25 Pokémon Gold & Silver Fan Theories (We Can’t Believe Are True)
Table of Contents
Pokémon Gold & Silver were fantastic! Years later and fans are still talking about the release. These 25 fan theories even ended up being true!
You Are Reading :25 Pokémon Gold & Silver Fan Theories (We Cant Believe Are True)
Category : Pokemon
Welcome to the world of Pokémon! A giant, expansive land of tiny little animals frothing at the mouth to fight each other for fun. It’s a cute setting of large rats, pigeons, and raccoons. Now that I think about it, the world of Pokémon might just be rampant with different problems.
In any case, these games are all about you playing as a 10-year-old who is just about to set out on their adventure to Catch Em’ All! The only question now is, are you a boy? Or a girl? Either choice leads you to a journey filled to the brim with all kinds of birds, fish, spirits, and sentient ice cream. The Pokémon franchise has had its own movies, anime, manga, comics, card game, fanfictions, fan games, live-action adaptations, and, of course, video games. It’s an international phenomenon on the scale of Harry Potter or Star Wars. These games have been around since the late 90’s and because of their long-running fame, there have been hundreds if not thousands of fan ideas, theories, and speculations about each individual game over the years. These come from super fans that crunch the numbers, read every single line of dialogue, and check behind every crafty Sudowoodo to find those secrets. Pokémon Gold & Silver were the second generation of Pokémon games and were by far the most elaborate and expansive release for years to come. And we’re here today to tell you about the 25 best fan theories that turned out to be true
25 Gold And Silver Had Over 50 Unused Pokémon Designs?
You heard right, Pokémon Generation II, which was already the best generation of Pokémon (fight me) also had over 50 designs that were either repurposed or unused completely! Just recently in May 2018, a skilled team of hyper nerds grabbed a bunch of data from the unreleased beta version of Gold and Silver.
This beta version was for the original Gameboy before the Gameboy Color came out. In this unreleased beta, there were tons of new ideas!
There were early concepts for Pokémon used in later games, baby evolutions, and all-new designs that were never used. The shell that bites Slowpokes tail was its own Pokémon, The Eevee evolution Leafeon was going to be in Generation 2, and Ditto had an evolution. Honestly, a lot of these designs are pretty amazing and artists on social media have been going absolutely wild taking these sprites and making concept art with them. There’s also a ton of weirdo’s too, Octillery is now an egg tank, Lickitung grows a mustache, and Hitmontop is right-side up, which flipped my world upside down. It just goes to show that Generation II was so good that Gamefreak had to take designs out just to make it fair to the other Gen’s.
24 Gold And Silver Canned For The Game Boy Color?
So as I said in the first entry of this article, there was a beta version of Gold and Silver. This was an early version of the game that was never released and has only been dug through recently. Turns out the reason there was even a beta version at all is because Gold and Silver were going to be on the Original Gameboy.
But it seems like once Gamefreak knew the Gameboy Color was the new hotness and they swung the S.S. Development right towards the new handheld.
Now anyone who played Pokémon Gold & Silver as a kid knows that there were a couple of mechanics in the game new to the franchise. First of all the Gameboy Color had, well…color, and that was mind-blowing. Secondly Gold and Silver had a night and day system that used the internal clock of the Gameboy and had different Pokémon at day and night. This system was revolutionary at the time as games had never followed the actual passage of time, the earliest example I can think of is Metal Gear Solid 2 in 2001. But if Gold & Silver had actually come out on the Gameboy Original, we wouldn’t have had any of that!
23 Silver Red Fight Supposed To Use Your Level 100 Magikarp?
Gold and Silver were revolutionary games in a number of ways. But the biggest addition was the huge world. Pokémon trainers all over the world are STILL impressed by the fact that after you beat the Elite 4 in these games, the Red and Blue region of Kanto became accessible. It was a mind-boggling surprise similar in scale to Castlevania: Symphony of the Night in 1997 where you got to explore a whole new castle after beating Dracula the super duper secret way. In any case, at the end of this second journey for Gold, you are given permission to ascend Mt. Silver by Professor Oak. At the end of this long and arduous journey of high-level trainers and big buff Pokémon, you arrive at the peak and what do you find? Red, the trainer you played in Pokémon Red and Blue, waiting for you as the final boss of this monumental game.
But originally, Red was supposed to carry the team you registered after beating the Elite 4 in Pokémon Red & Blue.
The Team had intended to have the Gameboy read your data from Pokémon Red & Blue, but this idea lost ground due to the technology of the time and Gold and Silver’s movement to the Gameboy color.
22 Your Mom Could Originally Be Named Crazy Stuff
Pokémon has always had you name your playable character, ever since its first game. You also had the awkward interaction of reminding Professor Oak his own grandson’s name. Alzheimer’s can be hard on all of us. But of course, all of us remember our childish, mean, and just genuinely uncreative nicknames for Gary/Blue in Pokémon Red and Blue. Nintendo knew implementing this rival naming feature would lead to some profanity, inappropriate humor, and all around silly names for the prodigal rival trainer Blue/Gary. But, little do people know, Nintendo actually held back on the naming convention.
Originally, the player would have been able to name themselves, their Pokémon, their rival, and also their mom?
It was an odd inclusion for sure, but there was an actual option of naming your mom. Could you imagine waking up, walking downstairs, eating a fantastic breakfast, and your mom then casually asks you what her own name is? Sorry, mom, your name is Dumbface, always has been, always will be…I can’t help my 5-year-old tendencies okay?! Dumbface has a hard life, first their child moves out at 10 to run around the world participating in illegal dogfighting, and now they’re stuck with the name of Ms. Dumbface for the rest of their life? Pokémon is dark and cruel.
21 Lugia And Ho-Oh Share The Same Sky?
All video games reuse assets, at least in some capacity. It’s just a byproduct of developing video games, you have to cut corners in some way, shape, or form. Early Gameboy games were also guilty of this, I mean even the Super Mario World games had clouds and bushes that were almost pixel for pixel the same, just different colors. Pokémon is no different, Gold & Silver included. Pokémon G & S started the trend of having the legendary’s of the current generation be the ones on the cover rather than one of the starter Pokémon. This trend also usually had the two legendary’s govern opposite “aspects.” Diamond and Pearl had space and time, Sun and Moon had well…the sun and moon, and Gold and Silver had the sky and ocean.
But, what people might have missed, is that the sky and ocean on the title screen are one and the same.
Before you press start to start your adventure look at Lugia swim along or Ho-oh cruise the skies, and really take a look at the clouds in the back. You’ll see they’re the exact same as the seafloor beneath Lugia. Turns out they’re not such different creatures after all.
20 Popo From Dragonball Z Is In Pokémon as Bellossom?
I’ll just be blunt, Japanese character designs sometimes get pretty racist, especially with the African American audience.
But the most well-known example of this is what I like to call the “Popo Problem”.
Mr. Popo is a character in Dragonball Z, every kid’s first anime. He’s a jovial, round, jolly man who is really just around to add some flair to scenes. But the problem isn’t Popo’s personality, rather his design. Popo has a very rich black color of skin tone, very small eyes, and incredibly uh…boisterous lips. These are the trademarks of the “Popo Problem” and can be seen all throughout early games, anime, and other Asian-based media.
Pokémon wasn’t exempt from this issue, the Pokémon Jynx being the most classic example of it. But what people don’t know is that the cute, cuddly, and chlorophyll-filled Pokémon Bellossom, who was introduced in Generation II, originally took a bite of the “Popo” pie. From the looks of it, Gamefreak kept Bellossom’s skin tone similar to Oddish and Gloom, her pre-evolutions. But because Bellossom is much more human in appearance, the shade of skin has a much less politically correct connotation. Needless to say, this was changed going forward and Bellossom became a nice Leaf Stone green.
19 Skateboard Over Bike = Tony Hawks Pro Skater: Gold Edition
Here’s a critically important question. What was cool in the 90’s? Was it sunglasses? Bright colors? A love for the McDonalds cup with the blue and purple texture? Who knows! One thing we do know, though, is that skateboards are rad. Gamefreak saw just how totally tubular skateboarding was at the time with icons like Tony Hawk and decided to adapt it into their own franchise. In the Pokémon Adventures manga/comic series, which by the way is an amazing representation of Pokémon, our protagonist Gold spends a good amount of the story shredding on his handy-dandy skateboard. Honestly, the way Gold is represented in the comic is amazing, he’s constantly on his skateboard and he uses a pool cue to launch Poké balls towards his opponent, giving his Pokémon extra momentum to attack as they come out.
Gamefreak seemed to like this representation and wanted to make the means of transportation in the Gold & Silver games a skateboard as well.
In fact, in interviews before the game’s release, they even confirmed they were attempting it. Unfortunately, it seems to have fallen through, and there was no skateboard in the final release. But that doesn’t mean I’ll ever give up on telling people how absolutely sick Pokémon Adventures representation of Gold was though.
18 Rival Silver Actually Next Leader Of Team Rocket
Speaking of the Pokémon Adventures comic and believe me I’d love to keep speaking of it, it really dives deep into the characters. Because it can tell the story with a lot more text and no gameplay, there’s more characterization and plot elements. Silver, for example, the red-haired, jerky Pokémon thief from the games actually is pretty amazing in this format. In these comics, Silver is cold, calculating, and still a jerk, but also an insanely adept trainer.
One huge twist, for example, is how he is actually Team Rocket founder Giovanni’s son and is trying to become to best trainer in order to spite his criminal father.
It’s a cool aspect to give a character, and Gamefreak seemed to agree. Now, these comics do have English translations that are available in the States but are nowhere near as popular as the games. Still, there are multiple little mentions of Silver’s papa in the game and it’s even confirmed at one point that Silver’s hereditary line is the same as in the comic. Japanese story clichés love to have personality traits be hereditary, so it makes so much more sense now that Giovanni’s son and your rival was okay with stealing and also obsessed with Poké power.
17 Nurse Pokémon Blissey So Healthy She Breaks The Game
Speaking of obsession with power, it seems like one of the Pokémon introduced in this generation, Blissey, the evolution of the adorable nurse Pokémon Chansey, is obsessed with power too…in a way. The entire Chansey evolution line is known for having insanely high Health Points (or HP) in comparison to all the other Pokémon. And in Pokémon Gold & Silver, it was especially beefy. In the first generation of Pokémon, the absolute limits of how high your HP could get with any Pokémon was 704. This was a massive wall of health!
But Blissey didn’t think that was enough and it’s actually been confirmed that Blissey’s max health with all perfect conditions, was so large they had to raise the max amount of HP.
Before it was 704, now it’s 714. Plus, Chansey and Blissey both have chances of carrying a Miracle Egg when met in the wild, and Item that greatly increases EXP gain for whoever is holding it. And if that still wasn’t enough, it was confirmed up until Pokémon X/Y in 2013, that because of their huge health, Blissey and Chansey give the most EXP out of any other Pokémon. Talk about being a helpful, healing, healthy Pokémon.
16 Status Effects Worthless For Catching Pokémon
Now while we’re on the topic of some bugged game elements, let’s talk about those pesky Status Ailments. Status Ailments in regards to the Pocket Monster franchise are no fun. These status ailments are things like paralyzation, poison, frozen, burned, confused, and asleep. It has been a staple of the games that said Pokémon would be easier to catch when under one of these effects.
But the formula for calculating a Pokémon’s catch rate at any one instant is insanely complicated and based on many factors, which is no surprise.
So it’s pretty easy to see why in the early generations there were a few snags in the programming. This programming mishap led to only sleep and frozen status effects doing anything to the catch rate in Pokémon Gold and Silver. The status effects of poisoned, paralyzed, or burned actually had no effect whatsoever for only this generation. Now every kid had their own surefire catching method, like every time I threw a Pokeball in-game when I was young. I would flip my Gameboy over while holding both the B button and my breath, and I swear to you it made Pokémon get caught easier. With this bug, putting a status effect on a Pokémon is about as useful as that method.
15 Deadly Virus Makes Pokémon Super Swole
As anyone who really looks deep into Pokémon will know, Pokémon is math. There are a nonsensical amount of min/maxing elements in the Pokémon games, like Evolution Points or EVs, and Individual Values or IV’s. These are mechanics that are just a goofy amount complex. Every Pokémon defeated gives your Pokémon a certain amount of EV’s for each of the 6 stats, and the more EV’s, of say, the attack stat you have before leveling up, the better. IV’s on the other hand, are the innate values each Pokémon has towards those EV’s, these are based on their nature. Believe me, that’s probably the wrong explanation and also the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Pokémon metagaming. Now, what does this have to do with Gold and Silver?
Enter the scary Pokémon virus, titled “Pokerus.” Okay, maybe scary was a bit of an overstatement.
Pokerus is an absurdly rare virus a Pokémon can have in any of the games where they get twice as many EV’s from defeating other Pokémon. And Gold and Silver is ground zero for this virus. This implementation for this mechanic started here and still remains in games to this day. So remember, make sure your Pokémon get their flu shot and cover their mouths when they level.
14 Trainers Are Stronger Than Pokémon With Cheats?
Here’s a fun little scenario. What would happen if you were to walk into tall grass, and suddenly there was a tiger there? If you didn’t have your own tiger to fight it, would you automatically lose? My answer is yes. By default tiger beats human, that’s just some rock, paper, scissors logic. But Pokémon thinks differently. They’re revolutionaries, mavericks of this well thought out wild animal scenario. Now, you can’t walk into grass in Pokémon G & S without your own little starter Poké.
But, if you’re one of those cool sunglass wearing hacker types, and you use cheats to make sure you have no Pokémon.
Then when you enter a battle, you automatically win! Now to play devil’s advocate most of the first couple towns have Pokémon that only go up to a trainer’s knee at most. So it does make a lick of sense to imagine a person walking into a bush, seeing a tiny pigeon that’s just raring to go, and the person coming out on top. But in every other Pokémon game, when you entered a battle with no Pokémon, it was an automatic loss. Why is this one so special? Is it because Gold is just such a cool, cool, guy? Maybe because he has his handy pool cue he comes out the winner?
13 Pokémon Gold Is Buried In Baby Designs
Every generation of Pokémon has a gimmick. Generation IV introduced evolutions to a lot of Pokémon who didn’t have any such as Tangela and Lickitung, generation VI introduced Mega Evolutions, and Generation II was all about the babies. Generation II is where 90% of the baby evolutions for Pokémon came from. Pichu? Gen II. Elekid? Gen II Even the Misty favorite Togepi was from Gen II. All in all, there were about 10 Pokémon that got baby pre-evolutions in this game.
I myself had a full team of baby Pokémon back in my Diamond & Pearl days. Mime Jr double slapped the behind off of Lance’s Dragonite.
Anyway, what’s this got to do with a Gold & Silver secret? Here it is…there were actually going to be even MORE baby designs. A good amount more actually. Going back to the newly released beta designs there were actually about 6 other baby designs Gamefreak was going to move forward with before hopping over to the Gameboy color. And let me just say, some of these designs are awesome. There’s a pre-evolution of Paras where he seems to be growing out of the mushroom, and even a tiny little Ponyta baby. I guess Gamefreak had already met their quota of cute and just couldn’t possibly add any more.
12 No Honey And Bees Extinct In Pokémon Gold & Silver?
Pokémon has some odd choices for how to find some Pokémon. Of course, there’s the standard roll around in the grass until an animal attacks you method. But there’s also a couple others people don’t usually think about. Stuff like fishing, smashing rocks open, head-butting trees until animals pop out, and finally slapping some honey on the ground to attract some. All of these deserve further explanation, but you’re only getting one and that’s honey. Honey is a usable item in the Pokémon games that, when used while standing in tall grass, starts a Pokémon battle.
Some Pokémon can only be found when attracting them with honey whether it’s on the ground or smothered on a tree.
Tired of hearing the word honey yet? Well, honey wasn’t a mechanic until Generation IV, but after digging through the G & S beta files it’s actually pretty clear they had planned to implement this mechanic in Generation II. There was an item called Sweet Honey in the beta that did the exact same thing as the actual Honey in Gen 4, but for some reason never saw the light of day. If you ask me I am almost 100% sure that Honey was going to be the only way to capture the cute little teddy bear Pokémon Teddiursa.
11 Secret Safari Zone Only For Cheaters
Everyone who has ever played a Pokémon game knows about the Safari Zone. But to an outsider to the series, the Safari Zone sounds like a pretty messed up place. You walk into a sectioned off area of wilderness, pay money to enter, and tear the place apart looking for wild animals.
Once you find them, you have the option to either throw rocks, pelt them in the face with food, or try to catch them and make them your battle “friend” forever.
Sometimes you even have to grab some dentures for the elderly. It’s a weird place. Maybe Gamefreak developers agreed and that’s why the Safari Zone was closed down for the original Gold and Silver games. Obviously, they didn’t feel bad for too long since it came right back in generation III and onwards, but still, no safari zone for the gen II kids. Well, that’s not necessarily true! In the beta game files for G & S, there is actually a hidden safari map that was never used. It’s inaccessible to anyone outside of people using cheats/hacks. But it is a fully fleshed out map that I guess just wasn’t in the cards for the released version.
10 Gold And Silver Planned As Last Ever Pokémon Games?
Money is a hard thing to walk away from. Just ask Masahiro Sakurai, the creator of the Super Smash Bros. series. Every game he says it’s the last one and every year the businessmen pull up to his front door with a truck full of money to make another one. No franchise is safe from too many sequels, soft reboots, or remasters because well, it sells. Pokémon is sadly no exception and had actually at one point planned for Gold and Silver to be the final mainline Pokémon games.
Creator Tsunekazu Ishihara, who was the producer of the Pokémon games, stated in an interview that he thought this would be Gamefreak’s last Pokémon project.
This explains why Generation II has so much insane work put into it. Things like the 16 badges instead of 8, the huge amount of advertising done, and the new systems like night and day, and berries. Ishihara wanted Pokémon Gold and Silver to be the “ultimate Pokémon title” and put all he had into making them as bombastic of a project as he could. His work ethic shows, because now Ishihara is the big man himself, the CEO of the Pokémon Company. And the Pokémon franchise now shows no signs of stopping.
9 Marowak Too Buff For The Game’s Math
That’s right both mother and child Cubone and Marowak can either be the buffest or the weakest Pokémon in the game. This is again due to the insanely complicated math associated with everything in these games. This time it’s due to the attack stat for Marowak.
The max amount of attack stat you can have in Generation II is 510, but when you give a Marowak the item Thick Club, it can remove its limiters.
Thick Club is well…a thick bone club, that when held by Marowak, double its attack stat. That’s really good, right? It is! But only if you’re not a crazy person who managed to max out both the attack EV’s and IV’s for a Cubone. If you are that intensely committed person, then when holding the Thick Club, your attack stat becomes 518. What happens then is that the game only knows values up until 510, and instead reads the 518 as just 8. Obviously, 8 is pretty dang low and about the attack stat of a level 1 Pokémon so Marowak has regressed a little bit. So this is the Achilles heel bug of the Pokémon games. Turns out Marowak drank too much milk and got too strong of bones, oh the humanity!
8 Progressive Love Ball Catch Rate
Pokémon is a series where there are male, female, and non-gendered/gender fluid Pokémon. A lot of these male and female variations have slight differences in their design, the classic example is that the end of female Pikachu’s tail makes a heart shape. Now, introduced in Gen II were a few of the different types of Pokeball’s such as the Friend Ball, Moon Ball, and Love Ball. These Pokeball variations were made out of the Apricorn system introduced in Gen II, and help trainers catch Pokémon based on different circumstances. The Friend Ball increases the amount of friendship you have with any Pokémon caught with it. The Moon Ball works better on Pokémon that evolve thanks to the Moon Stone. And finally, the Love Ball is supposed to have an 8x catch rate for any Pokémon that’s the opposite gender of the one you currently have out in battle.
Now, Gold and Silver were progressive, truly ahead of their time, and they believe in Pride Month.
So they made it that in Gold and Silver the Love Ball works differently. In G & S the 8x catch rate is actually only for Pokémon of the same gender. In all honesty, this was just a bug thanks to complex programming but I personally like to think Gamefreak implemented this change because they’re big ol’ equality supporters.
7 The Early Bird Type Gets The Can
There are 18 types of Pokémon, but in the original, there were only 15 types. Generation II added two new types, Dark and Steel, for a total of 17. Among these 17 types in G & S is the Flying type. This type of Pokémon usually refers to Pokémon with wings or some sort of floatation mechanic. Though, if it was just the ability to float, Geodude would be soaring the skies. Now, there are a lot of flying type Pokémon that are bird or birdlike. Almost every generation has a bird Pokémon within the first town or two, you’ve got your Pidgey’s, Sparrows, Hoothoot’s, and Wingulls.
But it seems like Gamefreak wanted to separate the birds from the boys and tried to make an entirely separate “bird” type Pokémon.
This was probably in hopes of being able to get more creative with the flying type Pokémon and limit the bird designs to its own type. Obviously, this idea was scrapped and they axed the bird type. But if you dig in the original files for Gold and Silver you can find that the Bird type is still buried in the code and is actually assigned to a couple of Missingno Pokémon. Personally, I think bird type would have been redundant and would have had odd strengths/weaknesses. So I’m glad they managed to keep that bird locked in its cage.
6 Haunted House Too Real For Game?
There have been multiple ghost stories sprinkled throughout all of the Pokémon media throughout the years. I’m sure all you 90’s kids remember the Ghastly Pokémon episode and how sad it was. Or maybe ghost girl from the Pokémon X and Y games who says “You’re not the one” then disappears. And of course, we can’t forget Cubone and its ghost Mom Marowak from the Red and Blue games.
Gamefreak really seems to love their paranormal little secrets, I mean they even made Rotom, the Ghost-Electric Legendary Pokémon, that’s essentially a one-man haunted house.
Gold and Silver had their own little secret to add to this spooky pile, and that was the fact that there was originally supposed to be a haunted house in the game. The haunted house was found in the coding for Gold, Silver, and Crystal as a location in-game, but no such location exists. It’s been speculated that the house was going to be based on the Himej Castle in Kobe City Japan. The reason for this speculation is Gen II design-wise is heavily influenced by Japan and Kobe City is incredibly similar to Olivine City in game. Kind of sad to know we’ll never have a haunted house where Misdreavus gets the spotlight.
Jacob Buchalter is a writer and gaming dweeb based in Arizona. He’s the type to get irrationally obsessed with anything related to gaming, animation, art, manga, and anime. And while he isn’t the argumentative type, he sure is stubborn about dumb details in shows and games from 5+ years ago.
See more : PokemonWe