Episode 17: Pokemon Snap Cut Content script

Hey Patrons, just wanted to say thanks so much for the support. This episode should be finished sometime in the next week. Here's the script for you to read now though, and let me know if there's anything you should be added or changed -- it's not too late to make an edit. Cheers guys.

Hey folks, Dr Lava here. Well, over the past few months we covered all the best cut content from Pokemon Generations 1 though 4. And now in this episode we'll be talking about Pokémon Snap, the series’ first 3D title. But before we get to Pokemon Snap's cut content, first I’d like to provide a little background. About a year before the Nintendo 64 first hit store shelves, HAL Laboratories began developing a photography-based game called Jack and the Beanstalk. Not much is known for certain about Jack and the Beanstalk, except that the team assigned to work on the game included veteran producers Satoru Iwata and Shigeru Miyamoto. According to Iwata, who was also president of HAL Laboratories at the time, when the game was still Jack and the Beanstalk, it didn't have anything to do with Pokémon at all. It wasn't until they realized Jack and the Beanstalk didn't have much of an objective, that they decided to bring Pokemon into the mix, which transformed the game completely. In fact, if you take a look at Pokemon Snap’s intro, you can see that the development team that worked on the game was still calling themselves Jack and Beans, the only remnant of Pokemon Snap’s discarded past. Even after Jack and the Beanstalk evolved into Pokemon Snap, the game was still being developed not as a title for the Nintendo 64, but for 64DD. The 64DD of course, is the disc-based add-on for the N64 that Nintendo eventually abandoned after it only managed to sell 15,000 units. But actually, that wasn’t until a while after Pokemon Snap had already been released — the reason Snap’s development was transferred over to the standard N64 was because at the time, the disc drive’s release was suffering from repeated delays. Anyway, we’re not here to talk about the 64DD, but the matter of Pokémon Snap's origins as a 64DD title actually does bring us to the first item on our cut content list. So let's get right to it -- here’s all the best parts of Pokemon Snap that you’ll never get a chance to play.

When Pokémon Snap was still in production for the 64DD, sneak peaks of a Pokemon safari were being used to promote the both the game, and the 64DD itself. Screenshots of the safari stage were revealed in gaming magazines, websites, and on Nintendo’s official Japanese website. This beta level was home to both savannah and plains environments, as well as a wide variety of Pokémon including a Pikachu colony and a Snorlax that, unlike the one in the release version, was actually awake. Around this time, IGN even posted gameplay footage of the safari stage, but unfortunately, all that's left of that 22 year old video is the low-resolution copy that you're watching now. The safari also included Ekans, a Pokémon that unfortunately ended up getting scrapped. Snap ended up including 63 of the original 151 Pokémon, meaning that Ekans would have pushed the game's total number of Pokémon to 64, as in Nintendo 64, which was probably the number of monsters they’d originally intended. It's not clear if this beta stage was just a proof-of-concept for Pokémon Snap, or if a safari had once been meant for inclusion in the game's final build. Either way it's a shame we never got to play it -- although the level obviously still needed a lot of improvements, it could have boosted the number of stages from just 7, up to 8. And what could possibly be a better fit for Pokemon Snap than a safari ride?

Actually, it seems Pokemon Snap could have had a 9th stage as well. After the game had already been released, Pokemon Snap’s composer, Ikuko Mimori, uploaded the game’s soundtrack onto her Japanese-language website. In addition to the music present in the game’s release version, two more tracks were listed — one of them titled “Fantastic Horror,” which is actually the music you’re hearing right now. Along with the track, Mimori included some context for why the music went unused, explaining that she’d composed it for a particular stage, but that that stage ended up getting scrapped. Based solely on the track’s title, it’s been widely reported that it was meant to be a ghost-themed stage, but that the stage was cut because there were only 3 ghost Pokemon when the game was in development. But aside from the word “horror” in the track’s title, there’s no evidence that it was going to be a ghost level. Surely the developers would have known how many ghosts were in the original 151 before they started composing the level’s music. Who know, maybe it was a ghost stage, or maybe the level would have involved a variety of Pokemon providing jump-scares, eery noises, and creepy shadows, like what we saw with the Pinsir shadow in the Tunnel. In fact, it seems entirely possible that both the Pinsir shadow and Haunter were repurposed for the Tunnel after it was determined the horror stage had to be scrapped. But without more clarification from Mimori or some other member of the Jack and Beans team, there’s really no way of knowing.

I mentioned a moment ago that Ikuko Mimori posted two tracks that didn’t make it into Pokemon Snap’s final build. Well the other one was titled “Theme of the Horror Boss,” which I’ll let you hear at the end of the episode, since it’s a little too fast-paced to use here as background music. Anyway, the note Mimori attached to this track explained that it was once meant to play during the boss encounter of the scrapped horror stage. Which is strange, because the closest thing to a boss in Pokemon Snap is Mew, and that’s at the very end of the game. Based on Mimori’s description, it sounds like the Jack and Beans team was once planning on including at least one more big Pokemon encounter. Maybe Lavenders Town’s ghost Marowak could have been the horror stage boss, or maybe one of the ghost Pokemon. Unfortunately, just like the scrapped horror stage, Mimori’s brief description provides us with more questions than answers.

Okay this next one isn’t cut content, but it’s definitely an aspect of the Pokemon Snap experience that we haven’t had access to for almost the past 20 years. Back in 1999, Nintendo struck a deal with Blockbuster to outfit just about every one of their video rental stores in the US with a Pokemon Snap Station. The game’s instruction manual even included a toll free number that you could call to locate your nearest Blockbuster. Pokemon Snap Stations were essentially kiosks that displayed a playable Pokemon Snap demo, and allowed you to bring your own game cartridge from home to print off your favorite photos. $3 got you a sheet of 16 stickers, each with a picture about the size of a large stamp. Even at 3 bucks a pop, they were incredibly popular, with the promotion lasting over a year and Nintendo distributing approximately 4500 Snap Stations to Blockbusters across America. Then the whole thing got turned up to 11 when Nintendo started running ads for the “Take Your Best Shot” contest, which invited Pokemon fans to send in their best photos for a chance to win an all-expenses paid trip to Australia for a family of four. So as you might expect, hundreds of thousands of Pokemon fans were lining up at Blockbusters and sending in their pictures. Ultimately, a kid named Kevin L from Colorado won the grand prize, 25 participants received a digital camera and $100, and 100 participants won a Gameboy Yellow Version Bundle. Nowadays it’s definitely too late to enter the Best Shot contest, but if you’re feeling nostalgic, it’s not too late to experience a Pokemon Snap Station first-hand. When the promotion ran out of steam, Blockbuster didn’t have much use for the kiosks so they gave them away to some of their favorite employees, and in the 20 years since, they’ve gradually been making their way into the hands of collectors. In fact, a few Pokemon Snap Stations pop up on eBay each year priced around $1500, so there’s really nothing stopping you from acquiring one of your very own, if you’re willing drive cross-country to pick it up. So I guess you’ve gotta ask yourself, just how strong is your 90’s nostalgia?

While we’re on the subject of Pokemon Snap, let’s talk about why we still haven’t seen a sequel. At over 3.6 million copies sold, Pokemon Snap was the 11th best-selling title on the N64, selling more copies than Majora’s Mask, Paper Mario, and more than three times as many as F-Zero X. So if all those games got sequels, why didn’t Pokemon Snap? In a 2014 interview with GamesRadar, Game Freak director Junichi Masuda explained that he’d love to see a Pokemon Snap 2, but that he thought some new concepts would have to be incorporated for the game to hold up in the current generation. Then in a Kotaku interview a few days later, Masuda reiterated that Nintendo would need to come up with some kind of new invention, something unexpected for the game to be successful. At the time, a lot of fans thought the Wii U gamepad seemed like the only viable option, but now that we’re in the age of the Switch, maybe some Nintendo Labo are just what we need to bring Pokemon Snap into the modern era. It hasn’t been released yet, but the camera was shown briefly in the Labo’s initial reveal trailer back in early 2018, and just looking at it, it seems like it could work perfectly. Or maybe Nintendo could utilize the Labo vehicle kit so we can take Todd’s car off the tracks and into an open world. Or use the camera and the vehicle kit together for a truly immersive Pokemon Snap experience. Just imagine what Nintendo could do with the right mix of Labo for a Pokemon Snap sequel on the Switch. And if Nintendo can sell the fishing rod kit for 7 bucks, I’m sure they can give us the whole Pokemon Snap 2 bundle for a reasonable price. Alright, now I’ve strayed completely off the topic of cut content and I’m just kind of wishing for things, so let’s wrap thing up.

Okay, if you enjoyed this and you’re interested in cut content from classic Nintendo games, then subscribe and check out this channel’s past videos as well. I also write an article about Nintendo cut content each week for my website, so you can check that out if you like at LavaCutContent.com. I’ve also got a Patreon if you’d like to support the channel for just a few bucks a month — it would go a long way in making sure this channel can continue to make videos just like this one. Okay, if there are any corrections that need to be made for this episode, I’ll put them in this video’s description, along with all my sources. Alright, that about does it, so now here’s the Theme of the Horror Boss I promised earlier. Thanks for watching folks, see ya next time.