Thoughts on the original 39 missing Pokemon

As most of you know, Zog over at Smogon confirmed that there were indeed 190 Pokemon originally. But some were cut. The question is, which ones? I don't think Ho-oh is one of them, as I don't think the translation on there is wrong. I also don't think that the link on Bulbapedia is necessarily true. Just because they fill the index numbers with Missingno. for gen. 2 does not mean they are all the missing ones. (Though Gen. 1 internal IDs are stored this way). The reason they filled in the missing numbers with gen 2 Pokemon is so that they didn't have to use 2 bytes for internal IDs; #FF+#1 would be #100, a 2 byte integer and would waste space so they filled the Missingno. spots. Some of the missing 39 may have went on the gen 2/3, onward, while some may have never been released/changed in progress.

We may never know until someone asks Miyamoto himself. But, I do see some key clues, from a designer's point of view. In G/S/C and their gen IV remakes, we see some fixed, exclusive Pokemon in Kanto, such as: Swinub, Slugma, Houndour, Murkrow, Sneasel and Larvitar. Some more, too. But these are always in Kanto in all remakes of Kanto.

Thoughts? What do you all think may be the missing 39 from some other clues?

Aduel6 said:

I don't think Ho-oh is one of them, as I don't think the translation on there is wrong.

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I agree. The fact that it showed up in the first episode of the anime is not evidence that it was among the ones that were left out of the first games. By the time the anime started being developed, GF was already working on G/S.

LusoTrainer said:

I agree. The fact that it showed up in the first episode of the anime is not evidence that it was among the ones that were left out of the first games. By the time the anime started being developed, GF was already working on G/S.

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Indeed. The same can be said for Marill and Togepi.

The thing is, we won't know until someone asks Miyamoto. Hopefully, someone who sees him at a convention or somehow is able to reach him may ask for all fans worldwide to know. He seems willing (and he remembered) from that past conversation to share but didn't due to time restraint.

Somehow, from the beta designs we do have, we can deduce that some of those 39 may have been scrapped as even the gen 1 designs didn't all make it in (as well as some gen 2, like that possible normal type that looks like a Hitmontop). It's possible that only a handful of those 39 made it into gen 2. The reason I chose the ones I did is because they always appear in all the remakes of Kanto and some are unique to that region (albeit being gen 2 mon). I don't know why but even a pokemon like Houndour which always appears in Kanto and Slugma may have been gen 1 originally. Don't mind Houndour being Dark type; Magnemite became Steel in gen 2 so Houndour may have very well been solely fire at one point (if I'm right on this assumption).

I think that since the egg was planned to be introduced, Pokémon like Elekid were probably designed for Generation I, but again, it's all speculation.