Pokemon Red and Green were originally planned to have over 65,000 versions, reveals Game Freak
Did You Know Gaming has wrenched old interviews out of the archives to find that Game Freak’s original plans for Pokemon Red and Green included 65,535 variations of the games. Using the Trainer ID system as a base for this, players would be assigned a Trainer ID between 1 and 65,000 and this number would affect which Pokemon would spawn in game as well as the appearances of some forest areas in the world. “We also considered having each game generate a random ID number the first time it was booted up and that number would determine which Pokémon appeared in the game.” programmer Takenori Oota stated in a Japan-only book titled ‘PokeDex’ from 1996.
In another old interview published in a 1997 issue of Famimaga 64, Game Freak founder Satoshi Tajiri states:
“The shape of a forest, the Pokémon that would appear, I wanted to make a game that would be different for everyone but it was difficult. So I went to consult with Shigeru Miyamoto from Nintendo, and we ended up deciding to make it so that depending on the colour – whether Red or Green – the worlds would be parallel, but different.”
Check out the full video below as they explore the abandoned mechanic:
