Gen 2 Demo Leak: All 1004 Beta Sprites

Written by Dr Lava, August 23 2019

Two years before Pokemon Gold & Silver were released in Japan, a demo build was exhibited at gaming expo Spaceworld 1997. Rumors of Pokemon seen in the demo spread for years afterwards, but a copy of that 1997 demo never surfaced. Well, until the summer of 2018 — that’s when the Spaceworld demo was hacked from Nintendo servers (a claim backed up by court documents), then picked apart by a group of about 25 prototype enthusiasts. For the short time these enthusiasts worked together, they called themselves Team Spaceworld.

Team Spaceworld eventually released just about everything found in the demo, as well as the Japanese-language demo rom itself. For a while, TSW was planning on releasing an English fan-translation of the demo. But the translation was never completed, and TSW later disbanded. Fortunately, most of the individual team members are still active in the prototype community, and one is even a supporter of this website via Patreon.

Quality and Resolution

The sprite sheets displayed below were ripped directly from the demo rom by Team Spaceworld member Obskyr. Obskyr recently suggested I host the Spaceworld world map on my website, since it’s not publicly available in full-resolution. He also mentioned he’d never gotten around to publishing the Shiny sprite sheet for the original 151, so he sent me those as well. All 1004 demo sprites and the demo world map are all hosted on this page in full-resolution. Just click on the sprite sheets and map to zoom in.

TSW member 2Tie ripped the world map, and Obskyr ripped the sprites, so full credit goes to them. There are a lot of compressed, resized, or incorrectly colored Spaceworld sprites and maps floating around the internet. But these were given to me directly by Obskyr — so rest assured, they’re the real deal.

White Display Sheets

On this page, I’m using sprite sheets where all the empty space has been re-colored white. I spent 6 hours inspecting each and every sprite to ensure they’re all correct. I’m calling these “display sheets” because they’re more visually appealing and allow for easier viewing. However, the original sprite sheets with gray backgrounds are technically more accurate.

As Obskyr explains, “There’s no transparency in Gen 1 and 2 Pokémon sprites – that’s why they’re always presented on a white background in-game. The white background is part of the sprite. However, in the Spaceworld demos, the ‘white’ color in the Pokémon sprites is actually light gray.” In other words, Pokemon sprites don’t just include the Pokemon themselves, but also the white (or gray) squares that surround them. That’s why every Spaceworld sprite sheet you’ve ever seen has a gray background.

While some of these sprites for the original 151 were brand new and unique to the Spaceworld demo, many were simply copied from Blue Version. Some were revised and used in Gold & Silver’s release versions, but others were discarded and never seen again. A few were even revised and used in Yellow Version. Keep in mind, this demo was exhibited at Spaceworld in November 1997, almost a year before Yellow Version released in September 1998.

The first generation of Pokemon games didn’t have Shiny Pokemon, so the Shiny sprites included in the Spaceworld demo were the first ever created. Each color was programmed to always correspond to another color in the Shiny sprites — for example, all orange Pokemon have maroon Shinies, and all green Pokemon have gray Shinies. Pokemon sprites followed this pattern in the early generations, but nowadays Game Freak hand-picks each Pokemon’s Shiny colors.

Related Article: Team Spaceworld member caught hacking Nintendo’s servers

You’ve likely already seen these lost Pokemon sprites, but you may not have seen their Shiny variants. What I said about the Kanto sprites applies here as well — every pink Pokemon has a blue Shiny, and every yellow Pokemon has an orange Shiny.

Gold & Silver’s release version takes place in the Johto region, which is based on the real-life Kansai region of Japan. But the Spaceworld demo’s world map was based on the entirety of Japan — Kansai and Kanto are represented by just one city each. There’s been a lot written about this world map and all the Spaceworld sprites since the demo leaked in 2018, so I won’t re-analyze it all here. The purpose of this page is primarily to host these full-resolution images.

If you want to contact me about Pokemon beta leaks — or for any reason at all — the easiest way to reach me is on Twitter, where I’m @DrLavaYT. I tweet a lot about Lost Pokemon, developer interview translations, and all kinds of Pokemon cut content, so follow me if that’s your kinda thing. Okay that’s it for this article, but I’ll leave some links below to related articles you might find interesting.

Related Articles:

• Ken Sugimori says “hundreds” of Pokemon cut from Gen 2

• Ken Sugimori Reveals Origins of Gen 5 Pokemon Designs

Related Videos:

• Gen 5’s Scrapped Special Event: The Lock Capsule

• Gen 4’s Internal Data & Cut Content