Cut Pokémon

This is a sub-page of Development:Pokémon Gold and Silver/Pokémon Data.

The information in this article is pulled from the following files in the JP and KR sources:

Pending 03 (Yanma Evolution)#

A planned evolution for Yanma that was never really developed beyond the initial concept. The earliest instance of this Pokémon uses obvious placeholder stats, and by July the only thing that had changed were its typing and egg group, both of which it shared with Yanma anyway. The only other notable data is the level at which Yanma evolved - Level 10, the lowest evolution level of any newly-introduced Pokémon (besides baby Pokémon, which were later changed to either high friendship or Level 30 later on in development).

By August 14, it was already in the process of being removed: Yanma's evolution condition was removed, it was reverted back to a Normal type, and its catch rate and base experience yield were both dummied out. It managed to hang around through to the Spaceworld 1999 demo before the Pokémon order was reorganized, though by that point an early version of Lanturn's sprite was already assigned to its slot. Yanma would have to wait until Generation IV to finally get an evolution, Yanmega.

It has a dummy moveset of Tackle and nothing else. It didn't even get any TMs assigned to it...

...but for some reason, it did get five egg moves! With the inclusion of these egg moves, plus moves for other fully-evolved Pokémon like Tsubomitto, Madaamu, and Purakkusu, it's likely that whoever was assigning egg moves to Pokemon didn't entirely know what they were doing. What's even stranger is that these moves are different from Yanma's egg moves. Someone caught onto this set pretty quick, because it was deleted by August 22.

Tsubomitto#

Tsubomitto would have been a counterpart to Bellossom: an alternate evolution triggered by using a Poison Stone (later a Sun Stone) instead of a Leaf Stone on a second-stage Grass/Poison Pokémon. While Tsubomitto's stat distribution was originally more distinct from Victreebel, its final stats are almost identical but for taking 15 points from Special Attack and putting them into Attack. A shiny version was made prior to the Spaceworld 1999 demo, which would later be inherited by Lanturn.

If the March 1999 moveset looks familiar, it's because it's almost identical to Victreebel's learnset in Generation I, except the extra Level 1 Sleep Powder has been removed. The July moveset is actually a copy of Weepinbell's at the time, only with Slam replaced by Solar Beam and Sweet Scent replaced by...Lovely Kiss, Jynx's signature move! That's an unsettling mental image. Its last known moveset deletes most of its level-up moves but keeps Growth, Razor Leaf, and Lovely Kiss as Level 1 moves. Nevertheless, Bellsprout would get Lovely Kiss through a distribution event, far later into the generation, in 2002.

Tsubomitto's TM pool is largely the same as Victreebel's at the time, just with Headbutt added and being able to learn Fury Cutter instead of Nightmare.

Of the egg moves listed here, Take Down can already be learned by transferring Bellsprout from a Gen I game, Growth is learned by Bellsprout naturally, and Confuse Ray isn't learned by any Pokémon in the Grass egg group, leaving it inaccessible.

Madaamu#

Madaamu would have been a much-needed evolution for Farfetch'd, who ended up waiting another 20 years for the privilege. Compared to Farfetch'd, it has 5 more base Special Attack, 10 more base Speed and Special Defense, 20 more base HP and Defense, and 40 more base Attack. Not a spectacular evolution, but it's better than what it was before. A shiny version was made prior to the Spaceworld 1999 demo, which ended up getting inherited by Wooper.

Like Golbat and its friendship-based evolution Crobat, Farfetch'd and Madaamu have identical learnsets, and the changes seen here are true for both Pokémon. It's notable that in November 1997, Farfetch'd had a slightly different learnset, including Wing Attack and Fury Cutter, the former of which would not be seen even as an Egg Move in the final game.

Compared to Farfetch'd at the same point in development, Madaamu gains compatibility with Zap Cannon, Hyper Beam, and Thunder, but strangely loses compatibility with Curse, Psych Up, Iron Tail, Double Team, and Cut. It's not clear whether this was deliberate, or if the developers updated Farfetch'd's TM pool at some point and just forgot to update Madaamu's.

Madaamu can already learn Steel Wing through TM47, and Whirlwind can be transferred from a Gen I Farfetch'd. "Horn Drill" is supposed to be Drill Peck; the same error can be found in an early egg move pool for Murkrow.

Norowara#

Norowara returns without its evolution Kyonpan and with an added Dark type, ending up as the only single-stage Pokémon on this list page to get cut. Great attack stats, middling defense stats, and pathetic HP make it a good candidate for a glass cannon setup, but the truly terrible 10 base Speed does that whole idea in. At least its Ghost/Dark typing would leave it with no elemental weaknesses. Unlike every other Pokémon in the July 17 file, Norowara was not assigned any egg groups, a pretty good sign that it was already on its way out.

While the June 13 sprite bank uses the front sprite from the Spaceworld 1997 demo, the back sprite seems to be from a different design: it wears a headband, seems to be wielding a nail in its hand, and has an extra nail slung across its back.

Misdreavus took its slot by August 14, initially keeping Norowara's Ghost/Dark typing before becoming pure Ghost.

With respect to the SpaceWorld 1997 demo, considering the Level 1 evolution condition and design traits, Norowara could have been an allegory to the act of pushing B to cancel evolution. In this case, pushing B drives the nail into it, which culminates into a final Curse at Level 100, when it can be driven in no further. However, it is also possible that the level-up condition, while the only Pokemon like it in the demo, was merely dummied out, intended to be figured out later. In the same demo, Kyonpan, its original intended evolution, had a very different learnset, learning moves like Stomp instead of Norowara's Ghost- and Psychic-type attacks. By the time it was ready to be cut, however, Norowara simply had Curse in its learnset and nothing else, clearly on the way out.

Norowara had a good mix of offensive TMs it could learn, as well as utility moves like Protect and Endure. Strangely, it could learn Iron Tail despite lacking a discernible tail in either of its designs.

Tsuinzu#

The original Tsuinzu in the SpaceWorld 1997 demo was interpreted as conjoined twin ghosts, seemingly pulling away from each other. However, it was not substantiated in any other way, having Girafarig's learnset.

Tsuinzu was much more refined come 1999: Instead of being conjoined twin ghosts, Tsuinzu is (are?) now two separate ghosts that are always moving in a clockwise spiral pattern. A shiny form was made before July 30, which can be restored through the skeleton draft of Wobbuffet from the SpaceWorld 1999 demo, still having Tsuinzu's old palettes.

Sometime after July 30, the initial twin ghost concept had been replaced by a younger version of Girafarig with a single horn and a mouthless tail. The new version of Tsuinzu was a Normal/Psychic type like Girafarig and, as a result of Girafarig's evolution being cut, has a higher evolution threshold. Both the front sprite of this design and its Pokédex entry (if any) are lost, having been replaced by early versions of Wobbuffet's sprite and Pokédex entry by Spaceworld 1999.

Initially, Tsuinzu merely had Girafarig's bare-bones learnset used in the gameplay of the SpaceWorld 1997 demo. This was later dummied out to just Tackle before the "baby Girafarig" design was given the same moveset as Girafarig, but at lower levels. Exciting!

The older twin ghost version does have a full set of TMs it can learn, though, with Psych Up being the only addition to the newer design's learnset.

The bestial version had a full set of egg moves, all of which were deleted by August 22.

Pending 05 (Girafarig Evolution)#

The concept of a Girafarig evolution postdates Tsuinzu, having been added sometime during the 1999 redevelopment. Unlike Yanma's planned evolution, this had a bit more work put into it: improved stats, which oddly enough are still lower than Girafarig's stats in the final game, and a Ghost/Normal typing, which it originally shared with Girafarig. Besides being assigned an egg group, that's where development stopped. It was replaced by an early version of Pineco by the end of July. A different Girafarig evolution, Farigiraf, was implemented over 23 years later in Generation IX.

The same placeholder move pool as the Yanma evolution.

Pending 06 (Shuckle Evolution)#

Yes, Shuckle originally had an evolution which also reused its early Rock/Ground typing. However, this was back when Shuckle wasn't the defensively-specced gimmick Pokémon it later turned into, so there's nothing that interesting aside from the fact that it once existed. As with the Yanma and Girafarig evolutions, it wasn't developed much past its earliest known data in April.

...and that includes the placeholder movepool. By the end of July, Dunsparce had taken over its slot.

Purakkusu#

Scizor's doomed counterpart Purakkusu went through a great deal of development before getting cut, including two Pokédex entries, two methods of evolution, and the addition of a Steel subtype. It was meant to form a trio with Scizor and Heracross: Each is a Bug-type Pokémon, each has the same BST (which were all nerfed from 540 to 500 at the same time), and they're all grouped together in the early National Pokédex.

It's not clear why it was cut; perhaps having two Bug/Steel Pokémon with similar stat distributions made Purakkusu seem redundant. Whatever the case, an early version of Forretress took over its slot by the Spaceworld 1999 demo, and though Forretress is also a Bug/Steel type, its role ended up being different enough from Scizor's to justify its existence. A shiny version was made prior to the Spaceworld 1999 demo, which ended up getting inherited by Forretress.

In the SpaceWorld 1997 demo, Purakkusu was the only Pokemon other than Pinsir to learn the move Cross Cutter, a 50 Base Power Bug-type move with a high critical hit rate. This was later replaced by Cross Chop, which it, unfortunately, did not receive in the final game. Its moveset was identical to Pinsir's, save for the levels moves are learned at being slightly higher. In later iterations, it remains identical, though it learns Slash instead of Submission. By July 21 its learnset underwent the same move shuffling as its unevolved form, and by mid-August, Harden had been replaced by Protect to further differentiate itself from Pinsir.

Compared to Pinsir at the same time in development, Purakkusu gained the ability to learn Rock Smash and Earthquake, but lost access to Hyper Beam for some reason.

Another set of egg moves for a fully-evolved Pokémon. Cross Chop would have been nice...if anyone else in the Bug group could pass it down. At least Pinsir could already learn Take Down in Generation I.

Note that Purakkusu doesn't learn a single Steel-type move in any of these sets. Poor thing got shafted.

Pending 10 (Piloswine Evolution)#

Print	Cry

With a unique footprint and cry, this "Pending" evolution made it furthest in development, and seems to have been the only one to have been worked on past July 18. Compared to Piloswine's stats at the time, this evolution would have 15 more base Special Attack, 20 more base Attack, 25 more base HP, and 30 more base Defense and Special Defense. Compared to Piloswine's eventual Generation IV evolution Mamoswine, its BST is 30 points lower. What seems to be its front sprite can be found in the CBB scratchpads for Slugma, displaying larger tusks with its mouth agape.

Like the rest of the Swinub line, this evolution was originally geared more towards being a tank. Had it survived into the final game with the same stat distributions as its other forms, its Attack and Speed stats would have increased, while its Defense and Special Defense stats would have dropped.

The Swinub line had a placeholder moveset that only contained Powder Snow through at least July 21. By the middle of August, Swinub and Piloswine had their final moves, though the levels were shuffled around a bit afterwards. The only difference between Piloswine's learnset and its evolution's is that it learns Mist four levels later and Blizzard eight levels later.

While initially skipped over in the original wave of TM assignments, Piloswine's evolution eventually got some TMs assigned by Spaceworld 1999, and they're identical to Piloswine's TM learnset at the time.