That Rhydon Guy

the first pokemon ever created. back in the early 1990s, when game freak was still calling the project “capsule monsters,” they needed a creature to build the entire system around. that first pokemon wasn’t pikachu, it was rhydon. ken sugimori, the original art director, has confirmed that rhydon was one of the very first designs he drew. in the internal code of pokemon red and green, rhydon sits at index number 001, making it the first entry added to the game’s database. because it was the early test subject, game freak used rhydon for everything: battle mechanics, sprites, animations, and moves. that’s why it can learn strange attacks like surf and thunder. its original sprite even served as a template for other large pokemon such as nidoking and nidoqueen. rhydon’s influence didn’t stop at development. statues of it appear all over the games, at the entrance of every kanto gym, on cinnabar island, in the ruins of alph, and even in later titles like x and y. in the original red and blue, those statues had also a funny glitch where the bottom tile was coded as water, letting players surf or fish right on top of them. rhydon may not be the most famous pokemon, but it is the one that helped build the foundation of the entire franchise and it is also holds the record guinness as the first pokemon ever created.

the first pokemon ever created. back in the early 1990s, when game freak was first pitching the idea of “capsule monsters,” they needed the creature to build everything around. the very first pokemon wasn’t pikachu but it was rhydon. ken sugimori, the original art director, confirmed that this rhydon was the very first one he drew. rhydon became the base of the entire franchise. in the internal code of pokémon red and blue, it holds index number 001, making it the first pokémon ever added to the game’s database. game freak used rhydon as their main test subject for everything, battles, sprites, animations, and moves. that’s why rhydon can learn weird moves like surf and thunder. its sprite was also used as a template for many other large pokemon like nidoking and nidoqueen. rhydons sprite doesn’t stopped at pokemon development only. rhydon statues appear all over the games: at the entrance of every kanto gym, on cinnabar island, in the ruins of alph in johto, and even in later titles like pokémon x and y. also rhydon stripe is used before engaging mewtwo. these statues had a funny glitch where they were coded as water tiles, letting players surf or fish on them in pokemon red and blue. rhydon may not be the most famous pokemon like pikachu but it’s definitely is the one that contributed the most for the games that we all love to play.