Gotta Review 'Em All, Special Episode: Generation II Spaceworld Beta Pokemon

A while back earlier in 2018, someone managed to turn up the Beta version of Pokemon Gold & Silver, which was the pre-release version of the Generation 2 Pokemon games that was shown during a convention called Spaceworld. Now Gold & Silver was released in 1997, in a period where the internet was not as obsessive in documenting every facet of a geek hobby, but even then it was well known that there were some significant differences between the Beta version seen there... but thanks to the relative obscurity of the convention, only vague word-of-mouth rumours persisted.

Nintendo is also insanely protective of never really showing any Beta versions of Pokemon before they're ready for release, with the closest we've ever seen being random doodles of what's to become Generation I Pokemon, a bunch of 'early' test runs of Chikorita, Torchic or "Latiken", but otherwise we've never actually quite seen what goes on behind the design team, beyond vague details from the game designers about how so-and-so amount of Pokemon designs were rejected before they settled with the final set.

But on May 2018, someone found a ROM of this elusive demo of Gold & Silver, and fansites began to obsessively pour and data-mine the incomplete game. Sure, a Beta build means that there's a whole lot of things that would be changed in the final game, and we've had Beta builds before... but not one where the actual roster of Pokemon is significantly different. I think the only other time we've even gotten to see Beta graphics was when someone found out that the Ruby/Sapphire demo had sprites of an early version of Shellos and Gastrodon, or that Excadrill had slightly different artwork in the Black/White demo? It's positively tame to wht is found in the Spaceworld Gold/Silver beta -- that more than half of the 100 Pokemon in Generation 2 is... completely different!

It's genuinely interesting just how much changed between the Beta and the final release, and just how many Pokemon were deemed worthy enough to be made into the Beta, but ended up being replaced by other designs. It really does show just how many revisions of artwork that the finalized Pokemon go through, and how there's probably heated discussion on the specific creatures that would fit the game better. It really brings to mind how out of so many designs, the team behind the creation of this games have whittled down so many other competiting designs before deciding to put even some of the less popular designs like Stunfisk or Lumineon or Garbodor or Mr. Mime into a given game.

Without further ado, let's get cracking to see what Pokemons #152-251 originally looked like. Sources: Spaceworld 1997 Demo on TCRF.com, a Beta dated to somewhere in 1998 on TCRF.com and Spaceworld 1999 Demo on TCRF.com.

This was taken down a month back, and revised around a year later because a second beta, this one released in 1999 around a year or so after the first one, ended up being released and it took me a while to get through it. Afterwards a third 'source code leak' that is from a beta released between 1997 and 1999 got leaked. 

At some point, I might do a bit of a coverage on other abandoned Pokemon that we know of, including the Generation four beta that leaked around a week before this article was re-released.
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1997 and 1999 Spaceworld Gold & Silver Beta

And we're going to go through the Pokemon in different phases. First up, we'll talk about designs that are mostly similar enough to what we are familiar with nowadays, with the main changes being in the details and coloration, or in the names and typing. Either way, look at these early beta-sprites! Otherwise these seem to be mostly finalized, other than some colour differences or minor details. Considering the likes of Togepi, Ho-Oh and Snubull debuted in the anime long before 1997, it's pretty reasonable to assume that a lot of these Generation II designs were floating around Gamefreak's offices way before the Spaceworld demo.


And... and to be honest, some of them have differences that you probably wouldn't be able to tell unless you took the sprites and placed them side-by-side. Some had mere colour changes (Ledbya, Marill, Natu and Xatu, Espeon), some had slightly different tails or designs, some had different names (in the beta, Smeargle was "Painter" instead of his final Japanese name of "Dobble"). And it's also worth noting how many of these were actually missing what we now know and accept as part of their evolutionary line. Sunkern, Togetic, Wooper and Granbull are nowhere to be seen here, meaning that they were only added into the game later on. Were Togepi and Snubbull meant to be that much of a non-evolving mascot? And also, it does bring credence to some theories that some of the original evolutionary lines in Generation I and II were either split up or mushed together.

Very notable and far more interesting, however, are the typings and the evolutions. For one, Slowking evolves from Slowbro instead of being an alternate evolution. I thought that was really how the evolution should've gone in the first place, honestly, and considering how relatively similar Slowbro and Slowking look compsred to the other Gen II branching evolutions, it's kind of interesting why they decided to swap things out instead. It's not like Slowbro's particularly powerful, y'know?

Bellossom was still Grass/Poison here like the rest of her evolutionary line, and I'm kinda curious why they decided to drop the poison type. Probably around the same time that they redesigned Bellossom to have smaller flowers, a more friendly face and a bright green skin. Delibird was Water/Ice, too, probably because penguins can't, y'know, fly.

Quagsire and Qwilfish were pure-Water (which, in hindsight, I definitely could see on Quagsire since his design doesn't emphasize any ground-ness) and Hoothoot was pure-Flying, although the game hackers did speculate that some of the typings might be placeholders while they decided what secondary typing to give them. Unown was pure-Normal, which is kind if interesting, I guess? Houndour and Houndoom were both pure-Fire, which is interesting because if you had asked me, I would totally say that that the "hellhound" aspect was so central to their design.

Sunflora (a standalone creature here) was also Grass/Psychic, which felt so interesting and probably would make her a lot less forgettable! Girafarig was Normal/Dark which sort of highlighted the Two-Face evil twin split personality thing feel more pronounced. Snubbull was also psychic type, so maybe the whole "we want this bulldog-man to be a fairy" was there from the beginning?

Perhaps the one most interesting early type, however, was Umbreon, meant to be the POISON Eevee evolution, a representation of our original 'evil' type, and that its originally purple rings were meant to be warning rings like a Blue-Ringed Octopus or something! And it's so interesting, because Umbreon's dex entries have mentioned that it's got poisonous sweat as recently as Sun and Moon. I can totally see why they swapped out Poison for Dark -- Dark was, after all, the fancy new type they were trying to push, the sun/moon dichotomy worked a lot better, and Umbreon's design didn't embody poison that well, but it's genuinely interesting just how the original concept of good ol' Umbreon was meant to represent a completely different type.


This one has a very, very crude design, and are clearly placeholder designs too, just like the scratch-pad beta Larvitar above. This one is called "Plucks", borrowing the name of the Beta-Pinsir-evolution from 1997 (we'll cover that below), and uses Plucks's back-sprite, but looking at the missing Pokemon in the modern Johto dex makes it pretty clear that this dude is Beta Forretress. It's basically a very simplified Forretress without the clear armour and shell-cannons, although in this beta "Plucks" here is still listed alongside the other more badass bug monsters like Scizor and Heracross. The 1999 beta, on the other hand, for the most part had a lot of their Pokemon designs more or less match the finalized versions seen in the final Gold/Silver games. A lot of the 'missing' Pokemon in the 1997 demo are restored, and while there are some significant differences here and there (like Ledian having a much larger set of wings, Jumpluff having a cloud of cotton balls around it, Entei having an extra beard or Pineco being a lot more cluttered), it's mostly just cosmetic stuff... other than, of course, the ones we'll be covering below. 

Probably the most interesting is Chinchou's eyes. It's the plus-shaped pupils, yes, but without the yellow conjunctiva around it, and hoo boy it makes Chinchou go from adorable to creepy in an instant. Xatu has a far more complex-looking body pattern which was simplified a lot for the final sprite. The proto-Magcargo doesn't have the flames on its shell, and actually has its modern-day/anime-inspired colour scheme. The Gold/Silver Magcargo actually was purplish-magenta. Raikou's design actually is kind of similar with the (rather odd-looking) sprite we saw in Gold/Silver, but with far larger saber-tooth tiger fangs. Ho-Oh also shows up, but as a Flying/Normal legendary instead of the Fire/Flying it is now. 
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PROTO/BETA VERSIONS OF MODERN POKEMON

Next up we'll be talking and discussing Pokemon that have a modern-day counterpart, but are clearly redesigned significantly between the Spaceworld Beta and the final release of Gold and Silver. Like, unlike the mostly-familiar appearances of the Pokemon in the first category, these feel far more like proto-designs that would eventually evolve into the finalized, official ones.


First up is "Booboo", Hoothoot's evolution in the original games, which is the proto-Noctowl. Some of these have alternate names, but since Booboo here fills in basically the same niche as the missing Noctowl, well, we'll consider him proto-Noctowl. Both Booboo and Noctowl are clearly designed after a horned owl, but Booboo very interestingly keeps a lot of the Hoothoot aesthetic -- like the single leg, the round body and the horn-eyebrows. I'm genuinely not sure if I'd actually prefer the modern-day Noctowl (who is badass-looking!) compared to Booboo, now that I think about it, and Booboo honestly could've easily been a second form between Hoothoot and Noctowl, and would be a neat middle-ground between Hoothoot's more whimsical design and Noctowl's badass-owl look. Shame that this one got axed. It's a neat design (if one that perhaps could've used a couple extra details here and there) and one that I wished they could've kept in some form. In 1999 (and unless I mention otherwise) Booboo has basically been replaced with the modern-day Noctowl design.


Proto-Ariados, then named Tsuheddo (literally "Two-Head" turned into katakana), was... interesting. Instead of the leaner, meaner, ant-esque design we ended up with, the original design was basically a bigger Spinarak with an angry face on its abdomen. And two horns. It's insanely bland, this thing's real head looks particularly unfinished, and overall Twohead here is a lot less cooler than the Ariados we ended up getting, and the secondary face was so on-the-note that I'm actually thankful this design got replaced with the Ariados we know and love.

That said, the 1999 demo replaced Tsuheddo with Ariadone, which is basically the Tsuheddo design with... a jack-o-lantern as its abdomen colouration? Hold the phone, that's actually pretty awesome! Very derivative of Zelda's Skulltula (Ocarina of Time would be in development at around the same time) and honestly, a pretty cool design. I still don't like the rather simplistic head and it looks even more out of place here, and unlike Two-Head, Ariadone actually looks pretty dang neat and I wouldn't mind it being revised as like a regional Spinarak variant or something. 


Early babies! The proto versions of Pichu, Cleffa and Igglybuff are apparently meant to be around from the get-go, as are a literal fuckton of other babies we'll cover below. But holy shit, they look pretty different, huh? Igglybuff is perhaps the least divergent one, basically being bald and a lot less cute... with those creepy beady eyes. I'm not the biggest Igglybuff fan and I definitely prefer the finalized version we got.

Cleffa also looks more weird than cute, what with that extremely strange antenna, presumably meant to lean more heavily into the "these fairies are actually aliens" vibe that Clefairy and Clefable had. It does make Cleffa significantly more distinctive compared to her evolutions than the official version, it's significantly less cute than the official Cleffa.

But Proto-Pichu looks... actually looks pretty dang good! It's a round boy, a lot more blobbier and simple than what we eventually got. It's cute. I don't hate the Pichu design we eventually got, and I am pretty sure that I prefer this one. Proto-Pichu in the 1999 beta, which features a lot more finalized designs, is basically a mid-way between the finalized Pichu and the original fatter Pikachu. It's extremely bland, I feel, compared to either the chub-ball Pichu or the more distinctive modern-day Pichu, so I'm thankful that this one got updated. 


Proto-Phanpy is way too adorable. It's got a cute little trunk instead of a stubby one, its legs are a lot cuter and it doesn't have the chunky red rings or whatever the hell those things he has in his modern-day finalized version. I love Phanpy, but I can't deny just how much charm this rejected design has. If nothing else, the longer prehensile nose is a huge miss.


We've actually seen this original design of Girafarig prior to the Spaceworld beta. See, Girafarig was always a Pokemon that symbolizes palindromes, but ultimately is just kind of a funny-looking giraffe with a tail-head. The original Beta Girafarig was actually more interesting, being a Dark/Normal creature that's literally split in half between a good head and an evil head, having some sort of bizarre evil-conjoined-twin or split-personality thing going on. It even evolves from two conjoined ghosts called Twins (who we'll cover below), and I am actually kind of bummed out that we didn't get all this presumably far more interesting lore about Girafarig's evil half. Modern-day Girafarig is admittedly a lot more stylish and looks less clunky with that chain chomp tail, but there's definitely something to like about the actual symmetry that beta Girafarig has.


Wow, proto-Politoed really looks like a straight-up frog version of Poliwhirl, huh? It's actually not a bad design, but I don't think I'll actually ever pick proto-Politoed over Poliwrath or canon-Politoed. While I wish they had kept the prominent spiral on the final version of Politoed to make the connection within the evolutionary line stronger, I'm definitely a bigger fan of the more charming modern Politoed compared to proto-Politoed. Not the worst design, but I can see why this particular one got revised into the Politoed we know now. It's not a bad design, but it definitely doesn't really do all that much beyond being a frog with a spiral belly.


Remoraid and Octillery's whole "weapons" theme has always vexxed me. Like, I get it, but at the same time I've always wished that the two forms had something to connect them visually. And... and the beta versions kind of showed what the designs would look like if they went all-in on the weapons theme. Remoraid's basically a revolver gun with fish parts stuck onto it, and Octillery wears chunks of tank armour and its octopus legs end up looking like rudimentary wheels or something. And... and Remoraid sure looks clunky and probably can't swim particularly well, and I understand why it's toned down a lot in the final version. Plus, y'know, guns and '90's American censorship probably made the designers consider even having a gun-themed creature. I kinda wished the gun theme was slightly more evident in the final Remoraid design than just the vague shape, though. Octillery, on the other hand... I really do feel like while this specific iteration of Octillery might not be something that is superior compared to the canon Octillery (it's a bit too messy for my liking), but I kinda wished they had leaned into the tank theme a lot more.

When they showed up in the 1999 demo, while a lot of other beta Pokemon have had their sprites reworked to be similar or identical to their finalized forms, Remoraid still had its gun-revolver design, while Octillery... loses its helmet, but gains a bunch of extra spikes. Again, though, ultimately I guess it's probably for the best that they toned down any outright gun imagery in these games for children. 

It is interesting that despite the huge revisions done to the Johto dex, Remoraid and Octillery still ended up remaining all the way to the final version of the game, so the designers clearly liked these two a whole lot.


Prototype Tyrogue (called Gong here; finalized Tyrogue's Japanese name is Baruki/Bulky) and Hitmontop are... huh. They're there. "Gong" is basically just a punching bear and isn't necessarily better than the modern-day Tyrogue... although I've never been the biggest Tyrogue fan. I'm not sure if I prefer the lanky, deformed humanoid or the cuddly fighting bear.

It's pretty interesting that Hitmonchan and Hitmonlee was apparently always meant to be related with a common baby and the weird spinning top monster. Speaking of which... look at original Hitmontop, where it's more of a Baltoy-like Pokemon with three spiky 'feet' as his hat, and a praying hand? Such a weird looking design, and while I'm not the biggest fan of Hitmontop, it's such a more pleasant looking design than whatever this is. It's so delightfully weird, but definitely kind of a poor fit since they're making this a set with Hitmonlee and Hitmonchan.

In the 1999 demo, Gong and Kapoera still retain their 1997 beta designs. Not a whole ton to say here, it's really just interesting how far the revisions ended up being for these two. 


Early Hoppip, Skiploom and Jumpluff are... huh. They're simpler cat-blobs with leaves and plant shit on top than what they end up being. They kinda look like Baby-stage Digimon! I guess Hoppip's Japanese name of Hanecco really was meant to be more explicitly "neko", huh? I really do like the :3 cat face these three have, and there's definite charm that a legless blob has. Jumpluff is easily the most different, being based on the dandelion flower instead of the actual flying seeds.

I can see why it's changed, thogh. Having all three stages of the evolutionary line be essentially blobs is kind of a bit overkill. I kinda wished that they kept at least Hoppip as a legless blob, though! All three finalized versions of the Hoppip family had hands and legs, and I kinda wished that we had a bit of a progression as the blob became more 'complete'.


Another set of babies! And these are far more drastically different than Pichu, Igglybuff and Cleffa. Proto-Magby is perhaps my favourite out of these early babies, looking like an actual smaller Magmar with the flames on his belly, and a hairdo that really screams "delinquent anime kid" instead of the "ouch I fell down some stairs" that the final Magby design has. Also, insert your own Bart Simpson joke here. I have a feeling that they probably went back and forth on how drastically different baby Pokemon should be, or if they should be just "X, but chibi."

Elekid (or Elebaby, as he's known here) is a lot, lot cuter, although this original design lacks the finalized one's gremlin-like charm, and look less obviously electric-type. I do like that it's just a round grinning face with legs and a donut-horn. It's honestly a distinct enough design from the final Elekid that I think if sometime down the line they decided to turn this cute little thing into a new Pokemon, no one would complain. I like this. It could definitely be a Pikmin or something.

Proto-Smoochum (Rippu/Lip instead of her modern name of Muchuru) is just straight up smaller Jynx without boobs and looking a lot cuter. Considering how Jynx was received, though, it's a smart thing that they went with a different design for the pre-evolution.


Hey hey, look at original Delibird! Originally called Gifuto/Gift, the Santa Claus comparisons were a lot more explicit with an obvious Santa hat, a more explicit beard and a more rotund belly. Plus, as mentioned before, it used to be Water/Ice. And considering how many people don't actually realize Delibird is based on Santa, it's interesting how some of these less subtle designs are toned down for the final Gold and Silver release.

The 1999 design is already on its way to look like the modern-day Delibird, although it still looks kind of different. 1999!Gift has swapped the santa hat for a weird red crown (modern Delibird, if you forget, has the white parts extend into horn-like protrusions) and has that Santa-Claus button on its belly. It's on its way into becoming modern-day Delibird, and honestly I'm not sure if I prefer the 1999 design better or the modern day one better. 

In the same vein, proto-Murkrow had a far, far more prominent witch's hat. Murkrow's finalized design still has a witch-on-a-broom motif going on, but modern Murkrow a lot more subtle and actually works with the "ragged crow" look... although I dunno. The witch part would end up selling the "trickster" part of Murkrow's concept, and I wonder if a couple years down the line this could be used as a regional Murkrow variant or something.


Proto-Blissey... Wow, this looks pretty messy, huh? I mean, modern Blissey is still a pretty cluttered design, but this is just a blob with a huge heart on her head, two egg things on either side and even longer Chansey-hair. Not much to say about "Happy" here (Blissey's final Japanese name is "Happiness"), like proto Delibird and proto Murkrow, her more outright heart theme got significantly toned down.


Original Scizor (called Shizaasu/Scissors instead of Hassamu) is a lot more interesting, for sure. For one, it remained Bug/Flying, and is a natural evolution instead of an item evolution with the Metal Coat. Most notably, its head still retains a lot of the dinosaurian elements Scyther has, and it still has scyther's huge mantis wings. Oh, and it's still green! Scissors here has two giant piranha faces as claws. And yes, modern-day Scizor still has fake eyeballs on his claws, and it's definitely a nice example of how the more subtle alteration ends up making a far sleeker design.

And I'm very conflicted! On one hand, I've been lobbying for years that Scizor sort of changes so much of what made Scyther so cool... but on the other hand, modern-day Scizor is pretty damn badass in his own right, and sleekening up the design from this proto-Scizor is clearly an improvement. Far more interesting, though, is that Heracross was nowhere to be seen (despite the Nintendo team being upfront that Heracross was a design they considered all the way in Generation I), and that the duo of Scyther and Pinsir were supposed to both get evolutions!


This dude that looks like a remote-controlled version of Kon from Bleach is actually Porygon2, something I genuinely did not expect until I saw that, yes, it's straight-up named "Porygon2" even in Beta. So they took the ''rounded edges" concept and went to town with it, but in the process turned this proto-Porygon2 pretty unrecognizable as an evolution of the pixel duck... I guess it's just a representation of how 3D models improve over time? From the boxy Dodongos in Ocarina of Time to increasingly complex models. big fan of the actual design, and I'm curious what the theoretical Porygon-Z that would become if this ended up being Porygon2. Will it just be just straight up a creature that's so HD it's indistinguishable from real physical creatures?


Proto-Kingdra was always a thing, was always meant to be called Kingdra, was always meant as an evolution of Seadra... but wow, it straight-up became a seahorse dragon, huh? Complete with claws, dragon wings, oriental draogn mustache and a reptilian head? I'm actually pretty glad that they didn't go with this. Part of what made Kingdra so special to me is that the seahorse (or seadragon, really) retained its real seadragon posture which seems so unassuming, while working off of the whole sea dragon pun. I wouldn't say no to seeing a more polished version of this mermaid-dragon be a real Pokemon someday, and I could see it as a branching evolution for Seadra.

The 1999 demo would still retain this beta-Kingdra design, although it also gives us this alternate, more dynamic pose that makes it look a lot like Seadra grew a pair of arms at a glance. Again, it's really interesting to me that the final Kingdra does admittedly lose a lot of the spikes from the original Seadra and ended up getting a bunch of coral-esque protrusions. I'm honestly not quite sure which one I would've preferred ultimately. 


Proto-Sneasel is straight-up just a weasel, and if not for the name being identical to modern-day Sneasel I probably would've lumped him alongside the other 'new' Pokemon. He's apparently pure Dark in the original, and way, way less interesting than one of the more iconic designs from Generation II that we got. This dude really looks like a proto-Mienfoo than a proto-Sneasel. It's such a rudimentary design, more of a sprite version of the Kamaitachi that Sneasel is based on than a Pokemon based on said mythological creature.

By the time the 1999 demo rolled around, Proto-Sneasel has gotten a bit more of a revision, and that left sprite does end up having the sneaky attitude that would infer its Dark-type and both of the 1999 sprites got a lot more prominent claws. It's really interesting to note just how utterly different these two ended up being compared to the final design, really. 


Proto-Aipom, originally named Teiru/Tail, is... not a design I like. It's still supposed to be a monkey, but looks far, far more like a cat with a ass-hand. I am not Aipom's biggest fan, but it definitely has its own unique charm and identity, where Tail here is just pretty generic. By the time of 1999, we have two new sprites for Aipom (now named Aipom)... and it's interesting. The sprite on the right still looks like 'Tail', while the one on the left looks like a creepier-looking version of the Aipom we know. I am so glad we ended up with the revised Aipom that we now know, because none of these ends up looking interesting enough to be anything but a one-note bland gag. 


By the time the 1999 demo rolled in, a bunch of these proto-Pokemon have basically been turned into the final designs we now know and love. Like, Scissors or Booboo are replaced with Scizor and Noctowl, and for the most part, a lot of the sprites are more or less similar to their final versions (TCRF does a comparison between the sprites of all the Pokemon in the 1999 Beta and the final versions). There are some interesting notes, though, because this is... Beta Furret! The Sentret in the demo is basically identical to the modern-day Sentret. Beta Furret does look pretty adorable, particularly the left sprite. It's honestly kind of boring and looks just like a generic cartoon ferret, but on the other hand, it's still a cute cartoon ferret and if this actually made it into the game, I have no doubt that it would have a lot of fans. I personally really like just how weird the Furret we got was, though, so it's not like we lost this for an inferior design. 

Beta Lanturn is one that did not show up in the 1997 demo... but then we get to see it with this sprite in the 1999 one, showing up with weird-eyes Chinchou there! It's extremely bizarre. Lanturn's modern set of two-pointed anglerfish lure is still there, but its body is that of a chubby manatee or something, which is so interestingly weird! The modern-day Lanturn is, I feel, a neat middle ground between being badass-looking and cute-looking, and this one might skew a bit more towards being just cute and chubby and cute. It's actually kind of neat, though, and I wouldn't mind this being an alternate Chinchou evolution or something. If nothing else, it does fit as the evolution of Chinchou a fair bit better, I suppose.  

Sunkern didn't exist in the 1997 demo, with Sunflora being a pure Grass/Psychic standalone creature. In the 1999 demo, though, Sunkern shows up and... what? This is an adorable-looking creature straight out of Dragon Quest or Legend of Zelda or something. Look at this cute little bean baby with two legs and a little bud. It certainly doesn't fit Sunflora's aesthetic, or, really, the Generation II Pokemon aesthetic, but it's still an adorable bean boy. It's also a pure Normal type in this one. 


Quagsire also showed up as a mere standalone Pokemon in the 1997 demo, with Wooper showing up in 1999... and LOOK AT THIS PRECIOUS BABY BOY. LOOK AT IT. LOOK AT THIS FAT AXOLOTL CAT I JUST CAN'T. I mean, I love the Wooper we got to bits, but man, look at this fat cat baby. Easily one of the biggest losses in the beta, I feel. The internet, obviously, immediately latched on to the happy fat cute baby basically overnight. It's actually how I ended up finding out that there's a second demo leak to follow up the first 1997 one. 


This gold Marill, by the way, wasn't Beta Marill, but Beta Azumarill. Azumarill didn't show up in the 1997 demo and Marill was pink, and the somewhat more crude sprite and the fact that it uses Marill's back-sprite implies that this is probably less of a beta Azumarill design and more of them using a spare Marill sprite as a placeholder. Still worth mentioning. 


Shuckle didn't show up in the 1997 beta, and shows up in the 1999 in a far, far more worm-y fashion. I've always thought it's weird that some Pokemon games (like Lucy in Emerald) consider Shuckle a serpentine Pokemon, but I've always thought it's because it's like some sort of worm creature, right? Its Japanese name of Tsubotsubo (Pot Pot) doesn't really make sense either. Turns out that the original design for Shuckle had it literally be a snake emerging from a pot, with a bunch of weird little tendrils. It certainly looks like the prototype version of the more turtle-worm-esque creature we had in Gold and Silver, but man, I'm not even sure what Beta Shuckle was meant to be. Is it supposed to be one of those snake-dancing snakes that come out from a pot? 


Beta Dunsparce is a far, far more obvious cartoon Tsuchinoko in the original, with the one on the left looking a bit more detailed and the one on the right looking like a very rough sketch. It's certainly a cute, adorable monster, but I'm never the biggest fan of them just plucking a mythical creature and adapting it as-is. The finalized Dunsparce is a lot more memorable for being, well, a Pokemon based on the Tsuchinoko instead of just flat-out a Tsuchinoko. A slightly earlier design has it with a far more realistic design and I'm happy they cut it. Dusnparce isn't meant to be serious, and just adapting a straight-up boring Tsuchinoko, while cool, does lose some of the, well, cute, goofy and charming aspect of Dunsparce. 


Beta Teddiursa skipped out on the 1997 demo, but Teddiursa and its big brother Ursaring shows up in 1999. The left sprite for Beta Teddiursa clearly uses the scrapped fire starter bear Honoguuma below, meaning that they probably reworked those sprites into Teddiursa and Ursaring... before ultimately changing them again so much that they don't really have much in common beyond being bears. Beta Teddiursa's a cute bear, but it's kind of a boring bear and I'm happy that they revised it to be a lot more distinct and a lot cuter in the final Gold & Silver. 


Holy shit, Beta Slugma is basically just a goop. It's basically like Numemon, but instead of being a cartoon slug, it's like a pile of turd with slug eyes. I can totally see why they changed it to the modern-day Slugma design, because this really doesn't communicate that it's a magma monster or a slug very well and if you showed it to me I'd probably guess that this was a Grimer variant or pre-evolution. As much as I like the flaming eye-stalks of modern Slugma, I also do like the stereotypical eyestalks of this proto-Slugma. 


We had a beta Mantine of sorts in the 1997 demo, "Haneei", which felt like its own thing, really. But by the time the 1999 demo rolled around, Haneei has been replaced with what's essentially a beta version of the modern-day Mantine, albeit still with the name "Haneei". And it's really interesting that this Beta Mantine is basically a manta ray fighter jet! Look at those two huge 'missiles' under its wings. Are they still meant to be mutated Remoraids in this version? Considering that Remoraid was explicitly still a gun fish in this beta, I guess at some point down the line the Nintendo higher-ups decided to scrub anything remotely resembling real-life weapons from Pokemon. I've honestly never put two and two together, that Mantine was patterned after a fighter jet and the Remoraids under it are meant to be missiles -- I genuinely just thought that they just adapted manta rays that 'fly' by jumping out of the ocean.

Also worth noting that Beta Mantine has the famous large, open mouth of real-life manta rays, which the modern-day Mantine replaces with a less funny-looking face.


The Larvitar line was missing in the 1997 beta, and while Pupitar and Tyranitar show up with close-to-final designs in 1999, all we got from Larvitar is this very hastily-doodled sprite. Clearly not finalized and it's just a crude placeholder, but hey, we aim to be exhaustive here. 


This one has a very, very crude design, and are clearly placeholder designs too, just like the scratch-pad beta Larvitar above. This one is called "Plucks", borrowing the name of the Beta-Pinsir-evolution from 1997 (we'll cover that below), and uses Plucks's back-sprite, but looking at the missing Pokemon in the modern Johto dex makes it pretty clear that this dude is Beta Forretress. It's basically a very simplified Forretress without the clear armour and shell-cannons, although in this beta "Plucks" here is still listed alongside the other more badass bug monsters like Scizor and Heracross. 

__________________________

"LOST" POKEMON

Whew, that's about it for the 'revised' Pokemon! The next category is designs and concepts that were almost entirely dropped from the game entirely, including brand-new designs, and a FUCK TON OF BABIES. Without further ado...


First up is this thing, Hanamogura (combining hana and mogura, Japanese for flower and mole respectively). This is proto-Bayleef (Beirifu in Japanese, so it's not the same Pokemon), and it's genuinely surprising because both the artwork for Chikorita and Meganium in this beta are pretty similar to their modern-day counterparts. And yet instead of Bayleef, we get whatever the heck Hanamogura is, some sort of weird little fairy with a :3 face sitting inside an open flower. It's mostly speculated that Hanamogura was a remnant of a completely different three-stage starter, and while they've settled on replacing them with Chikorita's line, they haven't designed or implemented the middle stage yet.

Which does make me kind of wonder what the hell Hanamogura's deal is. It's a weird little Ditto-looking pixie that's sort of merged with a giant flower, and also has an eyeball in its belly. It's... it's sure a weird thing, and I wonder if the concept for Hanamogura here didn't end up eventually evolving into Flabebe or something down the line.


Honooguma, Borubeaa and Dainabea ("Fire Bear", Volc-bear and Dynabear respectively) are the original fire starters instead of the Cyndaquil line. And... Well, these guys are clearly far more boring, yeah? They look pretty damn simplified. Sure, not to the extent that the water starters below are, but for all the love that these rejected designs get online, I can definitely see why these get rejected. Honooguma looks cute enough, sure, but both Borubeaa and Dynabear look pretty generic as 'take an animal, and give it flames'. Granted, the Cyndaquil line might not be the best looking starter line, but it's certainly far more unique looking than these bears.


Kurusu, Akua and Akueria are... are pretty iffy as well, honestly, although I guess the design is still pretty sound? A plesiosaur evolutionary stage is pretty cool, but the thing that doesn't really sell me on these three is just how... bland they are. Compare them to, say, Lapras or Meganium or Tropius, other Pokemon designed with the sauropodal body form. I can see a bit of Kurusu influencing future water starters like Popplio, but othewise these do look pretty cheap, like the sort of designs that a bootleg Pokemon game would come up with. And, again, its direct replacement, Totodile's line, just straight-up have more personality. Again, not sorry to see these go.


Thanks to a bit of a mis-reading on my part, I originally reviewed Mitsuboshi (Three-Stars) as proto-Ledian, when, in fact, Mitsuboshi and Ledyba were not actually related via evolution in the Spaceworld demo, and had completely unrelated movesets and whatnot. Considering Mitsuboshi doesn't seem to be any more complex than Ledyba (and, in fact, I would probably think that this is a Ledyba pre-evo if you showed this to me), it seems that Mitsuboshi was actually meant to be either a version-exclusive counterpart or a rival to Ledyba? Of course, in the actual finalized game Ledyba got an evolution and sort of became counterparts with the Spinarak line. It's a nice grumpy ladybug monster, but I can see why this one got cut, it really is just kind of there.


Monja and Jaranja are meant to be pre-evolutions and evolutions for Tangela -- and this is two full generations before Tangrowth's introduction! And I really like these two, so much that I actually wouldn't mind if Pokemon designed with these two's aesthetic in mind make it into the game some time. While Tangrowth certainly does fill in the void of giving Tangela an evolved form, thee two designs in particular look pretty dang cool, and it's hard-pressed to say that I prefer the Tangela evolution we actually got as opposed to Jaranja.

Monja's also pretty awesome, she's such an adorable little blob with hair and the single eye peeking out, while Jaranja has a glorious shit-eating grin as the only body part seen through those flowing locks of hair. I must say that while Tangrowth looks more natural as Tangela's evolution, Jaranja is such a cooler and unexpected thing. It just looks so mischievous-looking! Honestly, the more I look at them, the more I like them! A lot of the creatures on this Beta I can totally see why the Nintendo/Gamefreak designers decided to exclude as they designed the game, but why take Jaranja out, man?

 
Haneei is thought by many people as proto-Mantine, but just look at this glorious thing! Honestly, while they're both Water/Flying rays, Haneei just looks so freaking distinct from Mantine and it's a pretty distinct identity, I feel. This ray Pokemon (based seemingly on a cow-nosed ray?) looks nothing short of angelic seen from below, but seen from the top, its dorsal markings make it look insanely metal as it brings to mind the shape of a skull. And the best part? This is an adaptation of the countershading that many real-life aquatic animals have, except rendered like a gajillion times cooler.

Honestly, Haneei is such a damned cool concept that I really, really want it to be revisited, and I am genuinely surprised that no actual future aquatic Pokemon, ray-based or otherwise, haven't even done anything resembling this. I like Mantine, but Haneei really makes a strong case for being the superior manta ray Pokemon. I mean, check out that badass skull-face on his back sprite! Come on. I think more than any other Pokemon in this list, Haneei might be my biggest "aw man, I'd rather have this than half of the dudes that made it into the Johto dex" moment. As we mentioned atop, 'Haneei' would be refined into a beta version of Mantine, the fighter-jet one, in 1999, before finally being reworked into the modern-day Mantine. 


Shibirefugu (his name basically translates into Numb Puffer Fish) is the original evolution for Qwilfish in the Generation II beta. The entire line was pure-Water, too, despite the odd lightning bolt on Shibirefugu's forehead, so I assume there's some programming stuff to go through. Not much to say about this one -- as much as I wish Qwilfish gets an evolution, this is an evolution that I feel is an inferior product to Qwilfish. You could kind of see a bit of Whiscash in this dude's face, I feel, and seeing how they do draw on some of these rejected designs for inspiration and that Whiscash debuted a mere generation later, I guess someone ended up using Shibirefugu as an inspiration for Whiscash. 


Animon here is apparently the evolution of Ditto (Metamon in Japanese) when combined with Metal Coat. It's .0. expression is glorious. I don't have much to say about screaming Ditto, because presumably it's still got Transform as its gimmick? And it's... Steel-type, presumably to allow it to tank hits before it Transforms? Or does it transform into a metal version of whatever it copies? That's be cool.

Even if, um, Animon, um, does kind of look like a condom. It's still a hilarious looking screaming blob baby.


A Water/Steel evolutionary line, and another one that's pretty neat -- this time around, it's an aquatic fish that progressively evolves into larger fish that live deeper in the ocean. Plus, they're all fishies, and I feel like it sort of makes so much more sense for the evolution allowing this evolutionary line to adapt into deep-sea living compared to, say, Remoraid's vague 'weapon' theme. The first fish here, 'Manboo1' ('Sunfish-1'; obviously a working name) is a very simple spiky fish that doesn't actually show that it's a sunfish very well. It'll take until 2010 until we get an official sunfish pokemon in Alomomola, a far more fleshed-out design that represents a sunfish far better. Manboo1's pretty boring, it's just there to be the fish that lives near the surface of the ocean.

The second stage is Ikari, a pun that both means "rage" and "anchor", is a shark Pokemon. Or rather, half of a shark. His rear body ends in a chain and anchor. Which is silly and also pretty cool! I guess the anchor represents it sinking into a deeper part of the ocean? It's also Water/Steel now. I can see why this was cut, though, it does admittedly look a bit clunky. I do find it intereting that out of all the cut Pokemon from this beta, "half a shark" apparently left such a huge impression on the team that they clearly revised the design into Sharpedo in the next generation.

Ikari evolves into Gurotesu/Grotesque, who is just straight-up a Gulper Eel with an anglerfish lure. I get why Ikari is Water/Steel, but Grotesque over here is just... it's just an eel, and I kinda wished that they kept the anchor or something to let Grotesque's typing makes sense. And... I like gulper eels, but this one's just kind of boring. That's why they added so much extra pizzazz to Huntail when they do finally made a deep-sea eel a generation later, I guess? Grotesque does have a far neater-looking gulper eel face than Huntail, though.

A interesting evolutionary line. Not the biggest fan of them, but I do appreciate seeing just what the first drafts of some future Pokemon would be, and I wonder if Gamefreak does actually have a list of weird real-life animals they want to see become Pokemon.


BABIES EVERYWHERE! Okay, the next couple of Pokemon are all baby pre-evolutions, and there's a lot more that were supposed to show up in Generation II. Which... honestly, I'm glad they reined a lot of these in. Mikon (Three-tails) here is the pre-evolution of Vulpix (Rokon in Japanese, lit. six tails). It's a baby Vulpix! It's got three tails, in a reference to that one dex entry. It's adorable, but on the other hand, Vulpix was pretty baby-esque, so I can see why Mikon ended up being thought of as redundant.

If you showed me the original 151 and asked me which of them deserved a baby version, Goldeen and Seaking would be damn near the bottom of my list. But here we are with Gyopin, the baby version of Goldeen that honestly just looks like a tiny Seaking. Yep. It's got a funny face, but other than looking kinda neat, it's not a huge loss that Gyopin was cut, I guess.


Hinaazu here is a baby Doduo, and I'm genuinely surprised that baby Doduo is apparently a three-headed chick? Presumably that's why it's cut, because it went from a 3-headed bird to a 2-headed one back to a 3-headed one; and the 'chick heads in a nest' visual wouldn't work with just one or two heads. A neat concept, I suppose.


Para, the baby to Paras and Parasect, is... pretty weird. It's apparently the baby bug growing out of a mushroom? An inverse of how Paras is a bug with mushrooms growing on it? Is this the missing link that explains Paras's bizarre parasitic life cycle? Or does it muddy things up even further? Do baby Para parasitize mushrooms, only for them to parasitize the bugs when they evolve into Paras? How do their breeding even work? Is it spores that hatch into mushrooms with bugs inside them, or bug-eggs that already contain a mushroom within? I'm confused. Worth noting that Para here is pure-Bug, so it's clearly the bug before it got taken over by the mushroom. Parasect, like Seaking, is pretty underwhelming and they do desperately need an evolution instead of a pre-evolution, but I really do want to know just what the original concept of Para was, and what the designers intended this horrifying parasitic mushroom/bug species was supposed to be.

Koonya (Baby Meow) is the Baby form of Meowth, the other super-marketable mascot from Generation I! And she is adorable. From the little yen coin on her forehead to the three floating coins on top of her, Koonya is just 100% pure adorableness. It's a sad fact that this poor thing got left on the cutting room floor, but far less charming designs like Tyrogue or Smoochum make it through.


Pudi here is a good boy. He's the far more dog-like baby form of Growlithe, and, like Mikon up above. He's cute, and a good boy, and actually does look distinct enough from Growlithe that I wouldn't even mind him showing up in official games. I guess one of the biggest factors is that Pokemon are always limited to three-stage evolutionary lines, and introducing the likes of Pudi, Para or Mikon would lock out Arcanine, Parasect and Ninetales from getting actual third-stage evolutions.

A later build has Pudi with a weirdly more humanoid body, so did they try to rework it into a friendly humanoid dog Pokemon? Snubbull exists in most of these beta versions, so I guess they thought it was redundant. 

Puchikoon (cobbled from the Japanese pronunciations of "petite" and "unicorn") is... is a tiny Ponyta, and easily the most underwhelming of the babies. Hell, I didn't even realize it's a babier-looking Ponyta instead of just a Ponyta sprite! 

Betobebii (Betobaby!) is the baby form of Grimer (Betobeta). I never thought I would ever need a baby Grimer, but now I do. Look at that thing! It's so precious! It's got a dumb-looking nose that sort looks like a pacifier. and it's such a tiny blob of goop. I like him, he's such a blob.


I love Mime Jr, but Baririna (a perfect pun combination of Mr. Mime's Japanese name, "Barrier", and ballerina) is just such a cute little dancing egg boy with a cute hat that I can't not love him. Look at that. Look at my dancing egg boy. Honestly, unlike the others, this is a pretty great baby design!


Tsuinzu (Twins) is a pair of conjoined ghosts that look like blobby Haunters stuck together, and they are Dark/Normal type. Most interestingly, though, is the fact that this pair of conjoined ghosts evolve into motherfucking GIRAFARIG of all things. So I feel like there's a huge story that I'm not getting here. Are these like conjoined ghosts who end up possessing two halves of a giraffe? Or... um... what? I'm more intrigued than anything. Without actual dex entries with these designs, and only their names, types and evolutions, I genuinely want to know just how you go from a pair of conjoined ghost-blob twins into a giraffe with a second head on his butt.

Twins shows up in yet another build after this one... as two floating, disjointed blob-ghosts without hands. Honestly, this is so cool and the idea that this is the thing that turns into Girafarig is something that I am actually dying to know about. 

I think that's all of our babies? Let's go into actual new Pokemon, now. Rinrin and Berurun are a pair of female-only Dark-type cats with bells. Yeah, these are okay designs, I suppose, but nothing super-special. In any case, I think that the eventual replacements that these kitties got -- either Purrloin/Liepard or Litten/Torracat depending if you're talking about the Dark-type cat or the cat-with-bells deal -- are a lot neater-looking. It's surprising that they cut these out, though, being pretty cool, dark cats, I'm pretty sure they'd be super-popular back in the day with the fandom, and from a pure marketting standpoint it's interesting that they decided to cut this pair. In the 1999 demo, Berurun does show up as an individual entry without Rinrin, but both would ultimately still get nixed. 


Taaban/Turban is very clearly Slowking's shell, but even in the the Slowbro and Slowking evolution happens independently of "Turban" here. So is he supposed to be involved in the Slowbro/Slowking evolution in some way or form? Is he related to Shellder? Is he created when Slowbro or Slowking takes off their parasite? A question that'll probably never get answered.


Oh, wow. As much as I love Bellsprout, Weepinbell and Victreebel, I am definitely glad this alternate evolution, Tsubomitto, never made it into official games. Tsubomitto here is Grass/Poison and would evolve from Weepinbell as an alternate final evolution in the same vein as Bellossom, and I assume that Tsubomitto was the origin of the "giant Bellsprout" that everyone in the Violet City's giant pagoda-tower talked about. We did get to see Tsubomitto show up with a coloured sprite in a later build... and it's still kinda m'eh. And when they removed Tsubomitto from the game, they just didn't bother to rewrite the lore for Violet City. It's interesting to see that the otherwise-random little in-universe myth actually seems to be a reference to a Pokemon that was removed.

Anyway... not a huge fan of Tsubomitto. It just looks so awkward. I always found it odd that Gloom got a branching evolution and Weepinbell didn't, but if this was what we were going to get, well, Weepinbell certainly dodged a bullet there.


Bomushiika (a combination of bomu/bomb and ashika/seal) is an interesting standalone Pokemon. It's a Fire/Water seal that juggles balls of fire, and one of the few unreleased Pokemon not related to anything else. It's a bit of a simple design, and I'm genuinely surprised just how long it would take for us to get to a Fire/Water type (Generation VI). Not the most interesting visual design for us to lose, honestly. It does kinda looks like a monster that would feel home in a Zelda game, though, doesn't it? A pretty neat little fire seal.


Kotora and Raitora are a pair of adorable chubby super-deformed electric tigers. They look ADORABLE and way, way better than Dedenne or Togedemaru or Plusle or Minun. Why couldn't these be the Pika-clones in any of the subsequent generation? I like them. They're not my favourites here, but I do like them. Especially Kotora. Look at that face. It's adorable.


"Madame" here is apparently the evolution of Farfetch'd, and she just looks... weird. What's she supposed to be? A lady swan with a dominatrix mask and a rod with a spherical tip? A huge m'eh from me. Farfetch'd is one of those Pokemon that everyone in the fandom sort of wants an evolution to, being one of the handful of weak single-stage Pokemon in Generation I who never got anything in subsequent generations. And turns out that it was apparently designed to evolve into this bizarre opera-house goose creature, which is so far off from the samurai/swordsman theme everyone thought Farfetch'd evolutions should take. Not my favourite design, though.


Norowara and Kyonpan were the original Ghost-types of Generation II instead of Misdreavus, and I guess they were cut out for being a bit too dark? Norowara is straight-up a straw voodoo doll with a goddamn stake right through his heart. Sure, we do get a voodoo doll of sorts in Banette in the third generation, but Banette is less overtly a voodoo doll and plays up more on the horror of tsukumogamis and abandoned, vengeful dolls. I guess we know why the animation for the move "Curse" (debuting in the second generation) was so specific with a pin pushed through the body. It's a cool design, but I do like the fact that Banette became our official haunted doll Pokemon, since Norowara's... it's just a cursed doll. It's not a cursed-doll-Pokemon, you get what I mean?

Kyonpan is more interesting, because it references a specific type of cultural ghost, the Jiangshi, China's version of zombies/vampires that are jump around with their arms stretched, brought to life by a strip of curse paper. Kyonpan also happens to be a Chinese panda that is also a Chinese ghost. And while I do kind of find it kinda funny, it's definitely cut out for being kinda culturally insensitive. It's certainly an interesting concept.


WHOA A PINSIR EVOLUTION! Purakkusu (Plucks) is...  it's pretty metal, actually. Adding a third central Hercules-beetle-esque horn and a random expressionless mask to Pinsir's face results is a cool design. Not a design that I would say is cooler than Pinsir, mind you, because Pinsir's insane vertical mouth with jagged teeth is as striking, but Plucks here is definitely giving a pretty horrifying vibe, something that looks like it would easily fit as a Bleach villain or something. It's definitely a pretty cool design, even if they went for a completely different route when Pinsir got a mega-evolution in Generation VI. Pretty badass of a look, though!


Urufuman (Wolfman) and Waaurufu (Warwolf) are... interesting Ice-types. I guess they're meant to be Yetis? "Wolfman" seems to be more of a black blob wearing a cute wolf pelt, sort of like Gabumon from Digimon, but eventually evolves into a true abominable snowman (or abominable wolfman?), Warwolf. Not the biggest fan of Warwolf, who IMO just seems to be a bit messy, but Wolfman is insanely adorable and I like him. A pretty neat set of ice-types, and, again, I'm surprised that these didn't actually get revisited in some way or form in subsequent games. In one of the 1999 demos, Warwolf shows up as a standalone Pokemon next to Piloswine, and in blue... but, again, gets cut out. I honestly really wouldn't mind seeing this creature come back in some way. 

Nameeru is the evolution of Lickitung here... and I'm not sure if I like this or Lickilicky more. On one hand, Lickilicky doesn't have the weird mustaches and the kinda-racist turban. On the other hand, though, Nameeru doesn't look like an overweight baby and still preserves a lot of what made Lickitung unique, most importantly the huge long rolling tongue. I still like Lickitung himself better than either Lickilicky or Nameeru.


Rai, En and Sui here are the prototype legendary beasts. I've been known to criticize the legendary beasts before, but wow are these early sprites bad. I'd take "overdesigned but overall fabulous" finalized Raikou, Suicune and Entei over these, thank you very much.

"En" might be the most boring, just looking like a wolf with its tail on fire, and not even particularly cool-looking as far as wolves go. "Sui" looks positively haggard, and its face gives me the impression of someone who drowned, which... I'm not sure if that's the intended reaction. Rai's sort of cool, I suppose. It kinda-sorta looks like aan emo edgelord, which is something, I guess? Eh. Don't care about any of these.


Apparently there was supposed to be a third eeveelution, Riifi (Leafy), which is apparently an early version of Leafeon, two generations before Leafon actually becomes a real Pokemon. Leafy here is at the very end of the dex, which implies that she was a new addition to the Spaceworld Beta, only to be removed later on. And... real Leafeon is a very sleek design compared to the lumpier Leafy, but I really wished one aspect of Leafy here got trasnplanted into Leafeon, which is her root-legs. How much more plantlike would Leafeon have been with those cool root-legs?

The 1999 beta doesn't really give us a lot of unused names, with a vast majority of their dex basically corresponding to the finalized Pokemon Gold & Silver games. Leafy, Wolfman, the babies, Manboo1 and all the rest have been replaced with more familiar faces like Yanma, Sudowoodo, Corsola and Swinub. Basically everyone on this part of the coverage has been replaced with the Pokemon in the final Johto dex, or at least by prototype versions of them. I say almost, because there are some that are outliers...


"Mitei 12" (Mitei is 'undecided') takes the place of where Celebi would be in the final game, and it's apparently based on the Kokopelli, a fertility deity in some Native American cultures... and it's like this weird-looking dead-eyed baby with a bunch of head-spikes. It is admittedly a bit creepy, and is noted to be a Normal-type in this beta version. Judging by its eyes, though, it's likely that they reworked this to become Celebi in the final game but kept the almost god-like fairy powers. Ultimately it's not a design I'm fond of, and I like the final Celebi a lot better. Honestly, the less they actually refer to real-life religion the better, and when they got around to doing the Tapus in Generation VII, at least they made them look so different from any recognizable Tiki design. 


While this generic-looking blob with a winking eye (or is that a mouth and an eye in profile) is the replacement for 'Tsuinzu/Twins' (and still has 'Twins' as its name), the Girafarig pre-evolution. By 1999, Girafarig, meanwhile, has adapted a design that's essentially identical to its modern-day incarnation. Now while it's clear that this is still placeholder art, who does Twins II get replaced by in the modern day dex? Can you guess? It's Wobbuffet!

And suddenly, the fact that Wobbuffet and Girafarig both have enigmatic, seemingly-sentient black tails with eyes kinda-sorta makes sense. I'm not sure if at any point in the development Wobbuffet was ever meant to replace Twins as the pre-evolution of Girafarig or not, but it's very interesting that at some point, 'Twins' got reworked into Wobbuffet. 
__________________________

Source Code Leak

Leaked and released to the internet a while after the 1997 and 1999 Spaceworld demos is a Source Code leak that was apparently dated at various points of the game's development between the two Spaceworld demos. There are at least three versions with differing dexes, dated May 1998; June 13, 1999 and June 21, 1999... so it's an interesting look into the development cycle for sure and, of course, even more beta Pokemon!

Another Kokopelli design, this one being far more overt. It's clearly reworked into the Beta Celebi in the 1999 demo, but the Kokopelli bit is a lot more evident. It's also playing a flute and almost entirely black. Okay, sure. None of these have names or typings, so I'm not really going to have much to say here. I'm actually glad this one was cut. 

This weird little worm with two beady eyes and two antennae replaces "Manboo1" as being placed before Grotesque and Ikari (who swapped places), so maybe some sort of a Clamperl-style evolution was being planned? It might be a bit hard to tell, but if this was indeed intended to be the new pre-evo for Grotesque and Ikari, it might actually be based on an oarfish, the only fish that matches the description of a long eel with two prominent fins. Pokemon fans, you'd recognize it as the inspiration for Milotic.

It's a fox with a burning butt. It's a Firefox. A bit more badass than Vulpix and the later Fennekin, but kind of boring. Of course, that sort of would fit with Johto's aesthetic, but still.

A bunch of roundos that come one after the other in the Pokedex. We don't have four-stage evolutions, so I guess the third and fourth ones in this line are branching evolutions? We get a happy cute ball with feet, the same thing with ears, a taller bean-boy with a leaf-hair, and then an emo tree trunk. Concept-wise these look like a less-cute version of Oddish, if Oddish stayed an Oddish its entire line instead of turning into a corpse flower. I don't particularly like any of these, although if they were refined maybe they would've been a lot more likable. 

Hey, it's the elephant 'mon! Donphan actually already exists in development, so I guess they sort of wrestled back and forth on whether they wanted the boring cartoon elephant with some accessories or the far more unique-looking Donphan, then? They certainly went with the better choice. This may or may not be what that oft-mentioned elephant from the Generation I drafts ended up turning into. 

This is the middle evolution of Natu and Xatu! I'll call it Satu, because 'S' is the middle point between N and X. Satu here is kind of a peacock, huh? It's basically Xatu, but with simpler wings and a huge prominent tail, and Natu's single head-feather. 

It's a kiwi bird that looks upwards all the time! This one comes after the Natu/'Satu'/Xatu line, so probably not related to them unless it's meant to be like another Doduo pre-evolution. Kind of boring, and if they were going to do a kiwi pokemon I hoped they'd do something weirder. 

Oh good lord, that sure is a threatening scorpion. I love scorpions and this one having no real face beyond a mouth and a bunch of head-ridge spikes certainly looks cool. Probably doesn't look Pokemon enough since it lacks the recognizable, friendly face of Skorupi and Gligar. Certainly wouldn't complain if this gets revised into a Pokemon some time down the road, although I do suspect that Skorupi is that revision. 

It's a blob bird with a little hair thing? I dunno, this one is boring. 

It's a duck with its body contorted into a G-clef, probably some sort of a musical bird? I wouldn't mind seeing this as a Fairy/Flying music-themed fairy bird, actually, although again, its design definitely could use some refinement. 

Yet another angry Qwilfish design, huh? Both Qwilfish and Shiberufugu show up in this version of the demo, but they're all placed far apart from each other. Did Qwilfish at one point meant to have three evolution stages? This one is the most boring as far as pufferfish Pokemon goes. It's more threatening than Qwilfish for sure, but a lot more like someone drew angry eyes over a real pufferfish. 

It's an angry boar with deer horns. Okay, sure? No evolutions, though. 

It's a cute cartoon ghost. Very cute in its presence here with its two hitodama buddies, but ultimately doesn't feel quite like a Pokemon. 

Viking Boat plesiosaur! Pretty cool, and I like that the rowing oars end up basically being its paddle-feet. Is this a Lapras evolution? Maybe. 

Okay, shiisa-mon here has way too much going on with that hair, calm down. 

Oh, this one is cute. It's like Pikachu if it was drawn in Bendy and the Ink Machine's art style. I do like its weird ears and paw-hands. 

It's a bebe snake with a weird headpiece. I doesn't really evolve into anything, though, or seems to. 

They had a lot of these weirdo standalones, huh? Moreso than the '97 and '99 demos. We've got this weird scarecrow bird with an Asian conical hat. I'm not sure what's going on here. 

Generic gargoyle dragon thing with only two feet and a big-ass knife tail. With some adjustment, I could see this actually being cool and awkward at the same time. 

Manboo-1 apparently got split from Ikari and Grotesque into its own line of spiky sunfishes! Without names, I'm going to assume these are 'Manboo-2' and 'Manboo-3'... and as much as I feel happy for Manboo-1, all these three designs are honestly kinda boring and inferior to the Alomomola we ultimately got. 

"I am an angry flying squirrel, look at me."

Beta Cyndaquil, showing up without its evolutions, has a far, far spikier set of flames on its back. Are those even supposed to be flames, or just giant porcupine spikes? Apparently it wasn't meant to be used as a fire starter at one point and was just a random rat-faced quilled bastard, so it's interesting that they took a look at this, went 'hmm, those spikes could be flames...' and we get the best fire starter Pokemon ever out of it. 

Oh hey, it's a Sonic Ferret! This one is pretty simple, and I suspect it eventually got revised into Furret based on the same animal design. 

It's a stork carrying a baby stork. It's a stork Kangaskhan. There's not much to this one design-wise and I understand this one being cut. It's just m'eh. 

DRILLSQUID! I love the drillsquid. Sure, it's just a squid who swaps its head-shell and longer tentacle tips with drills. It's like, not the most interesting Pokemon design out there. But would you rather have this or, oh, I dunno, Stantler? 

Pineco was absent in this version of the demo, but a bagworm Pokemon is still here! A bit more cluttered than Pineco's clear pinecone/grenade inspiration, Proto-Pineco here still has a lot of what made Pineco so cool as a design, mostly those creepy eyes hidden underneath the bagworm shell. Instead of it turning into Forretress, Proto-Pineco, for all intents and purposes, evolves into Proto-Mothim. Would it make more sense to call this 'Proto-Burmy', then? It's a pretty m'eh looking butterfly Pokemon, though, with a fat grinning face... although I do like that it still carries its larva form's bag-nest as a sweater. That's cute. I wished Mothim did that. 

Eyyy Komala, is that you? Except with a branch instead of a log? That's cute. 

It's a crazy looking tanuki. Would later go on to cameo in Link's Awakening, the rat bastard. None of these designs really feel like they're anywhere beyond simple one-note designs, and I do appreciate how this means that the design team really tries to curate these less interesting designs away. 

Some weird bird with a huge megaphone for a beak? Is this proto-Chatot, I guess? Is it related to the G-clef bird up above? I dunno, with some refinement I honestly think that Megaphone Bird and G-Clef Bird would be far more interesting music-themed birds than Chatot. 

It's a crazy frog with long limbs and a tongue! And... and I really do want a frog Pokemon that kinda looks like this back in the day (and got my wish with the Froakie line), but I do appreciate all the frogs and toads that we got over the years in Pokemon -- Poliwrath, Politoed, Toxicroak, Seismitoad, Greninja -- all had different art styles and vibes as far as frogs go. 

I feel like this thing makes a loud EEEEEE scream all the time. It's like some sort of weird hippo-porcupine thing. 

Okay jeez that's like something out of Digimon. It's cool, very skeletal and bestial with a cool head design and all, but it definitely doesn't fit Pokemon's aesthetic, at least not the first couple of generations. 

It's a cute weird bunny with giant elephant ears and no hands. Eh is all I can say? 

A pair of mosquitoes separated in the dex. Both are cool as bug monsters go, but so very mundane and kind of boring, so I understand why they got cut. 

It's an angry weird thing that vaguely looks like a plant? Does it have a leaf tie, and an angry eye in the middle of the thing? I can't say, but I do think that I like this Cyclops Sunflora thing. 

??? I'm not even sure what this is. Is it a pachycephalosaur pokemon like Cranidos? Are those bone ridges under its huge skull or eyeballs? Is that a diaper? 

Okay this one is cute, it's like a goldfish but has cherry blossom petals around it like Cherrim. Not interesting and I don't mind it being cut, but it's cute. 

Armoured weird underwater dinosaur thing! I'm not sure what's going on here, is it related somehow to the Viking Ship Plesiosaur? I don't think the anatomy cleanly matches any marine saurid, and the obvious 'periscope' thing on top of its head is weird. 

It's a fish with wings and bird feet! It's a literal flying fish! Haha, this one is funny, although I can see why it's rejected as a design. 

A lot of the June '99 designs correspond to a lot seen in the Spaceworld 1999 demo... but there are some slight differences. Note that this time around, I'm not including like slight sprite tweaks like Ledian's huge wings or whatever. Beta Azumarill is... a golden Marill with two tails it holds like clubs? Okay, that was unexpected. When Azumarill shows up in the Spaceworld 1999 demo, it's missing the tail-clubs, but is still a golden Marill.

Beta Quagsire is a lot more finalized, just pink. Beta Skiploom is more or less finalized, but its colour palette is different and bright yellow. Beta Jumpluff is... a lot more in common with Hoppip and Skiploom, having the same four-limbed blob body with ears and a single flower on top. I am glad they changed Jumpluff into having a more unique pom-pom arms in the finale for sure, it's a lot more distinctive.

Good lord, though. BETA GLIGAR! H.R. Gligar! It's basically a facehugger, only less obviously a vagina in its middle. As much as I do like xenomorphs and the alien franchise, it's a great move that they deviated away from this into, well, the far, far more likable and unique scorpionfly monster that we got. 

Beta Mantine here, coming up prior to the 1999 design, is even more explicitly a fighter jet, swapping out the manta ray tail for something resembling jet thrusters and he's grinning as he's napalming the enemy. Okay, sure. If we were going to get jet bomber Mantine I really would've preferred the Spaceworld '99 version. 

Somewhere between that crazy heart-on-head Blissey on the '97 demo and the finalized design, Beta Blissey was a long, orange, tall egg-lady with an apron and... uh... um... okay, that's the egg in the center as usual, but what are those weird orange cheeto-like things coming out of her sides? Yeeeah. Okay. This one is creepy. 

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And that was mostly it for Generation II Betas. I had originally sort of came back to this article back in July 2019 to sneakily touch things up and rearrange stuff a bit, but then I ended up doing a bit more of an extensive rewrite. It's around this time that a bunch of Generation I 'beta' Pokemon showed up as well.