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What if there was a Generation before Kanto?

Rune Knight

Well-Known Member
I have been wanting to make this thread for a while.

Once again, I apologize if this is the wrong section for this, feel free to move it if so or delete entirely if needed. Nonetheless, I hope it is not a problem.

Most of you are probably scratching your heads right now. "How would there be a generation before Kanto, that makes like no sense, are you high out of your mind?" is what you may be asking.

Well, to further clarify what I mean by this I'll have to refine on the fact that this will not be adding anything to the original games, practically the contrary, it'll be substracting. We'll be keeping assets that make sense and could have existed prior to the first generation.

Just to give it a name, I'll be referring to it as "Generation 0"; and here is how I would personally propose it.

Hardware
  • Unlike its successors, the original release would only consist of one version simply titled as "Pocket Monsters" in Japan and "Pokémon" internationally. It would have come out in 1992, about three to four years prior to the original dates of Red and Green.
  • They would be released on the Gameboy as at the time it had been out since 1989.

Graphics
  • The graphics would consist of simple dark and light colors and less detail than the gen one games. Here's a quick visual comparison:

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  • The pokémon would look closer to their animal counterparts.

Pokémon
  • Here is the big one. Only 50 of the original 151 pokémon would be native to Generation 0's region.
  • Pokémon would only have maximum of two evolution stages, not three.
  • Generation 0 would also only feature 10 of the 15 original types, they would consist of: Bug, Dragon, Electric, Fire, Poison, Bird (Flying), Plant (Grass), Ground, Normal, and Water.
  • Pokémon that appear and have one of the missing types would simply have the type removed. Oh, and there would be no dual types either, pokémon would only be of one type.
  • There would be no evolution stones or evolution stone evolutions either.

Here is the list of pokémon that would make be in the game.

  1. Rattata - Normal Type.
  2. Ratticate - Normal Type.
  3. Spearow - Bird (Flying) Type.
  4. Fearow - Bird (Flying) Type.
  5. Ekans - Poison Type.
  6. Arbok - Poison Type.
  7. Clefairy - Normal Type.
  8. Jigglypuff - Normal Type.
  9. Zubat - Poison Type.
  10. Golbat - Poison Type.
  11. Oddish - Plant (Grass Type).
  12. Gloom - Plant (Grass Type).
  13. Paras - Bug Type.
  14. Parasect - Bug Type.
  15. Venonat - Bug Type.
  16. Venomoth - Bug Type.
  17. Meowth - Normal Type.
  18. Persian - Normal Type.
  19. Poliwag - Water Type.
  20. Poliwhirl - Water Type.
  21. Bellsprout - Plant (Grass) Type.
  22. Wheepinbell - Plant (Grass) Type.
  23. Ponyta - Fire Type.
  24. Rapidash - Fire Type.
  25. Magnemite - Electric Type.
  26. Magneton - Electric Type.
  27. Farfetch'd - Bird Type.
  28. Doduo - Bird (Flying) Type.
  29. Dodrio - Bird (Flying) Type.
  30. Seel - Water Type.
  31. Dewgong - Water Type.
  32. Grimer - Poison Type.
  33. Muk - Poison Type.
  34. Krabby - Water Type.
  35. Kingler - Water Type.
  36. Cubone - Ground Type.
  37. Marrowak - Ground Type.
  38. Rhyhorn - Ground Type.
  39. Rhydon - Ground Type.
  40. Goldeen - Water Type.
  41. Seaking - Water Type.
  42. Electabuzz - Electric Type.
  43. Magmar - Fire Type.
  44. Pinsir - Bug Type.
  45. Tauros - Normal Type.
  46. Porygon - Normal Type.
  47. Snorlax - Normal Type.
  48. Aerodactyl - Bird Type.
  49. Dratini - Dragon Type.
  50. Dragonair - Dragon Type.
  • The player's starter choices would consist of Bellsprout, Ponyta and Poliwag.
  • In my opinion, Ponyta as the fire starter would work as a nice homage to the fire horse zodiac animal.
  • Spearow and Fearow would act as the region's early bird Pokémon.
  • Dratini and Dragonair would be considered Legendary Pokémon and the rarest pokémon in the game.
Battle Mechanics
  • Battle mechanics would remain similar.
  • The attackdex would cut out all Fighting, Ghost, Ice, Psychic and Rock moves. Some moves like Rest could remain and instead be considered normal types.
  • Type Advantages/Weaknesses/Resistances would remain the same.
  • Now here is the big one: players would only be able to carry 3 pokémon in their party due to the heavily reduced pokédex. Perhaps this one could be up for debate.
  • Another big one, the level cap would be 50.
Overworld Mechanics
  • No HMs: due to I guess hardware limitations at the time forcing the game to have a smaller scale.
  • Since there is no surf, aquatic pokémon could be encountered through fishing.
  • The starters could be encountered in the wild, although they'd be a lot rarer.
Player Mechanics
  • Battling and trading with other players would not have existed at the time, which is why all pokémon including the starters would be catchable in the wild. Sucks but we have to make it somewhat realistic. Perhaps the technology would have been possible at the time, but I want to try to differ a little from gen 1.
  • Nintendo Power would've been the source to information surrounding the game. (No Internet at the time).
Story
  • The game would be purely battle based. The player's main adversary would be the player's rival.
  • Similar structure: get all eight gym badges, only difference is that there wouldn't be an elite four.
  • After the eight badge the player simply has to battle their Rival one last time in a 3v3 battle to beat the game.
Gyms
  • Each gym leader would battle using only one but very strong pokémon. Meanwhile, the player would have the liberty to use all three in their party.
  1. Normal - Ratticate (Lv 15)
  2. Bird - Fearow (Lv 20)
  3. Bug - Pinsir (Lv 24)
  4. Grass - Gloom (Lv 27)
  5. Fire - Magmar (Lv 30)
  6. Water - Dewgong (Lv 33)
  7. Electricity - Electabuzz (Lv 36)
  8. Poison - Muk (Lv 38)
Rival
  • As usual, the Rival would choose the starter with the type advantage to the player's own.
Final Team for Final Battle:
  1. Dodrio (Lv 40)
  2. Rhydon (Lv 42)
  3. Weepinbell / Rapidash / Poliwhirl (Lv 43)

That's how I personally feel that a Pokémon game prior to Generation 1 would have went down. Feel free to share feelings, thoughts and opinions and add your own ideas.
 
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Italianbaptist

Informed Casual
This is actually a really cool idea to speculate on. A lot of people have made fan ideas related to "Gen 0" with Oak and Agatha as the protagonists, but your idea fleshes it out even more. I especially like Ponyta as the Fire Starter :)

Curious if you'd include any references to Mew to touch on that aspect of Gen 1.
 

Rune Knight

Well-Known Member
This is actually a really cool idea to speculate on. A lot of people have made fan ideas related to "Gen 0" with Oak and Agatha as the protagonists, but your idea fleshes it out even more. I especially like Ponyta as the Fire Starter :)

Curious if you'd include any references to Mew to touch on that aspect of Gen 1.

Thank you!

I was also thinking that Generation Zero could act as prequel to the Gen 1 Games, making it along with Gen 2 into a nice trilogy.

We could see younger versions of Oak, Agatha, Giovanni during his trainer / early mafia days. A little version of Lance striving to becoming the Champion.

Perhaps the Protagonist could be Red / Leaf's Father since he does get mentioned in the games. Since there was no gender choices in Gen 1, realistically there wouldn't be one for Generation Zero.

As for Mew, the journal within the Pokemon Mansion does mention that it was discovered in South America. Perhaps the region could be set there and we could see hints of it. We could see a younger Dr. Fuji uncover its DNA. Mew itself wouldn't appear in the games but the fact that it exists would indicate a much larger and broader Pokemon World.
 

pacman000

On a quest to be the best...
The games' concept was based on trading; trading would've been there. I think the games would've still had 4-color graphics, but they'd be less-refined. I'd cut out evolution, perhaps combine the league & Team Rocket into a single evil organization. (Most of this is based on details from the games' early prototypes.)

Maybe use 80 Pokémon instead of 50, to keep things in line with Shudo's novelizations; if I remember right that was one of the numbers he mentioned.
 
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Rune Knight

Well-Known Member
The games' concept was based on trading; trading would've been there. I think the games would've still had 4-color graphics, but they'd be less-refined. I'd cut out evolution, perhaps combine the league & Team Rocket into a single evil organization. (Most of this is based on details from the games' early prototypes.)

Maybe use 80 Pokémon instead of 50, to keep things in like with Shudo's novelizations; if I remember right that was one of the numbers he mentioned.

If trading existed would local battles also exist?

Also, didn't early gameboy games lack color? I might be wrong, but I think that the original Link's Awakening was in black and white.

I think the TR idea would work well. Perhaps we could remove the Rival and just have the player face off against the Champion who's also the leader of the organization at the end.

I was also thinking that since it would act as a prequel to Gen 1, Giovanni would be present as not the organization's leader, but as one of its members.

Perhaps back then, TR was a lot darker, and Giovanni replacing the original head made it a lesser evil.

This was 1992, and as I recall games were a lot darker back then and developers weren't as limited in terms of censorship and boundaries. A good example in my opinion is Earthbound, perhaps Pokemon could be similar.

We could hear words like "death" and "kill" get thrown around a lot more.

I'll check out Shudo's novelizations. I know that Rhydon is allegedly the first Pokemon that was supposedly conceptualized which is why I included it.
 

pacman000

On a quest to be the best...
4 colors; black, white, & two shades of grey.

Not sure about local battles.

Nintendo of America might've required them to remove references to ghosts & spirits; they had fairly strict censorship polices in the NES days. Not sure if those lasted till the early 90's or not.
 

Rune Knight

Well-Known Member
4 colors; black, white, & two shades of grey.

Not sure about local battles.

Nintendo of America might've required them to remove references to ghosts & spirits; they had fairly strict censorship polices in the NES days. Not sure if those lasted till the early 90's or not.

Ohh okay I see what you mean.

Really? I figured that they'd be much more lenient then.
 

Leonhart

Imagineer
I imagine that the graphics would've been dreadful, but I think it would've been interesting to see a primitive version of the franchise with ideas more closely resembling the beta R/G sketches that were posted online a few years ago showing various planned Pokemon like that deer-like creature.
 

Rune Knight

Well-Known Member
I imagine that the graphics would've been dreadful, but I think it would've been interesting to see a primitive version of the franchise with ideas more closely resembling the beta R/G sketches that were posted online a few years ago showing various planned Pokemon like that deer-like creature.

They are interesting. In this case, we'd be keeping the ones that were originally conceptualized for Gen 1 since it wouldn't make sense to add something and then cut it out later.

The pokemon would look a lot closer to their animal counterparts. Like Meowth's sprite would resemble that of a Kitten standing on four. Ratticate would look more like an actual rat.
 
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