Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire beta

This article is about the development leftovers in Pokémon Gold and Silver. For general development info on the games, see Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire Versions#Development.

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This article is incomplete. Please feel free to edit this article to add missing information and complete it.

This article lists the development leftovers and unused content of Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire.

Battles

Wild Double Battles were planned for the Generation III games in addition to the Double Battles against Trainers. This is evidenced by a text string found in the internal data that reads "Wild \v[&H05] and \v[&H03] appeared!", with \v[&H05] and \v[&H03] being placeholder values used internally to display the names of the Pokémon that the player would encounter. This mechanic would later be introduced in Generation IV.

Music

Some remastered Generation II music is present in the internal data.

• Route 38 (listen)
• The background music used in the Pokémon Communication Center from Pokémon Crystal after the Mobile Adapter GB is plugged in for the first time. (listen)
• Pewter City (listen)
• Battle! (Suicune) (listen)
• Radio Tower Occupied! (listen)

All of these themes are remixed from Pokémon Gold, Silver, and Crystal and were likely made for testing the soundfont.

Pokémon Contest!, which plays during the appeals round of Pokémon Contests, is programmed in as both its full version and as four minor tracks which are combined to play the full theme. These minor tracks are next to the normal music in the internal data, indicating that they were initially intended to be used, though with what purpose is unknown.

Another theme in the internal data is a variation of Littleroot Town, which lacks the introduction and instead goes straight to the loop point.

Weather

The "three snowflakes falling" weather effect.

In the internal data, there is a weather effect for snowing that looks rather incomplete as it only has three snowflakes falling once, but seems like it was originally going to be used in the final release. A likely location for using this would be Mt. Chimney, as it might have been originally planned to be a snowy mountain instead of a volcano. The only way of activating this weather effect is by modifying the weather header for a certain map in the ROM.

Abilities

An Ability known as Cacophony was found within the internal data. No Pokémon has it legitimately; a Pokémon can only have this Ability by modifying its data. It is identical to Soundproof, another sound-based Ability, and it allows the Pokémon to avoid all sound-based moves. Since it is identical to Soundproof, it was likely scrapped due to redundancy, and some Pokémon that have Soundproof may have originally been intended to have Cacophony instead, such as Loudred and Exploud, which are well known for their loudness.

A Pokémon that has been modified to have Cacophony will regain the normal Ability it should have according to its personality value if it is migrated to a Generation IV game. However, it has not been fully confirmed that the Ability is not present within the internal data of the Generation IV games.

Trainers

Pokémon Sapphire contains some unused Trainer data for Archie, the leader of Team Aqua. According to the data, he was planned to be battled at some point where his team consists of a level 17 Togetic, with no other Pokémon present. He is also carrying two Super Potions. This may indicate that Archie was originally planned to be encountered earlier in the game and was intended to appear with a drastically different sort of team.

Graphics

An unused sprite for a member of Team Aqua exists in the internal data and is identical to that of male Team Aqua Grunts with the exception of a mirrored body, modified coloration, the addition of a mustache, and a bandanna around the Grunt's left arm.

A prototype model of the sprite that is used for a Pokémon the player has not seen (yet) consists of two blocky, big and white question marks instead of the round and black one with a white circle and a white question mark.

There is also data for an unused tileset, which could have been intended for the Mossdeep City Gym or the Trick House.

• 

  Unused Aqua Grunt sprite

• 

  Unused default Pokédex entry sprite

• 

  Used default Pokédex entry sprite

Remnants of the demo

The alternative versions of Route 104 and the Pretty Petal Flower Shop still exist within the internal data of the final release, though the associated tileset data for the prototype of Route 104 has since been removed.

Battle! (Wild Pokémon), which was used for Trainer battles in the demo, was used for wild Pokémon battles in the final release.

Unused dialogue strings, associated with the Pokémon Festa 2002 demo, still remain in the final release. The text remains untouched in the Japanese versions but has been translated in the localized releases.

A video of the demo can be watched here:

Debug German Ruby

A German-language debugging version of Pokémon Ruby was apparently sold by a Nintendo representative to the anonymous user "drx". The ROM has many debugging features, which can be accessed by scrolling through a section presumably relevant to who developed that aspect of the game. For example, choosing WATANABE attempts to save the game, although it turns out unsuccessful, and selecting KAGAYA allows the player to view his or her Trainer Card, the opponent's Trainer Card or activate the slot machine interface.

A video of this debugging version is available here:

drx later released the ROM to the public.

The debugging functions are mostly documented here.

Text

Pokémon AGB

Certain text refers to "Pokémon AGB", which appears to be a short form for "Pokémon Advanced Game Boy", the once tentative title for Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire. They are presumably from the initial stages of development.

Message 1:
This is sample message 1.
Welcome to the world of POKéMON AGB!
We hope you enjoy this!

Message 2:
This is sample message 2.
Welcome to the world of POKéMON AGB!
We hope you enjoy this!

Message 3:
This is sample message 3.
Welcome to the world of POKéMON AGB!
We hope you enjoy this!

Day-Care Mail

Additional unused text makes reference to a Pokémon raised at the Pokémon Day Care receiving a piece of Mail, presumably if raised with a Pokémon from another Trainer. It is not known why this mentioned feature did not make it into the final release.

Debug menu

Leftover text strings remain from a debugging version of Pokémon Ruby^[1]. Some of them are absent in the final release, though there are still references to some of these strings, such as "Init comm. data", "Set highest score", "Reset highest score" and "Set all art museum items".

References

This game-related article is part of Project Games, a Bulbapedia project that aims to write comprehensive articles on the Pokémon games.