Earlier this year, an old demo for Pokemon Gold and Silver revealed a slew of unused Pokemon designs. Now even more unused Pokemon designs have surfaced, thanks to Japanese TV channel NHK, which revealed some concept art for first generation Pokemon that has never been shown publicly before.

Some of the rejected Gen 1 Pokemon designs revealed by NHK still ended up pretty close to the final product, like Tentacool, Cloyster, Staryu, and Gastly. However, other Pokemon ended up looking quite a bit different from their original design. Perhaps the most notable example is Gyarados, which looks completely different in the concept art.

It appears the original design for Gyarados was more in line with the Mongolian Deathworm cryptid than a Chinese dragon. In the rejected Gen 1 Pokemon concept art, the original design for Gyarados is pictured below Lapras and to the right of Arcanine, so fans can take a look and judge for themselves.

Another Pokemon whose appearance seems to have radically changed from its original incarnation to the final product is Scyther. Scyther's original look, seen to the right of Pinsir and to the left of Lapras, was far stockier than he ended up being by the time the games launched. He also had a pair of horns that gave his skull a dragon-like appearance, which were ultimately removed in the final design.

Longtime fans of Pokemon will no doubt appreciate the opportunity to check out some of these rejected designs, but some may be disappointed at the lack of one particular rejected Gen 1 Pokemon design that we already knew about. Earlier this year, it was revealed that Raichu originally had an evolution called Gorochu, which added fangs and horns to his appearance. Apparently Gorochu was scrapped from the final versions of Pokemon Red and Blue for balancing reasons, but to date no official artwork of the creature has been released by Game Freak.

Perhaps fans will get a chance to check out Gorochu in the future. In the meantime, they can check out these unused Gen 1 Pokemon designs and keep their fingers crossed that similar reveals for other Pokemon and generations are in the works.

Source: Polygon