The “Pokémon” series developed by Game Freak has always been one of Nintendo’s most representative brands. It has a history of more than 25 years, extending countless animations, card games, movies and peripherals. Commodities, and the “Pokémon Red/Green” version of the pioneering work of the entire series is a classic in the minds of many players. According to the newly revealed series of secrets, Game Freak actually originally wanted to make the first-generation “Pokémon” works have a large number of versions, rather than simply distinguishing them by color.
Just earlier this week, YouTube channel “Did You Know Gaming” released a video about the original Pokémon game, digging deep into early Japanese interviews with Game Freak’s development team when the game first launched, revealing that Many secrets about this classic have long been forgotten by players. One of the key points in the film is that Game Freak actually intended to have more than 65,000 different “versions” of “Pokémon” at the beginning, and each version will have a little and random difference, such as a forest. shape or the location of the Pokémon that appears. But after in-depth discussions with Nintendo President Shigeru Miyamoto, the development team finally decided to abandon the concept and simplify it into two color-coded versions.
The Game Freak team launched a “Pokémon Book” in Japan in 1996. In addition to in-depth introduction to players of 151 first-generation Pokémon and other information, it also included an 8-page development team. According to the content of the interview, according to the programmer Ota Kencheng, in the original plan, each player will receive a unique string of “trainer ID numbers” in the game, which will determine the number of trainers that will appear in the game. Pokémon set.
“We also considered that each set of games should automatically generate a string of ID numbers when it is first opened, and this string of numbers can determine the Pokémon that appears in the game.” Ota Kencheng said.
In another related book, Tomo Tajiri, the producer of the “Pokémon” series, also mentioned this plan.
“With the randomly generated game cassette IDs, the Pokémon that players can catch in the game will also vary by ID, unless the player has a way to exchange with 65,000 different players, then the player encounters another The chance of a player with the same ID is very small,” Tajiri said.
However, after they explained the concept to Shigeru Miyamoto, they eventually decided to revise the plan as well.
“I told Shigeru Miyamoto that we wanted to make every player understand that every set of cassettes they buy is going to be different, and he said that while the concept sounds really interesting, it’s hard to make it work,” Tajiri said. “He thinks that if players can’t see the difference at a glance, the concept won’t work, and it would be better if the game cover could be presented in different colors, etc.”
Even so, the Trainer ID system was actually retained in the game in the end, but was changed to determine the odds of a Pokémon’s appearance.