Examining Pokemon X and Y’s lost story via an old leak
Today, we’re looking at a Pokemon X and Y leak from March 2014 that contained cut story elements that wound up reused in subsequent games.
Pokemon X and Y were the first main series game in full 3D. All of the characters, environments, and the Pokemon themselves were fully modeled and animated for the first time ever, which marked a big leap forward for the series. Despite this giant leap in technology, though, X and Y aren’t exactly the most loved Pokemon games (though they do have their fair share of dedicated fans). In a strange way, X and Y are something of an anomaly. Generation 6 is the only generation that didn’t have a third version game, for instance – there was never a Pokemon Z or a Pokemon X2 or Y2. In fact, Zygarde had new forms introduced to it in Pokemon Sun and Moon, a completely separate generation. So what happened here?
In March 2014, a user going by the name “XYSider” posted a giant leak on 4chan discussing story points and mechanics that wound up cut from the final game due to time constraints. This leak is absolutely huge in terms of size, so we’re not writing today on the assumption that it’s all true. That being said, for being posted in March 2014, a few elements from this leak wound up coming true in some way or another in future games. So today, we’re taking a look at every part of this leak and examining all of the things that came to fruition – either coincidentally or because maybe it was real – in Pokemon games that came after X and Y.
Aliens, the paranormal, and more
If you’d like a look at the full leak, you can do so right here. It’s a gigantic image, but we’ll be breaking it down paragraph by paragraph regardless – let’s get right into it. The very first paragraph of the leak indicates that X and Y were rushed, but that the relatively low amount of new Pokemon (70) weren’t involved in this. That is to say, the games being rushed did not decrease the amount of new Pokemon the developers added to the game. Instead, the leaker indicates that what was cut to meet the holiday season was story and plot elements. Supposedly, the original draft for the plot placed a heavy emphasis on aliens, who were connected to Team Flare (who, in the final game, doesn’t have a ton of lore). Team Flare was originally supposed to be composed of aliens dressing up as humans, with Lysandre actually being an alter-ego for Professor Sycamore when the leader of the alien group takes control of him. They also go on to say that Looker, who only appears in X and Y’s postgame, was meant to have a more prominent role in investigating these aliens.
According to this leak, AZ, the abnormally tall king from the final game, was meant to be one of the aliens – but a protagonist rather than an antagonist. He supposedly came to Earth to destroy it, but met his Floette and changed his mind and decided to protect the Earth instead. Team Flare, who was originally going to be a team comprised of aliens, would have come to Earth to search for him since AZ held the key to the Ultimate Weapon (just like in the final version). Furthermore, this plot draft had AZ and Floette remain together instead of separated. In the final build, AZ’s Floette is a separate Pokemon with its own unique stats and model. It’s fully coded in and functional, but unobtainable. If this leak were to be believed, perhaps AZ would pass along the torch and give his Floette to you… and since that didn’t happen in the final game, that’s why Eternal Floette is unobtainable?
Furthermore, the leak indicates that Xerneas and Yveltal were originally alien life forms as well, and Mega Evolution stones were to be pieces of AZ’s space ship that fell from the sky when he came to Earth. Mega Evolutions in general were meant to have more alien designs, supposedly with elements of Deoxys’ design incorporated (maybe the long arms or tentacles?) which would imply AZ, Mega Stones, and Deoxys were all from the same planet or dimension. Fairy-types were originally meant to be aliens from the moon (a different race of aliens than the ones from Team Flare) who learned to live in peace with humans and Pokemon. Diantha, who has a fairly small role in the final game despite being champion, was meant to be their leader. Valerie, the Fairy-type Gym Leader who in the final version has an odd appearance, was supposedly one of these aliens as well, and her appearance in the final game and strange-looking eyes, could be inspired by this rough draft assuming it is true.
Obviously, that’s a whole lot to take in, but there’s an interesting point to make here. Pokemon Sun and Moon, the games that immediately followed X and Y, have two points of note: new forms for Zygarde, a Kalos Legendary Pokemon, and a heavy emphasis on alien invasion with the Ultra Beasts. The Ultra Beasts were ultimately handled in a way that’s much more natural to Pokemon; it’s also important to note that this leak was posted in March 2014, far before Sun and Moon were even announced or known about. In fact, that’s even before Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire came out. Of course, there are several differences between Ultra Beasts and this drafted aliens plot, so it’s entirely possible this “leak” isn’t true at all. It’s certainly to be taken with a grain of salt, but it’s interesting to see that the very next main series games wound up going the alien invasion route.
Characters, mechanics, and Mega Evolutions
The Pokemon X and Y leak doesn’t just talk about the plot, but mechanics as well. In the final build of the game, you have your friend group including Trevor, Tierno, Shauna, and either Calem or Serena depending on the gender you chose at the beginning of the game. They don’t do a whole lot in the final game, and they’re generally seen as some of the more forgettable rivals the series has to offer. Apparently, that’s for good reason – they were such a big group to promote the scrapped mechanic of Teams. According to the leak, you could form teams with other real players. Once you did, each player’s stats would be added to a tally. You could then go online and see things like how many Pokemon the whole team caught, battle scores against each other, and which team member contributed most to each count. This did wind up scrapped, then, but the friend group was kept in because that hadn’t been done before in a Pokemon game and made “things more lively”.
To make a long paragraph short, the leak also mentions that the Gym Leaders were all meant to represent a sport. Grant would represent rock climbing, Ramos would represent a rodeo rider, and Korrina would represent roller skating. In the final game, not every Gym Leader has a direct connection to sports. Though not an exact match, Pokemon Sword and Shield’s Gym Leaders are very much inspired by sports, specifically the culture around Gym match stadiums and the crowds cheering. The leaker also states that Viola was a Ghost-type Gym Leader who used her camera to capture the paranormal, and that her sister Alexa was to have been abducted by the alien race.
As we mentioned earlier, this leak was published in March 2014. Pokemon Omega Ruby and Sapphire were also released in 2014, but they weren’t revealed at all until May. With this in mind, this next part becomes interesting! The leaker states that more Mega Evolutions were planned – we know Mega Flygon is one – but that the developers thought introducing too many Megas would “cheapen the mechanic”, plus the devs didn’t know how the new forms would be received by the players. At the point that the leak was posted, however, the leaker says that the developers think the reaction has been positive and that they will add more Mega Evolutions that significantly alter the play style of the Pokemon in question. Indeed, Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire added plenty more Megas, and several of them – Mega Pidgeot, Mega Diancie, Mega Sableye, Mega Lopunny, and more – did significantly change those Pokemon’s play styles. For example, Diancie is normally a slow, defensive Pokemon, but Mega Evolving transforms it into a fairly fast offensive attacker.
Pokemon design details
The last section of the Pokemon X and Y leak describes how certain new Pokemon changed during development. We’ll rapid-fire a few interesting tidbits – again, they’re absolutely to be taken with a grain of salt, but they’re interesting to think about nonetheless. For one, apparently Fennekin, Braixen, and Delphox were meant to have more feminine designs, as well as a Fire/Fairy-typing. The developers thought giving a starter Pokemon a new type would cause a disproportionate amount of players to pick it, so it was changed to Fire/Psychic instead. Likewise, Chesnaught was going to be Grass/Steel instead of Grass/Fighting. Froakie apparently is mostly unchanged.
Many players mistake Flabebe, Floette, and Florges for a Grass/Fairy-type, but it’s actually a pure Fairy type. Interestingly enough, this leak states that these Pokemon were in fact intended to be Grass/Fairy, but the Grass type was dropped because the Pokedex was full of Grass-types already. Floette was designed before Flabebe and Florges, and was intended to be a one-off Pokemon before eventually being given a base form and an evolved form. Maybe that explains why Eternal Flower Floette in the game’s code can’t evolve? Goomy was also supposed to be Dragon/Water and had a more transparent watery design before the Water type was eventually dropped. Another interesting note is that Xerneas and Yveltal switched colors during development. This actually sort of lines up with an existing interview that claims the developers had trouble coming up with ideas for the Kalos Legendaries.
Zygarde was supposedly one of the final Pokemon put into the game, and was intended to be followed up on via an update, event, or DLC. The developers apparently thought that it would be difficult to keep Zygarde’s existence a secret in the age of the internet. An interesting tidbit is that Zygarde was supposed to appear in the Pokemon Village cave where Mewtwo appears in the final game. Zygarde was eventually added as a standard Legendary in its own cave (which could be why it has such little lore in the final version). Finally, Diancie was originally intended to be the evolved form of Carbink. Zygarde was going to be an event Pokemon – possibly even a Mythical Pokemon – so since it was changed around, Diancie was repurposed into a replacement Mythical Pokemon instead, which could be why Carbink doesn’t evolve into Diancie in the final version despite clearly being related.
That’s most of the important content from this big Pokemon X and Y leak. To reiterate one final time, the leak isn’t confirmed to be real, nor is there any proof that it’s definitely true. Still, we think it’s interesting that the alien plot, however nonsensical the leak painted it to be, wound up being a focus in Pokemon Sun and Moon in the form of Ultra Beasts. Not to mention the additional focus on Mega Evolutions that came with Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire! We’re looking forward to seeing if any of these ideas eventually come to fruition in the upcoming Pokemon Legends Z-A, too. If you’d like to see more details provided by the leak, you can do so here.
But what do you think? Are these elements just a coincidence, or do you think there’s some truth to be found here? Let us know in the comments down below.
If you want to read up on more Kalos lore (that’s actually confirmed to exist), we actually went in-depth on what we could see in Pokemon Legends Z-A via this post.
