While most people often get stuck on the last one – which is always different – I reckon the majority of us Pokemon fans have a fairly decent idea of every Pokemon type. I’m a Water trainer for the most part, although I also have a soft spot for Dark-, Ghost-, and Grass-types. That’s the beauty of having 18 distinct elemental types and an enormous amount of hybrid combinations between them – everyone has their own favourite typing, all of which are completely valid.
The thing is, there’s quite a bit of evidence that suggests a 19th type could have been in development almost two decades ago. While Gen 2 launched with 16 types – Water, Fire, Grass, Electric, Normal, Rock, Ground, Ice, Psychic, Ghost, Flying, Fighting, Poison, Bug, and Dragon – Gen 2 went on to introduce both the Dark and Steel types.
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I’ve already talked about how the invention of Dark Pokemon is still probably the best thing that ever happened to the series – that’s not what I’m interested in today. Instead, I’d like to focus on the fact that Game Freak could have originally been intending to introduce new types with each successive generation, as evidenced by a Gen 3 ability that was cut during development.
You might have read up on this before, but Gen 3’s Whismur family was originally supposed to have a unique ability called “Cacophony.” While details of the ability’s effect are scarce, it’s reasonable to assume it was noise-related. There are abilies out there that do pertain to noise – Soundproof provides ‘mons with an immunity to sound-based moves, for one – but Cacophony is, by definition, more actively aggressive. Maybe moves like Hyper Voice could bypass Soundproof, or maybe it would have had a similar effect to sleep-resisting abilities like Vital Spirit and Insomnia. Either way, the fact it was cut from the game is pretty weird – especially when you look at both the Whismur family and all music-related Pokemon who have been added to the series since.
The Whismur family in Gen 3 are Normal-type. Whismur, maybe. I mean, it lives in a cave, which makes the Normal typing a bit weird, but I suppose you could say the same about Clefairy prior to Gen 6’s introduction of the Fairy type. Exploud… less Normal, definitely. It almost looks as if it could be Dark- or Fighting- type, but I’d like to emphasize the ‘almost’ there, because it doesn’t quite look like either. Exploud? It looks more like a Dragon ‘mon than a Normal one. Are you kidding me? Exploud is probably the most difficult Pokemon to pigeonhole into an existing type in history. You’re telling me this Pokemon, with that design, had a completely unique ability and was always planned as “Yep, that’s a Normal type.” I’ll have a sip of whatever you’re drinking, please.
That’s not to mention the amount of music-based Pokemon that have come out either before or since the Whismur family first appeared in 2002. A quick, non-exhaustive list off the top of my head would include Meloetta, Chatot, Primarina, Chimecho, Noivern, Maractus, Rillaboom, Toxtricity, Altaria, Jigglypuff, Ludicolo, Kricketune, and, to an extent, Obstagoon. There is no doubt in my mind that, more so than anything else, a music- or sound-based typing could be slotted straight into the next Pokemon game with little to no resistance both in terms of contextual placement and fan reception.
It’s obviously slightly speculative – Game Freak has never come out and said, “Oh, by the way, we cut Sound-type from Ruby & Sapphire just because.” Unless it’s going to be added in the future, its existence or lack thereof will likely never be properly confirmed. When you examine the evidence, though, from Cacophony, to Exploud’s nonsensical typing, to the fact that so many Pokemon – some of whom were probably sketched years before their official inauguration – are tied to music and sound, it seems like this really was a thing at one point.
Personally, I think it would be pretty cool. I know I said I’m a Water trainer now, but if you let me go full punk rock like Piers? Well, my Blastoise and Gyarados better to learn to sing, eh?
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