit #400, or this is actually the beginning of a bunch of throwaway sprites that I’m grouping together in 2d, and it happened to be good enough to be used by the time Spaceworld ’97 was created. There might also be some other reason Twinz goes together with the three baby Pokemon above it and the mystery frog, one that escapes us with the information we have. (Art by @RacieBeep) We don't have anything telling us what Twinz was like before Spaceworld '97, but by the time Twinz shows up in that build, it’s a Dark/Normal Pokemon that evolves into Girafarig at Level 29. It’s unclear if Twinz was originally even designed to be related to Girafarig or if it was grafted onto Girafarig, much like Gurotesu, Ikari, and Manbo1 were severed from their original evolutions and retconned into a family. There are arguments on either side. On the one hand, Twinz doesn’t look anything like Girafarig, and its typing (Dark/Normal) doesn’t seem to fit its obviously Ghost-type design. Furthermore, its placement in the Index doesn’t really make it seem like it was meant to be an evolution: Periods 2a and 3b are filled with evolutions of other ‘mons, but Period 2c doesn't seem like a part of the Index which was focused on creating evolutionary relatives that weren't babies. Potentially, maybe Twinz is found here in the Index because it’s a pre-evolution, much like Mikon et al? Arguing for the prosecution, it's easy to imagine that Twinz was created specifically to be connected to Girafarig. It’s a two headed creature conjoined at the body, just like Girafarig. One could even argue that Girafarig gets the spikes on its back from Twinz. Either they designed it that way on purpose or it was a big coincidence the team had two designs fitting the same gimmick, and they just had to pin them together. As I’ve mentioned previously, whether or not they were designed together, the Pokemon team clearly had difficulties making Twinz and Girafarig work as an evolutionary family. Given how different their body types are, the team must have struggled to find a moveset that made sense for both; by Spaceworld ’97, they're the only Pokemon family with only a placeholder moveset. They only have three level-up moves: Double Kick (which is perfectly in flavor for Girafarig, less so for Twinz), Growl, and Sand Attack. Not the most inspiring move pool for such an interesting design concept. In between Spaceworld ’97 and Spaceworld ’99, Game Freak tried a number of different solutions to make this family work. At some point, around April 1999, there was even work done on a Girafarig evolution! Sadly, we don’t have any sprites for it, nor any interesting information beside stats and evo data, evolving from Girafarig at level 34. It never ended up getting a name, and was ultimately overwritten by Pineco. It shared its typing with Girafarig, which in early 1999 was a Ghost-Normal type, presumably because Twinz made so much more sense as a Ghost type than as Dark/Normal. Of course, as I’ve mentioned, this introduced a new problem: Girafarig doesn’t look anything like a Ghost! It’s unclear what the team was doing at this point: they could have been creating a more ghostly and evil looking extension of Girafarig, in order to better sell the evolutionary line as a Ghost-type family; maybe that third form also merged some more elements from Twinz’s design into Girafarig, to make the family look more cohesive. It also could be the case that they were planning to make Girafarig itself the 3rd evolution of the family, and they were introducing a new second-stage Pokemon to better bridge the gap between Twinz and Girafarig. In fact, around mid 1999, a more conventional baby Girafarig pre-evolution was being conceptualized. By the time the Spaceworld ’99 demo came around, it had mostly been replaced with Kageboozu (early Wobbuffet), though its back sprite remained, taking the form of a baby Girafarig. This Pokémon has no back spikes, seemingly no snout, rounder ears, only one horn, and the "Chain-Chomp" which serves as its tail has no mouth. (Of note: the palette for "baby Girafarig" is reused from Twinz.) On the other hand, this baby Girafarig could have nothing to do with that second-stage they were conceiving; it’s more likely it was an attempt to redesign Twinz into something more like Girafarig, to make the transition between them make sense. After all, the backsprite is found in Twinz’ slot in Spaceworld ’99 (it also had a bizarre and unrelated front sprite!), which implies that Twinz was overwritten by this new design for a baby-Girafarig. As well, by Spaceworld ’99, Twinz had gained a version of Girafarig’s movelist and had become Normal/Psychic like Girafarig, so it’s likely it was also changed to look like Girafarig. The end result, either way, is the same: the Girafarig calf didn’t last more than a few months, and in either case, the team was trying to fix the family by reworking either the first, second, or third form. None of these ideas worked. Before Game Freak’s experimentation with baby Girafarig, Twinz had already gotten a redesign. By June of 1999, we have a completely new sprite for Twinz, which is far more than you can say for many of the other discarded Pokemon from Spaceworld ’97: about 24 of them disappeared altogether when development restarted, and very few got any sort of updated sprites. So the team clearly still had plans for Twinz by at least June. In that redesign, Twinz is no longer conjoined, and was now composed of two Haunter-like ghosts that rotated around each other. In fact, both of Twinz’s sprites—the Spaceworld ’97 ones and this new redesign—heavily resemble the contemporaneous sprites of Haunter. It’s definitely a coincidence, but it’s still interesting how they look more like a family than Twinz and Girafarig: Twinz was also now known as the “Spiral Pokemon,” which is kind of neat. Twinz never got a full moveset; by this point it had lost Double Kick and just had a placeholder moveset composed of Tackle and Growl. But it did have a Pokedex entry! Here it is: “Both heads are constantly swirling around. For unknown reasons, they always move clockwise.” Honestly, I kind of find this Pokedex entry a bit boring: figuring out why the ghosts swirl clockwise doesn’t feel like a mystery I, as a player, would be interested in delving into. The entry doesn’t really give a sense of Twinz’s personality, or how they live, just that they swirl. Twinz is reminiscent of an Ouroboros, or of a Yin-Yang, which seems fitting because of Girafarig's nature as a balance between good and evil. But swirling clockwise? Yawn. Obviously it’s in-progress, but between the boring nature of this entry and the lack of a moveset even this far into development, it does suggest that the team was still unsure of exactly what to do with Twinz. By Spaceworld 1999, as I mentioned, Twinz “exists.” But not really. While the name Twinz is being used in that slot, the backsprite is our friend the baby Girafarig, and the front sprite is a…a sketch of a potato? In retrospect, you can tell that the sketch vaguely resembles what Twinz would be replaced with—Wobbuffet—but on its own it’s pretty bizarre. (It’s a coincidence, but if you flip the sketch upside down, it almost perfectly matches the sillouette of Wobbuffet’s backsprite.) Twinz still has the typing and moveset of baby Girafarig at this point, and doesn’t yet resemble Wobbuffet either. Interestingly though, we have new Pokedex entries which hint at a very different background for this Pokemon, completely distinct from Girafarig, Twinz, or Wobbuffet. Here’s a Pokedex entry from Gold version on August 17th, a build a few days after Spaceworld ‘99 “They gradually disintegrate when exposed to light, so they live quietly in dark caves.” And here’s the Silver Pokedex entry, from the same time: “It lurks in dark places. It will not attack directly, but if attacked, it will return its foe's attack threefold.” Some of this does resemble what Wobbuffet would become, especially the information found in the Silver entry. The final version of Gold’s Pokedex entry mentions that Wobbuffet “dislikes light;” a far cry from literally melting when exposed to it, but the same general idea. The Silver entry also seems to imply this Pokemon counterattacks, which is basically Wobbuffet’s entire gimmick. Still, these entries suggest something that’s not quite Wobbuffet yet. The emphasis on how it lurks in dark places brings to mind some sort of monster, not the bright blue punching bag that Wobbuffet is modeled on. It’s also now the “Shadow” Pokemon in the data; not the “Swirl” Pokemon of Twinz but also not the “Endurance” Pokemon that Wobbuffet would become. The Pokemon we’re looking at in these entries is a shadowy ghost that fears the sunlight, protects itself from attacks, and is so incorporeal that it’ll melt when exposed to the clear light of day. Sounds like a Ghost or a spirit to me. Which is especially interesting, because there's evidence that between Baby Girafarig and Wobbuffet, there was even one more completely new Pokemon! Right after Spaceworld ’99, in the same build as these Pokedex entries, Twinz got renamed to “Kageboozu.” Kageboozu is an interesting, hard to translate name. “Kage” is easy; it’s the Japanese word for “Shadow” which makes sense for the “Shadow” Pokemon. “Boozu” could mean “Yokai” (Spirit) or bald head. But taking it literally is missing the point. “Kageboozu” is a play on the Japanese doll called a “Teru Teru Boozu.” They look like little ghosts, and are tied up in front of houses in order to wish for good weather. Kageboozu is, then, just a play on this name: Teru means “Shine,” and so “Kage,” shadow, is the opposite. Which sounds fitting for something that melts in the sun and tries to stay hidden in the dark (but, importantly, doesn't sound anything like Wobbuffet or Twinz). What’s more is that we actually have a sprite for this Kageboozu! Found on Wobbuffet's scratchpads is a strange sprite that depicts what appears to be a blobby ghost: exactly the sort of creature that is implied by those Pokedex entries. You can even see bits of the ghost melting off! Here’s its sprite, using Wobbuffet’s final palette, courtesy of @OrangeFrench: To sum up, it seems that Twinz did not change immediately into Wobbuffet: first, it became a baby Girafarig, and then it was briefly an entirely new Pokemon! Kageboozu probably did not last very long; the final game came out on a few months later and Wobbuffet must have been finalized nearly immediately. This was so immediate that Wobbuffet even still uses the menu sprite reserved for ghost Pokemon, even though it no longer resembled a ghost in the slightest. By the time the team made finalized Wobbuffet, its concept had strayed so far from the original idea for Twinz (or Girafarig, or Kageboozu) that it bared almost no resemblance to what came before it. Wobbuffet had three distinct inspirations now: It’s a punching bag, an Okiagari-koboshi (a Japanese paper-mache doll), and also an homage to the famous Japanese Comedian, Hayashiya Sanpei. The Okiagari Koboshi is a cute doll that traditionally has slits for eyes, much like Wobbuffet, and it is made so that it has a rounded bottom that will always wobble and reset itself facing forwards when pushed. Likewise, the punching bags Wobbuffet is based on were weighted on the bottom so that when a kid hit the bag, it would fall backwards, then swing forward and hit the kid back in the face: the harder it was pushed, the harder it would fall back upon its attacker. A perfect concept for a Pokemon that takes punishment and then deals the equivalent back to its opponent. Its third inspiration was a man named Hayashiya Sanpei. Sanpei was a well-known comic from the fifties, sixties, and seventies who participated in a style of comedy known as “Rakuga,” which was basically a genre in which the comic told long, rambling stories with a silly punchline at the end. He was known for touching his forehead in embarrassment when confronted by women, and his famous catchphrase, “So nansu, Okasan!” which translates to “That’s the way it is ma’am,” a catchphrase which inspired Wobbuffet’s Japanese name, “Sonan”. It’s also possible Wobbuffet took inspiration from another form of Japanese comedy known as Manzei. In Manzei, two performers, the "Tsukkomi" and the “Boke,” perform a routine in which the idiotic “Boke” constantly forgets things or humorously misinterprets what the other person is saying; he often gets hit over the head, with a slap or with a fan, when the Tsukkomi angrily corrects him. This sort of duo is common as a trope in a lot of Japanese media; I remember it most vividly in the characters “Solt” and “Peppor” from the game Chrono Cross. The Boke in Manzei is often round and overweight, and is characterized by his ability to take a lot of physical punishment as the Tsukkomi constantly hits him. Wobbuffet’s chubby looks make him look similar to the stereotypical Boke, and its experience of constantly taking damage from the opponent in a Pokemon battle seems reminiscent of a Boke constantly getting hit. It’s less of an obvious reference, but given that Japanese comedy was on the minds of Game Freak when they created Wobbuffet, I’m sure they at least considered the similarities between Wobbuffet and a Manzei routine. Gameplay-wise, Wobbuffet also evolved unrecognizably beyond it’s origins. Twinz, if Game Freak had found a way for it to work, would have had a typical moveset for a Ghost or Psychic Pokemon, probably mirroring the moveset that its evolution, Girafarig, had. But Wobbuffet was transformed into a gimmick Pokemon, based around the idea of a creature that only counterattacks back at its opponent. It only has four moves, all of which are designed to make either protect Wobbuffet or return any damage it takes to its opponent (assuming the player can guess correctly that incoming damage is either physical or special). My suspicion is that its incredibly tiny moveset (just Counter, Mirror Coat, Safeguard, and Destiny) and its counterattack gimmick was dictated in part by the incredibly tight time constraints the team had to finalize Wobbuffet. Kageboozu probably also used Mirror Coat, given its Pokedex entry, but it’s unclear if that was its only method of attack like Wobbuffet. Likely, Kageboozu never got a fully fleshed out moveset, and its use of Mirror Coat then inspired the team to further revise it to be based entirely around that move (and Counter). Rather than come up with an entirely new moveset that needed to be tested, they probably gave Wobbuffet a couple moves that went with its gimmick and called it a day. Time constraints may also have been the reason Wobbuffet is found in only one dark cave in Gold and Silver. It may have been the case that Wobbuffet’s encounter tables were entered into the game back when it was Kageboozu and thus more associated with darkness and caves. When it was turned into Wobbuffet, the team may have just left it to be found where Kageboozu had been placed, without really rethinking anything for the new concept. They left one reference to living in caves in Wobbuffet’s final Pokedex entries, for good measure. It’s very possible that the traits associated with Wobbuffet in the final were determined when it wasn’t even Wobbuffet yet! Despite Wobbuffet’s complete divorce from its origins, there’s one piece of Twinz left in its design. Ever wonder why Wobbuffet had that bizarre face on its tail? It’s the second head from Twinz! Someone, the conjoined twin ghosts survived, but one of them grew into a blue punching bag thing and now it drags around the other on the floor. I’ve always wondered why Wobbuffet had that bizarre tail; people have speculated before that its Wobbuffet’s real face, and that the rest of Wobbuffet is just a blow-up decoy. But now we know that the face is there as an Easter Egg, one tiny subtle hint to Wobbuffet’s humble origins. Twinz survived, in only a tiny way. Meanwhile, Kageboozu also has an interesting legacy. In Generation III, not only would a proper Teru-Teru Boozu Pokémon be introduced with Castform, but the name Kageboozu was also reused! Here, it is assigned to a new Ghost Pokemon, Shuppet. Unlike Gen II’s version of Kageboozu, Shuppet is supposedly more of a sock-puppet, though it still retains the flowing "skirt", the round defined head, and a horn evoking the string from which a Teru-Teru Boozu hangs: Could Shuppet be based on one of these earlier iterations of Wobbuffet? Maybe; none of the sprites we have look all that similar to Shuppet, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t more versions we’re unaware of. Shuppet’s Pokedex entries seem pretty different as well; though its Emerald entry mentions that it only comes out at night, that’s a pretty generic trait that many ghosts probably share, and its other entries just speak about how it feeds on negative emotions, which has no analogue in Twinz or the blobby ghost version of Wobbuffet. Most likely to me is that Shuppet was inspired by the name Kageboozu after they came up with it here; as it’s a pretty clever idea, the team probably had the leftover name and created a Pokemon that more literally embodied that name. There is one thing that’s a bit suspicious, however. Shuppet doesn’t just evolve into any random thing; it evolves into Banette, an evil ghost based upon a doll. Banette has more than a passing resemblance to Norowara, also designed for Generation II, and while it’s very unclear and unprovable, there’s at least a chance Banette was a revision of Norowara. If that were the case, was the Banette line cobbled together out of old Generation II concepts? It certainly seems like a possibility. It's amazing how memorable and iconic Wobbuffet has become, given that it was probably the very last Pokemon finished before the release of Generation II, give or take the revision of Sneasel. Wobbuffet was definitely iconic to me when I was growing up, and I associated Generation II with it as much as I thought of Marill of Togepi. On the other hand, I mourn Twinz, which was a great concept for a Pokemon that unfortunately never saw the light of day. Girafarig is a Pokemon defined by unused potential; if only Twinz existed, maybe both would have been more interesting and memorable as a result. ID 399: LedybaIn contrast to the complicated tangle that is Twinz/Kageboozu/Wobbuffet, Ledyba is notable for how stable its design remained throughout development. While its sprites were touched up in the transition from Super Gameboy to Gameboy Color, and its palette was changed, virtually everything else stayed the same. Its stats were identical throughout development; its typing and its name remained the same, and its name didn’t even get changed in localization. There’s some moderate differences in its movepool, which we’ll cover, but overall, this little guy was designed before Spaceworld ’97 and just left that way. Clearly the dude was a winner: the team seemed happy enough to leave him alone and focus their work in other places. In part, this relative stability could be because Ledyba was designed to be an early game Pokemon. As a result, it was probably a priority to get right early. Furthermore, Ledyba was one of the new Pokemon that could be caught in the demo shown at Spaceworld '97, which probably meant that the team was pretty confident in its design as it stood. Looking at the spritework, I also think there’s a chance that Ledyba was a Sugimori design. As we’ve seen in the past, the Pokemon he played a role in creating tended to stay almost exactly the same throughout development, possibly because he put more work into them before spriting them, or possibly just because as the team lead, he had a better idea of what he was looking for. Another reason Ledyba probably didn’t change that much is because its design inspiration was so simple. At risk of stating the obvious, Ledyba is a ladybug. That’s about it. While its evolution, Ledian, has some Super Sentai inspiration to it, Ledyba’s design seems to be completely absent of those same references. It has a distinctive mouth and cartoonish hands, but otherwise Ledyba is a design that does what it’s supposed to do: be a Pokemon version of a common insect. At a stretch, there's one other aspect of Ledyba's design worth mentioning. Ledyba has a some design similarities to the scrapped original evolution of Weedle, Kasanagi, a weird beetle Pokemon with gloved hands ready to punch somebody. We don’t know who designed Kasanagi, but it was a very early design in Generation I, and so it's possible that Ledyba took some of those design elements and put them on a different shell. (Speculative art by @RacieBeep) I am intrigued, however, by why Ledyba shows up where it does in the Korean Index. Period 4c is already only a weakly coherent string of seven Pokemon designs, but Ledyba seems to have even less to do with the other six. It’s designed as a single stage in a section filled with Pokemon which were made to evolve into known Pokemon; it’s a bug Pokemon design surrounded by much more exotic designs. It could be the case that Ledyba was part of the larger string off throwaway designs that were part of the Animal + designs of Period 2d, and that it happened to get lucky and be developed further than the rest were. It could also be the case that Ledyba was made later and overwrote something else disposable in this slot, making it seem like it's part of 4c and not 4d. My bigger suspicion, however, is that Ledyba’s origins have to do with the two bug families in Period 2b, in slots 382, 383, 384, and 385. My hypothesis about Period 2b was that it was a space where the development team knew they needed a specific type of Pokemon to fill a niche needed in the game; 2b was a run of two competing designs, each fitting the niche they needed to fill, made by different designers based on different inspirations. The team would, in theory, look at both designs, choose the one that fit the niche best, and discard the other one. If I’m right, my bet is that even though the team chose the Spinarak line to make it into Spaceworld ’97, they realized they wanted more early game bug Pokemon and they were unhappy with the moth line that was competing with Spinarak. Ledyba, then, was a quick addition to the games before they had the initial Pokedex filled in, giving them another early game Pokemon to play with and experiment with. Thus, if this was the case, they probably already planned for Ledyba to have an evolution but didn’t get to it immediately. After all, almost all bug Pokemon have evolutions, and an early game bug that didn’t evolve would be awful. Given that Ledian is at nearly the end of the Korean Index, it seems they didn’t get around to it for a long time, and even when they did, Ledian’s sprite and concept was really rough and probably still needed working out. Ledyba, then, was probably conceived with Spinarak in mind, which is even more fitting considering how they were eventually made version-exclusive counterparts in the final games. Saying that, Ledyba was never given a signature move like Spinarak got in Spider Web, and given that Ledian was created so late in the index, it seems as though more attention was put into Spinarak and Ariados. Again, maybe this was because Ledyba started out as a pretty okay design, so it became less of a priority for the team to fiddle with or perfect. The one thing that was moderately changed by the final game was Ledyba's moveset. Take a look at how different Ledyba’s Spaceworld ’97 moveset was from the final: The two sets only share three moves with each other: Reflect, Agility, and Swift. Swift was probably in both versions because of a Japanese pun: the word “Hoshi” can mean "star" or "lady bug spot," a pun that’s more pronounced in the early Ledian design which has stars on its back instead of spots. With that pun in mind, Swift is probably a joke about Ledyba throwing its spots at the opponent, which appear as stars in the animation. Otherwise, the original Ledyba is a bit more aggressive than the final: it learns Swift at a much earlier level and also learns Fury Swipes (a move that was originally a signature move for Meowth, oddly enough making an appearance here) and Tri-Attack, for some reason that isn’t clear to me. It also looks as though the original moveset implied that Ledyba had claws: Fury Swipes and Scratch both imply something sharp. The final version, on the other hand, gets rid of any claw references, and instead Ledyba uses Tackle and Comet Punch; Comet Punch, in particular, better matches the gloved hands that Ledyba sports. The final moveset is also more defensive, allowing Ledyba to use Light Screen, Safeguard, and Supersonic to protect itself. It also gained Baton Pass (a move that was the signature of Mr. Mime in SW ’97) but lost Double Team; losing Double Team was probably no accident given how powerful the two could be together. Overall, Ledyba’s fine. It started out cute, the team lightly refined its sprite, and then they made it even cuter in Crystal. Pokemon needs starter bug Pokemon, and Ledyba fits that niche well; why mess with success? ID 400: ??? And we’ve hit it: lucky number 400. Totaling all the designs up until now, we officially have 101 new designs to be introduced in Gold and Silver: the team could rest easy somewhere around here, knowing that they have a full roster (plus or minus the designs already discarded). Many of the previous ones were probably already ones the team had decided not to use, and the ratios of different types, early and late game Pokemon, and even diverse animal types are very off. But starting from about this point in the Index, the team had something they could work with, chip away at, and slowly reorganize as they edited it into a coherent new lineup of Pokemon. And the Pokemon they chose to be their final addition? A…weird looking warthog guy. With a face so funny looking it almost seems like a joke, ID 400 is strange guy that we know almost nothing about. There’s two theories we can entertain with this guy, neither of which is fully persuasive. So let’s look at both, and see which one you find more plausible. Option one is to just take 400 as it comes. This guy is probably based on a warthog or a feral pig (the difference is that one is found in Africa and the other in North America). At first, he might seem to be a hippopotamus or like a strange deformed dog, but his hair is the real clue. Feral hogs have a distinct plume of fur riding down their back, giving them their nickname of “razorback.” This guy’s punk mohawk is clearly inspired by that razorblade of hair common to warthogs, making it very probable that that’s what he was meant to be. With that in mind, we can draw a few more conclusions. Its not perfect, since of course warthogs usually have tusks, so this guy is probably a merger of a few similar animals with comparable traits. But at the very least, the hair on his back really makes me see this connection. He's also quite distinct from the other warthog in the Korean Index, ID 319, so maybe they didn't give him tusks to differentiate the two of them. Warthogs like this are not common in Japan, which suggests that ID 400 is another example of an Animal+ design based on an animal that Japanese people would find exotic. We’ve seen a lot of these, primarily in Period 1; Period 2d is about to show us a lot more of this type of design. Given ID 400’s placement, it is very possible that it fits better in Period 2d, alongside these other discarded Animal+ designs. Saying that, the second theory I’ll explain, if true, would put 400 decisively in Period 2c, so that’s where we’re stick him for now. On top of the warthog theming, it looks to me (and also @OrangeFrench, the main proponent of this theory) that the team played up the hair on its back to make 400 into something of a punk rocker. The hair looks a lot like the mohawk associated with an eighties punk band, and the rest of this guy gives a distinctive “bad ass” vibe to the design. It’s very silly, for sure, but the mouth and the eyes strike me as a rude or grotesque design, better fitting the idea of a creature that does what it wants, when it wants. My only doubts about all this is that ID 400’s sprite is 44x44 pixels, the smallest sprite size. While lots of Pokemon in the Korean Index use this size, it's often associated with first form Pokemon who evolve. And this guy, at least to me, looks like he was designed to evolve into something. It’s small and squat; it has tiny little hooves for feet that could easily grow into something more; it has strange black pants that don’t seem to go with its design, but might have a connection to another one of its family members. This is mostly a matter of opinion, but to me it looks as though this guy was designed with other Pokemon in mind. Which brings me to the second theory: ID 400 was an attempt at designing one more baby Pokemon to go along with Pichu, Cleffa, Elebebii, Mikon, Gyopin, and Puchikoon. I think it’s plausible that ID 400 is in fact a rough draft of a 1st stage evolution for Drowzee and Hypno. Given that Spaceworld ’97 is simply littered with baby Pokemon designs—even for unpopular Pokemon like Grimer—it would be strange if the Korean Index didn’t have any unused designs for babies. And while it’s impossible to be definitive about it, ID 400 is the best candidate for a discarded baby design. First of all, 400’s place in the Index is suspicious. It’s right next to three Pokemon which act as first stages for Generation I Pokemon. If 400 really is a pre-Drowzee, then it fits perfectly alongside Mikon, Puchikoon, and Gyopin in the Index. Secondly, look at the similarities 400 has with Drowzee and Hypno. 400’s weird black pants make perfect sense when he evolves into Drowzee, which already has a black lower body (mimicking a tapir). As well, the razorback mohawk that 400 sports admittedly looks out of place next to Drowzee, but seems perfectly in line with the mane of fur surrounding Hypno’s neck. On a more general scale, Drowzee and Hypno are pretty grotesque looking Pokemon, defined by their menacing presence, the fact that neither is “cute” in any sense, and by their distorted features, such as Hypno’s large nose. 400 also shares all of these features, in that it is purposefully ugly looking, not cute in any traditional sense, and has an out of proportion mouth. Looking at all of these factors together, it’s plausible to believe in some connection here.
On the other hand, there are reasons to argue against this hypothesis. First, notice how the Spaceworld ’97 sprites for Drowzee and Hypno are not created by the same artist who did ID 400: they both feature dithering in their shading, while 400 lacks anything like that. If this was created as a pre-evolution, it was made separately from those sprites. Secondly, there’s the obvious argument that 400's lack of tapir-like features is evidence that it isn't related. If you were going to design a baby Drowzee, the argument might go, why not give it at least some tapir-like characteristics? One particular trait that’s missing is a nose like Drowzee’s. Obviously, 400 need not have a trunk, but the hippo-like snout it does have doesn’t seem like it would grow into the Drowzee's. Also look at the eye designs: Hypno and Drowzee’s are both thin ovals, while 400’s are more bug-eyed. Finally, the general mood of the Pokemon is different: Drowzee and Hypno look malicious and scheming, while 400’s just excited to be alive. The obvious retort to this line of argument is that 400’s a rough draft: the team never went forward with a Drowzee baby Pokemon, and so this first draft was never redrawn to align more fully with Drowzee. Maybe so. That could explain the lack of dithering on the sprite, as well as the lack of tapir-ness. But as easy as this is to say, it doesn’t prove anything; it’s just a hypothesis to explain away the inconsistencies stated above. At the end of the day, I don’t think we can prove a relationship with the Drowzee family here, though I certainly see the resemblance. Whatever he was supposed to be, this cool dude is one of the unused designs I wish we could know more about; I’d love to understand how this idea came about and what plans the creators had for him. This guy, related to Drowzee or not, is a cool dude, and I'd love for some punk rock to find its way into Pokemon.
15 Comments
r_n
10/1/2022 10:06:14 pm
The thing I think of the most with 400 is honestly Slowpoke. And I'm not even saying it was meant as some weird pre-evolution, but, maybe designed by the same artist?
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Aaron George
10/29/2022 03:03:14 pm
Slowpoke has the same derpy "this guy is weird looking" vibe that 400 does; if this did enter into the games, that'd certainly be a comparison. If its not a relative of Drowzee, you're probably right: it was drafted up as an experiment with a larger idea, and then never returned to; probably because it was made by the same designer as 2d, which was probably someone who wasn't very established in the Pokemon design team.
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ScorpioTHK
10/2/2022 02:41:31 am
Wobbuffet and Girafarig: Separated at Birth
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Asmorano
10/29/2022 03:05:36 pm
I should have noticed that! I only made the connection to a Okiagari-Koboshi pretty late, and so I didn't think to look back at that sketchy design and make that connection.
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IllusiveEv
10/2/2022 05:50:35 pm
Re: the reuse of "Kageboozu" in Gen 3, I'm vaguely remembering that James Turner recently said that Pokémon are sometimes created with a naming idea first, so them liking the proto post-Tsuinsu/pre-Wobbuffet name and designing a new Pokémon around it certainly lines up with that. Maybe they told the name to a new designer who was unaware of the sprite revisions of its original design hence why there's no notable similarity between the revisions of Wobbuffet and Shuppet?
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Asmorano
10/29/2022 03:15:41 pm
That's got to be it. Kageboozu is a pretty clever name, and the Pokemon here named Kageboozu doesn't obviously relate to the concept the name evokes. It's very possible to me that they really liked the name because of its play on the original name, and they kept the name around to create a purer version of the concept evoked by the name. That seems really likely to me.
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FreeGorochu!
10/5/2022 07:33:42 pm
Oof Shuppet's lack of proto Pokedex data hurts. Checked TCRF for it and Mawile, the article is incomplete though so who knows if it's buried in the gigaleak stash. Why Mawile? Let me to explain. Kageboozu and Wobuffet may have inspired 2 different Pokemon in gen 3, Shuppet obviously and Mawile. Kageboozu and the thing that predated it have one thing in common, they have a covered eye. Might be a coincidence that Mawile is often depicted with only the right eye visible so it's kind of like those cut gen 2 Pokemon, when I was a kid playing Ruby I even thought Mawile was facing forward in its sprite and had its left eye obscured by the jaws. Moving on to less shaky theories, during its early days Mawile was found near exclusively in caves. Perhaps it was originally yet another Pokemon that lived in caves to hide some dark colored (and in this case dangerous) part of its body and this part of its lore was cut cus it was encroaching on Wobuffet. It certainly has a second head like the famous light blue punching bag. Girafarig, Twinz and Wobuffet hold so many mysteries which makes them alluring! Pre Girafarig's back is such a tease, the one eyed tail is creepy and could've fit a ghost/dark theme they were gunning for.
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Asmorano
10/29/2022 03:20:19 pm
I've always thought there was something odd going on with Mawile. It seems like a really interesting concept that must have been iterated a lot; I can't understand how they got to that design (especially as a Steel type) without going through a lot more simple designs first. It reminds me of Wobbuffet in that regard, and I wouldn't be surprised if it had a complicated design history. And while I think it's probably a coincidence, I definitely see what you're saying about the covered eye on Kageboozu! It's intriguing, if nothing else.
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FreeGorochu!
10/31/2022 04:08:09 pm
Mawile probably began life as a bear trap or something, a Pokédex entry randomly states the jaws are metallic. The steel typing hints at a Pokémon that could’ve been envisioned as a typical steel type with a metallic body and the first concept didn’t pan out so they went with something different. Even as a yokai based Pokémon Mawile strikes me as odd, you could do something more interesting with the futakuchi-onna than a little goblin thing with prominent jaws that are supposed to be hidden and baggy pants.
Wobbuffet's story is certainly amazing. I feel it was almost certain that Twinz was going to be replaced with Kageboozu, but they retracted after how it could look similar to Misdreavus as a floating head, so they had to come back to the Twinz idea and gave it a smart twist using Japanese folklore. I think Wobbuffet was retyped from Ghost to Psychic so it would have to rely less on immunities and more on its gimmick.
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Asmorano
10/29/2022 03:43:35 pm
I certainly don't understand why Wobbuffet is Psychic, besides a lingering connection to Girafarig, but you are absolutely right that Wobbuffet's gimmick wouldn't work at all if it were a Ghost type. It's also a good point that Kageboozu and Misdreavus have maybe too many similarities to each other; that's probably enough of a reason to go with the Wobbuffet design and not Kageboozu.
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Simbre
12/4/2022 01:48:16 am
That "before final" wobbuffet has a couple similarities with Litwick. I just saw a gbc-style sprite of it & noticed how much they had in common.
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Alex of X
4/26/2024 01:16:50 pm
Was reading thru the 2C section again and saw that Ledyba didn't get the vertical ridge on its carapace until Crystal (released Dec 2000), which is super interesting, because the Crystal design is showcased prominently in the 'Pikachu's Rescue Adventure' short played before 'Pokemon the Movie 2000' (released July 1999), a full 1.5 year before, and even a month prior to the Spaceworld 1999 build of G/S (Aug 1999)!
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Asmorano
5/1/2024 02:50:27 pm
Good catch about Ledyba!
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Egon370
4/30/2024 09:37:53 am
about twinz:
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AuthorMy name's Aaron George, and I'm both a historian and a fan of Pokemon, especially of development. Reach me at @Asmoranomardic ArchivesCategories |