Dr Lava

A Game Freak monster designer just read y'all's names on his phone

The Fabled Interview from Nintendo Dream Volume 205

Hey guys, this is the beta information from Nintendo Dream volume 205 I've been talking about this week. I'll post it to the website in a day or two with an intro to provide context, some pictures, and probably a few typos fixed, but I wanted to let y'all have a look first. Y'all patrons are all thanked following the interview translation, which is how it will appear on the website. Later I'll add some fan art to go along with the betamon descriptions -- specifically, the Hydreigon family, Throh, Sawk, and the miniature ant family. Red Tornadus will also be included, but y'all already saw him in yesterday's Patreon post. Okay guys, enjoy the follow interview.

Tornadus, Thundurus, Landorus: Mr Masuda asked for a Pokemon motif based on Fuujin and Raijin, but the designs weren't completed until late in the games' development. I had a hard time figuring out how gods so closely resembling humans could become Pokemon. Asura statues have a really powerful presence, so I told the designer in charge to make their eyes large and intimidating. At first, Tornadus and Thundurus were designed as red and blue demons, but that was too similar to the designs of Sawk and Throh. As a result, Sawk and Throh's horns were removed and replaced with eyebrows. Landorus wasn't added until later when a change was made during the game's development -- he was designed as the god of land. In their official artwork, Tornadus and Thundurus are facing to the side, while Landorus is more symmetrical and facing forward -- this was done to make Landorus stand out from the other two.

Dr Lava's notes: In Japanese mythology and the Shinto religion, Fujin is the Japanese god of wind, while Raijin is the god of lightning, thunder, and storms. Asuras can be most simply described as Buddhist demigods or titans, pictured below. It seems these figures all served as inspiration for the Forces of Nature trio. Before Landorus was conceived as the third member of the trio, Tornadus and Thundurus were originally designed as red and blue demons -- Thundurus' final design remained blue, so it would stand to reason that Tornadus' original design was red in color. As far as changes in design are concerned, the takeaway here is that in order to differentiate Tornadus and Thundurus from Sawk and Throh, Tornadus was changed from to red green, while Sawk and Throh originally had horns (like Thundurus and Tornadus) but they were removed and replaced with eyebrows.

Mienfoo, Mienshao: The games' planners felt there weren't enough Fighting type Pokemon, so they asked the monster designers to create more, which resulted in the creation of Mienfoo and Mienshao. Since so many of the pre-existing Fighting Pokemon resembled humans, they asked that this time we design animal-based creatures, so we came up with this design inspired by short-tailed weasels. I decided to make these Pokemon in the Kung Fu style since that was something we hadn't done before.

Deino, Zweilous, Hydreigon: Originally, these were designed with aesthetic traits belonging to military tanks, and the pattern that resembles tread marks above Zweilous' legs are leftovers of that early design concept. Initially, the designs weren't really working, so we put them on ice -- but they were later resurrected when orders came down for a powerful three-stage Dragon type. In the latter half of development, there was some discussion about changing them to a color that was underrepresented in the Pokedex. So from the list of colors we were considering, I chose a strong purple. Hydreigon's design is based on the Yamata no Orichi, but when we gave it so many heads it was actually a bit off-putting. So we changed his design, giving him just one head -- but if you see his silhouette, he still has the appearance of possessing many heads. The two heads on Hydreigon's sides are actually just hands, and don't contain any brains of their own.

Dr Lava's notes: Incredibly, the Hydreigon family was originally designed as a family of tank-like dragons. If you'll allow me to briefly speculate, I think it's likely that if these designs had made it into the release versions of Black and White, the Hydreigon family would have been dual-type Dragon and Steel, a typing that even to this day has only ever been exhibited by one Pokemon: Generation 4's Dialga. Sugimori states that the leftover tread marks are still visible on Zweilous' underside, but they're actually much more pronounced on the underside of Hydreigon. It's also interesting that the color purple was chosen later in development -- first, because this tells us that the dragons' original color wasn't purple. Since they had "aesthetic traits belonging to military tanks," green seems like the most likely possibility -- but with the limited information available in this interview, it's impossible to be certain. And the second thing that's interesting about Sugimori's story is that the dragons are only became purple because the color hadn't been used much in the past, and it sounds like the designers had a list of underrepresented colors and they chose "a strong purple," but could have just as easily chosen another seldom-used color, like black for example.

Sugimori says Hydreigon's design is based on the mythological Yamata no Orichi, an 8 headed and 8 tailed Japanese dragon. It seems they experimented with giving Hydreigon more heads but ultimately decided on just one, compromising by giving him two hands that have the appearance of heads. The fact these two pseudo-heads don't have brains of their own raises a strange question -- does one of the brains of the two-headed Zweilous disappear it evolves? Creepy. If you've seen my video about Gold and Silver's cut content, you might have noticed the scrapped baby form of Doduo had three heads, a design choice likely made so it would look like a bird's nest. I didn't delve into this topic in the video, but I'd considered they probably scrapped baby Doduo because of the questions it would raise about losing heads in evolution and the meaning of sentience. But it appears they weren't too bothered about the disappearance of brains when they came up with the Hydreigon family's final design. A lot more could be said on this subject, but you can let me know what you think in the comments below, and I'll move on and continue with the interview.

Golett, Golurk: These were created by a British man who draws and writes many detailed pages about every Pokemon he designs. Mr Umino says the metal bandage on Golett's chest is an intentional part of the design and seals in an uncontrollable power.

Dr Lava's notes: The British designer mentioned is James Turner, the first Westerner to officially design Pokemon for Game Freak. Unfortunately, his designs haven't been very popular with fans -- for Black and White, he was responsible for seven Pokemon: Golett, Golurk, Vullaby, Mandibuzz, Vanillite, Vanillish, and Vanilluxe. As Ken Sugimori repeatedly refers to James Turner only as "a British man" in this interview, I suspect he either doesn't know his name, or doesn't think very highly of him. The Mr Umino mentioned is one of the team of monster designers who worked on Black and White.

Vanillite, Vanillish, Vanilluxe: These were also created by a British man, who wanted to design another fusion evolution like Dugtrio and Magneton. His design concept was that Vanillite is a cup, Vanillish is a cone, and Vanilluxe is a cone with two scoops. The ice on the upper half of their bodies is just covered in snow, they actually have bodies of solid ice underneath. There are designs of them as just ice bodies without any snow, but those designs haven't been released yet.

Dr Lava's notes: The unreleased ice body design of Vanillite mentioned by Sugimori actually actually revealed in an issue of the manga. On February 23, 2019, James Turner tweeted an image of Vanillite with his snow removed, with the caption, "When Vanillite is surprised it sometimes loses its snow covering." When a comment asked if this was canon, Turner confirmed that the snowless Vanillite shown in the manga is based on a drawing of his that is still in the reference sheets, and therefore snowless Vanillite is canon. This would mean snowless Vanillite isn't a beta design, but rather it's a rarely seen state of his final design.

Durant, Heatmor: Both designed by Sugimori. These two are counterparts, with one based on an ant, and the other an anteater. They both can be found on Victory Road. I had a very clear vision of ants that dug themselves a cave and an anteater that came in to prey upon them. For a long time we've wanted to make an ant Pokemon that would be the smallest Pokemon, but this time I focused on the ant's form. Heatmor eats iron, so I added elements of an iron works into its design.

Dr Lava's notes: So apparently Game Freak has long been considering an ant creature that could be the world's smallest Pokemon. Sugimori doesn't specify that art for this miniature ant is actually within their vaults, so it might not be an actual beta Pokemon, but it's certainly an interesting concept.

Tynamo, Eelektrik, Eelektross: This one was designed by Mr Ohmura -- he had an idea that making an eel into a monster would look really powerful, and that idea became a Pokemon. Ohmura said that he once caught a humongous eel in a nearby river and that it was disgusting, but that experience is what inspired his idea for this evolutionary line. The eel he caught actually inspired Eelektrik, who best represents that feeling of strong but disgusting. Then Tynamo was conceived of because we wanted the evolutionary line to reflect how an actual eel physically matures in the real world.

Rufflett, Braviary: Vullaby and Mandibuzz's counterparts. These were designed early on in development by Mr Unnoji. Because the Unova region is based on New York, the idea of a bald eagle immediately came Unnoji's mind, and he used the colors red, white, and blue because of the American flag. He wanted to make a Pokemon that was immediately recognizeable as a bird of prey, so he then added strong, thick legs as well as elements from Native American culture. Unnoji used the Native American aesthetic for Rufflett's wings, but he's always liked chicks with fluffy white heads, so he used that as well.

Vullaby, Mandibuzz: These two were conceived of pretty late in development. When the British man came to us with this design, we already had plenty of birds, but we ended up using it as a counterpart for Rufflett and Braviary. The nest around Vullaby's body come from the bones of other Pokemon, and he grows up inside of them. When Mandibuzz is incubating a Vullaby egg in its nest by sitting on it, it fits together with Vullaby's bones and looks like it's sitting on an upside-down skull.

Foongus, Amoongus: Foongus fools trainers into thinking it's a Pokeball, but no one would make that mistake with Amoongus, so that was included in his name. The black dot at the center of its face is the mouth, which it uses to blow out spores.

Dr Lava's notes: Amoongus' Japanese name is XXX, which includes the character X, meaning "exposed."

Ferroseed, Ferrothorn:  These two were created during the latter half of development, after an order came in for a dual-type Grass and Steel Pokemon. Ferroseed and Ferrothorn were designed by the same person as Foongus and Amoongus. The planners proposed the design be something like those seeds that sometimes stick to your clothes. We had the idea that large groups of these Pokemon would stick to rock faces.

Basculin: After realizing we didn't have a relatively typical Water type Pokemon, we designed a fish that could eat you. Basculin is based on a bass because New York is place where you can fish for bass. We made two forms because we felt there was a shortage of fish Pokemon in the Pokedex.

And that wraps up Nintendo Dream volume 205's "Pokemon Origins" feature. Some of this information has been available on websites like Bulbapedia and Serebii for years but without proper sourcing -- which for a while left me with the impression that this information was fake. But here it is. I'm still looking for proper scans of more pages from this issue, as well as scans from all Nintendo Dream issues having to do with beta Pokemon content. I'm also looking to purchase these issues in order to scan them myself, so if you've got a lead on any of this material, please leave a comment below. I need to thank a few people for making this this interview's translation possible. First, much of the credit needs to go to an individual who goes by the username Spidershell, as it was his transcription in its original Japanese back in March 2011 that this translation was based on. Nito, Zelda, and FaeQueenCory were instrumental in tracking down Spidershell's transcription, as well as some of the translation and pictures. Force Fire, an admin on Bulbapedia, also provided me with some crucial links.

I also want to thank Brad Benson, Boreas Bear, Besipeitl, Jacky H, Evan Miller, Elvin Alfonso, Todesspiel, Austin Elliot, KissShot, HelpMePlease, Kenji Castro, Jone, and Justin Stackhouse for supporting both this website and my YouTube channel via Patreon, and especially Kavan Green and Kevin Comiskey who signed up for Patreon support specificially to help hire a translator for this interview. So thanks so much to all you kind people, and if anyone reading this would like to support my efforts to document lost Nintendo content on Patreon, here's the link, and if you're interested in providing scans or fan art to accompany this beta information, please leave a comment below. Cheers everyone.

Beta Tirtouga

Beta Tirtouga, as shown in Ken Sugimori artwork. It's not certain that this design would go on to inspire Tirtouga, but it seems pretty likely. The reasoning behind this assertion can be found in this article on my website, which explains the context of this particular piece of Sugimori artwork: http://lavacutcontent.com/ken-sugimori-interview-betas/

Beta Excadrill

Beta Excadrill design based on pre-release promotional videos. Standing next to the release version, you can see the difference in coloration as well as the reversed belly-pattern.

Beta Tornadus

Tornadus' final design, compared to what he would look like if he was red -- which is how Game Freak designer Yusuke Ohmura described his original coloring.

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.

Scripts for Pokémon Gray Version Episode, Let's Go Games Episode

Hey guys, the scripts for these two episodes are about finished. They've been revised quite a few times, but still need further revision. So if y'all have any recommendations for edits, corrections, or additions, please feel free to leave suggestions in the comments section.

• What Happened to Pokemon Gray Version?
• Kanto's Cut Content: What's Missing from Pokemon Let's Go

The Let's Go script still needs to have a little fat cut off the bone, it's a little longer than it needs to be. And I'm a little dissatisfied with the ending to the Gray Version script, so I'm trying to come up with a better way of wrapping things up. Regardless, this is pretty close to what you'll see when the videos are finished. Again, I'm 100% open to suggestions.

Cheers guys.

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.

Episode 17: Luigi's Mansion full script

Below is the full script for episode 17. It's not too late to offer suggestions for edits, so please feel free to. Cheers guys.

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Hey folks, Dr Lava here. Well over the past month we went over the best cut content from Pokemon Generations 1-4, and we'll have some more Pokemon episodes coming up soon. But with the Luigi's Mansion series back in the limelight, and after receiving a few requests, I thought I'd take a quick break from Pokemon so we can catalogue all the best material that didn't make it into the release version of Luigi's Mansion back in 2001. The game was first revealed at Spaceworld 2000, at that time it was just a tech demo to show off the graphical capabilities of the Gamecube, which was due out the following year. Soon after, Nintendo decided to turn the tech demo into a full-fledged game to launch alongside their new home console, assigning veteran Mario series directors Miyamoto and Tezuka to serve as the game's producers. Luigi's Mansion released just a year after its initial reveal as a tech demo, going on to become a cult-classic and the Gamecube's best-selling launch title. But like most games developed in such a short timespan, Luigi's Mansion had a lot of unfinished business. So let's have a look at the top 5 scrapped ideas and chunks of cut content that didn't make it into the final build of Luigi's Mansion.

According to the game's director Hideki Konno, there were a few ideas for the mansion that weren't included in the final release. In a 2001 interview with Nintendo Online Magazine, he explained that they wanted to include an underground cave connected to the basement that would extend the geographical environment, like something you might find in a Resident Evil mansion. He went on to say that early designs had a sort of RPG system that would, as he put it, upgrade the stage after certain actions. By that I think he means that after meeting particular in-game objectives like defeating a boss or maybe capturing a specified number of Boos, the entire mansion or at least certain sections of it would be affected in some way, maybe by spawning more ghosts, raising the HP of its existing ghosts, or possibly something a little more novel like additional power outages.

Luigi's Mansion was released in Europe 6-8 months after the US and Japan, giving Nintendo time to create what was essentially Luigi's Mansion: Masterquest. This new difficulty setting, titled Hidden Mansion Mode, was included in the PAL release but never made available to Gamecube owners outside of Europe. In Hidden Mansion Mode, the entire game is mirrored left-to-right, there's an extra $50 million worth of treasure to collect, and there are fewer health pickups. Boss battles and some of the other more prominent ghosts are made more difficult -- for example, during the Boolossus fight, Luigi actually has to ride his poltergust, making him much harder to control. In the Hidden Mansion, most Boos have more HP and 45 of them are required to finish the game rather than the standard Boo count of 40, and there are more regular ghosts floating around the mansion as well. Like the Artist's Studio for example, where there are normally 3 of each type of ghost, but in the Hidden Mansion there are 5, totalling an additional 14 ghosts in just that one room. A watered-down form of Hidden Mansion Mode did eventually make it's way into every country's version of the 3DS remake, but the extra treasure, more difficult Boolossus battle, and most importantly the mirrored mansion aspect, were not included.

A handful of notable ghosts were scapped from Luigi's Mansion as well. The game's internal data includes these two ghosts, labeled Ghost01 and Ghost02 in Japanese, who went unused in the final  build, and appear to be leftovers from the Spaceworld trailer. This spirit, often referred to as ELH, can be summoned back into the game using cheats. The model isn't finished, lacking a texture and some of its animations, but it does have a half dozen animations assigned to it, including for when it attacks with fire and ice. This E3 2001 pre-release screenshot shows a chef ghost in the kitchen. In the release version's kitchen, spinning pots and pans mysteriously attack Luigi all on their own, so probably it's the chef that was meant to be hurling cooking utensils. In the screenshot, the chef ghost is holding a tomato -- that tomato is actually still left over in the game's internal data, along with an animation of it spinning, just like the pots and pans. The October 2001 issue of Nintendo Power makes reference to an Australian hunter spirit in the Safari room, who it says will want to add Luigi's head to his collection of trophies on the wall. The Australian hunter is sometimes cited elsewhere as one of Luigi's Mansion's unused ghosts, but as there's no evidence from the beta, developer interviews, or the game's internal data, it seems most likely this ghost was just a rumor started by a Nintendo Power photo caption, and nothing more.

In a 2013 interview conducted by NintendoLife, the sequel's co-supervisor Yoshihito Ikebata, explained that the developers wanted to include a multiplayer mode in the original Luigi's Mansion, but weren't able to pull it off. Based on the game's lightning-quick development, it sounds like they just didn't have enough time to put it together. But clearly they did put some effort into the multiplayer concept -- in addition to the Mario model used in the release version, the game's internal data also contains an unused model of Mario that's stretched to Luigi's proportions, wearing a Poltergust and sharing most of Luigi's animations. With that in mind, and considering the structure of the game, with a little more time it must have been a traditional 2 player co-op mode that they were working on. Most likely there would have been some competitive elements worked in as well, like competing over the amount of ghosts and treasures collected. If Mario had been a playable second character, it probably would have been Peach that was stuck in King Boo's painting. Or it might have been Daisy, who's image can be found in the game's internal data, though she never appeared in the final build. When the game was remade for the 3DS in 2018, multiplayer co-op was finally included, utilizing Gooigi as player 2, and leaving Mario locked inside the picture frame.

In a 2011 Iwata Asks interview, Satoru Iwata revealed that both Luigi's Mansion and the Gamecube itself were capable of displaying 3D images. Iwata explained that every Gamecube unit sold worldwide had 3D-compatible circuitry built in, but the liquid crystals that are used to power 3DTV's were prohibitively expensive back then. Ultimately they decided it just wasn't going to be economically feasible and they never brought it to market. But apparently, Iwata and his buddies were gettin' down on Luigi's Mansion in full 3D back at Nintendo HQ, which he said actually looked pretty good. Miyamoto was also present at that interview, and he chimed in to say that the 3D would jump out at you pretty nicely. Of course the 3DS remake finally brought Luigi's Mansion back into the third dimension, but I can't imagine the 3DS version could possibly compete with the experience of playing on a big screen TV with the Gamecube's superior graphics. The game's 3D capabilities were ultimately removed, but if you've got a 3DTV and an old Gamecube, with some hacking skills, hypothetically you could get the full Luigi's Mansion experience in your own home theater. As far as I can tell, no one outside of Nintendo has ever gotten a chance to play Luigi's Mansion the way it was originally intended.

Okay, just one more thing worth mentioning before we wrap up -- according to the game's director and one of its map designers, early ideas for the game's environment included an apartment complex, a ninja mansion and a Japanese-style house, they even did some work on prairie and desert levels, before they finally settled on the idea of a European-style mansion. Okay, subscribe and check out our past videos if you'd like to see more Nintendo cut content. If there are any corrections that need to be made, I'll put them in this video's description, along with all my sources. Okay, thanks for watchin.

First 3:34 of Episode 16: Pokemon Gen 4's Cut Content

First few minutes of Episode 16: Pokemon Gen 4's Cut Content attached. Soliciting advice here -- I'm not satisfied with my choice of music during the scrapped Arceus event segment. You folks got suggestions for a more fitting, more upbeat track? Any track from the Pokemon mainline games, spinoffs, anime, or movies would work fine. Cheers.