7 Pokémon That Nearly Had Very Different Designs

Published Jul 24, 2026, 7:00 PM EDT Yuliya Geikhman has been writing professionally for over 17 years. She started out in the MMO scene with Pando Media Booster and now dives into everything gaming at Screen Rant. She's a lifelong gamer, a relentless industry sleuth, and a passionate follower of everything happening in the games industry. The Pokémon we know and love today didn't necessarily always look that way. Designs for any game go through multiple iterations before settling on the final form that makes it out to the public. But this is especially true for a huge franchise like Pokémon. Nintendo and the Pokémon Company are both extremely protective of their IP, so every design has to be perfect before it leaves the studio. We'll never know what most of our beloved Pokémon looked like originally. But now, thanks to a new leak, we know at least some of the initial designs. The leak, shared on Resetera, comes from an upload of an old "behind the scenes" DVD from Pokémon Diamond and Pearl that has just surfaced. Thanks to the footage contained on this video, we now know of some designs that never made it into the games. What's more, we know that several Pokémon almost ended up looking very different. Glameow's Wore Its Own Tail As A Scarf Glameow is a cat-like fourth-generation Pokémon with a distinctly spring-like tail. It's quite glamorous, which makes its evolution in Purugly all the more unexpected. The evolution is a much more rotund and grumpy-looking version of Glameow, with a spring tail that ends in a fluffy bit that it rests on its back. A drawing from the leaked video and shared on Resetera shows what was probably an early version of Glameow. It seems that the original version of the kitty combined both evolutions into one. It featured a slim cat design with a spring-like tail that ends in a split fluffy part like Purugly, which it wears around its neck like a scarf. Lilligant Could Have Been A Cheerleading Flower The sweet-looking Lilligant is a much-loved design for good reason. The humanoid plant Pokémon looks like she's wearing a dress and a flower hat with a crown-like top. To make this even cuter, she always seems to be mid-curtsey. Instead of looking like a little flower princess, Lilligant almost looked like a cheerleader, instead. It's hard to see too much detail, but one image on Resetera shows a cheerful plant creature with a flower skirt like Lilligant's. This design also has a flower hat to match its white skirt, and is waving around flower arms like pom-poms. It's not certain that this is Lilligant's original design. However, the smaller flower design next to it fairly closely resembles Petilil. Lilligant and Petilil didn't make it to the game until Gen-5, so it's not surprising they went through more of a design shift. Stunky Was Tiny And Adorable Some Pokémon are created to win you over with their cute charm or awesome vibes. Others, like Stunky, have neither cuteness nor coolness—but they're still special in their own way. Stunky is a skunk Pokémon with a perpetually raised tail, like it's always on the verge of spraying its signature stink from its rear end. A series of tiny drawings on Resetera reveal that Stunky almost certainly started with a strong cute factor intact. In these sketches, the creature is a lot smaller and rounder, featuring a small body and tail, and an oversized head. One design feature did end up making its way to the final version: a face that definitely and purposefully resembles a rear end. Stunky fans may disagree, but the design doodle version of the Pokémon wore the unique-looking face better. Croagunk Was An Angry Little Frog You may not realize that Croagunk's design is based on the poison dart frog. Somewhere between the design phase and the final product, the Pokémon became bipedal and gained poison-secreting red cheeks. The Pokémon also has a perpetual smile and leer, making it look vaguely apologetic all the time. The original design from Resetera, kept much closer to its original frog inspiration. The colors, eyes, and cheeks clearly identify it as a proto-Croagunk. But the Pokémon was initially a lot more frog-like, from its sitting pose to its large, open mouth. The original design of the instantly-recognizable eye also made the frog Pokémon look much angrier than it ended up looking. There is also a mysterious clown-nose-like protrusion on its stomach, which might have evolved into Croagunk's fingers, which secrete a medicinal serum in the final version. Turtwig Nearly Looked Like Sandshrew As one of the starters for Gen-4, Turtwig's design had to be spot-on. The little tortoise is quite charming, displaying its Grass-Type affinity with its earthy colors and the two leaves sprouting from its head. What we almost got instead, as can be seen on Resetera, was a sweet little armadillo creature. The adorable proto-Turtwig had a leaf-like tail and could roll up into a ball. I wouldn't be surprised if the initial design was scrapped due to looking too much like Sandshrew. In the end, the tortoise Turtwig makes sense as a springboard for its evolutions, whose shells grow larger and larger to accommodate entire ecosystems. Piplup Was Almost Super Fluffy Like Turtwig, Piplup was a starter for the fourth generation Pokémon games. The cute fan-favorite Piplup has a sweet baby penguin design, and gradually evolves into the imposing and regal emperor penguin-based Empoleon. Images on Resetera show that the entire Piplup line almost looked very different. For starters, Piplup itself had a tiny crown and looked very fluffy, almost like it was wooly. Prinplup was fairly close to the final design, but with a much more vacant stare instead of the fierce glare it ended up with. Empoleon, on the other hand, looked more like it was wearing a fur coat. It also had a neck and head adornment that seems to be made of icicles, instead of the more streamlined and trident-like feature it has in the finalized design. Monferno Looks Completely Different The final starter for Gen-4 was the Fire-Type Chimchar. The playful bipedal monkey had a pretty similar initial design, judging by the Resetera leak. However, it was almost a quadruped, which looks a little strange with both its arms and legs the same length. Chimchar's final evolution, Infernape, looks nearly identical to the final version. A few details are changed in the official version, like the color of its hands and feet. As Resetera user Lord Vatek writes, "They knew they struck gold with Infernape right away." But the middle evolution, Monferno, is almost unrecognizable. Monferno's official design is like an older version of Chimchar. It has longer limbs and tail, a more pronounced snout, and an even more mischievous expression than Chimchar. The leaked Pokémon design also has longer limbs and a bigger snout, but it otherwise looks nothing like its final version. The design is a serious-looking bipedal monkey with yellow swirl designs all over its body and long "hair" instead of the slicker-looking head swoop of Monferno. Many fans will probably agree that they prefer the final versions of each of these iconic entries in the Pokémon franchise. It's still fun to see where the designs started and how they've evolved to their final forms. As games like Pokémon Winds & Waves add even more designs to the Pokédex, it's interesting to take a look at what could have been the norm for previous entries. TV Show(s) Pokémon Video Game(s) Pokemon Red and Blue, Pokemon Yellow, Pokemon Gold and Silver, Pokémon Crystal, Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire, Pokemon Sapphire, Pokemon Diamond and Pearl, Pokemon Platinum, Pokemon Black and White, Pokemon Black and White 2, Pokemon X and Y, Pokemon Sun and Moon, Pokemon Sword and Shield, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, Pokemon Winds and Waves, Pokemon Legends Arceus, Pokemon Legends Z-A First Film Pokemon: The First Movie First TV Show Pokémon First Game Pokemon Red and Blue Genres RPG