"The Gold and Silver Beta actually tried to answer random mysteries/quirks that people had about pokémon previously."

Like everyone else, the beta has lit a fierce fire in me. Like woah. I would never imagine the day that I get to see what the Spaceworld Demo would look like, let alone see the beta pokes that Game Freak had originally propose. But what sparked my interest was that the beta answers some weird quirks that were originally left in Gold and Silver. Stuff like:Umbreon's descriptions about secreting poison or having traits associated with poison secreting animals (it's markings are the those of the blue ring octopus) made sense when it was a poison type in the beta but is now a dark type.Remoriad and Octillery's evolutionary line actually making sense. I still find it hard for a fish to turn into an octopus, but the weaponry motif works well enough to give validity to the line that is missing now.The Shellder on Slowbro's tail is actually it's own pokemon instead of just being this one off thing that makes Slowbro unique. This was still the case in gen 1, but the fact that they tried to rectify it here shows that they cared enough to try and explain it's existence ( the fact that the shell is called Turbann might have related to slowking who wheres his shell like a hat - the line could have been a prototype shedinja concept that was shelved for the time being)Why Ditto's signature held item is this unexplained Metal Powder ( a carry over for when it could evolve with the Metal Coat).Girafarig can randomly learn Crunch in gen 2. Early games were notorious for having limited movepools, so for Girafarig to have this nice gem is cool callback to what it originally was.Scyther and Pinsir were originally treated as a pair back in gen 1. This has since faded with Game Freak pairing up Heracross and Pinsir as the main duo. Not so here with Sycther and Pinisr both receiving evolutions via the same method. On top of that, Scizor is a green color, just like it's pre-evo, completing the connection.Same as above with Oddish and Bellsprout's split evolution. Treated as a pair, but slowly drifted away from that concept. I do feel thou that Game Freak did try to separate the lines by making enough departures ( Gloom can become a Bellossom - this non poison type green pokemon that evolves from a purple) similar to what we have with scizor ( a red metal bug evolving from a green bug).Vulpix is described as being born with a single tail in the pokedexp, yet comes out of an egg with 6 tails. The beta tries to justify this with Trifox and it's 3 tails. Granted it's not the same, what's cool is that the vulpix line used to convey the idea that the tails counted upwards (3 -> 6 -> 9) with each stage.Ho-oh and Togepi were infamous as being some of the earliest gen 2 pokémon we saw, and this was only because of the anime. I think the reason why the anime got these 2 pokemon as oppose to some of the earlier designs was because Game Freak needed to sell people on what made Gold and Silver unique. That uniqueness was the legendary mascot designed for the game's plot and a pokémon indicative of breeding - could explain why togepi appears so late in dex.These are the main quirks that the beta tries to solve things that were left unexplained in Gold and Silver that now have context. What's funny thou is that the beta itself contains pokémon or concepts for pokemon will wouldn't have seen till several generations later. There's the obvious stuff like Tangrowth or Mime Jr., but there are subtler stuff buried in list (Qwlfish's evolution Numpuff could have inspired Lanturn, but also Whiscash - both are round fish with large mouths and a squiggly line on the forehead; Mantine's early designs has a face on it's back, just like Mantyke 2 generations later; Tangela would have been in the same boat as Rosalia - a single stage grass type that would have gained a pre-evo and an evolution one generation later). A lot of that brings to mind what rejected concept could have gotten revitalized as a new current pokemon, or what concept Game Freak has been sitting that there dying to try out. The beta is truly fascinating for uncovering this amazing wealth of developer insight that helps us the audience get to known Game Freak a little bit better. Thanks for reading my thoughts, have a cool one. via /r/pokemon https://ift.tt/2J2PJlW