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Early Concept Art

Adventuring With Pokémon

Caption: This illustration shows that Pokémon aren’t items to be traded and used in battle, but rather partners on the player’s adventure.

Caption: Heading for the harbor atop Lapras.

Translator’s Notes

In accordance with the caption, Masuda had this to say on the role of Pokémon:

Masuda: At first, the protagonist and his Pokémon had a human-pet relationship. When we started making the game, however, we wondered whether it wouldn’t be better if they were more like friends.

In addition, the two Pokémon seen above were some of the first created.

Sugimori: The first Pokémon were Rhydon, Clefairy, and Lapras. At first, we’d planned to have Pokémon living alongside humans, making their lives easier. So, during the early stages of development, many of the characters we came up with had clear roles, like carrying things around or sailing across the sea with people on their backs.

Lapras was obviously an example of the latter. The idea of Pokémon living and working alongside humans isn’t really fully fleshed out in the first generation of games. The only Pokémon seen performing a role other than that of a battling monster or pet is the Machop helping out with construction in Vermillion City. Lapras’ design also went through some minor changes, with the Pokémon gaining ears and losing some of its resemblance to the Loch Ness monster.

Index

Page # Category Title
Page 01 Intro Life Before Pokémon
Page 02 Design Doc Tajiri’s Pokémon Vision
Page 03 Concept Art Adventuring With Pokémon
Page 04 Concept Art A Battle Between Trainers
Page 05 Concept Art A Day in the Life
Page 06 Concept Art A Battle Between Pokémon
Page 07 Concept Art Trading Pokémon
Page 08 Concept Art At the Pokémon Hotel
Page 09 Concept Art Catching Pokémon
Page 10 Concept Art At the Pokémart
Page 11 Concept Art Status Screen
Page 12 Concept Art Battle Screen
Page 13 Concept Art Opening Sequence
Page 14 Concept Art Overworld
Page 15 Sprite Art Sprites
Page 16 Outro A Brief Conclusion
Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

This Post Has 14 Comments

  1. Freezair May 29, 2013

    “The Celadon Hotel and the player’s house are also the only buildings in the game, aside from Pokémon Centers, to have PCs” Nitpick: That’s not exactly true. There’s also a PC on the top floor of Silph Co.

  2. Gojiguy May 30, 2013

    Should mention that Gojirante is a portmanteau of “Gojira” (the japanese name for Godzilla) and “Biollante” (one of his enemies from 1989).

  3. samm May 30, 2013

    On Page 14 on the map, there is squares in 8 towns. I’d say these are where the gyms were located, showing that the gyms stayed pretty much the same apart from the removed city gym was moved to Cinnibar/Seafoam.

  4. maggiedroid May 30, 2013

    C looks like the entralink in how it isn’t connected to anything else and the fact it was in the dead center of the map, maybe a precursor to the dream world?

  5. TB May 30, 2013

    The term “illusory monsters” is interesting because it is an actual term in the Pokémon series. In Japan, “illusory Pokémon” is a term, distinct from “legendary Pokémon”, that refers to the Pokémon that you can only get from an event. (Mew, Celebi, etc.) This was just translated as “Legendary” until recently. For the past few years, you’ll notice that Pokémon no longer officially calls these Pokémon “Legendary”. Now they use the term “Mythical”, which is equivalent to the Japanese “illusory Pokémon”.

  6. Pinky June 1, 2013

    Just wondering if anyone else caught the teenage mutant ninja turtles reference with blastocyst being called ‘caravaggio’

  10. Tenko November 19, 2013

    Pinky, I noticed that too. The creators must’ve been TMNT fans.

  11. wonderful alligator January 4, 2014

    hey ya’ll

    where be all da updates on games n shizz

    i dont see anythin’ new for almost a dang year yo

    diggity dog dig

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