Pokémon Crystal beta

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Various images from the beta

Pokémon Crystal introduced many features that have since become staples of the main series games, such as the option to pick a female player character, animated Pokémon sprites and battle facilities with special rules. Likewise, some aspects of the game's initial design did not make it to the final release. However, the game has very few beta elements compared to its companion games, Pokémon Gold and Silver, likely because it is heavily based upon these games.

Female character

Although Kris was introduced in Crystal, a development picture reveals that another girl was in the works. The girl had black hair in pigtails. She may have also been an attempt to include the unknown female trainer that was seen in artwork released during the development of Gold and Silver.

Pokémon Communication Center

A development picture revealed an early design of the Pokémon Communication Center. Fundamentally, the differences from the final design include an upper floor on the top-left of the map and two machine areas in the main floor instead of just one, one of which was replaced with a Trade Corner for use with the Mobile Adapter in the final release.

Super Game Boy features

File:Pokemon Crystal Super Game Boy screen.png

Pokémon Crystal being 'played' on the Super Game Boy.

Despite Pokémon Crystal being incompatible with the Super Game Boy, it has an unused Super Game Boy border programmed into the game, which can be activated by setting a flag in the ROM to enable Super Game Boy features, or through cheating devices which are able to temporarily call functions from the ROM itself such as the Game Genie, unlike the GameShark. The border appears to be leftover from the Japanese Gold version; because it displays "POCKET MONSTERS GOLD VERSION" rather than POKéMON CRYSTAL VERSION. ^[1]

Unused palette

In Pokémon Crystal, if the player attempts to play the game on an original Game Boy, rather than a Game Boy Color or later model they will receive a screen with a message saying "This Game Pak is designed only for use on Game Boy Color." with Pokémon Crystal spelled out with Unown. There is an unused color palette associated with this message, using an orange tint.