International Localization

This is a sub-page of Prerelease:Pokémon Red and Blue.

Early Blue Sprites#

Previews for the then-upcoming Pocket Monsters Blue were featured in the November and December 1996 editions of CoroCoro Comic, which were published in October and November respectively. Both editions' coverage show a selection of the game's updated Pokémon sprites, with a few of them differing from their final counterparts.^{1 2}

Proposed Redesigns#

Interviewer: What about problems with the Pokémon themselves? There's a commonly accepted theory in the game industry that cute characters aren't well received in America.

Ishihara: Yeah, the first time we showed off some Pokémon in the US, we were told they were "too cute". The staff in America submitted their ideas for replacement designs, but we just couldn't believe the kind of stuff they were proposing. They turned Pikachu into something like a tiger with huge breasts. It looked like a character from the musical Cats. When I asked "How is this supposed to be Pikachu??" they said "Well look, there's its tail right there."

Interviewer: Did it look like a girl from Comiket cosplaying as Pikachu? (laughs)

Ishihara: Yeah, exactly. Seriously, that was the kind of stuff being proposed. It was interesting for me, in the sense I could enjoy the cultural differences, but it certainly didn't make me want to compete in that kind of market. We decided that if Pokémon was going to fail due to the text problem, then we'd rather just keep the graphics the way they were. What if we HAD changed Pikachu? Things would be totally different now.³

Iwata: [...] A long time ago, when we were taking the "Pokémon" game overseas, I was still working at HAL Laboratory before I came to Nintendo. I was watching the process, so I felt that at the time too, that the first reaction to something that's not easily accepted by them is "I wonder how well this will sell."

[...] I still remember it very vividly, when they saw Pokémon and said, "Something this cute can't be called a 'monster'. Monsters should be muscular and more fearsome", and they sent me a picture of a muscular Pikachu. I remember thinking, "There's no way we can show this to the people who made Pokémon." I remember this like it was yesterday, even though about 10 years have passed since then.⁴

Iwata: When we were looking to expand Pokémon overseas, I can't forget what we were told. They said, "Something this cute can't be called a 'monster'". They said if you want success in the American market you need to go with a muscular redesign, such as the one they sent us.

The president of Nintendo at the time, Hiroshi Yamauchi, told me, "If there is no example [of a cute design like this] working in America, that's even more reason to give it a try. When it comes to entertainment, there is value to standing out from the rest. If something is unique and sees success, it has the potential to become really big. Go with the Japanese designs as is.⁵

Conflicting reports regarding a Pikachu redesign that Nintendo of America proposed for the US release of Red and Green. It appears more likely that Iwata's retelling is the correct one here. At the time, Tsunekazu Ishihara was afraid that work on the North American localization of Red and Green would only further delay the then in-development Gold and Silver.⁶ Satoru Iwata then offered to help with the process, and so it would appear Ishihara never actually saw this fabled redesign, only being told about it later. Ishihara was later informed there may have been a confusion with the character "胸", which means "chest", as in both breasts and pectoral muscles in general.

Moreover, it would make absolutely no sense for the prudish NOA to make a design more salacious, as seen with the updated sprites of the Beauty and female Swimmer from Gold and Silver. If anything, this Pikachu redesign looked less like something from Cats, and more like a hero from Thundercats (or any of the TMNT or He-Man flavored cartoons from the mid-to-late 80s).

Arakawa: From the start, everybody was treating the project like it would flop. To make matters worse, our designs for the Pokémon were also deemed unsuitable for a United States audience. They kept saying it was all way too cute. In America, cute doesn't fly. It had to be cool. The character design expert at NOA had a lot of things to say. Eventually I told him he didn't seem like much of an expert.

Narration: [The] plan everyone overseas seemed to agree on was that, if the base gameplay was to remain the same, why not change the Pokémon design to something more palatable for the West? [...]

Arakawa: Graffiti art was on the rise in the US, so NOA contracted some artists who specialized in that style and tasked them with creating mock-ups for what they had in mind. But the end result was sorely lacking. They didn’t have the creative touch needed for a project like Pokémon, the kind Mr Tajiri and Sugimori have. We decided that if we were going to do this, the only way to do it would be with the original designs.

Narration: Right around that time, the official anime had already started broadcasting in Japan, and Pokémon was starting to gain traction. At that point, the amount of work NOA would have too put into localization would have been enormous if they had gone with their original plan.⁷

According to NOA's founder Minoru Arakawa, it was first considered for the US market to receive a new set of promotional Pokémon artwork, redrawn in a graffiti/street art style which they thought would resonate with the youth of the time. A few of those designs do appear in "Pokémon Story", showing us "US-made Charizard sketches from NOA" as the caption puts it. In the end, no such redesign campaign took place, and the rest of the world got to enjoy Ken Sugimori's timeless watercolor artwork.

Gail Tilden: So, in January of 1998 I was asked if I would lead the team to bring Pokémon out of Japan to the rest of the world, other than China and Korea.

Interviewer: Another RPG, really?

Gail Tilden: Another RPG.

So prior to me getting involved that directly as, like, team lead, we had all seen the game. A black and white RPG on Game Boy with very Japanese characters. And then our ad agency said "Could we just change the art and it'll be like, gritty, and we'll make like, you know, graffiti on the walls?" and stuff like that. [...]

There was also a thought like, [about] the way that the game is formatted. "Could we make it that they're all baseball players in a baseball league, but not like a Pokémon league?" And as all this discussion and meetings were going on for a few months, Pokémon was heating up and heating up. Now there's TV shows. Now there's comic books. Now they get, you know, movies and more games and toys. And so finally, Mr. Arakawa said, "Forget it. We're just doing it." [...] And not only we're doing it, we're going to do it all. We're doing the whole thing. We want control of the whole thing.⁸

A March 2025 VGHF interview with Gail Tilden (then newly appointed "Vice President of Brand Management" at Nintendo of America) also talks about the proposed "street art" promotional campaign. There is also a mention of a plan to turn the trainers into "baseball players", a eyebrow-raising concept that was likely even shorter-lived, as a faithful translation was thankfully prefered.

Localized Pokémon Names#

Poster#

When brought over to the West, the names of basically all Pokémon were localized for English-speaking andiences. However, some promotional material shown before the release of Red and Blue reveals completely different names for most of the creatures we now all know and love. Namely, this poster from around 1998 reveals that not only was the roster named differently, but the names themselves were limited to seven characters. The Japanese games only have a five-character limit for Pokémon names, suggesting that by then the localization team had only been able to increase the character limit to seven. The final international versions of Red and Blue allow for a maximum of 10 characters per name.

The October 2024 Game Freak leaks would reveal localization glossaries, complete with earlier names for moves, characters, and even Pokémon.

Press Kit#

A set of Pokémon stickers was also sent out alongside 1998 Nintendo press kits, said stickers showing a more finalized nameset with the final 10-character limit. Many names have been finalized by this point, but there's still a few that aren't.

Localized Game Footage#

Localization Mockup#

The first-ever localized look western audiences would ever get of Pokémon would come at E3 1998 in the form of mock-up footage with placeholder English text superimposed atop Green gameplay.⁹

Watch out! You’ve
encountered a wild
Rattatak!

Wild [POKÉMON]
appeared!

Was shortened for the final game. In the final game, "Rattatak" was re-localized to simply "Rattata".

Prof. Oak: Now calm
down Satoshi.

You’ll also get your
chance to pick!

OAK: Be patient!
[RIVAL], you can
have one too!

Was compacted into one string for the final release. In the final game, "Prof. Oak" was shorted to simply "OAK".

In-Game Footage#

Actual early English localized builds of the games were seen in action in early-1999 US TV adverts.¹⁰¹¹¹²

Early	Final

The trademark symbol is missing, and the copyright info lists "© 1995.1996" instead of the final games' "© '95.'96.'98".

Early	Final

• "FIGHT" is written as "FGHT" due to a lack of space. In the final game the option window was expanded by an extra tile, letting the option be spelled out in its entirety.
• Rattata is shown here with its early name, "Rattatak".

Early	Final

• The type and PP window is formatted differently, as well as being one tile less wide.
• The move window is one tile wider than in the final game.
• Oddly enough, the ":L" tile is slightly lower in this particular clip, just like in the Japanese games, while its placement in the rest of the commercial matches the final English games. As such, it's possible this battle clip may come from an earlier/intermediate build.

Other miscellaneous changes are as follows:

• The pre-wild battle text is formatted as "A wild [POKÉMON] appeared!", while the final game went with the simpler "Wild [POKÉMON] appeared!"
• When using Growl, the message displayed is "Enemy [POKÉMON]'s ATTACK down!" instead of "Enemy [POKÉMON]'s ATTACK fell!"
• The Pokémon Center overworld sign still uses its tiles from the Japanese versions.
• Near the end, Kakuna is shown with its early name, "Kokoon".
• Near the end of the second advert, Pidgey is shown with its early name, "Pidge". Some more footage of the earlier title screen is also shown, revealing that in this build the "Red Version" subtitle used a blue palette instead of a red one.
• In the Target advert, the pre-trainer battle text is shown as "[TRAINER CLASS] sent [POKéMON] out!" instead of "[TRAINER CLASS] sent out [POKéMON]!".
• Moreover, when an opposing Pokémon faints, it is displayed as "The enemy [POKéMON] fainted!" The "The" was removed in the final builds, likely so this message could fit in a single text box.

Localized Game Manual#

Shown in the games' manual, officially dubbed the "Trainer's Guide", are some screenshots taken from a slightly earlier localization build, which can for example be seen with Gym Leaders, here instead referred to as "Pokémon Leaders".

Interestingly, there also exists on Page 23 a screenshot or two which not only use the old pre-battle message described below, but also refers to Pidgey in-game as "Pidge", its early English name.

Grammar Changes#

• On Page 14, we can see that withdrawing an item from your PC would bring up a message saying "What do you want to take?", a line which was changed to "What do you want to withdraw?" in the final games.
• Another small change can also be seen on Page 19 with the message which pops up when accessing the Pokémon storage section of the PC, the string stating "Accessed Pokémon Storage System!" instead of "Accessed Pokémon Storage System."
• On Page 24 is a screenshot of the player entering Pewter City's Museum of Science, though with the employee behind the desk referring to a "child ticket" instead of the final game's "child's ticket".
• As seen on Page 26, "MT. MOON AHEAD" is written as "Mt. Moon ahead", and "Welcome to the SAFARI ZONE!" is written as "Welcome to Safari Zone!" Moreover, the Daycare man's dialogue was expanded from "Would like me to raise a POKéMON?" into "Would you like me to raise one of your POKéMON?"
• Still on Page 26, the line "Oh! It's a bite!" was instead "Ho! It's a hit." at this point of development.

Starter Selection Message#

Prerelease	Final

On Page 15 is a screenshot of the player picking Bulbasaur as their starter. Here "plant" is in uppercase (not lowercase), "POKéMON" is only "POKé", and the comma is missing.

Pre-Battle Message#

Prerelease	Final

On Pages 7 and 25 are a screenshot of the player fighting against Brock, though with the message displayed on-screen being grammatically incorrect. While "The [TRAINER CLASS] wants to fight" would work on a large chunk of trainers due to them not having names ("The LASS wants to fight!", for example), this would however cause issues with Gym Leaders, Elite Four Members, or the Rival. Indeed, in Generation I these characters weren't referred to in-game as "[Title] [character name]" ("Gym Leader Brock", for example), but instead simply by their name. As such, the pre-battle message was reworded to make it grammatically correct in all possible scenarios.

This early message can also be seen in a 1999 Target promotional video, where the player is fighting against "The [rival name]".

Overworld Cut Message#

Prerelease	Final

On Page 31, "[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.

Game Corner Message#

Prerelease	Final

On Page 26 is a screenshot of the player buying coins at the Game Corner, with quite a few differences to be seen. First, the all-caps name is instead shown as a "properly" capitalized name. Secondly, the Poké Dollar icon is on the opposite side of the window. Lastly, the zero is oddly off-centered, something which was fixed in the final games.

References#