ID #444: PhanpyOkay, we’re down to the last five mons in the Korean Index! At this point, Game Freak was down to the wire. It’s pretty clear from the way the Korean Index is set up that the Index was more or less set right before the Spaceworld ’97 build. The last design in the Index appears in SW’97, and there are no Pokemon that appear in later builds after it, which suggests that very few changes happened to the roster between SW’97 and the date of the file containing the Korean Index, which is July 1998. We’ve talked about a couple of designed that were possibly tweaked or added after Spaceworld ’97 (Ho-oh, Elekid, Stantler, Bomushikaa, and Cyndaquil are all possibilities for sprites that post-date SW’97), but all of those were inserted into earlier slots in the Index, suggesting it was just an update to their sprite or that they overwrote some earlier thrown-out design. Anyway, all of this heavily suggests that these last five (really, all of Period 3c) didn’t have a lot of time for polish before we see their first incarnation in Spaceworld ’97. Phanpy is a perfect demonstration of this. Phanpy’s cute! A baby elephant sitting on its butt, happy to exist in this world. Phanpy’s clearly a good choice for Gold and Silver, but at this stage of its development, it’s barely more than an Animal+ design. Other than a faint outline on its head (which could be some armor?) Phanpy doesn’t look like it has anything special going on; heck, even Seel’s horn on its head feels a bit more original than Phanpy’s initial design. And besides being an elephant, Phanpy also doesn’t have much in common with its evolution, Donphan. They don’t even share remotely similar palettes (though notably, early materials do show Donphan with a dark blue palette, suggesting they were already considering changing it). What motivated the creation of Phanpy in the first place? Like I’ve said, I think it's safe to assume that during Period 3c (and Era III too, to a lesser extent) the team was quickly making Pokemon to fill in the gaps that existed in the Pokedex at that point. Mareep and Ampharos don’t really make sense as a family; thus Flaafy was created. Hoothoot, being an early game bird Pokemon meant specifically to parallel Pidgey or Spearow, just simply wouldn’t work if it was a single-stage family; thus, Noctowl was born. Rinrin parallels Meowth, so it therefore needs an evolution; Berunrun was created. You get the idea. So why was Phanpy considered a priority? I think at this last stage, the team was scouring the new Pokedex they created, looking for single-stage Pokemon that would function better as second stage Pokemon. They had a lot to choose from: at this stage of development, there were 22 single-stage Pokemon to choose from. They are collected below: However, once you break this list down, there aren’t actually that many choices of which Pokemon could get a second stage. Let’s walk through the list. Ho-oh and the Legendary Doggos are, well, legendary, and thus would not have an evolution. An evolution for Unown wouldn't even make sense; maybe they'd be lower case letters? Aipom, Snubbull, and Sneasel would be good candidates, except we know they were added to the Spaceworld '97 roster after Phanpy was created (thus why they're crammed at the end of the Pokedex and Phanpy is next to its evolution).* An evolution for Smeargle, like Unown, doesn't really make sense because of its gimmick. Miltank was supposed to parallel Tauros, and since Tauros is a single stage Pokemon, Miltank has to be as well.** Hitmontop is a bad candidate for an evolution, as Hitmonchan and Hitmonlee were single stage Pokemon (although clearly, they decided to give Hitmontop an evolution anyways). Delibird is based on Santa Claus; would it's evolution be an Elf-Duck, or maybe a gigantic Robo-Santa? Both directions seem to push his gimmicky design too far. Bomushikaa, Mantine (Well, Gyarados also had that typing, to be fair), Skarmory, and Quagsire are all unique typings introduced first in Generation II, which probably made them unique enough that they didn't really feel like they were a priority for an evolution (even though, of course, Quagsire ended up getting an evolution later in development anyway). Those four are possible candidates, and I could imagine good concepts for them (A baby metal bird; a wobbly seal balancing on a giant circus ball) but these four were probably considered special enough already that they served a purpose in the games even without an evolution. *Note that this is also why Togepi isn't even on this list: it hadn't been created yet. **Of course, they could have given them both a baby calf relative that can evolve into either Tauros or Miltank based on its gender. That'd be super cute, and I don't know why they didn't think of this great idea. Once you discount all of those, we end up with only six more choices: Qwilfish, Marill, Sunflora, Ledyba, Murkrow, and Donphan. Honestly, I have no idea why the team never gave Murkrow an evolution, or seemingly never even considered the idea. Murkrow doesn’t look like a final stage Pokemon, and its stats certainly aren’t high enough to be useful as a single stage. Other than Murkrow though, of these last six possibilities, all of them did get an evolution: three of them right here in Period 3c, and the other three by the final stages of development. I enumerate this list just to demonstrate what I think the development team must have seen at this point. Someone probably had a clever idea to link together the Hitmons, explaining why Tyrogue appears in Period 3c at the last second. But of the Pokemon most ripe for an evolutionary relative, three of them were worked on right here! While at first it feels like Phanpy was drawn out of a hat as a last minute design, when you break down the Pokedex of Spaceworld ’97, it feels almost inevitable that Donphan would have gotten an evolution at some point. On top of this, remember that Donphan was one of the very earliest Pokemon designed for Pokemon 2, and certainly one of the early favorite designs: after all it was the first new Pokemon introduced to the public, in a cameo at the beginning of the first movie. Given how long it had existed in the new Pokedex, the team had likely planned on expanding on Donphan for awhile. Given that Period 3c was designed right before Spaceworld ’97, the designers may have just felt they couldn’t wait any longer. That, or the team had stared at a single-stage Donphan for years, and someone finally got the idea of what its baby form would look like! Adorable! Of course, like I said at the beginning, Phanpy looks almost nothing like Donphan, suggesting to me that the designer only had a short time to come up with the concept; I wouldn’t be surprised if there was only one draft of Phanpy’s sprites before SW’97, or if the team considered this sprite a placeholder. By June 1999, the team certainly had iterated the concept a bit more: while it uses the 1997 sprite as a base, the sprite now has little bits of armor covering most of its body, giving Phanpy a more obvious similarity to the tank that is Donphan. By Spaceworld ’99 and the final, Phanpy went through a number of tweaks to make this armor a little more natural, but the design had more or less been perfected. Final Phanpy certainly looks like it is ready to one day become the imposing Donphan. One side note: Almost no trainers use Phanpy, and none of them use Donphan. The only exception is one group of twins who use level 31 Teddiursa and Phanpy, playing on the idea that they’re version exclusives so only two siblings with both versions of the games could conceivably have both. But it is weird that no trainer uses Donphan: another example of how underused many of the Gold/Silver Pokemon were. Another side note: Donphan's sprite, of course, stayed almost exactly the same through development; only its palette changed. However, when the team finally got around to developing a Silver sprite for it, someone on the team had the bright idea to coordinate it with Phanpy's Silver. Which means that if you're playing Silver, both Phanpy and Donphan strike the exact same pose! Like I said before: Adorable! We talked about Donphan’s moveset way back in the day, when we first covered Donphan. However, there are a few new aspects to discuss, now that we’re investigating Phanpy. The most interesting thing to note is that in both Spaceworld ’97 and the final, Phanpy’s learnset diverges significantly from Donphan’s. In Spaceworld ’97, for instance, Phanpy didn’t learn Horn Drill like Donphan, although everything else was mostly the same. In the final, they have very different movesets. Phanpy learns Tackle, Take Down, Endure, and Double Edge, all moves that Donphan doesn’t have access to: in their place, Donphan instead learns Horn Attack, Fury Attack, Rapid Spin, and Earthquake. This is quite unusual: most Pokemon share the moves they learn with their evolved forms, with some limited exceptions here at there. While there are a lot of reasons this could happen—maybe, for instance, in SW’97 Phanpy was using an updated version of the family’s moveset and Donphan’s hadn’t been changed yet—it’s very likely that these differences in movesets are flavor, playing on the fact that Phanpy is so much smaller than Donphan, and that Phanpy hasn't grown tusks yet. Without tusks, how's Phanpy supposed to Horn Drill? Is that itty bitty guy gonna cause an Earthquake? Overall, I think this is a cute touch. It doesn’t make much difference for gameplay, but it helps make Pokemon feel more like a real world. One last thing: Phanpy’s early Pokedex entries are quite different from the final ones. Check it out: Early Gold: Though still a toddler, it grows bigger and bigger by eating five times its body weight in food. Final Gold: It swings its trunk around as if playing, but is very dangerous due to its sheer strength. Early Silver: It swings its long upper jaw [trunk], which it can move more freely than its limbs, to drive away its enemies. Final Silver: It smacks things with its trunk as a display of affection, but it's so powerful that if you're not careful, you'll be sent flying. Okay, so, obviously the final concept is very cute: the idea of Phanpy as this affectionate, fun loving Elephant that sometimes smacks people around accidentally with its trunk is perfect. But I love the first concept as well, of a super hungry baby that gorges itself on food until it becomes as big as Donphan! Overall, I think that early entry highlights the wrong parts of Phanpy—if the entry focused on how much it eats, the Pokemon itself should really be themed around eating—but it is a very cute detail I’m sad we lost. Phanpy also seems notably more serious in the early entries: it “swings its trunk” to intimidate predators, not to play. Phanpy’s a good addition to the games, and Donphan is enriched by having a baby evolution. I’m happy to have Phanpy, and of all the strange choices the developers made for this roster, Phanpy is not a bad one. ID 445: TogepiMaybe the most memorable, most well-liked, and arguably cutest Pokemon from Gold and Silver is Togepi. It’s a cute little egg dude, the most obvious baby Pokemon in a sea of baby Pokemon. It’s pretty clear that Togepi was added to Spaceworld ’97 at the last second after it was decided the games needed some sort of mascot. And whoever designed Togepi was happy to oblige. The first Pokemon to appear in the anime was Ho-oh, in a cameo appearance from the very first episode. Notably, Ho-oh appearance didn’t quite match how it would actually turn out—the largest divergence was its completely golden coloring. But excepting Ho-oh, the first Generation II Pokemon to appear in the anime (in a much more substantial appearance) was Togepi. As an egg, Togepi first appeared in Attack of the Prehistoric Pokemon!, which aired on May 28th, 1998, seven months after the Spaceworld ’97 build and just three weeks after the Korean Index was last updated. Four episodes later, in June, Togepi made its glorious first appearance after hatching! After Misty wins the affections of Togepi in a Pokemon tournament, it spends the rest of its time in her care, adorably carried in her arms for the rest of its adventures. More Generation II Pokemon would make appearances shortly after this: Marill and Snubbull appeared that July, in the short Pikachu’s Vacation; Donphan made its first appearance at the same time, in the first Pokemon movie. One year after these appearances, Ledyba, Elekid, Hoothoot and Bellossom all appeared in the short Pikachu’s Rescue Adventure, right before the second movie introduced Lugia. Gold and Silver versions were released in Japan shortly afterwards. Togepi stands out among this list of early appearances in that Marill, Donphan, Ho-oh, Hoothoot, and Snubbull all appear very early in the Korean Index; Lebyda appears a little bit later but still far before Togepi, and Elekid is a weird aberration we’ve talked about a lot before. And admittedly Bellossom is pretty close to Togepi. But I guess what I’m trying to suggest is that most of these other appearances probably happened in part because Game Freak already had a design mostly nailed down, and the Pokemon team gave the anime those designs to use knowing already that they had been iterated and were probably close to their final appearances. Bellossom and Ledyba appear later in the Index, but remember that they appeared a year after Togepi did, and presumably the team had had a year to decide on their designs by then. But Togepi, at best, was created only a few months before Spaceworld ’97, which means its design probably only predated its anime appears by 8-10 months. I’m not sure how much in advance the anime was produced and animated, but that seems like an awfully quick turnaround to me. Likely, then, is that the anime and Gold/Silver teams were collaborating to some degree: the anime wanted to advertise the new games—especially just as the movie was coming out—and the Gold/Silver team was happy to design a Pokemon specially created to get people pumped for new Pokemon. Togepi makes perfect sense in this role: it’s cute, it’s small and transportable so it can be out of its Pokeball most of the episode, unlike say, a Donphan, which wouldn’t be able to make nearly so many appearances in the anime. It’s also a baby, which, especially at the time, was a major feature of Gold and Silver that the team may have wanted to publicize. Something like Pichu, Cleffa, or even Marill could probably have served the same purposes as Togepi, but the team decided to create something new specially designed for the anime rather than just through them one of these designs. So while Togepi’s one of the very few Era III Pokemon that isn’t an evolutionary relative of another Pokemon, it’s very understandable why it would’ve snuck in to one of the very last slots of the Korean Index. More evidence of Togepi’s very sudden inclusion is its very strange ordering in the Spaceworld ’97 Pokedex. For the most part, SW’97 seems like most Pokemon are ordered in a way that makes sense, and follows normal Pokedex logic—evolutionary relatives are grouped together, early Pokemon like Hoothoot and Ledyba are at the beginning of the new list, legendary and more unique designs are towards the end. But Togepi is shunted at the very end of the list: it is numbered #248 out of #251, a slot that should definitely have been a Legendary ‘mon. Togepi’s not the only misordered Pokemon at the end of the Pokedex: Sneasel, Snubbull, Aipom, and Riifi are also found incongruously at the end alongside Togepi, with no rhyme or reason to their ordering. It’s very obvious to me that these Pokemon were the last ones added to the Spaceworld ’97 build. They were, in fact, added so late that there wasn’t time to re-order the Pokedex; instead, they were just pasted on the end, ready for the team to reorder later when they had more time. Why these five? First of all, I don’t think they strictly overwrote any other Pokemon: if they had, they would have been somewhere in the middle of the Pokedex, in the slot of the Pokemon they replaced. That’s not to say that didn’t happen in any cases: Sneasel’s not quite at the end of the list, but instead between Suicune and Ho-oh, right where another Legendary Pokemon should go. It’s very likely Sneasel was a replacement for something legendary in that slot. My guess, personally, is ID 344, the Viking Ship Pokemon: not only does it look like it could be potentially legendary (not to mention some people [not me] think it might be an Lugia) but it also was designed by Sugimori and surrounded with other used Sugimori designs in the Korean Index, making it likely that it was in the Pokedex for a substantial period of development. Turban, Betobebii, and Hinaazu are also in odd parts of the Spaceworld ’97 Pokedex, and as all were made late in the Korean Index, during Era III; I wouldn’t be surprised if they overwrote slots previously used by other ‘mon in the Korean Index. Again, all guesses are speculative, but we have good evidence to supposed that Sato the weird flying fish was a late deletion, as was the ID 415, the Armored Xylophone Pokemon. The odd Proto-Dunsparce also appears right next to 415, and given that almost nothing everything else in Era III was included in Spaceworld 97, Proto-Dunsparce might also have been kicked from the roster. Also, Notice that Betobebii and Turban are right next to each other in the Spaceworld 97 Pokedex. They were both made in Era III, so that means they were a relatively late addition to the Pokedex; if they overwrote a two-stage family, then that would explain why they both appear one after another in the Pokedex. Since we’ve already speculated that ID 415 and ID 344 were related, for all we know it could have been them in those slots. Or, now that I look at the sprites again, 415 and Proto-Dunsparce really do look like they could be evolutionary relatives, so maybe it was them. The Almost-Weres The reason Togepi’s at the end of the list is pretty obvious, but what about the others: Snubbull, Sneasel, Aipom, and Riifi? Snubbull’s probably there for the same reason that Togepi is: the team was looking for designs with mascot potential, and they went through the earlier parts of the Korean Index and decided Snubbull had the most potential to fill this role. Someone in the comments of an earlier article told me that even though Snubbull was unobtainable in the Spaceworld ’97 demo, it was heavily featured on the promotional materials there. Not only that, but Snubbull had a main character role (alongside Marill) in Pikachu’s Vacation, a short cartoon that basically features only cuties. It's less clear why Sneasel, Aipom, and Riifi were unused and then added in at the last moment. My guess is that when the team was finalizing the Pokedex for the Spaceworld build, they simply had three slots left at the end. They knew they wanted 101 new designs, so they team just quickly skimmed the discarded Korean Index designs for any that had potential to be reworked. Sneasel and Aipom, in particular, are very basic, barebones designs in this early iteration, and both went through a complete overhaul by June 1999. So maybe the team liked the general concepts of these guys, and added them in assuming they'd rework them or delete them later. Riifi is a bit more developed than these two, but the team may have felt that, if they had one more slot available, it didn’t make sense to discard one of their Eevee designs. If Generation I had three Eevees, why not Gen II? What the heck, throw in Riifi at the end, even if the designers liked it less, and they can decide later whether to keep it (Spoilers: they didn’t). Anyway, Togepi’s design didn’t change that much after its initial creation, probably because it had already appeared in the anime. In fact, the revisions made seemed mostly aimed at making sure Togepi’s sprite lined up with it’s anime appearance, most notably by making the spots on its egg multicolored. They also redesigned it to be smaller as time went on, probably because it was cuter that way, but also potentially because after designing Togetic, it worked better as part of an evolutionary family if it was smaller than Togetic. (Credit: Arica Walker) Togetic is entirely different tale, but it is briefly worth examining it's relationship to Togepi. On its own, Togepi’s concept is a bit indiscernible. It’s got spikes on its head, and it’s yellow, but what is it supposed to be? Togetic provides the answer, assuming you know that its name was translated badly. Togetic should really be translated from the Japanese as “Togechick." Understanding this, it's clear that Togetic is supposed to be based on a newly hatched chicken. Keeping that in mind, Togepi's clearly the chicken while still in its egg. But that also means that Togepi is, to some degree, based on a bird. You can even see that in it's Spaceworld '97 moveset, in which Togepi learns Mirror Move (In Japanese, "Parrot Mimicry") and Peck. Saying that, it's also important to remember that Togetic was designed much later than Togepi, after Togepi’s design was fully established. Unlike other evolutionary families in Gold and Silver which were clearly designed together (Jumpluf and friends, or Natu and Xatu), Togetic had to later be molded to fit as a logical extension of Togepi. I’m pretty sure the team always wanted Togepi to have an evolution in the final games—it is an egg, after all—but Togepi seems rushed out as a singular, cute, mascot Pokemon, and the evolution only came later. That probably explains why Togetic is so forgettable while Togepi is iconic: While Togepi was designed only with an eye towards making it look good, Togetic more or less was constrained by Togepi. In terms of its gameplay, Togepi’s a really interesting Pokemon. It’s initial moveset from Spaceworld ’97 is all over the place: it learns Peck, Mirror Move, Recover, Skull Bash, Protect, and Spike Cannon, all moves it wouldn’t learn by the final game. I've already mentioned how strange Peck and Mirror Move are, but Skull Bash is frankly strange as well: maybe those spikes on Togepi's head hurt if it slams into you? Likewise, Spike Cannon is a strange move for Togepi to learn, but it might be explained by a Pokedex entry that wasn’t used in the final game (but was used on a Promotion Pokemon TCG card): It's just a baby, but in emergency situations it can repel foes by releasing poison from its head spikes. This is a strange ability, not hinted at anywhere else; it feels out of character for Togepi so I’m glad it was retconned. And while this entry makes me think it’s referring to Toxic, this description also sounds a bit like Spike Cannon. Or, at least it has its origins in a similar idea: maybe Spike Cannon was initially seen as an emergency defense, when Togepi shoots its head spikes off at enemies? On the other hand, this entry was written late in development, and first shows up in our data by Spaceworld ’99; Spike Cannon was probably already long gone from its move list, though I don’t have a way to confirm that (if you do let me know in the comments!). Maybe it briefly learned Toxic during this period of development? Anyway, the original version of Togepi’s moveset is fairly incoherent, probably because it was created so close to the Spaceworld '97 build. By the final game, the team had come up with an entirely new concept for its moveset that worked a lot better for its nature. In the final, Togepi's a cute defensive baby. It learns no offensive moves until Level 38, when it learns Double Edge (a move common to Normal type cuties, like Chansey, Jigglypuff, and Clefairy). Instead, all it learns are moves like Growl, Charm, Sweet Kiss, and Safeguard. Very fitting for a helpless baby Pokemon. The one exception is Metronome, which can technically be used to damage the opponent, albeit in an unpredictable way. While this used to be a signature move for Clefairy, in the anime Togepi became infamous for using the move, which would inevitably create a huge explosion. My guess is that Togepi learned Metronome in the final games because the anime made such a joke out of it, though I’m not positive if the timing works out. This is potentially, like in the case of Donphan’s use of Rollout in the first movie before Rollout was on its moveset, a rare case of the anime influencing the game mechanics of Gold and Silver. If the team really did create Togepi for the express purpose of creating a mascot Pokemon, well, they succeeded: Togepi was a massive success and probably the most instantly recognizable Pokemon of Generation II. Togepi’s late inclusion belies how good a design it was: sometimes the Pokemon designers took forever to hit upon a design they liked (as in the case of Sneasel) while sometimes they get it perfect almost instantly. ID #446: ShibirefuguWay back when, in Period 1b, we discussed ID 317, a fat looking Puffer Fish Pokemon that went unused. Well, time repeats itself, and today, we’re talking about a fat puffer fish Pokemon that went unused in the final games. What’s new that we can say about Shibirefugu? Thanks to RacieB for the art. Just look at this guy's dopey grin! A lot, actually. First, I’m going to more or less assume that Shibirefugu is a semi-redesign of 317; if you want to read me go through the different possibilities of how the two are related, I invite you to go back to that article; as well, the article on Qwilfish discusses, again, what the relationship between these two actually was. But in short, I think the following happened: 317 was part of a large section of Animal+ designs, probably drawn by some of the new designers for this game (Yoshikawa and Ota), but potentially drawn by Nishida or Fujiwara/Morimoto (who were probably uninvolved, as they were working on a different Game Freak game around 1996/1997). These designers are almost all unused, reflecting both that these new designers probably had less of their designs picked to be part of the new games, but also reflecting that Period 1b was so early in development that many of these were just brainstorms to start the process. It’s also possible that 317 was a holdover design from Generation I, redrawn here by Yoshikawa or Ota for the sequel, but there’s no evidence for that beyond speculation. Anyway, in Period 1d, Sugimori designed his first batch of Pokemon, and Qwilfish was one of them. Probably inspired by 317, Sugimori wanted to experiment with his own take on a Puffer Fish. It’s unclear if Qwilfish was meant to replace 317, or if it was designed to be an evolutionary relative (back when we talked about Qwilfish, I posited the former, given how much similarity I saw in the backsprites of 317 and Qwilfish). But one thing is for sure: the design of 317 did not please the Game Freak team, and they probably decided that if Qwilfish was to get an evolution, it should be designed from the ground up. My supposition is that Pokemon designs in the Korean Index were usually overwritten with new sprites as they sprites were updated: you can see that for sure with Sato, whose earlier sprites were found in the trash folder; Stantler, I expect, also got a redesign that overwrote an earlier set of sprites, and Elekid was either redesigned or overwrote a completely different Pokemon in its slot. But all of the Period 1a and 1b Pokemon have the same basic style to their sprites, and they all look pretty rough; If they were ever overwritten, they were overwritten by the same designer who did the rest of these sections—with the exception of Quagsire and Sneasel, which both look like they could have been made by Nishida. If that's the case, it's possible Nishida redrew some designs from other designers, explaining why her sprites are in a section of the Index that otherwise was created by a different, mystery designer (probably one of the two new designers, Ota or Yoshikawa). Anyway, if Shibirefugu was a redesign of 317, it is notable that it didn’t just overwrite 317’s earlier sprite, but instead shows up so late in the Korean Index. It could be the case that these sprites were just so old that the team didn’t bother touching their sprites anymore. It could be the case that there was a convention where different designers didn’t overwrite sprites they didn’t originally make; that would make sense, as maybe artists didn’t feel comfortable erasing someone else’s artwork. This would also explain where there are two different designs of Elekid back to back: if Sugimori drew the later one, and Nishida drew the more baby-like one, Sugimori may have left her design intact in the index as a courtesy. Saying this, maybe Qwilfish was the Sugimori redesigned version of 317, and he left it in a later slot in the Korean Index specifically so he wouldn't be overwriting someone else's hard work? It could also be that Shibirefugu was redesigned so late in the process that it felt strange to overwrite an unused sprite designed (at this point) almost two years ago: maybe the team felt like they had come such a long way from those old designs that Shibirefugu might as well take a new slot. Or, of course, Shibirefugu was an entirely new design, and the design team didn’t really think of it as having any connection to 319. After all, Period 3c is marked by designs which were made to be evolutionary relatives to other Gen II designs, and that’s exactly what Shibirefugu is! Maybe there’s no more need for an explanation than that. Regardless of what exactly happened, Shibirefugu appeared at the very end of the Korean Index; it was clearly a priority that Qwilfish have an evolution before Spaceworld ’97. Honestly, this makes sense: Qwilfish doesn’t look all that fierce as it is, and as an early-to-mid game Water Pokemon, it made a good fit for a two-stage Pokemon. Shibirefugu clearly builds off of Qwilfish in interesting ways: it continues the landmine theme of Qwilfish, but now Shibirefugu is much larger and more bulbous; its still got the lips of Qwilfish, but now they’ve changed from a morose frown into a giant grin. It’s a cool design: it’s immediately memorable while still playing with the themes of Qwilfish. Honestly, the biggest surprise to me is that Shibirefugu didn’t survive until the final versions of Gold and Silver. Qwilfish seems like a very strange one-off Pokemon in the final that doesn’t really serve a purpose. Even stranger that Shibirefugu was replaced with Stantler, a holdover from Generation I that also feels sort of useless in the final game. In general, I think Shibirefugu would have fit into the gameplay of the final Johto games much better than Stantler, to say nothing about Magby, Smoochum, Elekid, or weirdos like Delibird. (Obviously Qwilfish just recently got an evolution in Pokemon Legends: Arceus, and so it finally got justice after being robbed. However, it’s pretty clear that Overquil is a design unrelated to Shibirefugu). Stantler replaced Shibirefugu pretty quickly: by the time we have any data from the reboot of development that happened in early 1999, Stantler’s already gotten distinct stats; it's also already Normal type, and there's no remains of Shibirefugu other than its backsprite. Honestly, given that Stantler's potentially one of the few entries in the Korean Index that was probably updated after Spaceworld '97 (It doesn't appear in SW'97, but has a sprite strikingly close to the final in the Korean Index), I wouldn't be surprised if Shibirefugu was deleted from the roster even before the 1999 reboot; if it was, then that was one of the very last things changed before the design went on hiatus through 1998. Saying that, that wouldn't explain why Stantler was still using Shibirefugu's backsprite at late as June 1999, even though the earlier Korean Index had a perfectly good backsprite. Either the team was just lazy getting the old backsprite replaced, or Stantler's inclusion was later, after the reboot, and they hadn't yet had time to switch it all over. In general, after the 1999 reboot of the games, the team seemed to want to focus less on evolutionary relatives and more on unique Pokemon to fill out the roster. Shibirefugu could be a casualty of this shift in design: as the designers went back to the drawing board and started culling evolutions and babies, Shibirefugu was probably one of the easiest to lose, if it hadn't been already deleted for Stantler. Now, we have no confirmation of this, since Stantler replaced Shibirefugu so quickly, but I can’t help but think that Shibirefugu was going to be a Water/Electric type. Not only would paralysis be a perfect effect for a puffer fish (and indeed, Shibirefugu learns Thunder Wave in SW’97, a move almost exclusively reserved for the learnsets of Electric Pokemon), but there’s also the very obvious lightning bolt on its head. Obviously there’s nothing in Shibirefugu’s stats or data that suggest a second typing, and both it and Qwilfish are only Water types, but it makes me wonder. It’s certainly plausible that the team were in a hurry to input Shibirefugu’s typing and didn’t both giving it anything different from Qwilfish; after all, the ending of the Korean Index, like I’ve said many times by now, was probably done very quickly and there’s signs that it was rushed. So the extra Electric typing might have been an idea the team had that it hadn’t yet implemented. Let's also talk about the other conjectural conspiracy theory concerning Shibirefugu: Whiscash. While we can’t make any connections for sure--after all, Shibirefugu was dropped in 1997 or 1998, and work on Generation Three didn’t begin until at the very earliest in 1999--there are striking visual similarities between these two Pokemon. Whiscash has the same goofy grin as Shibirefugu, the same basic color scheme. They have a very similar tailfin, and the bottom two spikes on Shibirefugu's head are positioned in the same place as Wiscash's blue whiskers. They both also share a very similar pose. Most importantly, Wiscash has an odd “W” on its head, right in the exact same position that Shibirefugu had its lightning bolt. Could they be related? My gut says they probably are. Obviously, there’s lots of differences between the two: one’s a Puffer Fish, the other’s a Catfish; one has spikes, the other whiskers. One is Water(/Electric?) and the other is Water/Ground. But those differences are only due to their species, and you can easily imagine that in Generation III one of the designers went back to Shibirefugu and redesigned it as a new type of animal, hoping that this would work better with the new aesthetic. After all, Whiscash doesn’t have to evolve out of Qwilfish, so it could really be any type of fish: given how much Japan loves Catfish, it’s no surprise they might have wanted one in Generation III, especially after Nameru failed to bring catfish representation into Generation II. Accounting for the change of species, and Whishcash and Shibirefugu are basically twins. Then there’s the fact that Whishcash is a dual-type Water/Ground Pokemon. If it really was designed out of Shibirefugu, could its dual-typing hint that maybe Shibirefugu was dual-typed as well? Obviously, a catfish, in a Japanese game, would be ground type, since they control Earthquakes, so it’s very plausible to me that if Shibirefugu was originally Water/Electric, the designer would have changed that as a first priority when changing him into a Catfish. That also explains why Whiscash has a different symbol on its head: change its typing, and the lightning bolt no longer makes sense. UPDATE: The amazing sprite artist @OrangeFrench decided to try his hand at altering the Shibirefugu sprite into a Wiscash one. The result is really neat and, in my opinion, convincing... Of course, all of this is supposition. The only data we have for Whiscash from Gen 3’s in-dev period is that its original palette was primary black and secondary blue, which seems to be evidence that it started with a very different color scheme than Shibirefugu. So for all we know, the two fish were completely unrelated. After all, there’s only so many ways you can draw a fish. While it is a possible redemption story that Shibirefugu was revived as Wiscash, I can't help but feel sad that it got cut so early from Generation II's roster. Not only is Shibirefugu adorable, but Qwilfish badly needed a second evolution in the final. I get that the team wanted to make room for more original designs; it just feels like Shibirefugu brought too much to the table to be so ignobly cast down. ID #447: LedianLedyba, which appeared earlier in the Index back in Era II, was pretty much a home run from the moment of its creation. It looked neat, it looked like a Pokemon, and it embodied an unused but very well-known animal. Ledyba stayed just about the same through development, minus a palette change and a few subtle changes to its learnset. The team clearly liked it from the beginning, and given that Bug Pokemon almost always evolve, there was no chance Ledyba was going to be a single-stage ‘mon. However, Ledian had a slightly more complicated creation. Ledian’s Spaceworld ’97 sprite is…weird. If Ledyba looked like an anthropomorphic ladybug, then Ledian started out life as a…regular ladybug? Okay okay it has stars for spots, and it’s at least red, unlike Ledyba, but there’s something very uninspiring about Ledian’s design. It’s hardly what you’d expect from a ferocious final-stage Pokemon. Beedrill has flippin’ stingers coming from its hands; Butterfree is a majestic butterfly. Ledian is on all fours. And it has some stars. Look at these fearsome, majestic, fully evolved Bug Pokemon! To understand Ledian design, at the minimum we need to talk about its original name. Mitsuboshi translates to “three stars,” which Ledian has on its back. The word for star in Japanese is also the same word for spot, which makes this a cute pun: Ledian’s spots are replacing with stars, though they’re called the same thing. Ledian also learns the move Swift, which has an animation of three stars flying at the enemy Pokemon, and although lots of Pokemon learn Swift, it seems especially apt here. Although it doesn’t look fierce, at least the original Mitsuboshi had a theme going on. Ledyba was actually encounterable in the Spaceworld ’97 demo; thus, the public were going to see it. As a result, I’m sure the team wanted to make sure its design was ready to go. But Ledian was unobtainable—in fact, the demo purposefully removed Ledyba’s evolution data, so that there was no way players could see what it was like evolved. As a result, I’m sure that Ledian’s design wasn’t nearly so much of a priority. The team knew they needed Ledyba to have an evolution, but at this stage of development they didn’t much care about what that evolutionary relative was like. I’m sure they created a very rough sprite, put stars on it, and then called it a day, knowing they’d fix it up later. In fact, I’ve seen multiple people comment that they think Ledian’s sprite might just be an earlier sprite originally designed for Ledyba. I don’t think we have any data anywhere that provides evidence for this theory, but honestly, I find the idea very plausible. Given how many corners are cut in this last section of the Korean Index, why wouldn’t the team take an old sprite and repurpose it as a placeholder for an evolution they’d barely worked on? I mean, if I put these sprites in front of you, could you guess which one of them was meant to be the evolution? They look like two different takes on the same creature more than separate Pokemon. After the 1999 reboot of development, it seems the team had more time to consider a concept for Mitsuboshi. The idea they settled on was inspired. Rather than having anxious bug eyes and a boring pose like the initial sprite, the team reimagined what this ladybug would look like if its eyes were actually more like a visor on a helmet. Instead of just looking like a bug, the team doubled down on the anthropomorphic nature of Ledyba, making Ledian look much more humanoid that before. And to top it all off, they made Ledian strike a heroic pose. Instead of being a bug, Ledian became: A Super Sentai Ranger! For those not in the know, Super Sentai Rangers were a genre of action super heroes who found gigantic monsters rampaging through the streets of Japan. Most Americans know them as the Power Rangers, because the Power Rangers serieses were actually cobbled together from footage from the old Super Sentai TV shows alongside linking sections acted by American actors. Super Sentai Rangers are absurdly popular, if a bit childish; we know that the Game Freak team loved Ultraman, which was a permutation of the Super Sentai formula. In fact, many of the original Pokemon in Generation I were based off of Ultraman kaiju. It’s only fitting then, that they also created a Pokemon which resembled the heroes of that same genre. It's also notable that Ledian has at least a passing resemblance to Ultraman, and even more of a resemblance to Pulseman, Game Freak’s other video game franchise. Pulseman was another Sentai sort of design, this time more in the vein of Megaman. Bulbapedia even suggests that Ledian’s final name is a portmanteau of “Ladybug” and “Guardian." Given that Sentai Rangers protect the world from monsters, "Guardian" is particularly apt. There’s one huge problem with Ledian. It’s terrible. Despite being a superhero, and despite getting a STAB bonus to two physical types (Bug and Flying), the team determined, for some unfathomable reason, that Ledian should only had 35 in its attack stat (Ledyba is worse with 20). It’s Special Attack is barely better: 40 for Ledyba, and 55 for Ledian. These numbers are low even for Pokemon who are supposed to be weak in those stats: Kadabra, which is not even a fully-evolved Pokemon and is the very definition of “weak physically, strong in special” has a 35 in Attack. Caterpie, a Pokemon designed to be awful, has 30 Attack, almost the same amount. Togetic, which barely learns any offensive moves at all, has 40 Attack and 80 Special. All this is before we even look at Ledian’s moveset! It does have reasonably good TM moves, allowing it to use Thunderpunch, Rollout, and Giga Drain to hit multiple important weaknesses. But Ledian learns no Flying moves and no Bug moves, making it impossible to even use a STAB bonus. As for its level up moveset, it’s terrible! Ledian only learns four attacking moves by level up: Tackle, Comet Punch, Swift, and Double Edge. All Normal moves, and all moves that use its abysmal attack stat. I have no idea why they did this! Obviously, Ledian is an early game Pokemon, so it naturally should be outclassed by rarer specimens, but 35 Attack and 55 Special is low even by that bar. It doesn’t match at all flavor-wise: if anything, a Sentai Ranger should be great at fighting, what with the jump-kicks and its laser technology and its Zords. And its other stats aren’t good either, to make up for this. Ledian does have 110 Special Defense and 85 Speed, which are decent, but they’re nothing to write home about, and given that it only has 55 HP, that Special Defense isn’t going to be worth much. It seems like the team may have wanted Ledian to be a set-up Pokemon: it learns Safeguard, Reflect, and Lightscreen, along with Baton Pass and Agility, so it could reasonably set up these defensive moves and then switch out to give its Speed Boosts to something else. I guess it works like that, and to be fair, that playstyle lives up to its “Guardian” nature. Still, given its poor defense and poor HP, I’m not sure Ledian’s ever going to be on the battlefield long enough to get many of these moves off. And it's not like it can pass off any good buffs through Baton Pass: it can't learn Sword's Dance or anything to buff defense. So I don’t know. It’s not like Ledian was rushed out the door; in fact, its stats stayed identical throughout development. So they had tons of time to tinker with it. Maybe the team didn’t see Ledyba and Ledian as much of a priority, and so they just left them with the low stats them started with? The team did have to playtest a lot of creatures, and erring on the side of making early game Pokemon weak is not a terrible idea. Still, it really does feel like the design team for Gold and Silver really didn’t want anyone to use the new Pokemon they created. And this is just one more example: there’s no real reason to use Ledian, outside of a gimmicky Baton Pass user. Ledian’s a cool looking guy! He’s here to save the day! But with more or less awful stats, he’s not going to really be saving many people. (Thanks to pokemoa for the art!) ID #448: Tyrogue (Gong)And here we are. Two years after my first entry in the Cryptodex, we’re at the end of the Korean Index. I did it! And what’s our reward for all this hard work (and 210,000+ words)? It’s, uh, well, one more baby Pokemon. Everyone welcome Tyrogue into the ring. At the very least, Tyrogue’s a more interesting baby Pokemon than the rest creating in Era III. Unlike, say, Para, Tyrogue does something new by linking together two unrelated Pokemon into a newly developed evolutionary family. Ever wonder why Hitmonchan and Hitmonlee were so similar in Kanto? It’s because they were both secretly variant evolutions of Tyrogue! (Art by Carlos Morales) Honestly, this is a cool idea, and it works well for the Hitmons. If the team was looking for new and innovative ways to play with the foundations of Generation I, then revealing a hidden link between two unrelated Pokemon is a really neat way to do that. The team really enjoyed creating new evolutions that were unavailable in Generation I simply because you lacked the items or characteristics to make the evolution happen: you couldn’t get a Slowking simply because you never ran across a King’s Rock in the first game; you couldn’t get an Umbreon because you couldn’t evolve Pokemon during the night nor could you affect their friendship values. Tyrogue is an interesting take on this same basic concept: Hitmonlee and Hitmonchan were always related, but the player never knew that because they never met their less developed relative! It's odd that Game Freak has never done this again. Up to Generation IX, no new Pokemon has ever been introduced that links together two previously unrelated Pokemon. I think it’s a cool idea though, and even if it works very well with the Hitmons, there are lots of other choices that could also work. What if instead of Cleffa and Igglybuff, we just had one baby that evolved into either family? What about a cute lil’ crab that could evolve into either Corphish or Krabby? I’m not saying Game Freak should use this idea all the time, but every once in awhile I think it’d work. It's unclear to me if, by the time the team had created Hitmontop, they had already come up with the idea of Tyrogue, or if Hitmontop was just supposed to be the third unrelated fighter in the Hitmon dojo. I could see arguments for either. On the one hand, Tyrogue’s placement at the very end of the Korean Index suggests that it was one final priority Game Freak had to design before the team felt like they had a complete Pokedex roster in SW’97. That could suggest that, like Ledian, the team knew they needed a Pokemon to fill this slot and designed it really quickly at the end. On the other hand, its placement at the very end of the Korean Index could also indicate that it was thrown in last minute, because one member of the design team came up with the idea of linking the Hitmons very late in the day. Saying that, Tyrogue was clearly not added into the Pokedex as late as Togepi, Sneasel and Aipom. Even though those Pokemon come before Tyrogue in the Korean Index, they were clearly added to the Pokedex roster later: while Tyrogue is put in its proper spot in the Pokedex next to Hitmontop, these others were all shoved into the last few slots, indicating the team didn't have time to rearrange the Pokedex to fit them in more naturally. Not to mention that Ledian is also ordered correctly in the roster, even though it comes after Togepi in the Korean Index. That leaves two possibilities open: either these sprites were worked on elsewhere and dumped into the Korean Index in a different order than they were created (which is possible; I think it’s likely everything in Era I is ordered by designer before it was ordered chronologically), or maybe the team had left a spot saved specifically for Ledian and Tyrogue in the Pokedex because they knew they’d need a specific Pokemon to fill that spot. We know for certain that however premeditated Tyrogue was, the team didn’t figure out the method it would use to evolve for a long time. In Spaceworld ’97, the team simply programmed Tyrogue to evolve into all three Hitmons at level 15, in order of their appearance in the Pokedex. Thus, upon leveling up, Tyrogue will attempt to evolve into Hitmonlee; whether or not you cancel the evolution or let it evolve, it will then immediately start evolving into Hitmonchan. Then, it will immediately evolve from that state into Hitmontop. It’s a very strange evolutionary method, and it was clearly just a stand-in until the team figured out exactly how the player might choose which Hitmon to evolve into. The next time we see Tyrogue (April 1999), it’s gained something other than placeholder stats, but the evolutionary method has still not been figured out. The stats it gained were just downgraded versions of Hitmonlee’s stats, which means that the team probably hadn’t even stumbled across it’s final method yet at all. In the final games, Tyrogue evolves according to the distribution of its stats: if, at level 15, its attack is higher than its defense, then it’ll become a Hitmonlee. If it’s defense is higher than its attack, it’ll be a Hitmonchan instead. And if both stats are equal, it’ll become Hitmontop. Since it’s stats are based on Hitmonlee in April 1999, than that means it would be heavily weighted to always turning into a Hitmonlee. Fortunately, the team realized this, and by late April, even before they’d programmed in it’s evolutionary method, Tyrogue got an even 35 in most of its stats, meaning that any evolution was possible, provided you fought the right Pokemon to get the right stat experience. Unsurprisingly, that 35 base attack, defense, and speed makes Tyrogue pretty unusable in battle, just like the rest of the baby Pokemon. Unlike the rest of the babies in Spaceworld ’97 though, Tyrogue’s moveset reflects how unusable it was. While Cleffa, Pichi, et al learned all the same moves as their adult forms, Tyrogue only knew the default programmed moveset: just Tackle, at level 1. Which is still its moveset by the final. While this might just have been an oversight because the team didn’t have time to program a moveset for Tyrogue before Spaceworld ’97, it is more likely that Game Freak knew that they wanted players to be excited about dumping Tyrogue as quick as possible, so they gave Tyrogue no moves that the players would be excited to learn. Tyrogue also went through a few design changes by the end of development; all of these changes make it worse. It’s Spaceworld ’97 name was “Gong,” evoking the idea of a bell being struck and a battle just beginning. That's apt for a baby Hitmon! It’s also got an adorable look to it as well: look at that cutie with the bear-like ears! Look at the way it’s practicing a triumphant uppercut. This guy’s got attitude, adorability, and awesome all in equal portions, just like its stats. (Credit to Racie B for the art!) Gong stayed this way through most of development, although strangely, by June 1999, when the team updated its palette to fit the Gameboy Color, they decided on an odd looking purple and brown palette that just doesn’t work at all with Gong’s shading and design. They also chose this palette for Hitmontop as well, and it’s Spaceworld ’97 sprite looks equally bad in these colors. I don’t know why they chose this purpley palette for both of these Pokemon, when Hitmonchan and Hitmonlee both used much more normal looking brown/gray and brown/pink palettes. Regardless of why they chose these palettes (maybe they were a leftover palette from something that used to fill one of these slots, and then they decided to give the same palette to the other Hitmon?), Game Freak agreed with me that the purple/brown palette didn’t fit at all with the existing sprites. As a result, both Hitmontop and Gong were redesigned at the last minute in development. As late as two months before the final release, even after the Spaceworld ’99 build, both got a complete redesign. To see what I mean, look at the white spot on the top of Gong's head. It's clearly supposed to be a reflection of the lighting, and in the original palette, that's what the spot looks like. However, when the light brown was replaced by purple, that shading no longer makes sense. It no longer looks like shading, since the purple is no longer lighter than the surrounding brown. Anyway, while the new design of Hitmontop is at least debatably different, the new Tyrogue sprite is awful. The designer leaned into the humanoid look of the Hitmons in all the wrong ways, and now Tyrogue looks like a thin gangly eight year old. It kind of resembles Hitmonchan more than the original sprite did, I guess, but it still feels so different from the Hitmons that it doesn’t feel like a natural evolutionary relative. It’s supposed to resemble a high school wrestling uniform, but not only is the resemblance unclear, but the idea of Tyrogue wearing this weird looking uniform is off putting at best. It’s just a completely horrible design turnaround, one that replaced a really cute and interesting design with an uncanny valley. This is further cemented by the name. What does Tyrogue even mean? Bulbapedia tells me that “tyro” can mean beginning, but I’m unsure of what language the word “tyro” is from, because I’ve certainly never seen the term in English. And rogue, of course, means a rebel, a knave, or a thief. Which has absolutely nothing at all to do with the Hitmon line. They’re fighters, and fighting type. Why name them for something that hides in the shadows? Tyrogue is only the English translation of the name, so I guess I can forgive the designers. But the Japanese name is almost as bad: Bulky. Why Bulky? Does this little gangly thing look like it has bulk or heft to its frame? I don’t think the team changed Tyrogue’s sprite because they weren’t happy with it; I think they redesigned it because, like Hitmontop, its old sprite didn’t fit with the Gameboy Color palettes, and the whole sprite needed to be redrawn to reflect the range of the new palettes. Like I said before when talking about Kingdra, I think the team needed a new sprite for both Hitmontop and Tyrogue, but the original designer was unavailable or busy with another project, so a different designer submitted a new design in their own style. My guess is that Atsuko Nishida drew both the original Kingdra and Tyrogue; I’m not sure who drew the original Hitmontop, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was her as well. If all of these were designed by Nishida, then maybe she was generally unavailable at the very end of development; maybe she was assigned to some new game around August 1999 and the rest of the team had to make due. My gut suggests that Sugimori redesigned all three Pokemon when Nishida was unavailable to edit her old sprite and that’s why they turned out so different in the final game. It wasn’t that any of these original sprites were bad, per se; just that those sprites were designed for the Super Gameboy and they just didn’t work anymore on the Gameboy Color. Unfortunately, that spelt doom for Tyrogue’s cute design. Era III Wrap UpAnd with that, we’re done with the Korean Index! What a ride that’s been. That doesn’t mean we’re done with the Cryptodex at all though. We’ve still got Era IV to go, which includes about fifty designs which were created between Spaceworld ’97 and the release in November 1999. But before we get to that, I think it’s worthwhile to do a wrap up of this era, like we’ve done with the previous two. Era III is the most consistent part of the Korean Index, and as such, it’s the part of the Korean Index which is easiest to find patterns and to draw conclusions from. More than anything, I think Era III is defined by the way it starts at ID 408, at the point in which the team had already come up with 108 designs that could go in Gold and Silver. In theory, the team had enough designs to fill an entirely new Pokedex for the sequel; it was now a matter of editing that roster to accommodate better designs and designs that were necessary from a gameplay perspective. Era III really only makes sense if you understand that the team was in the period of development past brainstorming, and now they were refining. Each design found in Era III was an attempt to draw out the themes of Gold and Silver more completely. Furthermore, each addition in Era III meant that some earlier concept needed to be abandoned. We were past populating the world of Johto; now the designers were trying to make that world coherent, interesting, and to give it life by introducing a whole slew of Pokemon that built off of the designs that already existed. Era III was also created very quickly. If Era II ended late 1996 or early 1997, then everything in Era III was created in the five to nine months of 1997 before the Spaceworld ’97 build. This seems like a pretty fast turnaround to me, and I’m not sure that the team had enough time to iterate past the initial concept they came up with; the Pokemon of Period 3c in particular probably had only a few drafts before they decided the sprites were good enough. While the sprites of Era III are certainly much more polished than those of Era I, that’s partially due to the fact that Nishida and Sugimori were closely involved with these final stages, while Era I probably had a lot of sprites done by the two new artists, Ota and Yoshikawa. As a result, even if they’re rough, they still look a lot more like what we expect Pokemon to look like, since the styles of Sugimori and Nishida are, by now, nearly synonymous with the franchise. Major Themes1) Evolutionary RelativesThe most obvious theme found in Era III is that the vast majority of designs found in this section are evolutionary relatives of other Pokemon. While Period 3a is much more inconsistent on this front, every Pokemon found in Period 3b evolves to or from a Generation I Pokemon, and every Pokemon found in Period 3c (sans Togepi) evolves to or from a new Generation II ‘mon. Clearly, at this point in development, the team was interested in building upon their existing designs. There are a lot of reason this could be, but I think the primary reason to create so many evolutions here was to create a Pokemon world that felt connected to the previous one. Up until this point, there were a lot of new designs in the Korean Index but almost none of them referred back to Generation I: just Slowking, Crobat, Politoed, Pichu, Cleffa, Gyopin, Puchikoon, and Mikon. That’s not nothing, but as it is, the team may have been worried that the new world they were creating could feel too disconnected from the first game. On top of that, if most of the Gen I Pokemon available had no changes to them, it would feel less exciting to use those in the sequel. By adding a ton more evolutions to the lineup, there would be more of a sense that the player could be rewarded for using an old favorite. In a world where Steelix, Scizor, and Plucks all exist, there’s a sense that the player should try exploring the familiar all over again, because there’s a good chance there were secrets to be uncovered even among the familiar. I also think the team wanted to start doubling down on the designs they liked by designing evolutions that built upon their best characteristics. In a Pokemon game, single-stage evolutions are often very boring to use, because you know they won’t ever become any better than they already are. Up until Era III, the vast majority of the Korean Index were one-off designs, and that obviously wouldn’t work for the final games. So I think it’s about here that the team started thinking seriously about which one-offs they would cull, and which ones they would give more depth. Obviously the development of any project has a stage where you decide what you really want to focus on and you start dumping the rest of your ambitions. I think they reached that stage at this point, just before the end of the Korean Index and the completion of the Spaceworld ’97 build. It is interesting to note that in the final builds, these extra evolutionary forms were the main victims when the team culled the roster to add new designs. I think that’s down to a shift in the philosophy of the team from the time of Spaceworld ’97 to the final. At the time they were building Era III, the team wanted Gold and Silver to primarily build upon the creations of Generation I, and it shows in the designs they created. But by 1999, when the design team had shifted somewhat, they were more concerned with adding their own, unique designs, and less interested in the idea that every Pokemon was related to Generation I. 2) Very Few Unused Pokemon |
Period 4a (Before May, 1999) X01 Heracross X02 Granbull X03 Totodile X04 Croconaw X05 Feraligatr X06 Gligar X07 Togetic X08 Tyranitar* X09 Pupitar X10 Larvitar X11 Piloswine X12 Piloswine-3* X13 Swinub* X14 Shuckle* X15 Shuckle-2* X16 Sunkern* X17 Girafarig-3* X18 Sentret X19 Furret X20 Ursaring X21 Teddiursa X22 Lugia X23 Sudowoodo X24 Yanma X25 Yanma-2* | Period 4b (Between May 1st and August 1st 1999) X26 Bayleef X27 Quilava X28 Typhlosion X29 Azumarill X30 Celebi* X31 Magcargo X32 Girafarig-1* X33 Pineco* X34 Dunsparce* | Period 4c (Spaceworld 1999 to Final) X35 Misdreavus X36 Wooper* X37 Chinchou X38 Lanturn X39 Slugma* X40 Corsola* X41 Forretress* X42 Kageboozu X43 Wobbuffet |
As always, thanks so much for reading! I hope you've enjoyed these articles so far, and that you'll also enjoy the final stretch of analysis!
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Era III is remarkably focused in its intent: unlike the earlier parts of the Korean Index, virtually everything in Era III has an evolutionary connection to an existing design. Period 3b was the perfect example of this: not only is every slot in 3b an evolution (plus or minus Turban), but all of them are evolutionarily related to Generation I Pokemon.
Like Period 3a, 3c isn’t quite that focused; however, there’s a definite theme to this group. Nine of the ten Pokemon in Period 3c are extensions of existing lines, which makes it similar to Period 3b. What distinguishes this set of designs is that seven of those ten designs are evolutions of Pokemon found earlier in the Korean Index, not Pokemon from Generation I, like Period 3b. Of the last three that aren't extensions of Generation II families, two are throwbacks to Period 3b, and one—Togepi—seems to be added last minute as an anime tie-in.
What this could mean is that, as the team was nearing closer to Spaceworld ’97, the last few Pokemon they added had the purpose of filling in the last gaps in the roster; mostly, giving stand-alone new creations an evolutionary relative. This was probably a very quickly designed section of the Index, mostly meant to make the roster for Spaceworld ’97 as complete as possible before they made the demo.
Like Period 3a, 3c isn’t quite that focused; however, there’s a definite theme to this group. Nine of the ten Pokemon in Period 3c are extensions of existing lines, which makes it similar to Period 3b. What distinguishes this set of designs is that seven of those ten designs are evolutions of Pokemon found earlier in the Korean Index, not Pokemon from Generation I, like Period 3b. Of the last three that aren't extensions of Generation II families, two are throwbacks to Period 3b, and one—Togepi—seems to be added last minute as an anime tie-in.
What this could mean is that, as the team was nearing closer to Spaceworld ’97, the last few Pokemon they added had the purpose of filling in the last gaps in the roster; mostly, giving stand-alone new creations an evolutionary relative. This was probably a very quickly designed section of the Index, mostly meant to make the roster for Spaceworld ’97 as complete as possible before they made the demo.
ID 439 (Flaaffy) to ID 443 (Nameeru)
ID 439: Flaaffy
The opening Pokemon in Period 3c is Flaaffy, the middle evolution between Ampharos and Mareep. Flaaffy’s a weird looking Pokemon: it’s a pink, two legged sheep with a name that’s clearly a pun on the way sheep “Baa.” Its design feels oddly unnatural: it doesn't look much like a sheep or Ampharos, and it certainly doesn't have a lot in common with any real-world inspirations besides a sheep. In fact, you get the sense, looking at Flaaffy, that it was designed purely around the prompt, "design a linking middle design between Mareep and Ampharos." Which, honestly, was probably exactly the reason it was created.
So first, let’s backup and remember what we know about this evolutionary family. Ampharos was created early in Gold and Silver’s development. Really, really early. Atsuko Nishida probably made it as one of her first Pokemon, and it was clearly a hit, because it barely changed over development. Though Ampharos had a distinct sprite from 1996 that predates the Korean Index, it’s design is remarkably similar in that sprite to the SW’97 sprite, which is in turn very similar to the final sprites. Someone clearly liked this guy and decided not to mess with perfection.
So first, let’s backup and remember what we know about this evolutionary family. Ampharos was created early in Gold and Silver’s development. Really, really early. Atsuko Nishida probably made it as one of her first Pokemon, and it was clearly a hit, because it barely changed over development. Though Ampharos had a distinct sprite from 1996 that predates the Korean Index, it’s design is remarkably similar in that sprite to the SW’97 sprite, which is in turn very similar to the final sprites. Someone clearly liked this guy and decided not to mess with perfection.
It's unclear if Ampharos, originally, had anything to do with sheep, or even electricity for that matter. It certainly doesn't look like a sheep, even in its final design. Our earliest reference to Ampharos, in The Pocket Monsters Official Fanbook, speculated that Ampharos might have been from outer space, and wondered if its name (Denryu) implied that it was an Electric Dragon. It’s unclear if the Official Fanbook had gotten some sort of information from Game Freak about Ampharos, or if they only had the sprites and were just speculating. Still, the Japanese name Denryu doesn't have anything to do with sheep; instead, it means something like like "Electric Dragon." This makes me wonder if this Pokemon was originally designed with a background very different than the one we now take for granted. Maybe it was supposed to be dragon adjacent? After all, years later when the team created Mega-Ampharos, it gained the Dragon-type.
Mareep, on the other hand, was always a sheep. From the beginning, it seems that the prompt for Mareep was to create a sheep Pokemon, something that had been obviously lacking in Generation I. Given that Mareep appears in the Korean Index relatively late, in Period 3a which specialized in creating evolutionary relatives, it’s likely that Mareep was designed with it's relationship to Ampharos in mind, but that's hardly certain. It’s strange, for instance, that Mareep is the only Pokemon related to a Gen II Pokemon between ID numbers 398 (Twinz) and 439 (Flaaffy), and that could be an indication it was created as a one-off idea one of the designers had. Really, it's placement in the Korean Index could lead to either conclusion, though I'd say the evidence leans towards Mareep being designed as a evolutionary relative.
Saying this, it is interesting that Mareep doesn't really work as an Ampharos relative, does it? Mareep’s face and tail look a little like Ampharos’ design, but it has a completely different palette, body type, and Ampharos is importantly lacking the wool that Mareep not only has but also pretty much defines sheep. If these were supposed to ever work as a two-stage family, it’s a pretty unconvincing one.
Let's give the team the benefit of the doubt and show Ampharos and Mareep with the same palette:
Saying this, it is interesting that Mareep doesn't really work as an Ampharos relative, does it? Mareep’s face and tail look a little like Ampharos’ design, but it has a completely different palette, body type, and Ampharos is importantly lacking the wool that Mareep not only has but also pretty much defines sheep. If these were supposed to ever work as a two-stage family, it’s a pretty unconvincing one.
Let's give the team the benefit of the doubt and show Ampharos and Mareep with the same palette:
(Yellow palette done by OrangeFrench)
Mareep doesn't have this yellow palette in SW '97; instead, it has the pink palette seen below. But if you adjust its palette to match Ampharos, you can sort of see the family resemblance. They share the same tail and facial shape, most prominently. Hypothesizing that Mareep may have originally had this palette, I can see the family resemblance if I know it's supposed to be there. But there's such a drastic difference between the two, that I doubt the designers would have been happy with this as a two-stage line.
Which is probably where Flaaffy came in. Flaaffy looks like it was supposed to bridge the gap between Mareep and Ampharos. It’s two legged, like Ampharos, but it still has the wool that characterized Mareep. Flaaffy’s got the same palette as Mareep, but has a sillouette much more similar to Ampharos. It still has recognizable sheep-like characteristics, but now also looks like a baby Ampharos.
Which is probably where Flaaffy came in. Flaaffy looks like it was supposed to bridge the gap between Mareep and Ampharos. It’s two legged, like Ampharos, but it still has the wool that characterized Mareep. Flaaffy’s got the same palette as Mareep, but has a sillouette much more similar to Ampharos. It still has recognizable sheep-like characteristics, but now also looks like a baby Ampharos.
Maybe Flaaffy is originally where Mareep's SW'97 pink palette came from, rather than the other way around? The team may have liked Flaaffy in pink (It's kind of a little fairy creature this way). Then they may have thought that since Flaaffy bridged the gap between the designs, making Mareep pink would help Flaaffy fit in better as a transitional stage. Who knows for sure, but if this was their thinking, the team had a change of heart by the final game and decided that Mareep should, in fact, be yellow.
Flaaffy's not a bad design, but I’d argue it really suffers from filling the role as the middle child in the Ampharos family. There are a lot of second-form Pokemon in Generation I that seem like they were just awkwardly designed to bridge the gap between the first and third forms. Charmeleon is the most obvious Generation I Pokemon that suffers from this problem; Pidgeotto and Gloom also suffer a bit from this. But Flaaffy really feels like the zenith of this designs style. Flaaffy spends so much of its design effort making the relationship between Mareep and Ampharos seem natural that it doesn’t really have an identity of its own. I mean, what is it supposed to be? The best Pokemon are designed so that they embody a clever concept on their own in addition to fitting aesthetically into a larger family. Flaaffy means nothing except in context of the other two.
A question remains: was Flaaffy designed as an ad hoc fix, once the designers realized that Mareep and Ampharos weren't close enough, design wise? Or was the Mareep family always envisioned as a three-stage line (at least after Mareep was created) and Flaaffy was always going to be part of it?
In favor of the second hypothesis, Flaaffy is very close to Mareep in the Korean Index, suggesting that the two were conceived of a nearly the same time. If this was the case, someone came up with Mareep first, knowing that they'd have to also create a middle stage to link Ampharos to Mareep. The gap between Mareep and Flaaffy in the Index could just be because it took awhile to come up with a concept that links the two together; Flaaffy's unsubtle design could be a consequence of the team running out of time before Spaceworld '97 to conceive of a design that worked. Alternatively, this last section of the Index seems to have been made very quickly; the designers could have just been working on lots of designs at once and didn't get to Flaaffy until after the intervening designs.
The second possibility is that Mareep was designed first to be part of a two-stage family with Ampharos, but that the developers quickly decided it wasn’t working. Thus, Flaaffy was created at the last second, as an improvised solution to the problem. I lean very slightly to this explanation for two main reasons. First, if Flaaffy’s design was created in a hurry, it helps explain why it’s such an obvious meld of Mareep and Ampharos. Secondly, in general there’s a very “last-minute” sort of vibe going on with a number of the Period 3c Pokemon: for instance, look forward to when we talk about Togepi or Ledian. Many of the Period 3c may have been made to fill a gap in the roster at the last minute, and Flaaffy certainly feels like it was made to fill a gap.
Once Flaaffy was created, however, it stayed relatively stable. You can tell that the Spaceworld '97 sprite was touched up, but the pose and the anatomy of Flaaffy stayed exactly the same, though the international release touched up the backsprite so that its neck was no longer visible, in line with how the anime portrayed Flaaffy. As soon as it got stats, those also stayed pretty much identical. And while the whole family's moveset changed a bit from Spaceworld '97 to the final, it remained remarkably stable. Between the two builds, Flaaffy lost Hypnosis, Swift, and Thunderbolt--unfortunately losing the link between counting sheep to fall asleep and Hypnosis--but it gained Thunderwave--a better choice for a create that generates static electricity with its wool--and Thunder.
Clearly, the team was happy enough with Flaaffy's design that it wasn't really a priority to overhaul.
Flaaffy's not a bad design, but I’d argue it really suffers from filling the role as the middle child in the Ampharos family. There are a lot of second-form Pokemon in Generation I that seem like they were just awkwardly designed to bridge the gap between the first and third forms. Charmeleon is the most obvious Generation I Pokemon that suffers from this problem; Pidgeotto and Gloom also suffer a bit from this. But Flaaffy really feels like the zenith of this designs style. Flaaffy spends so much of its design effort making the relationship between Mareep and Ampharos seem natural that it doesn’t really have an identity of its own. I mean, what is it supposed to be? The best Pokemon are designed so that they embody a clever concept on their own in addition to fitting aesthetically into a larger family. Flaaffy means nothing except in context of the other two.
A question remains: was Flaaffy designed as an ad hoc fix, once the designers realized that Mareep and Ampharos weren't close enough, design wise? Or was the Mareep family always envisioned as a three-stage line (at least after Mareep was created) and Flaaffy was always going to be part of it?
In favor of the second hypothesis, Flaaffy is very close to Mareep in the Korean Index, suggesting that the two were conceived of a nearly the same time. If this was the case, someone came up with Mareep first, knowing that they'd have to also create a middle stage to link Ampharos to Mareep. The gap between Mareep and Flaaffy in the Index could just be because it took awhile to come up with a concept that links the two together; Flaaffy's unsubtle design could be a consequence of the team running out of time before Spaceworld '97 to conceive of a design that worked. Alternatively, this last section of the Index seems to have been made very quickly; the designers could have just been working on lots of designs at once and didn't get to Flaaffy until after the intervening designs.
The second possibility is that Mareep was designed first to be part of a two-stage family with Ampharos, but that the developers quickly decided it wasn’t working. Thus, Flaaffy was created at the last second, as an improvised solution to the problem. I lean very slightly to this explanation for two main reasons. First, if Flaaffy’s design was created in a hurry, it helps explain why it’s such an obvious meld of Mareep and Ampharos. Secondly, in general there’s a very “last-minute” sort of vibe going on with a number of the Period 3c Pokemon: for instance, look forward to when we talk about Togepi or Ledian. Many of the Period 3c may have been made to fill a gap in the roster at the last minute, and Flaaffy certainly feels like it was made to fill a gap.
Once Flaaffy was created, however, it stayed relatively stable. You can tell that the Spaceworld '97 sprite was touched up, but the pose and the anatomy of Flaaffy stayed exactly the same, though the international release touched up the backsprite so that its neck was no longer visible, in line with how the anime portrayed Flaaffy. As soon as it got stats, those also stayed pretty much identical. And while the whole family's moveset changed a bit from Spaceworld '97 to the final, it remained remarkably stable. Between the two builds, Flaaffy lost Hypnosis, Swift, and Thunderbolt--unfortunately losing the link between counting sheep to fall asleep and Hypnosis--but it gained Thunderwave--a better choice for a create that generates static electricity with its wool--and Thunder.
Clearly, the team was happy enough with Flaaffy's design that it wasn't really a priority to overhaul.
There’s not much more to say about Flaaffy, except for one oddity about the trainer rosters. If you examine the trainers you battle in Gold and Silver, you’ll notice that those trainers don’t really have many Generation II Pokemon; this very likely a consequence of how rushed the development of the games was. If many of the new Pokemon were in flux up to the very last months, then it would have been hard to playtest the games: deciding that Kingdra or Pilowine, for instance, should have an extra twenty Special Attack or a new learned move might have the domino effect of making the gym leaders Pierce or Claire much more difficult. Keeping new Pokemon off most trainer rosters was probably a way to give the team more flexibility in what they could tweak. Frustrating, I know, but I can at least see the logic. Strangely, even though Ampharos has a prominent role in the story—as the keeper of the lighthouse—an Ampharos never shows up on a trainer’s team anywhere in the game. You could go the whole game not knowing what Ampharos was supposed to look like, except for that overworld sprite!
Mareep is the same way: no trainer deigned to use the fluffy electric sheep. But Flaaffy does show up on the teams of two late game trainers. Both of these trainers are in Kanto: one is a disciple of Lieutenant Surge, while the other is a random picnicker on Route 4. This probably doesn’t say anything revelatory about Flaaffy’s development; they probably use Flaaffy both because those trainers are so late game that they weren’t programmed until Flaaffy was relatively finished, and the team decided on Flaaffy and not Ampharos because it was a better fit for the level they wanted the trainers to be at. Don’t ask me why, in the post-game, gym trainers are still using unevolved second-stage level 33 Pokemon. It’s just another mystery of Generation II.
Flaaffy’s fine, in my estimation. If you have to connect Ampharos to Mareep, Flaaffy’s about as good a design as you’ll get. Saying that, there’s nothing really inspiring about it. Like a lot of Period 3c, Flaaffy exists to solve a problem, not because it’s particularly novel.
Mareep is the same way: no trainer deigned to use the fluffy electric sheep. But Flaaffy does show up on the teams of two late game trainers. Both of these trainers are in Kanto: one is a disciple of Lieutenant Surge, while the other is a random picnicker on Route 4. This probably doesn’t say anything revelatory about Flaaffy’s development; they probably use Flaaffy both because those trainers are so late game that they weren’t programmed until Flaaffy was relatively finished, and the team decided on Flaaffy and not Ampharos because it was a better fit for the level they wanted the trainers to be at. Don’t ask me why, in the post-game, gym trainers are still using unevolved second-stage level 33 Pokemon. It’s just another mystery of Generation II.
Flaaffy’s fine, in my estimation. If you have to connect Ampharos to Mareep, Flaaffy’s about as good a design as you’ll get. Saying that, there’s nothing really inspiring about it. Like a lot of Period 3c, Flaaffy exists to solve a problem, not because it’s particularly novel.
ID 440: Berurun
Berurun is the long awaited evolution to Rinrin, a cute Dark-type cat Pokemon that was created way back in Period 2a, probably six months to a year back in terms of development time. Rinrin didn’t make much sense as a single evolution—it was a cute kitten after all—and so the team was likely planning on giving it an evolution since it was created. Given that we’re almost to the end of the Korean Index, and thus very close to the Spaceworld ’97 build, the team probably decided that there was no time like the present, and added Berurun in at the last second to complete the Rinrin line.
Comparing the two, Berurun has some notable changes. No longer a cute kitten, Berurun’s more developed and now resembles an adult cat; its legs are lithe enough that it can now stalk its prey on all fours. No longer just sitting passively; Berurun is ready to pounce! Berurun's also replaced the jingle bells that Rinrin had around its neck and on its tail with a handbell. No longer making a high pitched jingle, you'll now be able to hear a chime as Berurun gets close. Berurun’s also got a moon-crescent on its head, making it look like a particularly fierce type version of Luna:
Obviously, Rinrin and Berurun are based on the old folklore that a black cat is bad luck; given that these two cats were the first Dark-type Pokemon created for Generation II, it's fitting that they're related to bad luck. I also wonder, however, if the bell theme has something to do with the practice of domestic cats having bells on their collars to prevent them from being able to sneak up on prey. In the case of Berurun, this trait is subverted: instead of giving the prey time to escape, I suspect the bell on its tail is there to announce it's arrival as it gets ever closer to pouncing.
If Rinrin was just an onomatopoeia for the ringing sound a bell makes, Berurun's name seems to be a mix between “Bell” and the phrase “runrun,” which according to TCRF is an onomatopoeia for humming. Localized, my bet is that the name would turned out “Bellmoon” or “Bellrune” to make reference to the moon shape on its head.
Most of what we said about Rinrin goes for Berurun as well. Rinrin was probably initially created to show off the new Dark-type, and notably it learns Faint Attack, one of the few Dark-type moves available in Spaceworld ’97 (Bite and Crunch were not yet implemented as Dark-type). It also had the signature move “Bell Chime,” which was an early name for “Heal Bell,” a move that removes status conditions. And both Rinrin and Berurun have a number of ways to inflict status ailments—Lovely Kiss, Sweet Kiss, and Attract—which plays into the developing identity for the Dark-type as a type of Pokemon which fight dirty with status conditions.
Rinrin was pretty unique in Spaceworld ’97, in that unlike pretty much every other Pokemon, Rinrin did not have placeholder stats. It was a relatively speedy first stage (with 70 speed) and weak defenses (40 HP, 40 defense, 50 Special defense). Why it had stats and so many other Pokemon didn’t is anyone’s guess, but I think it’s likely that since Rinrin was designed to show off the Dark-type, it was given stats so they could test the strength of a Dark-type Pokemon against some of the trainers they already programmed. Berurun, on the other hand, doesn’t have unique stats; just 50 in all its stats like most other Pokemon. While this is typical, it also speaks to Berurun being a later addition than Rinrin, such that the team didn’t bother with stats. Another hint that it was a late addition was its Gender Ratio: while Rinrin is a 100% female Pokemon, Berurun has the default 50/50 male to female ratio. Which is an obvious oversight: if all Rinrins are female, then it’d be pretty difficult to get a male Berurun!
Though we don't have stats for Berurun, it's not difficult to get an approximation. Since the Houndour/Houndoom family fits a pretty similar spot in the final game that Berurun probably would have, we can compare how much stats Houndour gains when it evolves, and do the same to Rinrin's stats. Thus, I bet we'd get something like this:
If Rinrin was just an onomatopoeia for the ringing sound a bell makes, Berurun's name seems to be a mix between “Bell” and the phrase “runrun,” which according to TCRF is an onomatopoeia for humming. Localized, my bet is that the name would turned out “Bellmoon” or “Bellrune” to make reference to the moon shape on its head.
Most of what we said about Rinrin goes for Berurun as well. Rinrin was probably initially created to show off the new Dark-type, and notably it learns Faint Attack, one of the few Dark-type moves available in Spaceworld ’97 (Bite and Crunch were not yet implemented as Dark-type). It also had the signature move “Bell Chime,” which was an early name for “Heal Bell,” a move that removes status conditions. And both Rinrin and Berurun have a number of ways to inflict status ailments—Lovely Kiss, Sweet Kiss, and Attract—which plays into the developing identity for the Dark-type as a type of Pokemon which fight dirty with status conditions.
Rinrin was pretty unique in Spaceworld ’97, in that unlike pretty much every other Pokemon, Rinrin did not have placeholder stats. It was a relatively speedy first stage (with 70 speed) and weak defenses (40 HP, 40 defense, 50 Special defense). Why it had stats and so many other Pokemon didn’t is anyone’s guess, but I think it’s likely that since Rinrin was designed to show off the Dark-type, it was given stats so they could test the strength of a Dark-type Pokemon against some of the trainers they already programmed. Berurun, on the other hand, doesn’t have unique stats; just 50 in all its stats like most other Pokemon. While this is typical, it also speaks to Berurun being a later addition than Rinrin, such that the team didn’t bother with stats. Another hint that it was a late addition was its Gender Ratio: while Rinrin is a 100% female Pokemon, Berurun has the default 50/50 male to female ratio. Which is an obvious oversight: if all Rinrins are female, then it’d be pretty difficult to get a male Berurun!
Though we don't have stats for Berurun, it's not difficult to get an approximation. Since the Houndour/Houndoom family fits a pretty similar spot in the final game that Berurun probably would have, we can compare how much stats Houndour gains when it evolves, and do the same to Rinrin's stats. Thus, I bet we'd get something like this:
Rinrin: HP: 40 Attack: 65 Defense: 40 Sp. Attack: 65 Sp. Defense: 50 Speed: 70 | Berurun: HP: 70 Attack: 95 Defense: 60 Sp. Attack: 95 Sp. Defense: 70 Speed: 100 |
Essentially, Berurun would be an improved Persian. It would be a little slower than Persian, but have much better Attack and Special Attack, and comparable Defense, Special Defense, and HP.
Berurun’s sprites are also a bit odd. Rinrin was created during Period 2a, which is dominated by Sugimori and Nishida designs, and Rinrin looks a bit like something that Nishida would have created, though it’s a bit rougher than her other designs. Berurun could also be designed by Nishida, but its sprite looks even less refined than Rinrin did: look, for instance, at the odd thickness and angle of the tail, the eyes that seem to need a bit of refining (they look muddy and oddly shaded as is) and the extremely basic coloring and pose of the backsprite. Also notice that Berurun is facing directly towards the camera, something that you don’t see in many Pokemon designs at all. You see it rarely on sprites like Kingler’s, or the strange ninja-squirrel-maybe-Sentret from earlier in the Index, but its not common and usually suggests that it was drawn by one of the more minor designers. Maybe Berurun’s sprite was designed by someone else, as kind of an emergency measure to get it ready?
Berurun did survive the 1999 reboot of Gold and Silver, unlike so many other Spaceworld '97 designs, but not for very long. We know it was worked on at least a little bit because it got a new Palette that seems designed for it: by June, it’s using a purple and yellow palette. This palette fits it really well: it accentuates the bell on its tail and the moon on its forehead with a bright yellow, and the purple of the palette really complements its black fur.
Berurun did survive the 1999 reboot of Gold and Silver, unlike so many other Spaceworld '97 designs, but not for very long. We know it was worked on at least a little bit because it got a new Palette that seems designed for it: by June, it’s using a purple and yellow palette. This palette fits it really well: it accentuates the bell on its tail and the moon on its forehead with a bright yellow, and the purple of the palette really complements its black fur.
I mention all this because this indicates Berurun's sprites weren't just used for placeholders. While it could have just been assigned a random palette or a palette for whatever was set to replace it, that's not what the team did: this yellow/purple palette seems designed for Berurun. In fact, Dunsparce--which eventually replaced Berurun in it's slot--still uses this palette, indicating that it inherited its coloring from Berurun, not the other way around!
If Berurun survived the 1999 reboot, it was only for a brief moment. Even though Berurun’s sprites and palette survived, even by April 1999, Berurun’s typing had been changed to Rock/Ground and Shuckle now evolved into it, indicating that though the sprites still existed, the team had already decided to replace it with an evolution for Shuckle. While the idea to give Shuckle an evolution didn’t last long, Berurun didn’t make a triumphant return. Instead, the team tasked the new designer Yoshida to create something new to fill in this gap in the Pokedex, and he got to work creating Dunsparce.
Rinrin's back sprite, at least, still appears after the 1999 reboot as well, but by June 1999, while Berurun's palette is still intact, Rinrin is using a weird purple and green palette, and its front sprite was already replaced by the early Cyndaquil sprite from the Korean Index. The palette doesn't fit Cyndaqil either; it's clearly a palette designed for Larvitar (and the same palette was already being used for Tyranitar) and that this entry was designated for Larvitar, even though no work had yet been done on it.
If Berurun survived the 1999 reboot, it was only for a brief moment. Even though Berurun’s sprites and palette survived, even by April 1999, Berurun’s typing had been changed to Rock/Ground and Shuckle now evolved into it, indicating that though the sprites still existed, the team had already decided to replace it with an evolution for Shuckle. While the idea to give Shuckle an evolution didn’t last long, Berurun didn’t make a triumphant return. Instead, the team tasked the new designer Yoshida to create something new to fill in this gap in the Pokedex, and he got to work creating Dunsparce.
Rinrin's back sprite, at least, still appears after the 1999 reboot as well, but by June 1999, while Berurun's palette is still intact, Rinrin is using a weird purple and green palette, and its front sprite was already replaced by the early Cyndaquil sprite from the Korean Index. The palette doesn't fit Cyndaqil either; it's clearly a palette designed for Larvitar (and the same palette was already being used for Tyranitar) and that this entry was designated for Larvitar, even though no work had yet been done on it.
I'll also mention here that while Berurun didn't survive to the final, Berurun's relationship to the moon was inherited by Teddiursa, which has a very similar crescent moon on its head where Berurun had one. I don't know whether or not this is coincidence, or whether the designer who made Berurun liked the idea and put it into Teddiursa. It is notable that Teddiursa was a reworked version of the original bear starter, Honoguma. It's possible that since Honoguma lost its fire-type in becoming Teddiursa, the team felt it needed some sort of elemental gimmick to make it distinct, even if that gimmick didn't inform its typing. If this happened at the same time as Berurun was deleted, the team may have felt that there was an open slot for moon-identified Pokemon.
Like I said in the Rinrin entry, I’m relatively certain that Rinrin and Berurun were eventually became Skitty and Delcatty during Generation III's development. Sure, Skitty and Delcatty aren’t Dark-type, but I think that comes down to a fundamental tension in Berurun’s design. Berurun’s meant to be fierce, and being Dark-type reinforced that it's a mean dude you don't want to mess with. And yet, most of Berurun’s moveset is about either kissing the opponent Pokemon (Sweet Kiss, Lovely Kiss), making it fall in love with Berurun (Attract), or ringing its bell to heal status conditions (Bell Chime). There’s a fundamental disconnect between Berurun’s concept—a wicked no-nonsense cat that ambushes you in the alley—and its gameplay—a cutie that loves to cuddle. Skitty and Delcatty, by ejecting the Dark-type, are much more able to wield that moveset without tension.
And they do basically wield very similar moves. Rinrin and Skitty share five moves (half of Rinrin’s moveset!) including Rinrin’s original signature move, Heal Bell. On top of that, Skitty evolves by the Moonstone; while this isn’t the method Rinrin used to evolve into Berurun (Rinrin just evolved at level 28) it does acknowledge Berurun’s relationship with the moon that it had on its forehead. I might also suggest that Skitty’s incredible rarity (2% chance to encounter it, on one single route in Generation III) could indicate that it was a leftover that the team dropped into Generation III but more or less ignored (see also how impossible it is to get a Huntail in Generation III, which was definitely remade from Gurotesu in Generation II) because it didn’t fit the new games as much. But that’s very tenuous speculation.
Notice as well that though it's subtle, Skitty and Delcatty still have the crescent moon motif that Berurun had! Skitty's face makes a crescent shape, and Delcatty has a full moon on its forehead (though it only appears in the Gen III sprites and was ditched as Delcatty's design was updated in future games). If there was any doubt about a connection here, I think that may cinch it!
I like Berurun but it is has obvious problems. Generation II needed to clearly define what the Dark-Type was like, and that didn't leave much room for cuddly cuties. Houndour and Houndoom do a much better job of filling a two-stage Dark-type family in the final games, even if Game Freak made them almost impossible to use. My guess is that the team decided that those Hounds and Murkrow would do a better job introducing the Dark-type, and as soon as that decision was made, Berurun was, unfortunately, doomed.
Notice as well that though it's subtle, Skitty and Delcatty still have the crescent moon motif that Berurun had! Skitty's face makes a crescent shape, and Delcatty has a full moon on its forehead (though it only appears in the Gen III sprites and was ditched as Delcatty's design was updated in future games). If there was any doubt about a connection here, I think that may cinch it!
I like Berurun but it is has obvious problems. Generation II needed to clearly define what the Dark-Type was like, and that didn't leave much room for cuddly cuties. Houndour and Houndoom do a much better job of filling a two-stage Dark-type family in the final games, even if Game Freak made them almost impossible to use. My guess is that the team decided that those Hounds and Murkrow would do a better job introducing the Dark-type, and as soon as that decision was made, Berurun was, unfortunately, doomed.
(Credit to @Raciebeep for the artwork!)
ID 441: Baririina
Period 3c started off by introducing new evolutions to existing Generation II Pokemon. But after doing only two of these, the designers clearly decided that the real gap in the roster was a lack of baby Pokemon. So only three entries in, we get to discuss yet another discarded baby design. This time, it’s Baririina, the baby form of Mr. Mime! Depending on what you count as a baby Pokemon, this is either the last baby Pokemon in the Korean Index (thank god) or we only have one more to go.
Baririina is probably a transliteration of Ballerina. It was the original name of Mr. Mime in the early list of names we have from Generation I’s development, though Mr Mime’s name was changed to Bariyado before the games were released. It makes some sort of sense, since a mime is a type of stage performer, and a Ballerina is also a performer. Baririina is probably also a pun on the word Barrier, since Mr. Mime is known for making psychic barriers, though I think this pun works a lot better in Japanese, where “Ballerina” is an exotic English word that doesn’t immediately conjure the image of a woman in a tutu. Instead, Baririina looks more like an Ice Skater: its little legs seem to be in a skating position, with its hands outstretched for balance.
Baririina is probably a transliteration of Ballerina. It was the original name of Mr. Mime in the early list of names we have from Generation I’s development, though Mr Mime’s name was changed to Bariyado before the games were released. It makes some sort of sense, since a mime is a type of stage performer, and a Ballerina is also a performer. Baririina is probably also a pun on the word Barrier, since Mr. Mime is known for making psychic barriers, though I think this pun works a lot better in Japanese, where “Ballerina” is an exotic English word that doesn’t immediately conjure the image of a woman in a tutu. Instead, Baririina looks more like an Ice Skater: its little legs seem to be in a skating position, with its hands outstretched for balance.
Now that I’m looking at it again, I guess I could imagine that Baririina is about to twirl like a Ballerina, but it seems more of a stretch.
There’s some interesting speculation on TCRF that Baririina looks like an egg because of an obscure practice called the “Clown Egg Registry.” Apparently, at the Clown’s Gallery Museum, a museum of clowning in London, there’s a collection of eggs dating back to 1946, each of them decorated with a particular clown’s signature makeup designs. As a result, it acts as a register of famous clowns and the makeup they used. Personally, I doubt that Game Freak had heard of this place while making Generation II, but crazier things have happened. If TCRF is right, this is absolutely a good reason for Baririina to be egg shaped.
There’s some interesting speculation on TCRF that Baririina looks like an egg because of an obscure practice called the “Clown Egg Registry.” Apparently, at the Clown’s Gallery Museum, a museum of clowning in London, there’s a collection of eggs dating back to 1946, each of them decorated with a particular clown’s signature makeup designs. As a result, it acts as a register of famous clowns and the makeup they used. Personally, I doubt that Game Freak had heard of this place while making Generation II, but crazier things have happened. If TCRF is right, this is absolutely a good reason for Baririina to be egg shaped.
Baririina closely fits the pattern of the other babies made in Period 3. First, it's a pre-evolution for a mid-game, relatively obscure, and relatively unpopular Pokemon. Hinaazu, Betobebii, Pudi, Monja, Smoochum, and Magby all basically fall into this same pile of Pokemon. Because it's only received through an in-game trade for an Abra (which, it's worth pointing out, is a much better Pokemon), Mr. Mime is often forgotten about in a regular playthrough; its middling stats when comparing to Hypno or Kadabra don't help its popularity. Mr. Mime’s also only used by three trainers and Sabrina in Generation I, although arguably his appearance on Sabrina’s team makes him a bit more notable than, say, Electabuzz or Farfetch’d.
Maybe Baririina was an attempt to rehabilitate Mr Mime, and give players more access to an otherwise undervalued Pokemon? If you could fight wild Baririina's on the first few routes (maybe say outside the ruins of Alph) then that would allow players to get early access to Mr. Mime and try him out. Or maybe the team was still just scouring the Generation I roster to see which Pokemon was a good candidate for a pre-evolution, and Mr. Mime, as a single stage Pokemon, was an obvious candidate.
Baririina is, interestingly, found in the same Pokedex location as the trio of Magby, Elekid, and Smoochum (Baririina is 217, Smoochum 218, Elebebii 219, and Magby 220). These are all humanoid, rare to find Pokemon from Generation I, and so maybe the team conceptually imagined them to be part of a quadology. Maybe they designed a baby Mr. Mime so that it would fit in with the other three (Which is obviously an insane thing to do, as Electabuzz and co were already some of the least deserving Pokemon to get babies, and there was even less reason to expand that trio into a foursome).
On the other hand, this is also basically how they were arranged in the Generation I Pokedex, though Scyther was ordered between Mr. Mime and Jynx. So they could have ordered the four like this because that's how they were originally.
Baririina, unlike some of the other baby Pokemon like Pichu or Cleffa, doesn’t learn any unique moves; its moveset is identical to Mr. Mime’s, except that it learns the moves a little earlier. There’s only one notable difference between the two, which is that Baririina is a Normal-type, not a Psychic-type. I like this difference: it implies that Baririina was weaker, mentally, than its evolution. Smoochum, interestingly, is the same way: it's a pure Ice-type until it evolves into Jynx. I think it’s likely that Game Freak thought that Psychic powers were something Pokemon needed to develop as they matured; thus, baby Pokemon would need to earn those powers by evolving.
Like Berurun, Baririina does appear to have been worked on after Spaceworld ’97, but not for very long. Baririina’s sprites appear in the June 1999 sprite banks with a new palette and, importantly, new shading on its sprite, which suggests the sprite was touched up a little. But even if those sprites appear in the June 1999 sprite collection, it isn't much more than a hint that Baririina once existed.
By June 1999, the Pokemon in that slot is just named “Mitei 08” (Pending 08). It isn’t clear at all if there was ever a brief design in this slot before it was taken over by Corsola in August 1999, but Corsola seems like a very late addition, and so this slot appears to be empty all the way up until Corsola was created, which was probably months. There are a couple of other blank entries like this in the June 1999 collection, so it isn’t unheard of, but clearly the designers didn’t delete Baririina to make room for something else; they deleted it because it no longer fit into their vision of the final game.
It’s pretty obvious to me why Baririina didn’t make it to the final game. Obviously there were too many baby Pokemon in Spaceworld ’97, and the team needed to cull some (or even most) of them. Even past that, among the massive amounts of uninspired baby Pokemon in Spaceworld ’97, Baririina stands out as an especially uninspiring design. Mr. Mime is already a Pokemon overshadowed by the Alakazam family. Most players of Generation I probably never used one, and it was probably a waste of their time if they did, because Mr. Mime is outclassed by every other Psychic type. What does Baririina’s existence possibly add to that? In addition, Baririina is a Normal-type that would have assuredly had low Attack and Defense (like Mr. Mime himself), making it more or less unusable. The concept of “Mr Mime but boring,” is hardly a concept made to get people excited about the next Pokemon game.
Of course, most of you know that eventually, Game Freak tried this idea again years later. While I really, really don’t like its visual design, the Generation IV devs found a way to make their version of a Mr. Mime baby, dubbed "Mime Jr.," work a bit more effectively than Baririina would have. While Mime Jr. is an extremely ugly and creepy design, it is the Psychic-type, unlike Baririina, so it doesn't lose the same-type bonus on its abilities. Secondly, Mime Jr actually learns moves distinct from Mr. Mime: the move "Tickle," which Mr. Mime would otherwise not get access to. To be fair, Baririina may have changed movesets by the time of the final had it survived, but we can only speculate whether it would have added anything helpful to Mr. Mime.
In addition, Mime Jr has a cute story attached to its gameplay: it only evolves when it knows “Mimic”. Essentially, the idea is that Mime Jr. is still in training. Before it gets Mimic, it learns "Copycat," which is a much worse version of Mimic, implying that it's still learning the art of mimicry. I love the flavor on this. Only once it masters the power of mimicry can Mime Jr. graduate to a master Mr. Mime.
Mime Jr’s not great, don’t get me wrong. But at least it has an interesting hook to its design that makes it a bit memorable. That’s more than you can say for Baririina.
I doubt, by the way, that these are somehow related or that Mime Jr was a revised version of Baririina. By the time the team got to Generation IV, they were actively looking for more Generation I Pokemon they could give evolutions to (see also Lickilicky and Tangrowth). In that context, Mr. Mime was an obvious choice, being one of the last one-stage non-legendary Generation I Pokemon. It was really a no-brainer to try and find an evolution for it, and any similarities between Baririina and Mime Jr are very likely coincidence.
…Even if they do seem to be dancing to the exact same tune…
Baririina is, interestingly, found in the same Pokedex location as the trio of Magby, Elekid, and Smoochum (Baririina is 217, Smoochum 218, Elebebii 219, and Magby 220). These are all humanoid, rare to find Pokemon from Generation I, and so maybe the team conceptually imagined them to be part of a quadology. Maybe they designed a baby Mr. Mime so that it would fit in with the other three (Which is obviously an insane thing to do, as Electabuzz and co were already some of the least deserving Pokemon to get babies, and there was even less reason to expand that trio into a foursome).
On the other hand, this is also basically how they were arranged in the Generation I Pokedex, though Scyther was ordered between Mr. Mime and Jynx. So they could have ordered the four like this because that's how they were originally.
Baririina, unlike some of the other baby Pokemon like Pichu or Cleffa, doesn’t learn any unique moves; its moveset is identical to Mr. Mime’s, except that it learns the moves a little earlier. There’s only one notable difference between the two, which is that Baririina is a Normal-type, not a Psychic-type. I like this difference: it implies that Baririina was weaker, mentally, than its evolution. Smoochum, interestingly, is the same way: it's a pure Ice-type until it evolves into Jynx. I think it’s likely that Game Freak thought that Psychic powers were something Pokemon needed to develop as they matured; thus, baby Pokemon would need to earn those powers by evolving.
Like Berurun, Baririina does appear to have been worked on after Spaceworld ’97, but not for very long. Baririina’s sprites appear in the June 1999 sprite banks with a new palette and, importantly, new shading on its sprite, which suggests the sprite was touched up a little. But even if those sprites appear in the June 1999 sprite collection, it isn't much more than a hint that Baririina once existed.
By June 1999, the Pokemon in that slot is just named “Mitei 08” (Pending 08). It isn’t clear at all if there was ever a brief design in this slot before it was taken over by Corsola in August 1999, but Corsola seems like a very late addition, and so this slot appears to be empty all the way up until Corsola was created, which was probably months. There are a couple of other blank entries like this in the June 1999 collection, so it isn’t unheard of, but clearly the designers didn’t delete Baririina to make room for something else; they deleted it because it no longer fit into their vision of the final game.
It’s pretty obvious to me why Baririina didn’t make it to the final game. Obviously there were too many baby Pokemon in Spaceworld ’97, and the team needed to cull some (or even most) of them. Even past that, among the massive amounts of uninspired baby Pokemon in Spaceworld ’97, Baririina stands out as an especially uninspiring design. Mr. Mime is already a Pokemon overshadowed by the Alakazam family. Most players of Generation I probably never used one, and it was probably a waste of their time if they did, because Mr. Mime is outclassed by every other Psychic type. What does Baririina’s existence possibly add to that? In addition, Baririina is a Normal-type that would have assuredly had low Attack and Defense (like Mr. Mime himself), making it more or less unusable. The concept of “Mr Mime but boring,” is hardly a concept made to get people excited about the next Pokemon game.
Of course, most of you know that eventually, Game Freak tried this idea again years later. While I really, really don’t like its visual design, the Generation IV devs found a way to make their version of a Mr. Mime baby, dubbed "Mime Jr.," work a bit more effectively than Baririina would have. While Mime Jr. is an extremely ugly and creepy design, it is the Psychic-type, unlike Baririina, so it doesn't lose the same-type bonus on its abilities. Secondly, Mime Jr actually learns moves distinct from Mr. Mime: the move "Tickle," which Mr. Mime would otherwise not get access to. To be fair, Baririina may have changed movesets by the time of the final had it survived, but we can only speculate whether it would have added anything helpful to Mr. Mime.
In addition, Mime Jr has a cute story attached to its gameplay: it only evolves when it knows “Mimic”. Essentially, the idea is that Mime Jr. is still in training. Before it gets Mimic, it learns "Copycat," which is a much worse version of Mimic, implying that it's still learning the art of mimicry. I love the flavor on this. Only once it masters the power of mimicry can Mime Jr. graduate to a master Mr. Mime.
Mime Jr’s not great, don’t get me wrong. But at least it has an interesting hook to its design that makes it a bit memorable. That’s more than you can say for Baririina.
I doubt, by the way, that these are somehow related or that Mime Jr was a revised version of Baririina. By the time the team got to Generation IV, they were actively looking for more Generation I Pokemon they could give evolutions to (see also Lickilicky and Tangrowth). In that context, Mr. Mime was an obvious choice, being one of the last one-stage non-legendary Generation I Pokemon. It was really a no-brainer to try and find an evolution for it, and any similarities between Baririina and Mime Jr are very likely coincidence.
…Even if they do seem to be dancing to the exact same tune…
…And seem to be wearing nearly the same hat…
Okay fine I guess it’s possible.
Okay fine I guess it’s possible.
ID 442: Nameeru
Right next to Baririina is another evolutionary relative of a relatively obscure Generation I Pokemon, suggesting that the team created them as part of a set. The next entry is Nameeru (a name that is the extremely uninspired Japanese verb that simply means “to lick”), a Pokemon created to give Lickitung an evolution. Like Baririina, we can only speculate why the team created Nameeru, but my guess is that it’s purpose was to rehabilitate Lickitung, which by no means was bad in Generation I but certainly not a stand-out Pokemon. My guess is that Nameeru got cut for the exact same reasons it was created in the first place: Lickitung was an obscure and unpopular Pokemon, and the team decided to spend their time creating new Pokemon rather than expanding on unpopular ones.
By this point in the Korean Index, it is worth pointing out a pattern. In Red and Green, there were four Pokemon a player could only obtain through in-game trades: Farfetch’d, Lickitung, Mr. Mime, and Jynx (in addition, Tangela was so obscure that for years I thought the in-game trade was the only way to get it). All of these Pokemon—maybe not Jynx—have middling stats and are only moderately useful in battle. They also have a couple of other things in common. First, they were all designed in the first two Eras of Generation I’s development.
By this point in the Korean Index, it is worth pointing out a pattern. In Red and Green, there were four Pokemon a player could only obtain through in-game trades: Farfetch’d, Lickitung, Mr. Mime, and Jynx (in addition, Tangela was so obscure that for years I thought the in-game trade was the only way to get it). All of these Pokemon—maybe not Jynx—have middling stats and are only moderately useful in battle. They also have a couple of other things in common. First, they were all designed in the first two Eras of Generation I’s development.
This was very early on in the conception of Pokemon, back before the team had designed the Pokemon environment and back when the team was first pioneering the idea of Pokemon types. Helix Chamber has pointed out a few other similarities: these early Pokemon tend to learn a lot of different TM moves (maybe because of their undefined nature) and a disproportionate amount of them turned up in the Safari Zone because they didn't really fit the progression of the final games, or didn't have a place in the game that housed a realistic environment for them.
If much of these two early eras of Red and Green's development fit unnaturally into the final game, these four in-game trade evolutions must have been the absolute oddballs out of the crop. My instinct about these four is that not only did they not really fit naturally into the final design of the games, but that in addition they were probably the Pokemon that only, just barely, made the cut into the original 151. The team likely deemphasized them in the games partially because they didn't fit, and partially because they weren't universally popular with the design team and Game Freak didn't want them to be headliners.
Farfetch’d, Jynx, and Lickitung (less so Mr. Mime) were also heavily based upon Japanese cultural inspirations. Farfetch’d’s concept was a joke based off the Japanese saying “a duck comes bearing spring onions,” which essentially means “a great opportunity” since the duck is literally carrying its own garnish if you were to cook it. Jynx, as I mentioned previously, was probably at least partly based on the Japanese demon called a “Yuki-Onna,” which is basically a female ice-ghost. And Lickitung—maybe the weirdest concept for a Pokemon!—is based on the Akaname, a Japanese demon that has a gigantic tongue and licks clean bathrooms. It’s Pokedex number, 108, is also a rude number in Japanese culture, similar to the meanings of “69” in American slang.
Farfetch’d, Jynx, and Lickitung (less so Mr. Mime) were also heavily based upon Japanese cultural inspirations. Farfetch’d’s concept was a joke based off the Japanese saying “a duck comes bearing spring onions,” which essentially means “a great opportunity” since the duck is literally carrying its own garnish if you were to cook it. Jynx, as I mentioned previously, was probably at least partly based on the Japanese demon called a “Yuki-Onna,” which is basically a female ice-ghost. And Lickitung—maybe the weirdest concept for a Pokemon!—is based on the Akaname, a Japanese demon that has a gigantic tongue and licks clean bathrooms. It’s Pokedex number, 108, is also a rude number in Japanese culture, similar to the meanings of “69” in American slang.
Why am I focusing on all of these in such detail? Because by the time we get to Nameeru, a definite pattern has emerged. While some of the Pokemon that got evolutions in Era III feel random, it doesn't seem like coincidence that all of the in-game trade Pokemon from Generation I got an evolution. It gets more interesting: not only did these in-game trade Pokemon get an evolution in Era III, but most of the other Generation I Pokemon to get an evolution in Era III were also from these extremely early stages of Generation I’s development. Of the Era III Pokemon to expand upon Generation I lines, 14 of them are from Period II of Generation I’s development (Hitmontop, Smoochum, Hinaazu, Madame, Steelix, Blissey, Monja, Jaranra, Magby, Animon, Koonya, Nameru, Baririina, Tyrogue) and four relate to Period I of Generation I’s development (Steelix, Scizor, Plux, Para). Only seven (Porygon2, Betobebii, Igglybuff, Pudi, Kingdra, Bellossom, Tsubomitto) plus the three Eevees (so ten total) are from the other parts of Generation I’s development.
I'm sure that part of the reason for this pattern was because the Pokemon from earlier periods of Generation I’s development were simply less likely to already have evolutions. But the pattern is striking. The designers working on Era III weren’t just creating evolutions for Generation I Pokemon. They were purposefully designing evolutions for designs that originated in the earliest parts of Pokemon’s development.
Why? It’s not clear. We know that these early designs from Generation I predate Atsuko Nishida’s involvement in the Pokemon games; instead, they were primarily made by Sugimori and Morimoto (it’s unclear what Fujiwara made in this era; probably Jynx and Koffing). Maybe Era III was an effort by the original designers to do second drafts of some of their designs they weren’t really happy with in Generation I. Maybe the team felt like these guys were missed opportunities: as they didn’t really have an environment available in Generation I, maybe these exotic specimens had a more natural habitat in Johto? Who knows. But it is fascinating that Era III seems to have a very direct connection to a specific time period in the original Pokemon’s development.
Speaking of obscure Pokemon, how obscure was Lickitung? Honestly, I’d argue Lickitung is in the top five most obscure Pokemon in the entire game. Mew is obviously impossible to find without cheating. But Jynx and Mr. Mime, while hard to find, are at least featured in two important battles: Sabrina has her Mr. Mime, and Lorelei has her Jynx. Farfetch’d is relatively rare, but at least three Bird Catchers use a Farfetch’d throughout the game. Only two trainers in Generation I have a Lickitung. In terms of appearances, only Magmar, Scyther, Pinsir, and Electabuzz have less appearances, being used by no trainers at all. And even then, these guys could at least be found in the wild and caught, albeit only if you have the correct version of the games.
Development data for Red and Green suggest this wasn’t always the case. In earlier versions of the games, Lickitung featured at least a little more prominently. Lickitung was originally found in the Safari Zone, which would have made it rare but not impossible to find; it also featured in a special end-game Dungeon found in Silph Co. on a floor where you could catch high level Pokemon from the Safari Zone.
As well, in addition to the two Pokemaniacs that use Lickitungs in the final game, other trainers had their own Lickitungs! Cueballs, and Team Rocket members used Lickitungs in their parties commonly in earlier versions of the trainer teams; Jr Trainers and Beauties also used Lickitung, more rarely. In addition, before Giovanni became a Ground type trainer, his early encounters had a “rare Safari Zone encounters” theme, and Lickitung was one of the four Pokemon (next to Rhydon, Nidoqueen, and Scyther) in his second line-up. So there was a time when Lickitung made some nominal appearances in the games.
I'm sure that part of the reason for this pattern was because the Pokemon from earlier periods of Generation I’s development were simply less likely to already have evolutions. But the pattern is striking. The designers working on Era III weren’t just creating evolutions for Generation I Pokemon. They were purposefully designing evolutions for designs that originated in the earliest parts of Pokemon’s development.
Why? It’s not clear. We know that these early designs from Generation I predate Atsuko Nishida’s involvement in the Pokemon games; instead, they were primarily made by Sugimori and Morimoto (it’s unclear what Fujiwara made in this era; probably Jynx and Koffing). Maybe Era III was an effort by the original designers to do second drafts of some of their designs they weren’t really happy with in Generation I. Maybe the team felt like these guys were missed opportunities: as they didn’t really have an environment available in Generation I, maybe these exotic specimens had a more natural habitat in Johto? Who knows. But it is fascinating that Era III seems to have a very direct connection to a specific time period in the original Pokemon’s development.
Speaking of obscure Pokemon, how obscure was Lickitung? Honestly, I’d argue Lickitung is in the top five most obscure Pokemon in the entire game. Mew is obviously impossible to find without cheating. But Jynx and Mr. Mime, while hard to find, are at least featured in two important battles: Sabrina has her Mr. Mime, and Lorelei has her Jynx. Farfetch’d is relatively rare, but at least three Bird Catchers use a Farfetch’d throughout the game. Only two trainers in Generation I have a Lickitung. In terms of appearances, only Magmar, Scyther, Pinsir, and Electabuzz have less appearances, being used by no trainers at all. And even then, these guys could at least be found in the wild and caught, albeit only if you have the correct version of the games.
Development data for Red and Green suggest this wasn’t always the case. In earlier versions of the games, Lickitung featured at least a little more prominently. Lickitung was originally found in the Safari Zone, which would have made it rare but not impossible to find; it also featured in a special end-game Dungeon found in Silph Co. on a floor where you could catch high level Pokemon from the Safari Zone.
As well, in addition to the two Pokemaniacs that use Lickitungs in the final game, other trainers had their own Lickitungs! Cueballs, and Team Rocket members used Lickitungs in their parties commonly in earlier versions of the trainer teams; Jr Trainers and Beauties also used Lickitung, more rarely. In addition, before Giovanni became a Ground type trainer, his early encounters had a “rare Safari Zone encounters” theme, and Lickitung was one of the four Pokemon (next to Rhydon, Nidoqueen, and Scyther) in his second line-up. So there was a time when Lickitung made some nominal appearances in the games.
I’m not sure why this changed; a lot of the edits to the early trainer teams where to make the trainers use a smaller and more consistent amount of Pokemon, probably to give them a more concrete identity as trainers. Lickitung could have been a casualty of tighter theming. Notably, in the final, the only trainers that uses them are Pokemaniacs, which specialize in rare and unusual Pokemon; maybe the team decided Lickitung was too odd for random Beauties to be carrying around. They may have also minimized its appearances specifically to make it into a trade-only Pokemon, to increase variety in how the player needed to hunt out Pokemon to catch ‘em all (though there were already three other trade-exclusives, why would they need one more?).
My own personal gut instinct is that the team knew Lickitung wasn’t a very well designed Pokemon, and they didn’t really want it being front and center in their games (especially with that origin story). As a result, the team hid it in the game, making it easier for players to catch cuter designs that the team was more proud of.
If the team weren’t happy with Lickitung, Nameeru might have been an improvement. The concept, for one, seems to be completely different. As TCRF claims, Nameeru’s design seems to take some inspiration from snake charmers: the hat its wearing looks a bit like a turban, and the way Nameeru is holding its tongue resembles a long flute used by a snake charmer. In addition to that, Nameeru, to me, looks like it was clearly designed after a catfish; the whiskers, in particular, are a dead giveaway. Catfish are hardly rare in games of this time period, in large part because the Japanese associate them with river spirits. Catfish, in Japanese mythology, are able to control electricity (for instance, look at Volt Catfish from Megaman X3) and able to create Earthquakes. While Nameeru couldn’t learn these moves on its own, Lickitung (and thus Nameeru) certainly had access to Thunder and Earthquake as TM moves.
My own personal gut instinct is that the team knew Lickitung wasn’t a very well designed Pokemon, and they didn’t really want it being front and center in their games (especially with that origin story). As a result, the team hid it in the game, making it easier for players to catch cuter designs that the team was more proud of.
If the team weren’t happy with Lickitung, Nameeru might have been an improvement. The concept, for one, seems to be completely different. As TCRF claims, Nameeru’s design seems to take some inspiration from snake charmers: the hat its wearing looks a bit like a turban, and the way Nameeru is holding its tongue resembles a long flute used by a snake charmer. In addition to that, Nameeru, to me, looks like it was clearly designed after a catfish; the whiskers, in particular, are a dead giveaway. Catfish are hardly rare in games of this time period, in large part because the Japanese associate them with river spirits. Catfish, in Japanese mythology, are able to control electricity (for instance, look at Volt Catfish from Megaman X3) and able to create Earthquakes. While Nameeru couldn’t learn these moves on its own, Lickitung (and thus Nameeru) certainly had access to Thunder and Earthquake as TM moves.
Either design—snake charmer or wise catfish—also had the positive side of not being a reference to a lewd bathroom demon, making Nameeru a bit more family friendly and thus opening the possibility for a more prominent place in the games for the Lickitung family.
Whatever the reasons for creating it in the first place, Nameeru was one of the very first Pokemon cut once development was rebooted in early 1999. While Madame and Plux seem to have made it to at least July of 1999 before the team thought of replacing them, Nameeru had already been overwritten by Tyranitar by April of 1999. Nameeru’s backsprite survived as a placeholder for Tyranitar’s backsprite, but unlike Madame or Baririina’s sprites, there’s no indication that it was refined or modified at all since Spaceworld ’97; it also looks notably awful in Tyranitar’s green palette, indicating that Tyranitar didn’t inherit a palette from a version of Nameeru, but overwrote it from the beginning. There’s nothing else left of Nameeru: even Tyranitar’s stats and Dark/Rock typing are in place even by April 1999.
Of the four in-game trade Pokemon from Generation I—Jynx, Farfetch’d Mr. Mime, and Lickitung—only Jynx’s evolutionary relative, Smoochum, survived. If there once was a subtheme of rehabilitating these obscure Generation I creatures, that subtheme clearly didn’t survive past the 1999 reboot. And, honestly, that makes sense. I love Madame and Nameeru (less so Baririina), but they all faced the same problem: it’s very hard to make an evolution of any of these Pokemon that is interesting enough to be included in the sequel.
Eventually, of course, Lickitung did get an evolution, in Lickilicky. Generation IV had a subtheme of evolving Generation I and II Pokemon that lacked an evolutionary relative; the designers ended up creating a lot of new evolutions for old Pokemon in Hoenn, including Tangrowth, Mamoswine, Yanmega, and Lickilicky. Lickilicky is a very simple design: it’s a fat version of Lickitung. Honestly, I hate it. Nameeru was an interesting extension of Lickitung. It took the design in new directions, giving Lickitung a nuance that it previously lacked. Lickilicky is…chubby. There’s no new inspirations for it, nothing nuanced about its design: the designer decided that if Lickitung eats a lot, of course it'd get fat when it evolved. It’s pretty infuriating that the team had such an inspired idea for Lickitung’s evolution just lying in the scrap heap, and yet they went with that…thing.
Whatever the reasons for creating it in the first place, Nameeru was one of the very first Pokemon cut once development was rebooted in early 1999. While Madame and Plux seem to have made it to at least July of 1999 before the team thought of replacing them, Nameeru had already been overwritten by Tyranitar by April of 1999. Nameeru’s backsprite survived as a placeholder for Tyranitar’s backsprite, but unlike Madame or Baririina’s sprites, there’s no indication that it was refined or modified at all since Spaceworld ’97; it also looks notably awful in Tyranitar’s green palette, indicating that Tyranitar didn’t inherit a palette from a version of Nameeru, but overwrote it from the beginning. There’s nothing else left of Nameeru: even Tyranitar’s stats and Dark/Rock typing are in place even by April 1999.
Of the four in-game trade Pokemon from Generation I—Jynx, Farfetch’d Mr. Mime, and Lickitung—only Jynx’s evolutionary relative, Smoochum, survived. If there once was a subtheme of rehabilitating these obscure Generation I creatures, that subtheme clearly didn’t survive past the 1999 reboot. And, honestly, that makes sense. I love Madame and Nameeru (less so Baririina), but they all faced the same problem: it’s very hard to make an evolution of any of these Pokemon that is interesting enough to be included in the sequel.
Eventually, of course, Lickitung did get an evolution, in Lickilicky. Generation IV had a subtheme of evolving Generation I and II Pokemon that lacked an evolutionary relative; the designers ended up creating a lot of new evolutions for old Pokemon in Hoenn, including Tangrowth, Mamoswine, Yanmega, and Lickilicky. Lickilicky is a very simple design: it’s a fat version of Lickitung. Honestly, I hate it. Nameeru was an interesting extension of Lickitung. It took the design in new directions, giving Lickitung a nuance that it previously lacked. Lickilicky is…chubby. There’s no new inspirations for it, nothing nuanced about its design: the designer decided that if Lickitung eats a lot, of course it'd get fat when it evolved. It’s pretty infuriating that the team had such an inspired idea for Lickitung’s evolution just lying in the scrap heap, and yet they went with that…thing.
But I’ll say this. Even if the Gen IV visual designs of these Pokemon are...not very good...the team that made Generation IV did know how to make them interesting in both a flavor and gameplay direction. Like Mime Jr, most of the new evolutionary relatives in Generation IV evolve only when they know a specific move; that move then informs their identity as the evolved Pokemon. For Mime Jr, that was the ability to successfully mimic; for Mamoswine and Tangrowth, it was the ability to learn Ancient Power, which turns them into prehistoric Pokemon. For Lickilicky, it is empowered by learning the move Rollout. This gives Lickilicky a bit of a fun story: it eats and eats as Lickitung, then becomes so fat it can Roll over them as Lickilicky. At the very least, giving it this evolutionary method makes Lickilicky stand out much more than Nameeru ever would have.
It’s also worth mentioning that in early leaked builds of Pokemon Diamond and Pearl, we find a backsprite of an earlier design of Lickilicky that makes it look like a spiked yoyo! What’s interesting about this is that it provides strong evidence that Lickilicky was designed, from the beginning, around its ability to use Rollout. In addition to being interesting, this also, to me, heavily suggests that Lickilicky’s design is completely unrelated to Nameeru’s. If they were related, we’d expect some continuity between the two designs, at least at some point in development; instead, Lickilicky looks even more different from Nameeru in its earlier design. On top of that, it’s pretty clear that the designer started with the move Rollout, and created a design from there. It’s very unlikely they first consulted the catfish design of Nameeru.
It’s also worth mentioning that in early leaked builds of Pokemon Diamond and Pearl, we find a backsprite of an earlier design of Lickilicky that makes it look like a spiked yoyo! What’s interesting about this is that it provides strong evidence that Lickilicky was designed, from the beginning, around its ability to use Rollout. In addition to being interesting, this also, to me, heavily suggests that Lickilicky’s design is completely unrelated to Nameeru’s. If they were related, we’d expect some continuity between the two designs, at least at some point in development; instead, Lickilicky looks even more different from Nameeru in its earlier design. On top of that, it’s pretty clear that the designer started with the move Rollout, and created a design from there. It’s very unlikely they first consulted the catfish design of Nameeru.
Honestly I'd love to see what this guy looked like from the front. Seems like a much more interesting design than the one we got.
Anyway, Lickilicky is a shame, given how good a design Nameeru was. If Nameery was meant to be a second draft of Lickitung--a chance for the redemption of an imperfect design--unfortunately, Lickitung’s designer never got a chance to create an improved version. Instead, someone else just doubled down on Lickitung’s bizarre traits, making Lickilicky not a revision of Lickitung, but an exaggeration of everything that was already wrong with it.
Anyway, Lickilicky is a shame, given how good a design Nameeru was. If Nameery was meant to be a second draft of Lickitung--a chance for the redemption of an imperfect design--unfortunately, Lickitung’s designer never got a chance to create an improved version. Instead, someone else just doubled down on Lickitung’s bizarre traits, making Lickilicky not a revision of Lickitung, but an exaggeration of everything that was already wrong with it.
ID 443: Noctowl
Next up, we're back to extensions of Generation II families. Noctowl's next. What do we make of it?
Of all the possible Generation II Pokemon that needed an evolution, Hoothoot was at the top of the list. And thus, Noctowl was a given. It’s honestly surprising the team waited this long to design it. Hoothoot was initially designed to be an early game bird Pokemon; it was a nighttime counterpart to Pidgey and Spearow, to reward the intrepid midnight adventurer. But there’s no way that an early game bird Pokemon could be a single stage specimen. Instead, Hoothoot needed either one or two evolutions, to bring it into parallel with either Pidgey or Spearow. From its very conception, Noctowl was going to exist in some form or another.
But clearly the team had had other concerns. We're almost to the very end of the Korean Index, and only now is Noctowl making an appearance. Maybe no one on the team had a good design idea for Hoothoot’s evolution, or maybe it was so certain that the whole team knew they’d get around to eventually. Whatever the case, Noctowl snuck into the games right before the Spaceworld ’97 build.
Of all the possible Generation II Pokemon that needed an evolution, Hoothoot was at the top of the list. And thus, Noctowl was a given. It’s honestly surprising the team waited this long to design it. Hoothoot was initially designed to be an early game bird Pokemon; it was a nighttime counterpart to Pidgey and Spearow, to reward the intrepid midnight adventurer. But there’s no way that an early game bird Pokemon could be a single stage specimen. Instead, Hoothoot needed either one or two evolutions, to bring it into parallel with either Pidgey or Spearow. From its very conception, Noctowl was going to exist in some form or another.
But clearly the team had had other concerns. We're almost to the very end of the Korean Index, and only now is Noctowl making an appearance. Maybe no one on the team had a good design idea for Hoothoot’s evolution, or maybe it was so certain that the whole team knew they’d get around to eventually. Whatever the case, Noctowl snuck into the games right before the Spaceworld ’97 build.
It's possible the team took so long to design Noctowl because they weren't confident that Hoothoot would end up being the bird representative they went with in the roster. If we remember all the way back to the very beginning of the Korean Index, you’ll recall that there were a ton of bird Pokemon designs; the team couldn’t seem to have enough. It may have been the case, thus, that the team knew they needed a new bird representative, but they weren’t 100% sure it would be Hoothoot until late in the design. Noctowl’s creation at the end of the Index might be an indication that they had finally paired down the bird roster to Hoothoot, Natu and Xatu, and Murkrow. Once the team decided that the quarter note bird, the weird megaphone bird, and the Scarecrow weren’t actually going to make it into the roster, they felt safe designing Noctowl as the evolution to Hoothoot, rather than worrying it might have been discarded as well if the team decided on Megaphone bird to take Hoothoot’s place in the early game. If that’s true, it’s interesting just how long the roster was in flux before Spaceworld ’97!
Anyway, on to Noctowl. Noctowl’s an owl! There’s not much more to it! In it’s initial design, Noctowl is a large, mean-looking oval with pointy eyebrows. In this version, it shares Hoothoot’s main feature: it only has one, large foot that it stands on. This design for Noctowl reminds me of cartoonier depictions of owls that tend to make them into a big circle. To my eyes, the closest real-life owl to this design is the Screech Owl:
However, after Spaceworld '97, the designer of Noctowl (probably Sugimori) had a change of heart. Instead of this more abstract depiction, the team decided to go with a much more realistic owl design, albeit one with giant eyebrows. This one looks a lot more like a Great Horned Owl:
It also looks a bit like an egg timer to me as well, since it's ovular and egg timers are sometimes designed to look like birds (OrangeFrench pointed out that, if animated, it'd be really cute to see the upper half of this guy's head rotate around like an egg timer). Since Hoothoot looks a bit like a cuckoo clock, this would be a fun clock-based parallel between both evolutions.
For whatever reason, the team decided to back down from this more cartoony design by 1999, and instead Noctowl became much more generic. This is honestly a head scratcher to me. Not only does Noctowl lose the one-legged design of Hoothoot, but in evolving, the Pokemon also loses the clock theme that Hoothoot had.
The design U-Turn wasn’t caused by a new designer taking over Noctowl’s 1999 sprites, because I’m relatively certain Sugimori created both the SW’97 and the final sprites (one reason to think this is that the sprites are relatively finalized by June 1999; usually Sugimori designs are the only one that don’t go through slight tweaks over the course of development). For some reason, Sugimori just decided that Noctowl should look more realistic and less like a Pokemon.
To be fair, there is some indication the team tried to bring Hoothoot more in-line with Noctowl, rather than make Noctowl conform to Hoothoot. On the scratchpads, there is a bizarre alternate design for Hoothoot that happens to look a lot closer to Noctowl than its final design does:
The design U-Turn wasn’t caused by a new designer taking over Noctowl’s 1999 sprites, because I’m relatively certain Sugimori created both the SW’97 and the final sprites (one reason to think this is that the sprites are relatively finalized by June 1999; usually Sugimori designs are the only one that don’t go through slight tweaks over the course of development). For some reason, Sugimori just decided that Noctowl should look more realistic and less like a Pokemon.
To be fair, there is some indication the team tried to bring Hoothoot more in-line with Noctowl, rather than make Noctowl conform to Hoothoot. On the scratchpads, there is a bizarre alternate design for Hoothoot that happens to look a lot closer to Noctowl than its final design does:
In Hoothoot’s entry, I posited that this was actually an earlier design for Hoothoot from before Spaceworld '97 and from before they decided to make it look like a clock. I admit, looking at it more closely next to Noctowl, I was probably mistaken: the idea here seems to have been to make Hoothoot resemble Noctowl more, to make the family more consistent.
I mentioned previously that the foot on this Hoothoot is a dead giveaway: it's not the same as the foot on the other versions of Hoothoot's sprite. That suggests that this was drawn from scratch, not modified from the other Hoothoot sprites, which at the time suggested to me that this predated those sprites. I don't think that's impossible, and it is really weird that they didn't just edit the other sprites to make this Hoothoot. But looking at them, the connection is obvious: this version of Hoothoot was meant to share the same huge eyebrows with Noctowl.
Saying that, this sprite was probably never used: it was either just an experiment that was rejected once they saw how odd this Hoothoot looked, or it was a placeholder sprite for the new Noctowl before they had finished the new sprites. Whatever it was, I doubt it ever replaced Hoothoot.
When we previously discussed Hoothoot, we discussed Noctowl’s moveset, which doesn’t change that radically from Spaceworld ’97 to the final game. In the final, Game Freak decided to give Noctowl Dreameater and Confusion, two Psychic types moves that it didn’t have in Spaceworld ’97. Given that owl’s are wise, spooky creatures, Psychic moves make some sort of sense for the family, and I like the extra flavor these moves give Noctowl.
In Spaceworld ’97, on the other hand, Noctowl’s moveset was a little more vanilla. It learned Wing Attack, giving it a stronger Flying move other than Peck, and it also learned Moonlight, which would recover it’s HP, especially if it was nighttime when the move was used. It’s a useful move, and it further connected Noctowl to the nighttime (Hoothoot, after all, was originally created to show off the day/night cycle!), but other than this connection with the night, it doesn’t really fit Noctowl to have a healing move like this. It also, interestingly, had a signature move called “Megaphone,” which had an 85% chance to lower the opponent’s special attack. Not only do “megaphones” not fit an owl at all (I guess it hoots pretty loudly), but the move is terrible, so it was no big loss when it lost this signature. I kind of wish the team had created a new signature move for Noctowl to replace this loss, but you can’t have everything.
Otherwise, there’s not much else of note about this bird. I don’t think it was ever in danger of not existing; like I said before, once the team had decided Hoothoot was for certain on the roster, Noctowl had to exist. The last thing of note to say about Noctowl is to simply point out one oddity. In the final game, two trainers have Noctowl: Gentlemen Alfred in the Lighthouse, and Bird Keeper Bob on Route 18 (who used a Farfetch’d instead in Spaceworld ’99). Now, Bob’s Noctowl is your standard, run of the mill Noctowl; Alfred’s, on the other hand, knows Poisonpowder, a move that is otherwise impossible for Noctowl to learn! Why would the team have programmed this random trainer to have this random move on his Noctowl? It’s got to be an in-joke. Something that made sense to the designers but that we, as players, will never understand.
So if you're wandering through the wilds, watch out for poisonous owls I guess?
I mentioned previously that the foot on this Hoothoot is a dead giveaway: it's not the same as the foot on the other versions of Hoothoot's sprite. That suggests that this was drawn from scratch, not modified from the other Hoothoot sprites, which at the time suggested to me that this predated those sprites. I don't think that's impossible, and it is really weird that they didn't just edit the other sprites to make this Hoothoot. But looking at them, the connection is obvious: this version of Hoothoot was meant to share the same huge eyebrows with Noctowl.
Saying that, this sprite was probably never used: it was either just an experiment that was rejected once they saw how odd this Hoothoot looked, or it was a placeholder sprite for the new Noctowl before they had finished the new sprites. Whatever it was, I doubt it ever replaced Hoothoot.
When we previously discussed Hoothoot, we discussed Noctowl’s moveset, which doesn’t change that radically from Spaceworld ’97 to the final game. In the final, Game Freak decided to give Noctowl Dreameater and Confusion, two Psychic types moves that it didn’t have in Spaceworld ’97. Given that owl’s are wise, spooky creatures, Psychic moves make some sort of sense for the family, and I like the extra flavor these moves give Noctowl.
In Spaceworld ’97, on the other hand, Noctowl’s moveset was a little more vanilla. It learned Wing Attack, giving it a stronger Flying move other than Peck, and it also learned Moonlight, which would recover it’s HP, especially if it was nighttime when the move was used. It’s a useful move, and it further connected Noctowl to the nighttime (Hoothoot, after all, was originally created to show off the day/night cycle!), but other than this connection with the night, it doesn’t really fit Noctowl to have a healing move like this. It also, interestingly, had a signature move called “Megaphone,” which had an 85% chance to lower the opponent’s special attack. Not only do “megaphones” not fit an owl at all (I guess it hoots pretty loudly), but the move is terrible, so it was no big loss when it lost this signature. I kind of wish the team had created a new signature move for Noctowl to replace this loss, but you can’t have everything.
Otherwise, there’s not much else of note about this bird. I don’t think it was ever in danger of not existing; like I said before, once the team had decided Hoothoot was for certain on the roster, Noctowl had to exist. The last thing of note to say about Noctowl is to simply point out one oddity. In the final game, two trainers have Noctowl: Gentlemen Alfred in the Lighthouse, and Bird Keeper Bob on Route 18 (who used a Farfetch’d instead in Spaceworld ’99). Now, Bob’s Noctowl is your standard, run of the mill Noctowl; Alfred’s, on the other hand, knows Poisonpowder, a move that is otherwise impossible for Noctowl to learn! Why would the team have programmed this random trainer to have this random move on his Noctowl? It’s got to be an in-joke. Something that made sense to the designers but that we, as players, will never understand.
So if you're wandering through the wilds, watch out for poisonous owls I guess?
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