2nd Gen Pokémon Gold/Silver Spaceworld 1997 Demo info

[Team Rocket's Raichu]

Nintendo has probably cataloged everything they've ever done for legal purposes, most companies do.

I'm going to shoot a few emails out Nintendo's way just to see what I can fish up.

I doubt that they would respond.

I think that if they do release it, they would release it with other demos in one cartridge, and sell it for about $30 to $50.

 

[Virtual Chatot]

I doubt that they would respond.

I think that if they do release it, they would release it with other demos in one cartridge, and sell it for about $30 to $50.

I've just sent them the email, hopefully I can get some kind of response out of them.

Update February 16, 2010

Hello,



Thanks for writing! I'm afraid that we're unable to confirm the existence of any demos of Pokemon games. Much of our development is actually done in Japan, so it's possible that many demo versions may have existed of games in development, but there's no way for us to confirm any of these. Most of our resources are focused on technical support for the Wii and Nintendo DS systems, so we have very little information available on game development.





Sincerely,


Kurt Wagner

Nintendo of America Inc.

I'm going to shoot a few emails to friends of mine who speak Japanese to see if they could send a few emails Nintendo Japan's way; maybe we can stab something.

 

[Ivysaur]

Well, that was very interesting. I'm really interested on the beta stages of HGSS, specially seeing all the beta stuff that was left on the game, and I had found that website but never translated it XD

Thank you.

 

[celebi23]

Got some updates (too much to post in a reply so, I'm only posting the links):

* Added some information from Yamauchi's Spaceworld Keynote
*Added some pieces of Sugimori artwork to the Combined Demo Summary
*Put together an analysis of a video clip from Spaceworld 1997
(Thanks to Miretank from the Unseen 64 Forum)
*Confirmed the Gold title screen from the Spaceworld 1997 Demo

 

[Virtual Chatot]

I absolutely love you Celebi :D

 

[Usagi-Chan~]

I want the demos. One of the pictures of Silver on your site makes him look kawaii, almost innocent~

 

[Yukima]

I remember seeing posts like this on the Serebii forums (not a member, but a constant lurker!) and thought they were very interesting. Like a few others who posted, I think it'd be spectacular if anyone ever found a working demo version from that event - the summary said the games were 80% complete at the time of the event, correct? I wonder how much was included...

I think that if they do release it, they would release it with other demos in one cartridge, and sell it for about $30 to $50.

I wish! They could put in the Spaceworld demo, and then throw in a "complete" beta of G/S with all of the hidden beta towns and maps and music, etc.

*sigh* If only they'd make a cartridge with ALL of the different beta versions of every Pokemon game...

 

[encas]

Woah, this is fascinating! I recall learning about these early, drastically different versions of Gold and Silver somewhere else, but they weren't nearly as indepth.

Some particular personal points of interest:

It's odd and interesting how you were named after the anime character in the beginning.
I'm glad they changed the starters; the fire starter looks too amorphous and like a fan-made Pikachu edit, and the water one looks like a generic splice of Lapras and Dewgong. On a similar note, the early Hitmontop design looks a lot like Togepi for some reason.

 

[celebi23]

I also added the scans from the July 1997 issue of Computer & Videogames Magazine

 

[Redstar]

The betas will turn up at some point. They always do. A beta cart for Super Mario Bros. 2 turned up nearly 20 years later.

 

[Virtual Chatot]

I also added the scans from the July 1997 issue of Computer & Videogames Magazine

I'm confused at what some of the points the magazine was making.

(2) This time Professor Orchid (I'm assuming that's Oak?) has asked you to travel over the whole country in search of all new PMs (Pocket Monsters) so that you can collect them for him - not just the town.
The last part is confusing, "so that you can collect them for him - not just town." What does that even mean?
(8) You now have a new mode of transport. In the RGB versions you used a bicycle, but in the GS versions you have a rather trendy Skateboard!
Ah, now I remember that a Skateboard was originally programmed in, but then they decided against it.

This picture really intrigued me.

The symbols on the walls make me think that maybe it had something to do with the Unown?

 

[Yukima]

(2) This time Professor Orchid (I'm assuming that's Oak?) has asked you to travel over the whole country in search of all new PMs (Pocket Monsters) so that you can collect them for him - not just the town.
The last part is confusing, "so that you can collect them for him - not just town." What does that even mean?

From what I've noticed, Japanese sentence structure can sometimes be backwards. So rearranging the sentence will probably give you something like, "Oak has asked you to travel over the whole country, not just around the town, in search of all-new Pokemon"

Maybe? :nervous:

 

[Virtual Chatot]

From what I've noticed, Japanese sentence structure can sometimes be backwards. So rearranging the sentence will probably give you something like, "Oak has asked you to travel over the whole country, not just around the town, in search of all-new Pokemon"

Maybe? :nervous:

It could just be a translation thing, or the magazine didn't know anything about Pokemon at all.

 

[Redstar]

It's the second one: the magazine didn't know anything. They refer to Pokemon as "Pockemon", Charizard as "Lizardo", and Mew as "the evil Myuu". It's an amusing look into how one particular magazine viewed the franchise before it even came out.

 

[Virtual Chatot]

They refer to Pokemon as "Pockemon", Charizard as "Lizardo".

Lizard+Japanese word for Charizard? (Rizardon)

That's just plain dumb.

 

[RivalGator]

Oh wow! That is extremely interesting!

 

[Lord Varion]

Is this like .... what the were originally going to do
coz it looks by far cooler than the orginal versions of gold and silver

 

[Tudsworth]

It's the second one: the magazine didn't know anything. They refer to Pokemon as "Pockemon", Charizard as "Lizardo", and Mew as "the evil Myuu". It's an amusing look into how one particular magazine viewed the franchise before it even came out.

C&VG had one thing going for them - they wrote a LOT of articles about Japan-only games back in "the day". Just a shame most of them were incorrect. Bad romanisations, worse translations. The "pockemon" thing is somewhat understandable, because it's a contraction of "poketto monsuta" or "Pocket Monster". But, well, they were a major publication (one of the UK's longest-running games magazines at the time), so they shoulda done the research.

In other words, the sentences were poorly translated due to a lack of understanding. No contextual knowledge, combined with pretty poor Japanese translation skills. I propose that the edited version of point 2 be pointed out (excuse the bad pun), purely because it makes more sense than the C&VG translation.

Also, isn't "Rizaado" (Lizardo) Charmeleon's Romanised name?

 

[Nikorasu]

Honooguma looks amazing!

If only they released it on G/S. It proves how the pokemon always looked so much better back then.

 

[Redstar]

C&VG had one thing going for them - they wrote a LOT of articles about Japan-only games back in "the day". Just a shame most of them were incorrect. Bad romanisations, worse translations. The "pockemon" thing is somewhat understandable, because it's a contraction of "poketto monsuta" or "Pocket Monster". But, well, they were a major publication (one of the UK's longest-running games magazines at the time), so they shoulda done the research.

I was actually very surprised to see Gold and Silver covered so early... I came across those references when searching through scans for a project of my own. I'd recently begun talking to Celebi23 about the project, so I sent along the information since it benefits both of us.

C&VG seems very much like a casual sort of magazine... There's a lot of profanity and bad writing, but they did cover games that most other magazines didn't. The magazine has been a good resource for that exact reason.