Prerelease:Pokémon Red and Blue

This page details prerelease information and/or media for Pokémon Red and Blue.

This article is a work in progress. ...Well, all the articles here are, in a way. But this one moreso, and the article may contain incomplete information and editor's notes.

To do: Prerelease screenshots, development information, concept art: http://www.glitterberri.com/pokemon-red-blue/ http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Pokémon_Red_and_Green_beta What appear to be genuine images of a few previously unseen cut Pokémon feature briefly in a special manga based on the life of Satoshi Tajiri, and can be seen here along with their Japanese names: https://www.serebii.net/news/2018/17-May-2018.shtml. These also give glimpses of other differences from the same point in development, such as Gastly evolving straight into Gengar. Some Pokémon which made it to the final game have different numbering, and some have differing names/spellings too.The new Pokémon designs seen here are detailed on this Bulbapedia page: https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/List_of_unused_Pok%C3%A9mon_and_character_designs - also present are prototype versions of the Weedle/Poliwag evolution lines and Dragonair, apparently originating from Game Freak's website circa 1997.

Development Timeline

1990

• Development officially begins on the games.

1995

• Dec. 21st - Original anticipated release date, before getting delayed for mostly-unknown reasons.

1996

• Feb. 27th - Pokémon Red and Green is released in Japan.
• Oct. 15th - Pokémon Blue is released in Japan, though only to subscribers of Corocoro Comic. In the same month, the comic runs a preview of the game which shows earlier sprite designs.

1998

• Sep. 28th - Pokémon Red and Blue is released in North America.
• Oct. 23rd - Pokémon Red and Blue is released in Australia.

1999

• Oct. 5th - Pokémon Red and Blue is released in Europe.
• Oct. 10th - Pokémon Red, Green and Blue are re-released in Japan, with some minor bug fixes.

Pokémon Red and Green

The 2018 manga Satoshi Tajiri: The Man Who Made Pokémon includes images of a number of sprites with noticeable differences to the final game.

Pokémon	Prerelease	Final	Notes
Venusaur			It is frowning instead of smiling. Its eyes are bigger. Its front right leg is on the ground. Its front left leg is further forward. Its teeth are bigger. Its back left leg is more visible. Its head has a number of spikes. The leaves are attached to the flower instead of its body. The center of the flower does not have spikes. The flower does not appear to have spots and the petals are not pointy. The plant trunk widens towards the bottom.
Nidoran♀			The spikes on its back are bigger. It has less spots. Its eye is bigger. Its left ear is lower down and doesn't have spikes. It doesn't have whiskers. The spikes on its head are further back. It doesn't have a visible nose.
Nidoqueen			Its right ear is larger. It has more visible claws on its right hand. It has a visible tooth on the left of its mouth. Most shading is darker including on the right of its mouth and on its left leg.
Nidoran♂			The pupil in its eye is bigger. There are no spikes on its ears. Its toes are bigger. It has less spots. The shading on its back horns is darker.
Clefairy			There is no curl on its head. Its eyes are bigger and darker. It has claws. It has no back spikes. Its mouth is closed. It has pointy ears without dark spots. Its toes are bigger. Its tail points down and doesn't curl. There is more shading towards the bottom.
Slowbro			It has a somewhat confused expression instead of a smile very similar to Slowpoke's sprite. Its right arm is not raised. The visible tail has lighter shading and the eye on its shell is further to the right.
Grimer			Its mouth is closed. Its arms are pointed forwards. Its hands are round. Its left eye is further down. Its right eye is more central. The shading is different throughout its full body.
Gengar			There is no visible mouth. The shading is darker. Its ears are smaller. It has larger spikes on its head. It has a bigger tail. It has no visible hands.
Voltorb			Its eyes are bigger. There is darker shading on the top of its head.
Exeggcute			The front two eggs have less shading. The middle-back egg has more of its right eye visible. The front-right egg has an extra crack at the top.
Exeggutor			The toes on its left foot are bigger and the ones on its right foot are less pointed. The eyes on its left head are bigger. The eye on its middle head is at a lower angle. The eye and mouth on its right head are in different places. The overall shading is lighter.
Lickitung			Its arms are not raised. It doesn't appear to have thumbs. Its stomach and legs do not have patterns on them. Its tail is shorter. Its tongue is more forked. Its feet are smaller.
Rhydon			The front horn is smaller and isn't a spiral. Its collar is missing suggesting that the striped pattern on its stomach would have been bigger. Shading is lighter especially around the bottom.
Kangaskhan			The shading on its head is darker while its stomach is lighter.

There is also a backsprite of Nidoking, suggesting that backsprites would have shown the full body instead of just the top part. It is in a similar pose to its final front sprite. Full body backsprites for all Pokémon would not be implemented until Black and White in 2010.

Prerelease	Final back	Final front
100px	File:Pokemon RG Nidoking back sprite.png

Pokémon Blue

A preview for the Japanese Pokémon Blue was featured in the November 1996 edition of CoroCoro Comic (published in October). Page 22 of the comic shows a few sprites which differ from the final game.

Pokémon	Prerelease	Final
Raticate
Kadabra
Rhydon
Ditto
Porygon
Dragonair
Mewtwo

English Localization

"The (TRAINER TYPE) wants to fight!"

Prerelease	Final
File:PKMN RB U Brock Beta.png

A prototype screenshot of the trainer fight with Brock is present in the official manual, on Pages 7 and 25. The dialogue has a "The" at the start of the text. Another prerelease screenshot had the player encountering Misty, with the text "The MISTY wants to fight."

"(POKéMON) CUT down a bush!"

Prerelease	Final
File:PKMN RB U Cut Beta.png

In a screenshot on Page 31 of the official player's guide for Pokémon Red and Blue, "(POKéMON) CUT down a bush!" is used instead of the usual message "(POKéMON) hacked away with CUT!" when using Cut on a bush. This was changed because Cut can also be used to chop down tall grass, and the same text string is used for both purposes.