Pokémon: Staryu & Starmie Were Poorly Designed In Gold & Silver

Staryu and Starmie suffered from some strange design decisions in Pokémon Gold & Silver, which were likely a result of an oversight on the part of the developers. The development of Pokémon Red & Green was infamously troubled, but Pokémon Gold & Silver also had its fair share of issues, including a total overhaul of the game’s story, world, and roster of Pokémon.

The numerous leaks of Pokémon Gold & Silver have shown that the game was still being changed all the way up to release. The Space World ’97 version of the game was very different from the final product, while the leaked Space World ’99 version of the game featured in-progress designs for iconic Pokémon, like Pichu and Celebi. The leaked versions of later Pokémon games were a lot closer to their final products, and it seems that Game Freak moved to choosing the final roster of Pokémon before work began on making the games.

Pokémon Gold & Silver introduced the concept of gender and breeding to the series. This is the reason why there can be female Mr. Mimes in the games, as their name was chosen before gender was added. The introduction of these mechanics also led to moves that used them, with Attract allowing a Pokémon to inflict the infatuation status effect on a Pokémon with the opposite gender, potentially causing them to skip turns.

The Problems With Staryu & Starmie’s Moves & Egg Moves

Staryu and Starmie are genderless Pokémon, which is a status they were given in Pokémon Gold & Silver. The problem is that they were given Attract as a potential TM move, which doesn’t do anything when used by a genderless Pokémon. It doesn’t even work on other genderless Pokémon, which means they have access to a move that doesn’t work. Not only that, but they are programmed with three egg moves in Pokémon Gold & Silver (Aurora Beam, Barrier, and Supersonic) which they cannot learn, as their genderless status means they can only breed with Ditto. These egg moves were removed in Pokémon Crystal.

According to The Cutting Room Floor, the leaked Space World ’99 demo of Pokémon Gold & Silver had versions of Staryu and Stamie that had genders. It’s likely that Attract and the egg moves were a holdover from this late point in development, and they were either missed when the game was being finished, or their removal would have disrupted the game in some way, so they were left in. The fact that the egg moves were cut in Pokémon Crystal suggests the former, as there were other Pokémon with egg moves that couldn’t be learned, so it’s possible these were all oversights.

Source: The Cutting Room Floor

About The Author

Scott Baird
(2512 Articles Published)

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Scott has been writing for Screen Rant since 2016 and regularly contributes to The Gamer. He has previously written articles and video scripts for websites like Cracked, Dorkly, Topless Robot, and TopTenz.
A graduate of Edge Hill University in the UK, Scott started out as a film student before moving into journalism. It turned out that wasting a childhood playing video games, reading comic books, and watching movies could be used for finding employment, regardless of what any career advisor might tell you. Scott specializes in gaming and has loved the medium since the early ‘90s when his first console was a ZX Spectrum that used to take 40 minutes to load a game from a tape cassette player to a black and white TV set. Scott now writes game reviews for Screen Rant and The Gamer, as well as news reports, opinion pieces, and game guides. He can be contacted on LinkedIn.

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