Pokemon is a series of games about catching and bonding with adorable and cool creatures while having them battle against other trainer's Pokemon. These days, the fans find adorable details in Pokemon games on the regular, but digging a bit deeper finds details that aren't always so adorable.
The formula for almost all future Pokemon titles was set with th efirst two games released: Pokemon Red and Pokemon Blue. These starred the original Pokemon protagonist Red and emphasized the bonds that players formed with their Pokemon as of the utmost importance. It was even the reason given why Red triumphed over his rival Blue to become Pokemon Champion. But friendly bonding was, apparently, not always how Pokemon training was planned to be depicted.
RELATED: Pokemon Legends: Arceus Could Make Use of Black and White's Seasons
Beta sprites discovered for the original Pokemon titles depict many trainers bearing whips. That's right: whips were, at one point, seriously considered as a widespread tool of Pokemon training. At least six NPC sprites bore these whips. Only one of these, the sprite for the Pokemon Tamer, wound up keeping its whip in the final product. Even more surprising is the original sprite for Red, which was more muscular and also bore a whip. These days, classic Pokemon games would be rated 18+, but few would think it could have ever been for this reason.
On a conceptual level, it does make a certain amount of sense, especially for an earlier version of Pokemon. While plenty of Pokemon are cute, almost none of them are completely harmless, so having some method of getting more violent ones to obey is common sense. However, this is not exactly a child friendly image, and Pokemon titles were and are primarily aimed at children. It's debatable how many kids would have been comfortable with the idea of using a whip to train their Pikachu. It also provides a logistical problem, since some of the fiercest, most destructive, or heaviest original Pokemon would likely not be intimidated by a simple whip.
In the end, these problems are sidestepped by the solution of not having to train Pokemon to obey at all. Once they're in the Pokeball, they're ready to fight immediately. Still, early methods of taming Pokemon would be an interesting story for Pokemon Legends: Arceus to explore among others.
How much this would have shaped the landscape of Pokemon today is difficult to imagine, and even if kept in, it might well have remained a peculiar quirk of the first generation of Pokemon games. Only a few sprites had whips, including a Team Rocket Grunt, but the fact that one of those included the protagonist is freaky. What would current Pokemon protagonist cosplays look like if that became a trend?
MORE: Pokemon Legends: Arceus Inadvertently Pokes Fun at Diamond and Pearl
