The leaked Spaceworld Pokemon Gold demo that has redefined Gold and Silver
It’s not everyday that everything you know about your fandom as a child gets legitimately retconned. The data mine from the Spaceworld demo of the original Pokemon Gold revealed so much cut material that was far into development that...it’s almost a distinct Pokedex. A missing piece that somehow transports me to the news cycle before GS when I was twelve, making me question whether the release really happened, or whether I’ve really played the whole game that it was supposed to be. This is the Dead Sea Scrolls of Pokemon fandom lore.
To celebrate, I’m going to do what I did when I was twelve - stare at the sprites and contemplate them. Ahh, sprites.
15+ Cut Evolutions
I just imagine hatching litters of baby Meowsy kittens today and I ask, why cut the baby form of Meowth? Or the cute baby form of Tangela, Tangel? Is Twinz, the ghostly twin spirit pre-evolution of Girafarig somehow not interesting enough to keep? It only explains the entire nature of Girafarig’s species! Also, remember Farfetch’d? Well, you might if it got that evolution. And I swear I already knew Ditto’s screaming metallic evolution, Animon, but then again I’ve always thought GameFreak telepathically feeds on the dreams of its fans and then uses them to create Pokemon.
Lost Across Time
We’ve known multiple cases of GameFreak cutting Pokemon and then adding them later, but we didn’t know how often this happens. Tangrowth, Leafeon, Lickylicky, and Mime Jr. are all here, albeit with varying designs and different names. I like the designs for Gelanla and Likk a lot more than Tangrowth and Lickylicky - why didn’t they keep that mouth poking out of the vines? Lickylicky looks a lot better with whiskers! (And somewhat like Whiscash...) Also, Leafoen once had Celebi’s role!
The last two are debatable, I guess, but I see Togedemaru and Flabebe. Only, this electric chinchilla-shaped tiger cub, Tigrette has a round tiger evolution, Electiger.
Suspiciously Similar
Here are some other beta Pokemon that aren’t quite as obvious, but still oddly familiar. The seal water starter is reminiscent of Oshawatt or Popplio’s line, while the anchor shark, Anchorage seems like a common ancestor between Sharpedo and Dhelmise. We’ve known that they mix and divide designs when coming up with Pokemon since that picture of early Latias/Blaziken.
The black bell cats, Rinring and Belboyant are distinct enough to be their own line since they have a theme of bells. But as dark cats with a ring motif, they’re in the vicinity of almost every feline evolutionary line that comes after them. Delcatty, Glameow, Liepard, and Espurr all have similar markings and half-ring motifs. I’d still like to see these black belled cats true to their original theme in a future generation!
Created With a Different Theme in Mind
Apparently we don’t know Umbreon and Bellossom as well as we thought we did, because they were both designed as poison types! Umbreon’s well-known yellow or blue lunar rings actually serve as a poison warning. Bellossom’s origin also explains why her colors were changed between Generation 2 and 3 - without the poison type, it no longer made sense to color her purple, so they changed the petal colors to something more sunny.
The presence of a Poison Stone for Bellossom, Umbreon, and the earlier Weepingbell evolution Belmut might indicate that the poison type was going to be major, until many of them were reclassified as dark types. Also, Espeon evolves with a “Heart Stone” and Sunflora is Grass/Psychic! That would have been helpful.
This isn’t scratching the surface of the demo really, and there are more unreleased Pokemon as well as beta versions of familiar ones to see. The demo’s map of Johto is much bigger than the final region, spanning all of Japan, so with all that content cut, the game was clearly downsized mid production. This is probably what Pokemon Gold looked like before Satoru Iwata had to reprogram it to fit the cartridge.
Hope you enjoyed this massive post! Hey, I’m really happy about this. Not only is there plenty to talk about with the Let’s Go announcement and the 2019 game, but this is leak is very special to me. And I think any Pokemon fan from that era feels the same.