Pokemon Ruby And Sapphire Almost Had Different Names

The realm of Pokemon is far greater than what it used to be, which shows just how expansive the franchise has become since its inception on the Game Boy. Not only are there mainline titles, but there’s a plethora of spinoff titles that touch on just about every element of the world that you can think of. There’s a reason why it’s the highest-grossing franchise in the world: there’s so much you can do with it! When you look at some of the iconic names, like Pokemon Ruby And Sapphire, you can’t imagine them having different titles. Yet, with Gen 3, that’s apparently what almost happened.

This comes from a pair of data miners. One of them, as you can see below, outlined that while he and another dataminer were going into the could for Pokemon Ruby And Sapphire, they found that there was some text that, when translated, noted that the games were initially given different titles. They were supposed to be “Crimson and Indigo.” The data miners note that it’s possible these were just placeholder names; however, given the timing of when The Pokemon Company and Nintendo actually revealed the titles for Gen 3, it’s possible that these were heavily considered.

If it is true, that these were considered, it would’ve maintained the “naming chain” that the first two generations had, as five of the previous six titles were distinctly titled after colors. However, the third game of Gen 2 had a material name, which likely inspired Nintendo to follow that suit, which would continue in Gen 4, until Gen 5 briefly went back to color names.

From the naming sense, hearing “Ruby and Sapphire” feels a bit more impactful than “Crimson and Indigo.” Ironically, the franchise already had an “Indigo” via the “Indigo League” that was fought in the first series. The anime even referenced it as the first league that Ash Ketchum fought.

Interestingly, neither “Crimson” nor “Indigo” has been used in a title yet. However, in Gen 9, “Scarlet” was one of the titles while “Violet” was the other. Thus, the names got close to being used again, but not fully.

Many people are interested in seeing what The Pokemon Company and Nintendo have planned for the franchise’s future. After all, the series sold almost 100 million software units on the Nintendo Switch, and with the Switch successor coming next year, you know the teams are going to try to replicate that success.