Pocket Monsters in 1996

Dogasu's Backpack | Features | Pocket Monsters in 1996

Red & Green

It's been over twenty years since the Japanese release of Pocket Monsters Red & Green. While fans in the West wouldn't know what a "Pokémon" was for another two years or so the Japanese media was covering the franchise pretty frequently. So, as a neat kind of time capsule, I thought it'd be nice to take a look at the magazines that were out in Japan at the time and see how Pocket Monsters was being represented in the early days.

The following is a "Pocket Monsters Development Staff Interview" that ran on the official Nintendo of Japan website back in 1996. The original Japanese text can be found here.

Q: When you first heard the idea for "Pokemon" from its architech, Satoshi Tajiri, what kind of impression did it leave you with?

Sugimori: "The idea for Pokemon originated from a piece of hardware called the Game Boy. Mr. Tajiri saw the Game Boy Link Cable, which had up until then only been used to battle other players, and thought wouldn't it be interesting if it was also used to trade something? After it was explained to us using the trading of menko or trading cards as examples we quickly understood what he meant but we still had trouble figuring out how to turn that idea into a video game."

Q: In order for these trades to even happen you have to give players something that other players are going to want. Is that why you set out to create these charming creatures?

Sugimori: "That's right. All ten of us on the game's staff really gave the job of thinking up new characters our all. We had people whose main job was programming, graphics, planning, etc., but we also wanted everyone on the staff to step outside their area of expertise and contribute new ideas. This game is one where everyone chipped in with their ideas."

Q: Why did you set it up so that there'd be 151 pokemon?

Sugimori: "It was a more RPG-like game in the beginning and it wasn't until about halfway through development when we changed it so your goal was to complete your Pokemon Bestiary. And so we had this game with a good number of characters but then ran into problems with memory contraints. We actually wanted to add more than 151...we had about 1.5 times as many designs ready than what we actually ended up using."

Q: Why did you change the game from a regular RPG to one where you had to complete a bestiary?

Sugimori: "As we were writing the Pokemon Bestiary entries we started talking about how it would be interesting to collect these monsters as well. From the very beginning we didn't want to do an fantasy-type RPG. So when we were coming up with the game's story, we thought one about a boy who set out to complete a bestiary would be better suited for the game's modern-day setting than one of a hero fighting some Demon King or something like that."

Q: The main character in a regular RPG grows throughout the game, right? But here, the ones who grow are the pokemon who travel along with their Trainer. What was the reason for that?

Sugimori: "There was a point during development where the main character would actually fight alongside his pokemon. But then the question became "well, if you can fight for yourself then what are the pokemon there for?""

Masuda: "In the beginning the pokemon were like pets to the human main character. But during development we thought it'd be better if the pokemon were more like comrades and friends instead. And so we changed the story to make it so that they grew along with their Trainer."

Masuda: "And if we're talking about friends, we decided that the way each pokemon is raised should vary according to the player's personality. That's why each pokemon is limited to learning only four moves, you see. The player's personality comes out when choosing which move to use. We made the games so that the pokemon would become your very own and would feel like your friends."

Q: Is that also the reason why you let players give nicknames to their pokemon?

Masuda: "That's right. We had the idea of giving nicknames to the pokemon from the beginning."

Sugimori: "When we asked everyone which was better - giving the game three save files or making it so you could give nicknames to the 151 pokemon - every single person agreed that giving nicknames to all the pokemon was the answer."

Q: So forming an attachment to your pokemon is very important, huh?

Masuda: "Yes. Each player's pokemon has different personalities which makes people, in turn, want to trade for them."

Q: Pokemon have different types like Water, Grass, etc. Did you have that idea from the beginning?

Sugimori: "We got that idea about halfway through development. Originally we just had strong / weak and the battles were pretty straightforward but when we started added Types into the mix the battles became much deeper. Later we would go on to create some new characters based on these Types."

Q: That means the first characters you created weren't really made with any sort of typing in mind...

Sugimori: "That's right. The first pokemon ideas we had looked more like dinosaurs than what we ended up with. The idea of choosing a single starter pokemon from three types was also added midway through development. There are actually a lot of things that completely changed during development. For example, we went through around ten different drafts just for the game's opening."

Q: What was the first character you came up with?

Sugimori: "Saidon, Pippi, Laplace...things like that. At first the game was set up so that these things called pokemon would live together with people and be used to help make their lives more convenient. That's why the first pokemon we came up with were those that could carry people across the sea on their back, or those who could lift heavy objects, or those who had some other clear role in this world. We also had some pokemon we thought up of as being cute pets, which is where pokemon like Pippi come into play."

Q: How did you decide the encounter rates of the pokemon?

Nishino: "If we didn't make some pokemon harder to find than others then we couldn't get people excited about catching them. So we prepared a number of pokemon who were designed to be hard to find. After that, we looked at the pokemon who most resembled common animals in the real world and made those the ones that are easy to find. That's why we made the encounter rate for Pikachu so low."

Sugimori: "We wanted to make people whose friends had a rare pokemon jealous, you see. And, of course, even in the game world rare pokemon are popular. A character might say "Your Pikachu is cute!" in the game but the same thing gets said in the real world as well."

Q: Did you have the small details figured out when you first started? Or did you add elements, one after the other, as development continued?

Masuda: "Breaking down a game while adding in new ideas to it is the way we do things here at Game Freak. For example, we thought about getting rid of the hit point bar and replacing it with text that would say things like "That really hurt!" or "That hurt!". But when we thought about it we decided that it didn't make the game any more interesting and ended up just going back to hit point bar. We don't just decide on game elements and add them to the game but will instead first ask everyone if they don't have any other, better ideas."

Q: In the Pokemon games there really are a ton of things that the player can do. That must have been really tough to program.

Watanabe: "There was a lot but we focused and somehow got through it. The small adjustments we would have to make are what ended up being the most difficult."

Sugimori: "We couldn't make some of the 151 pokemon incredibly weak or incredibly strong and so worked a lot on the game's balance."

Q: Who was in charge of setting the pokemon levels?

Nishino: At first the basic configurations where done by Mr. Tajiri but the small balancing tweaks would later be done by me. We would look at the sprites for the pokemon and think "this one's probably this strong" and then decide on the level from that. And then, when we'd go to play it, if it wasn't fun then we'd go back and tweak it. We did this work over and over and over. There were also some characters whose strength were determined by the game's story."

Morimoto: "We also had some cases where the story would call for a character to block the way and so the story department would ask the designers to provide one."

Q: Were there some made because of the limits of the Game Boy?

Masuda: "We knew going into this that there wouldn't be a lot of keys and we wouldn't have that much memory to work with. But actually, it's because of these limitations that we worked as hard as we did."

Watanabe: "We didn't want to compromise by saying "well, since this is the Game Boy let's just do this." We wanted to make something even more amazing than what's on the Super Famicom!"

Sugimori: "Since the screen was so small that limited the amount of information we could display so we worked on eliminating anything that wasn't useful. And since we couldn't use color or add small details we had to go with monster designs that were symbolic and easy to identify. We think that's probably why so many different people have been so receptive to the designs.

Q: I want to move on to talking about "Gold & Silver." What are your goals with Gold & Silver?

Watanabe: "Well, for starters, if we have more places to go then we should add more pokemon. After that, we want to add elements to the games that we couldn't put into Red & Green because of memory issues."

Masuda: "We think players want to see new pokemon on a new map so the setting is being moved from Kanto to a town called "Jouto," which is based off the Kansai region.

Q: What will you improve from a programming and game system point of view?

Morimoto: "This is a small change but we want to add explanations of what each item does and make the menus easier to see. We want Gold & Silver to be kinder than its predecessor. We're also thinking more about link battles this time around."

Sugimori: "For my part, I want to increase the quality of the games' graphics. We'll be able to work with color this time, yes, but since pokemon is already in the public consciousness I want to show people different ways in which they can be charming."

Watanabe: "Since color's being used this time an extra level of programming will be needed. The towns in Pokemon's maps aren't independent of each other; in the game you go seemlessly from one area to the next and so as the main character's walking along the street the next town's graphics and that area's pokemon data need to be loaded. Thanks to the games being in color the colors of the rooftops in each town is different but we might still have some players who don't notice that kind of thing. So in addition to that we'll be putting things like gates at the entrance of each town to signal this transition that will also give us a chance to load the necessary data."

Q: That makes sense...even when the main character's just walking around the amount of data that needs to be loaded is immense. And on top of that, the screen's brightness will change in Gold & Silver based on the time of day.

Masuda: "That's right. The wild pokemon battle music that plays during the day will also be different from the music that's played at night. The tempo will be different or the tone will be shaped differently...there will be all kinds of subtle differences."

Q: The Trainers in Gold & Silver will have more personality, right?

Sugimori: "That's right. We're making a story where the jobs each person has determines what kind of pokemon they'll use."

Nishino: "The Trainers will have small story details added like a Schoolkid growing up to be a Super Nerd or a Lass growing up to be a Beauty...everyone will have some kind of story."

Q: Will the Trainers grow as well?

Nishino: "Yes. It won't appear in the game's actual story but it will be imbedded in the game."

Q: Did you ever imagine Pokemon would become the hit that it's become?

Watanabe: "While we were making it we never thought it'd be the explosive hit that it's become. We're making something we want to make and so we thought it'd have some success."

Sugimori: "Of course, we thought it'd move some copies becaues of the whole trading element to it. But our initial sales goal was only 1,000,000 copies. To think that it would end up selling as much as it did was something none of us could have expected. We also didn't think it'd produce as much merchandise as it did and so we're very happy."

Nishino: "In the beginning we thought any merchandise was amazing and so we'd buy anything that would come out."

Morimoto: "I did a lot of the capsule toy machines."

Sugimori: "Just say "There are 151 pokemon so collecting them all is really tough!" (laughs)"

Watanabe: "Even though we're the ones who made them (laughs)"

Q: Finally, could you tell us what Game Freak wants to do from here on out?

Masuda: "Game Freak's design policy is to make something fun that anyone can play and fall in love with. We want to make something in accordance with that policy that surpasses even Pokemon."

Watanabe: "I don't think the keyword of the Pokemon series, "trade," is ever going to change. We want to make even more memorable pokemon from here on out."

Sugimori: "We can't say much about the new Pokemon games (laughs) so we ask that you imagie what kind of games they'll be for the time being. People have been playing their predecessors for a long time and we want to make these new games have just as much replayability. We don't want to just add a bunch of new pokemon and call that an upgrade. Whenever we make a new game we don't want people to think "this again?" and so making new things time after time is a real challenge.

The next part is a collection of behind the scenes secrets to various pokemon, as provided by the game's staff.

1. Mew was born due to the programmers playing around?

Mew was created by the game's programmer, Mr. Morimoto. The final game had just a little bit of memory left over so he added a character he thought up of without telling anyone. At first he thought that if no one ever found it then it would become something that just those on the game's staff would enjoy but the rumors of there being a 151st pokemon became too great. "I had no idea it'd be talked about this much" says Mr. Morimoto.

2. The secret of Usokki's birth

Usokki was created by the art director Mr. Sugimori. While drawing different pokemon designs he came up with Usokki off the top of his head. And in order to show off its uniqueness, Mr. Sugimori told the story writer that he made this so it could be used as a pokemon that blocks the road. And in that way, the story changed based on the character design.

3. Pikachu wasn't in the game at first?

Among the pokemon, there are those who came about based on the need for certain Types. Pikachu is one of those. A character who could be the mascot for this "Electric" Type and so Pikachu was created. And to think that a character as well-known throughout the world as Pikachu wasn't in the game during the early stages of development!

4. The pokemon voices changed?

Have you noticed that when pokemon evolve their cries change as well? Similar to the way human voices change, pokemon voices change as well. Evolved pokemon tend to have deeper voices from when they were children but sometimes they become higher as well. Listen closely!

5. What's different? The Mystery of the Save noise

The sound effect for saving your game is a little different across Red, Green, Blue, and Yellow. This was something that the person in charge of sound, Mr. Masuda, added himself. He's a bit of a maniac, isn't he!?