Vileplume and Aerodactyl

Hey guys. Everytime I play Pokemon and I hear Vileplume, I think of Aerodactyl. And everytime I hear Aerodactyl, I think of Vileplume. Now, is it just me, or does the sound of these two Pokemon sound a lot a like? If so, does this mean they have some kind of special relationship?

Yeah, I think that's just you.

Those aren't the only Pokemon that sound similar. Charizard/Rhyhorn, Machoke/Growlithe, Pidgeotto/Chansey and Poliwhirl/Wigglytuff have similar cries.
They don't have a special kinds of relationships though...

It's only Gen I Pokemon I've noticed this with, correct me if there are more?

There are more Pokemon that sound alike in Gen I. Caterpie and Goldeen. Poliwag, Jigglypuff and Ditto. Wartortle and Tauros. Eevee and the Gen I Eeveelutions. Metapod and Tentacruel. Some Pokemon have similar cries in Gen I because of the limited technology on hand to make those cries.

I suppose they do have a similar cry, but I can't see how they are related at all - they are very different.

Trainer_Altair said:

Those aren't the only Pokemon that sound similar. Charizard/Rhyhorn, Machoke/Growlithe, Pidgeotto/Chansey and Poliwhirl/Wigglytuff have similar cries.
They don't have a special kinds of relationships though...

It's only Gen I Pokemon I've noticed this with, correct me if there are more?

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PlatinumDude said:

There are more Pokemon that sound alike in Gen I. Caterpie and Goldeen. Poliwag, Jigglypuff and Ditto. Wartortle and Tauros. Eevee and the Gen I Eeveelutions. Metapod and Tentacruel. Some Pokemon have similar cries in Gen I because of the limited technology on hand to make those cries.

Click to expand...

I didn't know about this, I gotta check this out.

PlatinumDude said:

Some Pokemon have similar cries in Gen I because of the limited technology on hand to make those cries.

Click to expand...

So where did they get the technology to make the second generation cries, also initially released for the standard Gameboy? I think it was more the case that they were pressed for time and/or resources... although you do say 'on hand' so my apologies if this is what you meant anyway.

PlatinumDude said:

There are more Pokemon that sound alike in Gen I. Caterpie and Goldeen. Poliwag, Jigglypuff and Ditto. Wartortle and Tauros. Eevee and the Gen I Eeveelutions. Metapod and Tentacruel. Some Pokemon have similar cries in Gen I because of the limited technology on hand to make those cries.

Click to expand...

I agree with this smart cookie here, the main reason why most of the 1st Gen Pokemon cries are too same or similar-sounding as each other is mainly due to the limited sound technology back in those days. In later generations you'll notice that the sound technology and the cries of the later gen Pokemon are way more advanced and different. Such as Starly sounding like chirping birds or Kricketot sounding like a xylophone.

It's because of limited cartridge space so most cries are just variations of an existing bank. Takes much less space to code a sound distortion than add a completely new sound.

PlatinumDude said:

Some Pokemon have similar cries in Gen I because of the limited technology on hand to make those cries.

Click to expand...

It's the technology to "produce", and not to "make", that was lacking. Gameboy Phat's audio features were very limited. Which, iirc, was only of 4-bit quality.

They had created "base cries", from which all the cries would originate from. According to Bulbapedia, there were only 37 base cries for Gen I, and 67 (+30) for Gen II. Again, these base cries were only tweaked and modified to create a total of 151/252 "different" pokemon cries. This explains why some Gen I and Gen II cries sound very similar.

With the release of GBA and better consoles (8-bit sound tech+), the limitation has been lifted to much better heights.

Charizard and Rhyhorn's cries are almost identical (or even identical?) as well as Poliwag and Ditto's, so yeah... but I don't think Vileplume and Aerodactyl sound anything alike, personally. :O Similar, maybe, but not really enough to mistake one for the other, haha.

Cerberus87 said:

It's because of limited cartridge space so most cries are just variations of an existing bank. Takes much less space to code a sound distortion than add a completely new sound.

Click to expand...

If that's true, how did they fit everything into Gold and Silver? Unless they used a newer version of the Gameboy cartridge, there should be a lot of effectively free space on RBY carts.

There were only a certain amount of cries they had back then (I want to say around 10, but don't quote me on that) and each cry for gen I Pokemon is basically a repeat. Some are sped up, slowed down, and have pitches changed so that they sound different. But yeah. That answers that.

That video was quite interesting. I've never noticed that many Generation 1 Pokemon had many similar cries.