History TheArtifact / Pokemon

* A more bizarre case of a Pokémon's design changing in weird ways in development is Shuckle. Shuckle's original concept, going by leaked betas, was that it was a Pokémon themed around [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snake_wine snake wine]]--an alcoholic beverage found in southeast Asia, made by taking a pickled snake and steeping it in the drink. Thus, it's a serpentine creature that lives in a container (which early sprites showed to be a clay jar), and ferments berries inside of that jar that mix with its bodily fluids to turn into a drink, essentially a kid-friendly version of how snake wine is made. However, over the course of development, the concept was increasingly obscured and garbled, possibly due to fears that a Pokémon based on dead snakes would be [[ForeignQueasine too morbid or gross]] for people to stomach: the container was shaped into a shell, and Shuckle gained the Bug typing and much clearer limbs, pushing it away from the "snake in a jar" interpretation. Nowadays, it's quite telling that it wasn't until those betas leaked that people figured out what Shuckle was--most fandom guesses included "barnacle", "scale insect", "fungus", or "some kind of weird turtle thing"--but the association with berry juice remains a core part of Shuckle's identity, being mentioned in every Pokédex entry, even though the reason behind that association is no longer apparent.

** It's made even more jarring by the fact that a Nidoran♀ inexplicably becomes sterile upon maturing into a Nidorina, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McB4lCnAips something confirmed and yet still not explained in detail by the official Pokédex.]]

* The Altering Cave in ''[=FireRed/LeafGreen=]'' was meant to work in tandem with the Mystery Gift function, which at sanctioned events would have allowed players to populate it with Gen II Pokémon that were otherwise not available in Gen III, such as Mareep, Aipom, Shuckle and Smeargle. Its function was rendered redundant just two months before ''FR/LG'' launched by ''VideoGame/PokemonColosseum'', which allows you to just catch Pokémon from all the same evolutionary lines as those which would have been available through the Altering Cave and then transfer them to the main games. Game Freak never hosted any events for the Altering Cave as a result, leaving it as a weirdly-late-game cave to catch low-leveled Zubat in. ''Emerald'' is even worse, as all the Pokémon that would have been available through the Altering Cave were made catchable through regular means (Smeargle can be found in an Artisan's Cave at the Battle Frontier, all the rest were added to the Safari Zone), yet also includes an Altering Cave that opens up after entering the Hall of Fame which nothing can be done with except catch low-level Zubat.

* A more bizarre case of a Pokémon's design changing in weird ways in development is Shuckle. Shuckle's original concept, going by leaked betas, was that it was a Pokémon themed around [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snake_wine snake wine]]--an alcoholic beverage found in southeast Asia, made by taking a pickled snake and steeping it in the drink. Thus, it's a serpentine creature that lives in a container (which early sprites showed to be a clay jar), and ferments berries inside of that jar that mix with its bodily fluids to turn into a drink, essentially a kid-friendly version of how snake wine is made. However, over the course of development, the concept was increasingly obscured and garbled, possibly due to fears that a Pokémon based on dead snakes would be [[ForeignQueasine too morbid or gross]] for people to stomach: the container was shaped into a shell, and Shuckle gained the Bug typing and much clearer limbs, pushing it away from the "snake in a jar" interpretation. Nowadays, it's quite telling that it wasn't until those betas leaked that people figured out what Shuckle was--most fandom guesses included "barnacle", "scale insect", "fungus", or "some kind of weird turtle thing"--but the association with berry juice remains a core part of Shuckle's identity, being mentioned in almost every Pokédex entry, even though the reason behind that association is no longer apparent.