Pokémon Platinum beta
Pokémon Platinum, released on September 13th, 2008 in Japan and planned to be revealed in 2009 elsewhere, was in development for a long time beforehand. During the planning and development stages of Pokémon Platinum, several things were going to be a part of the games, but a lot of stuff did not make it to the final games.
Pre-Release information
Rumors
Rumors and speculations about a sequel or a sister game to Diamond and Pearl started to arise like during the previous three generations. On February 2008, Giratina Origin Forme was revealed to the public, along with speculations of a new Shaymin forme. Shaymin Sky Forme was revealed on a leak June issue of CoroCoro on a low-resolution cell phone photo along with pictures of screenshots from the game that show a new overworld scene and a new in-battle scene for Giratina. Other rumored information included:
- The eighth gym leader, Volkner, would be replaced.
- The Underground would become WiFi enabled.
- A new area called The Battle Island would be introduced. This was partly true as a new Battle Frontier was introduced.
- There would be a new form of Regigigas, and the speculations about its type ranged from Ice to Flying.
Pokémon Platinum announced
In May 2008, Pokémon Platinum was officially announced and will be released on 13 September 2008. Soon after Shaymin's Sky Forme was accidentally revealed on a advertisement for a Pokémon drinking cup before the item was quickly taken off. More information was released in the August issue of CoroCoro including official information on Giratina and Shaymin alternate forms along with information on the Ruined World and the Regigigas event. Pictures were revealed introducing Giratina Origin Forme in battle and the archway into Floaroma Town. Then finally in July 2008, the first trailer for Pokémon Platinum came out during an event showing more of the Ruined World and revealing more battle scenes and areas.
Sprites
During the planning and development stages of Pokémon Platinum, several sprites were going to be a part of the games. As Pokémon Platinum has a different sprite set to Diamond and Pearl, some sprites were dropped or changed since the early screenshots of Pokémon Platinum.
Before the game was released, there are pictures from Coro-Coro Magazine that showed a beta sprite for Shaymin's Sky Forme. This was soon dropped and redesigned for the final version.
Another sprite of Giratina was also shown in several early screenshots of the game.
Beta items
It has been discovered that various items still remain in the coding of Platinum that were also in Pokémon Diamond and Pearl. These items can be obtained using Action Replay and other means of cheating, but cannot be used. They are:
- S.S. Ticket, that allows entry for the luxury liner S.S. Anne (a possible reference to Red and Green or FireRed and LeafGreen).
- Contest Pass that would allow entry into Contests. However, Super Contests allow entry without a pass.
- Magma Rock would be a mystical item that could be used in Stark Mountain. Although it hasn't any known purpose, it is possible it would have something to do with the Heatran event.
- Red Chain is a creation by the lake trio that would be used to awaken Dialga or Palkia. Cyrus actually himself uses the item in-game, and it's possible that the Team Galactic event at Spear Pillar was initially to be activated by the player.
- Rule Book was a book that would be used as a guide when using the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection. It's possible that this was removed since these guidelines were contained in the games' instruction book.
- Seal Bag held up to 10 Seals, but was replaced with the Seal Case.
- Treasure Sack was meant to hold treasures from the Underground. It was replaced with special selections for the Underground.