Gorochu: Developer Translations and the 2019 Leak

Written by Dr Lava, November 15 2019

“Its name was Gorochu. It had fangs and horns and looked like a god of thunder.” That’s how Atsuko Nishida — creator of the Pikachu family — first revealed an evolved form of Raichu had been cut from the first generation of Pokemon games.

That bombshell was dropped in an early 2018 interview with Japanese newspaper Yomiuri. In the year and half since, more information has come to light about Pikachu’s scrapped final evolution. So in this article, we’ll be taking an exhaustive look at everything there is know about Gorochu. Its Japanese name meaning, some developer quotes, a Gen 1 prototype leak… everything.

Japanese Name Translations

The family originally consisted of Pikachu, Raichu, and Gorochu. “Chu” is the squeak sound a mouse makes in Japanese. “Pika” is the sound emitted by an electric shock. For example, in an English comic book, when someone is zapped by electricity, the caption might read something like “zzzt,” but in Japan it would say “pikapika.”

“Rai” means thunder, while “Goro” is the sound of thunder. An English comic might caption a thunderclap with “boom” or “rumble rumble,” but in a Japanese comic it would be “Gorogoro.” And from all this, you can grasp the meanings of Pikachu, Raichu, and Gorochu.

The Yomiuri Interview

Okay, now let’s return to that developer interview I mentioned earlier. It was published in Japanese newspaper Yomiuri in May 2018, then in July it was published on Pokemon.com in English. The interview was conducted with lead Pokemon designer Ken Sugimori, Pikachu creator Atsuko Nishida, and another developer named Koji Nishino — who’s probably most famous for being the inspiration for Snorlax.

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Yomiuri: “Did you receive any orders when creating Pikachu?”

Nishida: “There were no specifications other than gameplay ones, such as it had to be Electric-type and that it would evolve twice. I designed Pikachu and Raichu based on that.”

Sugimori: “Weren’t you told to make it an Electric-type Pokémon and to make it cute?”

Nishida: “No, I wasn’t. I was told to make its final form look strong. That’s right, there was an evolved form after Raichu at the time. Its name was Gorochu. It had fangs and horns and looked like a god of thunder.”

Yomiuri: “Why was this Gorochu rejected?”

Nishino: “That’s because, in the game specifications, Pikachu ended up being the kind of Pokémon that evolves only once.”

Sugimori: “There was nothing wrong with its appearance—it simply had to do with the balance within the game.”

Nishino: “There was also a problem in terms of the size of the game data. We had to save space by taking Pokémon originally designed to evolve twice and making them evolve only once. Pikachu was not one of the first three Pokémon, so it was an easy target for this kind of reduction.”

Not Enough Space

So according to these Game Freak staffers, there were two reasons why Gorochu was cut — too many 3 stage families, and not enough space on a Gameboy cartridge.

According to Gen 1 programmer Shigeki Morimoto, there wasn’t a single kilobyte of free space leftover Game Freak completed development of Red & Green. When the games were finished, the debug features were removed — which opened up 300 bytes of free space. Morimoto used those 300 bytes to squeeze in Mew at the last minute. So it sounds like Game Freak couldn’t have fit one more Pokemon even if they’d wanted to. Perhaps they had to cut lots of Pokemon due to storage limitations, and the reason Sugimori gave about “balance” was applied when deciding which Pokemon were going to be cut.

That appears to line up with what Pokemon’s creator Satoshi Tajiri said in his own Yomiuri interview around the same time. According to Tajiri, lots of Gen 1 Pokemon had to be cut because Game Freak just couldn’t fit them onto a cartridge.

The Leaked Back Sprite

Actually, there were quite a few 3 stage families that got cut down to just two during Gen 1’s development. This was made abundantly clear when Helix Chamber published some leaked Gen 1 prototype assets in February 2019.

These assets included Gorochu’s back sprite (pictured above), as well as back sprites for lots of other lost Pokemon who were once part of 3 stage families. The full list includes pre-evolutions for Meowth, Vulpix, Goldeen, Ponyta, and Zubat, as well as a middle-stage once meant to connect Psyduck and Golduck. It should be noted that all these pre-evolutions — except Zubat’s — were also found in Gold & Silver’s leaked 1997 demo.

Unfortunately, unlike the Gen 2 demo leak, those Gen 1 assets did not include any front sprites. So some of these lost Pokemon’s true appearance are still unknown, including Gorochu’s. I should mention that there’s been some question as to whether those leaked assets are legitimate. That’s really a topic deserving its own full-length article — but for now, I’ll just say I’m confident they’re legit.

However, Helix Chamber did get themselves into trouble with how they revealed those assets. If you want to read Helix Chamber’s article revealing those assets, you can read it here. Their article begins by referencing a controversy, but not explaining what it was all about. So if you’re going to read their article, I actually recommend reading my article first, which provides context for both the leak, and the controversy about how the leak was revealed.

It’s all pretty complicated really, but I did my best to simplify everything in that article. But if you’re just here for Gorochu, let’s continue.

Masuda’s Explanation

Now let’s hear what longtime series director Junichi Masuda has to say. In October 2018, Gamespot interviewed Masuda about the upcoming Let’s Go games. You can read that full interview here, but for the purposes of this article, I’ll just excerpt the short bit where he’s asked about Gorochu. By the way, kudos to Gamespot for sneaking in this question at the very end:

Gamespot: One final question: any chance we see Pikachu’s scrapped evolution, Gorochu, someday?

Masuda: “You’re probably not going to see it. None of the Pokemon that we worked on, got to a point, and then discarded them have actually ever re-appeared yet, so I would say the chances are low. One of the reasons for that is that we always have this base criteria at Game Freak of being able to explain why a certain Pokemon is in the world or why it exists in that world, trying to make it feel believable within the fantasy. And usually the ones that get rejected are Pokemon that we weren’t able to justify, I think. Usually there’s a reason for why they weren’t implemented, and as long as that reason still exists, they probably won’t be put in the game.”

“We always say Pokemon isn’t a ‘character game.’ It’s not a game where it’s just the characters, but it’s a game that shows this world where these living creatures are existing in a space. That’s kind of a slight nuance, but that’s what we always try to go for at Game Freak. It’s not good enough that they’re just cute. (Laughs) They have to have something more to it.”

Masuda’s Credibility

I’m going to spend the next few paragraphs analyzing this Masuda quote, and Masuda quotes in general. I mean no disrespect, but… Masuda isn’t known for answering interview questions with candor. He often sounds like he’s deflecting, or just being disingenuous.

In the interest of brevity, I’m just going to touch on one other Masuda quote. There was an in-game Arceus event programmed into Gen 4 that would have been unlocked with a key item called the Azure Flute. The Azure Flute was originally intended for distribution at special events, but that never ended up happening. When questioned by Nintendo World Report, Masuda said that it was never distributed because he worried it would be too confusing for the games’ fans.

This is despite the fact there were lots of other Pokemon that were much more confusing. Ruby & Sapphire basically required you to learn Braille in order to catch Regice, Registeel, and Regirock. Not to mention what was asked of fans who wanted to catch Feebas — now THAT was confusing. So this idea that the Arceus event was never made accessible, because playing the Azure Flute at Spear Pillar would have been too confusing, just doesn’t hold much water.

The point is, you can’t take everything Masuda says at face value. He’s probably the most talkative member of the Game Freak staff when it comes to development details — which I greatly appreciate. But his quotes have to be taken with a grain of salt.

However, in regards to his statement about Gorochu, I need to make a point in Masuda’s defense real quick. He starts off by saying, “None of the Pokemon that we worked on, got to a point, and then discarded them have actually ever re-appeared yet…” Some folks in the beta Pokemon community have said that’s demonstrably untrue, because Gold & Silver’s 1997 demo contained several Pokemon that were cut from G&S’s final build, but returned in later generations — like Lickilicky, Tangrowth, and Leafeon.

But maybe Masuda doesn’t think of these as discarded Pokemon that were brought back. He probably considers them brand new Pokemon. After all, when they returned in later generations, they had new names and new designs. So if that’s his perspective, then his statement appears to be true. Dozens of lost Pokemon have been revealed in recent years, and none of them were ever re-introduced in later generations.

But the bulk of Masuda’s statement about Pokemon that were cut — in this case Gorochu — not fitting into the Pokemon world, doesn’t make much sense. He also says it’s not enough for a Pokemon to be cute. But by the sound of it, Gorochu wasn’t cute. “It had fangs and horns and looked like a god of thunder.” So for the most part, I think this is yet another Masuda quote that really can’t be taken too seriously.

Gone for Good

But I do think we have to take Masuda seriously when he said a Pokemon’s never been scrapped then brought back later. That lines up with every lost Pokemon we know about so far. After Nishida revealed Gorochu in the Yomiuri interview, the entire Pokemon fanbase went wild, begging Game Freak to bring him back. But when Sword and Shield released 18 months later, Gorochu wasn’t included. So I think we have our answer — Gorochu ain’t comin back.

The possibility of Gorochu’s return was made even more unlikely by the introduction of Pichu in Gen 2, which gave the Pikachu family its third stage. There’s never been a 4 stage family of Pokemon, so Raichu evolving is practically impossible at this point. Of course, anything is possible with branch-evolutions and regional variants. But unless this Pokemon used that original 90’s design, we’d effectively be getting a brand new Pokemon… not Gorochu.

In short, don’t hold your breath for the return of Gorochu. Game Freak doesn’t have a corporate culture that emphasizes fan service. They do what they want, and we go along with it — they’re not in the habit of taking requests. Hopefully, someday the Pokemon Company will publish Gorochu’s original sprites and artwork, similar to what they did with the 2018 Satoshi manga. Or maybe we could see them in another leak someday.

Neither possibility seems particularly likely, but it’s probably the best we can hope. But whatever happens, it’ll be reported on here.

Related Articles:

• Sugimori: several hundred Pokemon created for Gen 2, most got cut

• All 1004 sprites from Gold & Silver’s 1997 demo, high-res

• Ken Sugimori reveals origins of Gen 5 Pokemon designs