Prerelease:Pokémon Crystal
This page details pre-release information and/or media for Pokémon Crystal.
Pokémon Crystal, compared to its predecessors, had a short and seemingly-discreet development period. Regardless, some promotional material of pre-release builds does exist.
Contents
Development Timeline
1999
- November 21 - Pokémon Gold and Silver are released in Japan. Development of Crystal begins some time after, as it was directly built off of those, most likely Gold.
- December 16 - The magazine Asahi Shimbun publishes an article regarding rumors of a Pokémon game with the tentative name "Pokémon X" that would allegedly be released in April 2000.[1]
2000
- February 8 - ABC News has an hour-long public chat session with some important figures related to the development of Pokémon, which would be retranscribed by IGN the next day.[2] One of the questions asked revolved around rumors of a new game nicknamed "Pokémon X" that was supposedly able to connect to cellphone systems. Tsunekazu Ishihara, president of Creatures Inc., responded that while no such thing as "Pokémon X" existed there was indeed a project in the works which made use of cellphone connectivity, which confirms that Crystal was already in its conceptual stage at this point.
- August 24-26 - Spaceworld 2000 takes place, and the event's official website announces Crystal and showcases some early game screenshots.[3]
- September 15 - The October issue of Corocoro Comic, which includes a section dedicated to Crystal, is released.[4]
- November 15 - The November issue of Corocoro Comic, containing more coverage of Crystal, is released.[5]
- December 14 - Pokémon Crystal is released in Japan.
2001
- July 30 - Pokémon Crystal is released in North America.
- September 30 - Pokémon Crystal is released in Australia.
- November 2 - Pokémon Crystal is released in Europe.
Game Freak Article
Shown in a now-deleted article on Game Freak's official website is this picture, taken from what appears to be some sort of design documents made during the development of Crystal. This offers a look at an earlier version of some of the game's elements.[6]
Kris
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As seen in those screenshots, the design of Kris, the female playable character, was completely different. The early version appears to have solid black hair, black shorts, black shoes, and pigtails that droop down more than the ones worn by Kris in the final game. She also seems to have a meeker pose, while the sprite itself is in the center of the screen instead of being aligned against the middle-right side. While hard to see, the name クリス ("Kris") is visible, implying that this is indeed the same character. Regarding the other three name options, サ卜コ ("Satoko") seems to be present in both screenshots, but the other two are too low quality to be properly identified.
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This shot of Kris in her bedroom shows us not only her early overworld sprite, but also her room, which is shown to have been decorated thanks to the Mystery Gift room decoration option introduced in Gold and Silver. Here we can see the Big Lapras Doll, Nintendo 64, TropicPlant, Clefairy Doll, and what appear to be the Magikarp Doll and Clefairy Poster.
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Kris fighting a wild Magikarp, giving us a look at her early battle sprite. Her pose appears to be directly based off of Gold's, whereas the final game went for a more unique one.
PokéCom Center
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An early design of the PokéCom Center, whose early layout bears strong similarities to the "PMC TR", an area seen in a piece of concept art from Red and Green. Most notably, two Pokémon News Machines are present, with no trace of the Trade Corner area. However, there appears to be a nurse besides the leftmost News Machine, so perhaps the Trade Corner was already conceptualized at this point, and simply lacked its unique machine design early on. There is also a second nurse near the wall in the middle of the room, though it's unknown if she was linked to anything, or if she was just a regular cut NPC.
The NPC types and their placement in themselves are also wildly different, as for example a Fisher NPC is in the "Pokémon Center area", and there is no old man blocking the door leading to the Administration Office. The door itself is also on the right instead of the left, which is coupled with a series of other layout differences, lack the aforementioned extra dividing wall, the lack of stairs leading to the Cable Club, or even the missing entrance mat.
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The Administration Office can also be seen here in the top-left corner of the original picture, which is extremely odd as it would logically be seen from the main lobby. Meanwhile, while this room and the main PokéCom Center lobby are on the same map in the final game, the former was moved much farther down, as to actually be surrounded by the "void". In terms of design differences, this screenshot reveals that the Office once looked much closer to the Game Freak office in the Celadon Condominiums. In the final game, the room was ultimately flipped horizontally, with potted plants added for decoration. An entrance mat was also added, as it is once again missing entirely here.
Early Logos
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Shown on the Pokémon Crystal page of the Spaceworld 2000 website[7] is this early logo which is more in line with the Gold and Silver logos, and features the word "仮称" ("kashō", literally "tentative title"). Strangely enough, the Pokémon Stadium 2 page shows what appears to be a later version of this early logo, which lacks the "tentative title" part, has a slimmer more purple font inside the crystal, and has a long crystal encasing the "Pocket Monsters" portion.[8]
Early Online Trade Room
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This screenshot, originally shown in the Pokémon Crystal page of the Spaceworld 2000 website, shows the player in an early iteration of the Japanese version's exclusive online trade room found on the second floor of every Pokémon Center. The design of the room is quite different: the railing is missing, the outer wall design is more jagged, and the floor is entirely blue and lacks the more elaborate patterns found in the Japanese version. The symbol on the floor is also red instead of blue, and is placed closer to the machine.
Said machine also has a few differences, with some bits having a green tint instead of a gray one, some having a yellow highlight not found in the final game, as well as the Poké Ball banner being blue instead of red. Moreover, the cellphone icon is wider, and is red instead of blue. The early cellphone graphics still exist in the final game, going unused.
Canceled English Online Compatibility
Both BXTE and BYTE (the latter having SRAM downgraded from 512 to 256 kb for cost-cutting reasons) were tentatively in development at some time, with the plan being to first develop BYTE into a stable and complete game, then deciding to only spending more effort on BXTE if plans and specifications for the North American GB Modem were ready (which they weren't).
References
- ↑ Asahi Shimbun article referring to "Pokémon X" - December 1999
- ↑ IGN's ABC News Pokémon chat transcript
- ↑ Spaceworld 2000's website section for Crystal
- ↑ CoroCoro October 1999 - September 1999
- ↑ CoroCoro December 1999 - November 1999
- ↑ Game Freak's article featuring Crystal development material
- ↑ Spaceworld 2000's website section for Crystal
- ↑ Spaceworld 2000's website section for Stadium 2
