Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire beta

Several things were originally going to be added to during their development. Some were dropped or changed, and some of the dropped concepts of the prototypes can still be found in the internal data of the games.

Pokémon
There were a multitude of changes to Pokémon included in. A prototype of was nearly identical to the final design, aside from the large floppy ears in either side of its head. There was another design that shows Torchic inside an eggshell with lots of fluff on its neck. Another curious design depicted a creature with traits of both and, along with an unused. Concept art of also showed numerous designs for the Pokémon before the final design was decided, mainly with less elongated head shapes and a less rounded nose than the final design.

also had an earlier design where it had a different shape to its eyes, one more set of spikes on the torso, and one less spike at the end of its tail. One of the spikes on the neck was moved to the head on the final design, and overall shapes were much less sharp. Head details became much more elongated, and the weather trio signature body markings were absent.

Demo
A demo was available at the Pokémon Festa 2002 in Japan. There were prototypes of and the Pretty Petal Flower Shop, which was "not yet open" according to the lady inside. There was also an unfinished version of the party screen, alongside a system more thoroughly developed in comparison to what was seen in older screenshots. When the battle starts, it is not possible to see how many the s have. Some moves, like and, are depicted with different animations than those seen in the final release. It is also shown that has no Ability in the demo; it could mean that not all Pokémon could have Abilities. Given 's low level in the demo, it could also mean that didn't exist at the time.

Graphics
In some early screenshots, the roofs of Poké Marts are colored red instead of blue. The HP bar was also different from the final release. Some prototype sprites for several were also shown, including, , , , and.

Pokémon
In the May 2007 issue of Nintendo Power, Junichi Masuda stated "There's also a sea-slug Pokémon that we weren't able to put in Ruby and Sapphire that we were able to put in this one, ", which likely suggests that and/or  (existing sea-slug Pokémon) were planned for Generation III instead of Generation IV.

Supporting this theory is the fact that internal data in reveals a back sprite for both Shellos and Gastrodon with a slightly different design, but no front sprite. Shellos's sprite is pink, like its, and seems to combine the West Sea variation's head with the 's body, while Gastrodon's sprite is brown and looks like its , but with more rock-like protrusions on its body.

Cries
The leaked Debugging Version 0509A prototype of German Pokémon Ruby revealed a sound test menu allowing you to play two unused Pokémon cries in slots 266 and 269 on the Driver Test menu. These cries may have belonged to and. This sound test was later found in the final versions of Ruby and Sapphire, along with the same unused cries.

The cries of Generation III Pokémon are not stored in National Pokédex order or in index number order, instead going in a unique order from to, which like in the index number list, is located after all other Pokémon. This order remains in the final versions of the game, though normally unseen. Among the initial Generation III Pokémon cries in the audio data are the aforementioned Kecleon,, , and , which were also among the first Generation III Pokémon to be revealed.


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Battles
Double Battles were planned for the Generation III games in addition to the Double Battles against s. This mode is incomplete, however, since the game only generates data for one wild Pokémon and copies the data of that for the second wild Pokémon. It can be enabled by setting the battle mode flag to.

Music
Some remastered Generation II music is present in the internal data.
 * Route 38
 * The background music used in the Pokémon Communication Center from after the Mobile Game Boy Adapter is plugged in for the first time.
 * Pewter City
 * Battle! (Suicune)
 * Radio Tower Occupied!

All of these themes are remixed from and were likely made for testing the soundfont.

Pokémon Contest!, which plays during the appeals round of, is programmed in as both its full version and as four minor tracks which are combined to play the full theme. These minor tracks are next to the normal music in the internal data, indicating that they were initially intended to be used, though with what purpose is unknown.

Another theme in the internal data is a variation of Littleroot Town, which lacks the introduction and instead goes straight to the loop point.

Weather
In the internal data, there is a weather effect for snowing that looks rather incomplete as it only has four snowflakes falling once, but seems like it was originally going to be used in the final release. A likely location for using this would be Mt. Chimney, as it might have been originally planned to be a snowy mountain instead of a volcano. The only way of activating this weather effect is by modifying the weather header for a certain map in the.

Abilities
An Ability known as was found within the internal data. No has it legitimately; a Pokémon can only have this Ability by modifying its data. It is identical to, another -based Ability, and it allows the Pokémon to avoid all sound-based moves. Since it is identical to Soundproof, it was likely scrapped due to redundancy, and some Pokémon that have Soundproof may have originally been intended to have Cacophony instead, such as and, which are well known for their.

A Pokémon that has been modified to have Cacophony will regain the normal Ability it should have according to its personality value if it is migrated to a Generation IV game.

Trainers
contains some unused data for Archie, the leader of Team Aqua. According to the data, he was planned to be d at some point where his team consists of a level 17 and a level 17. He is also carrying two Super Potions. This may indicate that Archie was originally planned to be encountered earlier in the game and was intended to appear with a drastically different sort of team.

Graphics
An unused sprite for a member of Team Aqua exists in the internal data and is identical to that of male s with the exception of a mirrored body, modified coloration, the addition of a mustache, and a bandanna around the Grunt's left arm.

A prototype model of the sprite that is used for a the undefined has not seen (yet) consists of two blocky, big and white question marks instead of the round and black one with a white circle and a white question mark.

There is also data for an unused tileset, which could have been intended for the Mossdeep City Gym or the Trick House.

Remnants of the demo
The alternative versions of and the Pretty Petal Flower Shop still exist within the internal data of the final release, though the associated tileset data for the prototype of Route 104 has since been removed.

Battle! (Wild Pokémon), which was used for s in the demo, was used for wild Pokémon battles in the final release.

Unused dialogue strings, associated with the Pokémon Festa 2002 demo, still remain in the final release. The text remains untouched in the Japanese versions but has been translated in the localized releases.

A video of the demo can be watched here:

Pokémon AGB
Certain text refers to "Pokémon AGB", which appears to be a short form for "Pokémon Advanced Game Boy", the once tentative title for. They are presumably from the initial stages of development.

Message 1:

Message 2:

Message 3:

Cable Club text
Unused copies of the first sentence of Cable Club welcoming the player to the Trade Center and Colosseum exist in the code. A third message welcomes the player to the Time Capsule, which is a feature exclusive to Generation II, the previous Pokémon generation; where players can trade a Pokémon from Generation II over to Generation I and vice versa.

No copy of text exists for welcoming the player to the Record Corner, which may imply that the record mixing feature was planned or implemented later in development.

Placeholder move texts
Placeholder battle texts for each type such as "Used a NORMAL move", "Used an ELECTRIC move" exist for when the player uses an (unused) move with the relevant type and an index number greater than the last valid move (0x162, Psycho Boost).

The texts include:

a NORMAL move a FIGHTING move a FLYING move a POISON move a GROUND move a ROCK move a BUG move a GHOST move a STEEL move a ??? move a FIRE move a WATER move a GRASS move an ELECTRIC move a PSYCHIC move an ICE move a DRAGON move a DARK move

In the Japanese versions, the messages appear in the form of "(TYPE)" (わざ being the Japanese term for move), with the exception of the 's message being "はてなわざ" (meaning "question move"). Due to an unknown bug that does not occur in the Japanese versions of, using a Fighting or Electric type move with index number greater than 0x162 results in "What should (PKMN) do" and the 'Fight/Bag/Pokémon/Run' boxes being temporarily shifted up when the move is used, with blank space taking up the area where they are supposed to be.

Discount sale
Unused text exists which seems to be for when a shop (possibly a Poké Mart or the Lilycove Department Store) is having a discount sale. Note that the Lilycove Department Store randomly holds a Rooftop Sale in the final games.

"Closed today" text
Unused text exists for an NPC (or more than one NPC) laughing, mumbling and telling the player that some place or some thing is closed.

Pokémon choice text
Unused text exists for choosing a Pokémon, possibly a starter Pokémon. In the final versions of, the text "Do you choose this POKéMON?" is used for picking a starter Pokémon.

Pseudo-Gym Leader
Unused text exists for a test battle with a "pseudo-GYM LEADER", which may have been used for development or a trial demo.

Open question
Unused text exists for an NPC who asks what he or she should do today.

Debug menu texts
Leftover text strings remain from a debugging version of, detailed below. Some of them are absent in the final release, though there are still references to some of these strings, such as,  ,   and.

Debugging Version 0509A prototype
A German-language debugging version of was apparently sold by a Nintendo representative to the prototype collector who uses the pseudonym "drx", who later released the ROM to the public. The has many debugging features, which can be accessed by scrolling through a section presumably relevant to who developed that aspect of the game. For example, choosing  attempts to save the game, although it turns out unsuccessful, and selecting   allows the undefined to view his or her, the opponent's Trainer Card or activate the slot machine interface.

The cries of Pokémon with index numbers 252-276 are playable in the 'Driver Test' menu, labelled as 'Debugging Version 0509A'. Although these Pokémon normally correspond with ?, they have the cries of existing Pokémon exclusively to the Driver Test (with index number 266 and 269), suggesting that they may have once been real Pokémon. The cries, Driver Test and overall Sound Test menu are still present in the final version of all the Generation III GBA games, but are inaccessible under normal conditions.

A video of this debugging version is available here:

The debugging functions are mostly documented here.

Limitations
Junichi Masuda stated on his blog that while developing, Game Freak considered changing the number of the undefined can have and the number of moves a Pokémon can learn but that the idea was later scrapped. It is currently unknown what sort of potential changes were to be made, and as of Generation VII, no changes like this have been made to the series.