Trivia / Pokémon Rejuvenation

• Distanced from Current Events: An entire subplot involving the vaccines from Grand Dream City was completely removed in Version 13, most likely to distance from the growing anti-vaccine sentiment in the United States during the time it was released.
• Dummied Out:
  • Looking around the sprites folder reveals many unused shadow Pokemon, such as Bronzor, Honedge, Archen and Frillish. According to Zumi, they were axed in very early versions.
  • Opening Version 6 in RPG Maker reveals several unused maps from the original version of the Kugerean City arc, Spacea and Tiempa's dimension and Past Sheridan Village.
  • Extracting the text for Version 5 reveals that it contains all of the text from the original build's maps, going all the way to its end (the original 'Chapter 14') which goes up to 12 badges and diverges drastically from the current game.
  • In the original build, Volta had an annoying and greedy assistant called Darcy. She was cut for being, in Jan’s words, “a pointless character who was too similar to Nastasia”. The only remaining trace of her in the current game is her overworld sprite, trchar005_!.
• Line to God: Jan's Tumblr, which has an ask box about Rejuvenation. All questions (and answers) can be seen here.
• What Could Have Been: Before the game became available online, there was an unpublished build only shared with Jan and his friends that went up the 12th badge. This original build differed drastically from the version of the game that would eventually become public.
  • According to Jan in the V7 Status Thread, Gearen City and Sheridan Village were called Entry City and Sheridan Peak in the original build.
  • The V7 map showed an inaccessible city behind Mount Valor, but this was removed in V8. According to Jan, this city was originally meant to be post game content.
  • Gym order in the original build diverged from the current game after Erick, with Ryland as the tenth leader, Flora as the eleventh and Saki as the twelfth.
  • The Kugearen Arc also played out differently. The city itself was bigger and not an altered version of Rustboro, being walled, full of apartment buildings, and fully urbanized. There was no Amberette Town nor Irvin, and Melia became a member of the police department instead of a waitress, pulling some strings to allow your entry into the city. Indriad was never named Vitus, and Anathea was called Anthea. There was also no Gardevoir, and Melia personally asked you not to enter the Theolia household after learning about Maria’s existence.
    • Additionally, the hiker in the current version’s Gearen City who says “There are no mountains around here” was part of a Brick Joke in which another hiker in Kugearen looked at the city’s mountains and said he would tell all of his descendants about them. The city also had a Continuity Cameo by Brandon, who said he decided to visit Aevium after Sinnoh.
  • Flora had the same goals as in the current version, but was an only child with no Team Bladestar. Her only ally was Dr. Jenkel.
  • Ryland was named Eshros and was much more evil than in the current version, believing that Adam’s abandonment of the Badlands meant that he wasn’t his brother, and that if the Badlands had to suffer, all of Aevium had to as well. To do this, he attempted to corrupt a Landorus into a Dimensional Rift, but failed.
  • Jenner survived, but was a less important character, returning to his lab after Valor. This was changed because Jan believed the current version of events would strengthen Melia’s character arc.
  • While Cella and Vivian were the same, Anju was much more excitable, even freezing Sheridan’s water to ice skate on it. Notably, there were no Hazuki and Nymiera, as Vivian’s friends were called Silver and Regina.
  • Spacea and Tiempa were loving mentors who better understood human nature. Their most debatable act, showing Melia the Bad Future, never happened. They also had their own dimension, which was modeled on Spear Pillar.
  • Rorim B., much like his namesake, would allow players to capture missed shadow Pokémon. He was also not Crawli’s father.
  • Volta was Nancy’s best friend, and grew too depressed to work after her death, making you fight Erick instead.
  • Beth of Yui’s Ranch mostly took Venam’s role in the GDC Arc, with Venam never appearing after Terajuma.
  • Kanon was an antagonist, aiding Indriad in his plan to destroy Kugearen due to his obsession with Melia. He was also much more aggressive and rude to the player, even battling the player when they first met.
    Kanon: Goodbye Melia. Goodbye peasant.
  • Other characters like Erin, Souta, the Puppet master, Karen and Cera did not exist at all.

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