Pokémon gender was a previously announced feature, and the graphical indicator of the gender during battle was likely added later as a convenience to players. The battle screens are very similar to the final ones, but the absence of gender notation is apparent. The final release date was later pushed back to November 21, 1999.Īlong with the projected release date, Ken Sugimori's artwork for Slowking, Marill, Bellossom, and Hoothoot was also released, as were several screenshots of the new battle system, featuring fully-colored sprites. A revised release date of June 1999 was given and it was announced the games would be compatible with the then soon-to-be-released Game Boy Color. The final logo for Pocket Monsters: Silverįollowing nearly a year without press releases, the Nintendo of Japan website was finally updated with new information on Pocket Monsters: Gold & Silver. Whether it was an actual prototype of Ecruteak City, or a completely distinct location, is not known.Ī screenshot depicting an earlier design for the Pokémon Center also shows an Unown ruin on the upper-right corner, which was possibly related to the Ruins of Alph, or an equivalent location at that point in development.Ī gate at the end of a route is also shown.Īnother screenshot also depicts possible prototypes of Goldenrod Radio Tower, as well as of a gate-possibly the gate that leads to Route 35, or rather, the Magnet Train station in Goldenrod City. On some other screenshots of different stages of development, part of a city resembling Ecruteak City is seen. The lack of battle screenshots would seem to indicate that a redone battle system had not been implemented yet.Īs can be seen on one of the screenshots, whirlpools were originally randomly interspersed across sea routes to serve as obstacles. The pictures clearly show the games' engine being in a more developed, but still early, stage. It also sported the palette-swapping functionality that is also present in the Generation I games.Īt this time, the initial game screenshots released didn't look all that much different from the Generation I games. The color scheme in these screenshots corresponds to the Super Game Boy palettes, as the games hadn't been developed with the Game Boy Color in mind yet. Bellossom, Ledyba, Hoothoot, and Elekid also made an appearance in Pikachu's Rescue Adventure. During the second season of the English dub, Ash and Misty also encountered Tracey, who owned a Marill Lugia, the game mascot of Pokémon Silver, was the focus of the second movie, in which Slowking also appeared. Snubbull and Marill made their first appearances in Pikachu's Vacation, and Donphan appeared at the start of Mewtwo Strikes Back. Later, Togepi hatched from an Egg Ash himself found, and Misty became the first main character to own a Generation II Pokémon.
Ho-Oh, the eventual game mascot of Pokémon Gold, appeared in the first episode. The anime also provided early peeks at the new Pokémon.
Sprites of Donphan, Ampharos, Slowking, and Ho-Oh were also released, using the Super Game Boy palettes.įour of the "new" Pokémon that would be included in Pocket Monsters 2. It also conducted an interview with him for the magazine: he described the cover art as a Pokémon-like, but non-Pokémon, separate world he implicitly forbore shaping the destiny of those designs, however, by adding that his creativity would often arise from the revisits of his own works.
The communication abilities of the games were also to be improved, and backwards compatibility with the Generation I games was also announced.Īn April 1997 issue of MicroGroup Game Review showcased some Pokémon-esque designs of monsters and characters that Ken Sugimori made specifically for that issue. Though this never appeared in the released game, other things announced, such as the time system with its real-time clock, as well as 100 new Pokémon, including new evolutions of old Pokémon, and new TMs and HMs containing new moves, were included. One of the many notable additions promised was a skateboard that could be used in addition to the Bicycle of the previous games, and which would allow the player to travel to "unusual places". The games were intended to be released at the end of the year for the original Game Boy, while supporting the Super Game Boy enhancements that the Generation I games have. In 1997, Nintendo announced the first details about the then-next generation of Pocket Monsters games, to be titled Pocket Monsters 2: Gold & Silver (Japanese: ポケットモンスター2 金・銀). Pre-release First mention of Pocket Monsters 2 2.15 Status prevention hold item effects.
1.5 More information revealed and additional delay.