Kanto Cut Content Part 2 Script

Hey folks, Dr Lava here. Well, this video is the part 2 of this channel's previous episode, so if you haven't seen it yet, you might want to watch that episode first. In part 1 we talked about Gambling, surfing with the dude on Pikachu's Beach, and the nine islands off the coast of Kanto -- all content that you could find in Pokemon Red, Blue, Yellow, FireRed, and LeafGreen's incarnations of the Kanto region, but you won't find anywhere in the new Kanto. I also addressed the likelihood of any of it returning to Kanto via DLC. Okay, I did the intro last time, so let's go ahead and get right to the second half of our list of all the best content cut from the version of Kanto found in Let's Go Pikachu and Let's Go Eevee.

[Safari Zone] One of the most memorable and unique locations in the original Gameboy games was a wildlife preserve in Fuschia City known as the Safari Zone. Back in the 90's, one of the things that made the Safari Zone so distinctive was that you couldn't weaken the wild Pokemon found inside by battling them. Instead you threw rocks or food at them, and there was a high probability you'd lose your chance to catch them when they'd simply run from battle, which was a risk you didn't have to worry about outside the park. Since the Let's Go games took the idea of doing away with wild battles beyond the confines of the preserve and made it standard throughout the entire region, it kind of made sense that Game Freak didn't bring back the Safari Zone, instead replacing it with the Go Park, where you can import your monsters over from Pokemon Go.

But the lack of wild Pokemon battles wasn't the only thing that made the Safari Zone such a unique location. The Safari Zone was essentially a giant maze that was home to lots of rare Pokemon, some of which you couldn't find anywhere else in Kanto. The park also contained rare items, including the Gold Teeth, the HM for Surf, and lots of exclusive TM's. When you paid the 500 dollar entrance fee, you were limited to taking just 500 steps around the preserve. The limited number of steps, along with the fact the park's branching paths all led to different collections of rare items and Pokemon, meant that you'd need to return to the Safari Zone again and again, exploring every inch, if you wanted to find everything inside. You could probably consider the Safari Zone as Kanto's largest mini-game, when you take into account how distinct it was compared to the rest of the region.

It may not sound very likely, but there's really nothing stopping Game Freak from bringing the Safari Zone back to Kanto via DLC, providing us with a giant maze to explore full of rare items and Pokemon. The only adjustment Game Freak might want to make is to replace the step limit with a time limit, since your character no longer walks on a grid like in the original Gameboy games, or else they could do away with the limitations altogether. A new Safari Zone could also be a suitable habitat for some new monsters if Game Freak ever decided to add more Pokemon post-release, something the game's director Junichi Masuda has hinted at as a possibility. Unfortunately, two factors complicate the prospect of the Safari Zone's return -- first, the Go Park currently stands where the Safari Zone used to be located, although if Game Freak decided they really did want to bring back the wildlife preserve, they could always just build it next door, or anywhere on the map for that matter. And the second thing that complicates the situation, is that the Pokemon zoo outside the Go Park has already been renamed as the new Safari Zone. What's more, as I noted in part 1 of this episode, Game Freak hasn't provided Pokemon fans with a post-release location since the Flower Paradise in Generation 4. So taking that all into account, combined with the ambition it would require on the part of Game Freak, unfortunately I've gotta say that the Safari Zone is probably one of the least likely chunks of content that could potentially return to Kanto via DLC.

[Missingno] A glitch is something you'd usually want omitted from a remake. But in the case of Let's Go Pikachu and Eevee, I think Game Freak would have been wise to preserve Red and Blue versions' most notorious glitch. I'm talking of course, about Missingno, the monster with a missing number. This garbled mess of scrambled graphics made quite an impression on gamers back in the late 90's. When rumors first spread of a Pokemon unrestrained by the numerical limitations of the Pokedex, and who could even grow well past level 100, every self-respecting Pokemon fan wanted to add Missingno to their collection. So gaming magazines and strategy guides began publishing tutorials explaining how to perform the glitch step-by-step -- in 1999, the Daily Telegraph reported that some people were even charging 200 bucks for instructions on how to encounter a wild Missingno. But performing the glitch is actually pretty simple. All you have to do is talk to the old man who teaches you how to catch Pokemon in Viridian City, then FLY to Cinnabar island and swim up and down the island's east coast -- do that long enough and you'll come face to face with the mysterious creature.

After catching Missingno, you can see that his Pokedex number is #000, and also that the sixth item in your inventory list has been duplicated, a side-effect that some fans exploited to stockpile Masterballs and Rare Candies. But apparently Nintendo didn't much appreciate folks cloning their Masterballs, so in volume 120 of Nintendo Power Magazine, they issued a warning that any attempt to encounter Missingno, even if you didn't catch it, could disrupt the game's graphics or even erase your game. But despite Nintendo's warning, there's actually no threat of Missingno deleting your save data. Although I can attest from personal experience, the part about disrupting your game's graphics is absolutely true.

Back in the late 90's, after I heard the schoolyard rumor about the mysterious Missing Number, I rushed home to try the glitch out for myself. And it worked -- I caught a Missingno and made him a key member of my team of Pokemon. But the more time that passed with Missingno in my possession, more and more of the game world was becoming distorted -- indeed, the graphics were being disrupted. The longer I held onto him, the worse it got. I tried sticking him in the PC, but that didn't make any difference. I began fearing for the integrity of my game, so after trying everything I could to avoid it, with a heavy heart I finally released him back into the wild. And thankfully, the graphical virus that had been consuming my copy of Pokemon Blue for the past few days finally subsided, and it seemed the curse was lifted. I breathed a sigh of relief. Like so many fans, my encounter with Missingno was one of the most memorable video game experiences I've ever had, and definitely more exciting than any of the encounters I had with the game's actual Legendary Pokemon.

But even though Missingno made a significant contribution in elevating the original Pokemon games to the status of mega-hits, he was never even supposed to exist. Nintendo's official statement explained that MissingNO was just a programming quirk, and not a real part of the game. So it shouldn't come as a surprise that the Let's Go games didn't include or even make any mention of Missingno. But with all the attention and mythology that's surrounded the Missingno glitch over the years, I think Game Freak would do well to consider reviving Missingno, maybe as a controlled glitch, and re-implement him back into Kanto via DLC. I know a lot of fans, especially those that have been with the series since the Red and Blue days, would love to see Missingno officially occupy the #000 slot in the Pokedex, and finally made part of series canon. Because whether or not Missingno is an officially-recognized Pokemon, he'll always be one of Kanto's most famous monsters.

[Breeding] While the breeding mechanic wasn't implemented until Gold and Silver, the idea for Pokemon breeding and hatching eggs existed long before the original games were even released, as evidenced by this pre-Gen 1 concept art. So when the first Generation was updated for FireRed and LeafGreen, it made perfect sense for Game Freak to bring the mechanic to Kanto, since it was meant to be included from the very beginning. But in the run-up to the release of Let's Go Pikachu and Eevee, it was revealed in a Gamespot Q&A that the feature wasn't going to be included in the new Kanto, much to the chagrin of a large slice of the Pokemon fanbase. Masuda actually got himself into a bit of hot water when he explained why the mechanic was cut, stating that he knows fans have spent a lot of time hatching eggs, but that Game Freak wants them to discover new ways to enjoy Pokemon, and that he'd be really sad to think that for some people, Pokemon is just about hatching eggs.

Unsurprisingly, this triggered a massive backlash from longtime fans, with many pointing out that breeding is a key feature of the Pokemon games for good reason. It's a popular mechanic with players who're part of the competitive scene -- to them, strategically breeding Pokemon in order to hatch elite offspring is a key part of what make the games great. The slice of the fanbase who strive to catch them all love the feature as well, as it makes monster duplication convenient, and there are even some Pokemon that can only be acquired by breeding. And the mechanic is also popular with shiny-hunters, since breeding Pokemon of two different languages multiplies their odds of being shiny by 600%. In fact, this method of breeding for shinies was even dubbed "the Masuda method" by fans, since it was Masuda who originally created the exploit and programmed it into the series starting with Diamond and Pearl.

But that was over a decade ago. A lot of fans considered his dismissal of breeding as just another example of Masuda dumbing the games down for kids, while others resented his perceived condescension towards those who utilize the mechanic. Some took to social media to accuse Masuda of losing touch with the core fanbase, and the most enthusiastic detractors were even suggesting he resign from his position as series director. So of course these activist fans found cause for celebration when just 17 days later, in an interview with Pokemon.com, Masuda announced that he in fact would be stepping down, handing the reigns over to a younger generation of Game Freak developers. The timing of the announcement caught many off-guard, coming just two weeks before the worldwide release of Let's Go Pikachu and Eevee. The controversy surrounding his egg-hatching quote probably wasn't the motivating factor in his decision to step down, but it may well have have been a catalyst. Whether or not that was the case, I suspect the backlash has alerted Game Freak to just how important the breeding mechanic really is to the core fanbase, and as a result, I don't think they'll ever make the mistake of omitting egg-hatching from a Pokemon game ever again. As for the Let's Go games, it's possible that breeding could be re-implemented post-release, especially if they decided to give us the Sevii Islands or some later generation Pokemon. But otherwise, that ship has probably sailed, since the games seem to have been designed from the ground up to function without the inclusion of the breeding mechanic.

Okay, before we wrap up there are a few more things worth mentioning. In addition to Missingno, there was another famous bug in Gen 1 known as the Mew glitch that was cut out of the Let's Go gmes. This one didn't make the top 6 list because unlike Missingno, Mew actually can be obtained in Let's Go, although it requires you to drop as much as 50 bucks for the Pokeball plus in order to get it. There were also some references to the Pokemon anime in Yellow version that were omitted from Let's Go Pikachu and Eevee, like Joe and Giselle from Pokemon Tech, as well as AJ the Sandshrew trainer. It would have been cool to see these elements return, or better yet, expanded -- in particular, AJ's unsanctioned gym on Route 9 and the Orange Islands off the south coast of Kanto both would have made for excellent additions to the region. While Masuda has expressed a strong likelihood for at least monsters to be made available later as downloadable post-release content, locations from the anime are probably too good to even hope for. Okay, the story of Pokemon Gray version's development is coming up next time, so subscribe if you don't want to miss out on that, and if you're interested in Nintendo cut content, you should check out my past videos as well. If you like reading about cut content, you can also visit my website, LavaCutContent.com. And a big thanks to my Patreon supporters -- if you enjoy this kind of content, please consider signing up to support the channel for a few bucks a month. It helps to make sure I'll be able to continue making videos just like this one. If there are any corrections that need to be made for this episode, I'll leave them in this video's description, along with all my sources. Okay, that about does it -- thanks for watching folks, see ya next time.