With an IP as large and long-running as Pokemon, lost media, canceled games, and strong rumors are all out there, just ripe for discussion. While there’s plenty of cut content to discuss out there, in this article, we’ll be talking about all the games that only had a few code lines and whispers to call their own. Titles like Pokemon Pink were only subject to rumor; no evidence of their existence exists, at least not in public hands. However, with more and more demo releases and information dumps from previous employees coming about occasionally, who knows if one of these titles is lurking somewhere?
Pokemon Grey
Pokemon Grey is the natural visualized sequel to Pokemon White and Pokemon Black, which both released in 2010. It’s no wonder, especially for the time, that such a name would float about as the next step in Pokemon’s timeline. Before, three games were all the rage in the Pokemon prediction timeline simply because they had done nothing else in the pattern before. GameFreak is nothing if not subject to a pattern, so gamers everywhere assumed Pokemon Grey would come out sometime after the success with Pokemon Black and White. There was even a small amount of evidence that the game existed: one piece being a trademark name for Pokemon Grey and a website that used the same name.
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Pokemon Pink
Pokemon Pink is the oldest known rumored release in the franchise. With only a tiny piece of leftover code as any evidence that it even existed, it’s certainly one of the most well-known titles that doesn’t have a game behind it. The only other evidence that Pokemon Pink might have been genuine is a snapshot from the Game Boy Camera that showed Pikachu and Clefairy next to each other.
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Other than these, there’s no real evidence of Pokemon Pink, no confirmation from GameFreak, and no one else coming forward with information. Presumably, Pokemon Pink would have been a release with a pink color scheme, with Clefairy as a starter Pokemon instead of Pikachu. For Pokemon, especially during the time of Red, Blue, Green, and Yellow’s release, Pokemon Pink would have been the fast track to getting the female audience on top of the Pokemon franchise.
Pokemon Moss
Pokemon Moss is one of the most far-fetched rumors out there, only having one piece of evidence for its existence. Even then, it very well could have been a pun. Plus, the name doesn’t align with previous patterns in GameFreak’s Pokemon library. In the Mobile System GB Game Pak, the Mobile Trainer has the following line, translated from Japanese:
At last, the new Pokémon are gonna be introduced! For more on "Pokémon Moss", go to Nintendo's home page! e-Mail Magazine GB GAMER's Life [email protected]Mobile Trainer
While this does seem like hard and fast evidence for a game, straight from the source material itself, it never came to fruition, which encouraged fans to believe that this statement was either misinformed or a joke. Pokemon Moss can also be translated to say ‘Pokemon Fool’ when translated from Japanese, which suggests that maybe the text was a joke for players at the height of PokeMania.
Pokemon RPG
Pokemon RPG, which is not any kind of official title, is the name given to what fans thought was a leak long ago during the N64 days. This rumor surrounded the product Pokemon Stadium, in which leakers assumed Pokemon Stadium to be the first part of a two-part game series. One where Stadium functioned more as a battle simulator, while Pokemon RPG functioned more like a full-on RPG adventure for the N64.
While such a game would have been amazing for the time, pre-dating the earliest console versions of Pokemon by more than a few years, it was never meant to be. The supposed leak turned out to be nothing, despite the initial source coming from Nintendo Power in the late 90’s.
