YouTuber Dr. Lava has been documenting cut content from Nintendo games for years on his websiteand YouTube channel. More recently, his Twitter account has become a treasure trove of creatures cut from Pokémon games. Every day, Dr. Lava posts a tweet with his Lost Pokémon of the Day. He’s been doing this since at least November of 2019, and in the past few months, these tweets have exploded in the Pokémon fandom, garnering close to 2,000 retweets on each installment
Most of this information isn’t new, but Dr. Lava’s work appeals to my Virgo ass because of how clean and organized it is. Not only does Lava include sources and quotes, he also compiles illustrations from leaks and promotional images. When those aren’t available, artist Rachel Briggs provides speculative artwork of what the creatures could have looked like.
Update: 1/7/20, 10:15 a.m. ET: A previous version of this article incorrectly credited the artist.
https://twitter.com/embed/status/1200846274703921152
This means that by keeping an eye on Dr. Lava’s Twitter feed, you’ll get a daily dose of obscure Pokémon knowledge to impress your friends with. Sometimes the Pokémon that Lava features are well and truly lost, like Crocky, an incredibly disturbing monster that I can only assume has taken its rightful place as king of hell.
https://twitter.com/embed/status/1203369388847587329
Other times, they’re depictions of eventual evolutions that weren’t final yet, like this version of Squirtle’s third evolution:
https://twitter.com/embed/status/1200846274703921152
Or this scrapped Farfetch’d evolution, Madame:
https://twitter.com/embed/status/1207354045221859329
Video games change a lot during development, and Pokémon is no exception. While I’m pretty attached to these creatures as they are, it’s also neat to see what could have been. Especially Madame. Can we get that as a regional evolution in a future game, Game Freak?
Update
