History WhatCouldHaveBeen / PokemonRedAndBlue

* Early promotional art suggests that a female player character was supposed to be available in the games. Her character design was similar to Green's (Blue in Japan) from the ''Manga/PokemonAdventures'' manga. She ended up redesigned for ''[=FireRed=] and [=LeafGreen=]'' as the female protagonist "Leaf" and as Green in ''Let's Go Pikachu and Let's Go Eevee''.

** "[=50Man=] Volt" is a stronger version of Thunderbolt.

** There is an unused deer/{{Kirin}} Pokémon.

* Individual mons retain their catch rate after you capture them. In the final game, this isn't used for anything (though if you trade them to and from a Gen II game those bits will be repurposed to preserve their hold item), but its inclusion suggests that at some point, the possibility was considered for enemy trainers to be able to steal your mons, with some method you'd use to mitigate this by reducing their catch rate.

** Gyopin is an unused goldfish Pokémon that would have evolved into Goldeen. It was planned to be added in Gold and Silver as a baby Pokémon, but was scrapped again there.

** Puchicorn is a unicorn Pokémon that would have evolved into Ponyta. Yet another pre-evolution that was considered to be brought in as a baby Pokémon in Gold and Silver before being cut for good.

** "Gyaoon" (originally called "Gyace") looks a lot like Tyranitar. It originally had Ivysaur's cry. There's also a Pokémon that seems to be its pre-evolution.
** Raichu originally had an evolution called "Gorochu". It had fangs sticking out of its mouth, a horn on its head, and looked like a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raijin Raijin]]. It was removed for balance reasons. Gorochu was one of the 39 cut Missingno Pokémon.

** Barunda is literally just a balloon. No clear front sprite exists but it apparently had a face. Jigglypuff replaced it.
** Buu is a yeti-looking Pokémon that looks like Jynx. It's inspired by Woo from ''Ultraman''.

** Zubat originally had a pre-evolution. It was a simple-looking bat with just a body. It doesn't even have eyes or a mouth.

** There are two cut Pokémon with Japanese-style topknots.
** There is a three-stage reptile evolutionary line.
** Psyduck was meant to have a three-stage evolutionary family. Inbetween Psyduck and Goldduck was a Psyduck-looking Pokémon with a darker palette.

** Gyopin is an unused fish Pokémon.

** Puchicorn is a unicorn Pokémon.

* The gym coach was originally named "Danpei", after the coach from ''Ashita no Joe''. He even had dark skin and wore an eyepatch like him, he was likely changed for copyright reasons.

[[folder:Pokémon Yellow]]
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** Raichu originally had an evolution called "Gorochu". It had fangs sticking out of its mouth and two horns on its head like an {{oni}}. It was removed for balance reasons. Gorochu was one of the 39 cut Missingno Pokémon.

** Raichu was originally an evolution called "Gorochu". It had fangs sticking out of its mouth and two horns on its head like an {{oni}}. It was removed for balance reasons. Gorochu was one of the 39 cut Missingno Pokémon.

** Shinjuku Jack, modeled after Shinjuku Jacky from Virtua Fighter.

** Shinjuku Jack is a robotic-looking trainer with spiky ShonenHair.

** There's a trainer called Silph Chief and he uses Blaine's design. Blaine's original design looked nothing like his finalized one.

* Blaine's original design was army-inspired. Blaine's design in the anime is [[EarlyDraftTieIn based on this version]] of Blaine. They have the same head and hair.

* The gym coach was originally named "Danpei", after the coach from ''Ashita no Joe''. He even had dark skin and wore an eyepatch like him, he was likely changed for copyright reasons. Similarly, there was an NPC called Shinjuku Jack, modeled after Shinjuku Jacky from Virtua Fighter.

* There would have been a character called Silph Chief, who looked exactly like Blaine from the final. Blaine initially looked differently, and was an army man rather than a scientist. This explains why he has a different design in the original games' manual, as well as the anime; those depict his original army design.

* The gym coach was originally named "Danpei", after the coach from ''Ashita no Joe''. He even had dark skin and wore an eyepatch like him, He was changed for copyright reasons.

* According to the official website circa 1997, Weddle originally evolved into a Pokémon called "Kasanagi" and then an unnamed Pokémon. Noticeably, the last evolution resembles a ''cockroach'', not a wasp.

** Konya is a Meowth pre-evolution. It was scrapped, was going to appear in ''Gold and Silver'', but was scrapped again. Between the two designs, the original Konya had a longer, straighter tail. It was also larger than Meowth (because Meowth was originally larger than it ended ip being).

* Blaine's original design was army-inspired. Blaine's design in the anime is [[EarlyDraftTieIn based on this version]] of Bkaine. They have the same head and hair.

* Early concept art for Gastly depicted him as made completely of gas, and as much larger than a human trainer. His eyes also resembled those of a Koffing.

** Yujirou is a young boy. His original sprite resembles a Youngster and has a "C" on it (for "Capumon"). His later redesign lacks a hat and has a badge on it, potentially meaning he was a gym leader.

* Early official art depicts Pikachu and Charizard's earlier designs. Pikachu is much larger and has a white spot on its stomach while Charizard has a larger lower jaw.

* The original ''Red and Green'' website circa 1997 featured unused designs for Dragonair, Weedle, Poliwag, and Poliwrath. The most noticeable changes are that Dragonair has a striped back, Weedle is lacking stingers, Poliwag has a short tail instead of a fin, and Poliwrath is wearing a King's Rock-like crown.

* Pikachu is based on a squirrel. Originally it was a vertically long daifuku rice confection with ears. As said before, a design with a white stomach existed prior to its finalized design. This design can be seen in early promotional art and (more finalized and smaller) in a 1996 New Years card distributed internally at Game Freak.

** Silph Chief looks a lot like Blaine.

* Giovanni was originally a Flying-type gym leader.

* Coding indicates that badges were at one point supposed to be items in your bag that could be used outside of battle similarly to the Hidden Machine moves, perhaps as a replacement for them.
* Present in the coding is an unnamed item, referred to as the [[FanNickname Surfboard]] by fans because it acted similarly to the Surf HM (whether it was meant as a usable item or simply a debugging tool is up for debate).

* In ''Red and Blue/Green'', you were originally going to be able to pull out your Pokédex in the middle of battle (like Ash Ketchum does in the anime) to refresh your memory on a Pokémon's type or see if you've caught it yet. But due to glitches, this was removed and left out of later games. They eventually settled on adding an icon to a wild Pokémon's health bar if you've already caught one of that species in later generations.

%%Source?
%%* The Sevii Islands were considered but a lack of cartridge space and time constraints meant it wasn't added in until the remakes.
* Trainer battles were originally going to trigger ''every time'' you entered line-of-sight instead of just the first time. Future games have this feature but only with certain trainer classes (such as Breeders).
* [=HMs=] were originally normal [=TMs=] that could be purchased and sold just like the others. Looking at the index numbers of the [=HMs=] also reveal that there's an empty slot between Fly and Surf, suggesting that another was planned.
* The English localization team considered making up Pokémon more muscular under the impression that Americans might not take well to "cute monsters".
* Many Pokémon had different names planned for them in the English translation. These changes range from minor (i.e. Pidgey was going to be Pidge), slightly different versions of their original names (i.e. Kakuna was Kokoon, a corruption of its Japanese name Cocoon), completely different names (i.e. Tentacruel was Man O' War), or direct translations of their original Japanese (i.e. Chansey was going to be Lucky).

* There were plans for ''Pokémon'' games to have multiple save files, but due to game space constraints, the developers were forced to choose either having multiple save files or being able to nickname your Pokémon. The developers chose being able to nickname your mons and haven't looked back since.

* Flash was originally named "Squid Ink".
* Substitute was originally named "Cast-off Cicada Shell".

** "Gyaoon" (originally called "Gyace") looks a lot like Tyranitar. It originally had Ivysaur's cry.

* Early promotional art suggests that a female player character was supposed to be available in the games. Her character design was similar to Green's (Blue in Japan) from the ''Pokémon Adventures'' manga. She ended up redesigned for ''[=FireRed=] and [=LeafGreen=]'' as the female protagonist "Leaf" and as Green in ''Let's Go Pikachu and Let's Go Eevee''.

** Present in the coding is an unnamed item, referred to as the [[FanNickname Surfboard]] by fans because it acted similarly to the Surf HM (whether it was meant as a usable item or simply a debugging tool is up for debate).

* The "glitch Pokémon" Missingno actually exists 39 times in the code for the original games, and hints from both the game's code (the 39 Missingnos are scattered among the actual playable Pokémon) and the developers indicate that the Missingnos might have actually been intended for real Pokémon that were scrapped. There are sketches that show some Pokémon that apparently were proposed for Gen 1, then shelved and released in later gens. An interview with the designer of Ho-oh reveals that there were originally meant to be 190 Pokémon in the original games, all of the cut ones later introduced in ''Gold and Silver''. The same people who discovered this information also discovered that the series was meant to end after ''Gold and Silver''.

* Pikachu is based on a squirrel. Originally it was a vertically long daifuku rice confection with ears. As said before, a design with a white stomach existed prior to its finalized design. This design can be seen in early promotional art and (more finalized and smaller) in a 1996 New Years card distributed internally at Game Freak. Raichu was originally an evolution called "Gorochu". It had fangs sticking out of its mouth and two horns on its head like an {{oni}}. It was removed for balance reasons. Gorochu was one of the 39 cut Missingno Pokémon.
* Concept art from a bio manga about Satoshi Tajiri shows an unused deer/{{Kirin}} Pokémon and a hammerhead shark/swordfish Pokémon.

[[folder:RGBY]]
* Early promotional art suggests that a female player character was supposed to be available in the games. Her character design was similar to Green's (Blue in Japan) from the ''Pokémon Adventures'' manga. She ended up redesigned for the remakes as the female protagonist and as Green in ''Let's Go Pikachu and Let's Go Eevee''.

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