What happens to the unused Pokemon who never make it to a game? They get leaked 20 years later and ruthlessly insulted.

Last week, an uploaded ROM (essentially an illegal copy of a game) of Pokemon Gold and Silver was uploaded to the internet, and has since been meticulously unpacked by fans at The Cutting Room Floor. The ROM in question was in use at a game show, and comes from a demo that was kicking around two years before the official release of the game. As you might expect, in the two years that passed between demo and release, a lot changed.

There’s the nerdy stuff that you might want to know about – poison was simply not very effective against Steel rather than being resisted entirely, Bite is a normal-type move rather than a Dark Type move – but we know you’re really here to see some images of some completely messed up looking Pokemon that weren’t used 20 years ago.

And I’m here to give you the best, the worst, the freakiest and the most WTF.

(A fair warning that these are all pretty low-res, because this game is twenty years old, was made on technology that is now overpowered by a watch that counts your steps and it’s pixel art.)

The Best

Look at these absolute units!

From top left through to bottom left we’ve got:

• A shark with an anchor instead of a tail. It’s not taking shit from anybody. I hope whatever God exists in the Pokemon world (that God is probably itself a Pokemon, because the lore of the Pokemon world is straight-up insane) damns whatever mad scientist genetically modified a shark to have an anchor for a tail.
• A sassy dog! I think this is meant to be a prototype or placeholder for one of the Legendary Dogs – but whereas those dogs went for lightning beard dog, pretty ice dog and old man fire dog – this is full on sass dog. That’s a dog that you can see a widow bringing to a party after her husband mysteriously died in a car accident.
• A bird who you do not want to mess with. That bird hates you, everything about you, and everything about your mother. It has seen your death and it is good.
• Buff cat.

The Worst

Okay, what the hell.

These are the sketches you submit when you’ve missed two deadlines and just have to hand in something.

We’ve got two dogs with sad teenage haircuts – that dude on the top left is just misunderstood by everybody, and only My Chemical Romancereally understands or express the darkness inside him, and the dude bottom right grows his hair long because hairdressers are a tool of fascism, man!

Top right is literally just a meerkat, and bottom left… c’mon. That’s… nothing. That’s a formless being. (And they’ve already done formless beings in the past!).

There are over 800 Pokemon now, but back then there were 151.

The Freakiest

What on earth are these.

What would possess a human being, nay, an artist, to put these abominations into the world. In the bastardized words of Shakespeare: Pokemon hath murdered sleep. To bed, to bed, to bed. I remind you, Pokemon is a children’s game. It is not an entry in the Silent Hill series, it is not supposed to inspire nightmares in the hearts, minds and souls of the human beings who play it. It is supposed to delight and excite, and to bury itself deep in the plasma of the people who engage with it so they will buy game after game and endless amounts of merch.

Once more, from top left to bottom right:

• A wolf in sheep’s clothing! What has this one seen, what does it plan to do, why does it let us see its eyes and none of its face? What did it murder and skin to get its disguise?
• Tentacle monster, this comes straight out of a movie that you came across on the internet as a child and were confused about, and that got your friend banned from using the school computers.
• This isn’t even alive, someone straight up murdered this Pokemon and is using its corpse to control somebody. Its mouth has been contorted into a smile due to rigor mortis, and the murder weapon has not been removed. This is dark stuff.
• Plant sex-doll.

The Most WTF

This Pokemon was born wanting to die, and by never being allowed to appear in a game it was given sweet release. Let us not disturb it, lest it realise it is alive once more.

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