Although we have more than 1,000 official Pokémon after the release of Scarlet and Purple, the reality is that there are many more outside of the canon. This is because during the creative phase leading up to each main game, a good handful of creatures are often created and discarded. It is something of the most common in the development of videogames.
But the first installment of Pokémon, the well-known Blue and Red cartridges (Green and Red in Japan), had some space problems. Despite the miraculous performance of Satoru Iwata to carry out the project, these devices were not enough for everything that the ambitious development team wanted to do.
You may not know that Pikachu, which in the first edition of Pokémon did not have Pichu as a pre-evolution and could only transform into Raichu, ended up having a third, even more powerful form. Atsuko Nishida, creator of Pikachu, commented in an interview given in 2018 to the Japanese newspaper Yomiuri several details about Gorochu.
According to Nishida’s account, Gorochu “had fangs and horns, and looked like a god of thunder.” Thanks to the cover illustration, created by designer Foxeaf, we can get an idea of what Gorochu might have been like if he had gotten a sprite in the first generation of Pokémon.
Well, if you have played Pokémon Scarlet and Purple, you will see that in both titles there is a time machine that has gone crazy. In the case of Purple, it has opened a passage to the future from which hyper-evolved creatures come, and in Scarlet it does the same with the past, allowing prehistoric monsters to roam free.
Gorochu in the Scarlet and Purple DLC?
Although Junichi Masuda, one of the historical men of the saga, commented in an interview with Gamespot that “the chances of seeing Gorochu in the future would be low”, the truth is that now is when it makes the most sense. We would all have thought of Gorochu’s appearance as a Mega Evolution of Raichu, but Paradox Pokémon may be an option.
Given that Scarlet and Purple have been such a huge success, it’s natural to take an expansion for granted, and we might consider catching a few additional Pokémon. Would Gorochu be a Raichu from the past as are the designs of these Paradox? Well, that would make all the sense in the world.