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It’s mind-boggling that even after 20 years or so, new information is being uncovered about the Pokémon games. The latest piece of uncovered information relates to Ruby and Sapphire, the games that kick-started Gen 3, and what they were originally going to be called.
Pokémon dataminers KmiE_821 and Wobbuu on Twitter/X had been digging through R/S files when they came across the Japanese phrases “藍バージョン” and “朱バージョン”. They relate to Pokémon Sapphire and Ruby, respectively. Roughly, this translates to Indigo (Sapphire) and Vermillion / Crimson (Ruby). As of yet, I’ve only been able to use online translation software to ascertain that, though I have contacted native Japanese speakers for a more contextual and accurate translation and this page shall be updated as soon as I can confirm.
Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire released in Japan in November 2002. The names of games were originally announced at Festa 2002, which also showcased playable demos of the games. With early playable builds likely having been passed long-before this event, it’s possible that the original names had simply been glossed over when when removing the comments.
The early names of the game reflect a similar sentiment to what the official names were – Indigo and Sapphire, and Crimson for Ruby. Yet, they somewhat evoke a totally different feeling. I had always felt that Ruby and Sapphire were the weakest names among the Pokémon series, and I wonder if I would have connected with them even more had they sounded a little bit cooler. Perhaps The Pokémon Company shifted away from Pokemon Indigo due to the connotations that might have arrived from Indigo League, the first season of the animated series.
I spoke to one of my colleagues, Antony Terence, who has a decent understanding of the Japanese language. He provided even more context to the Ruby-moniker’s history. The 朱 word can be traced to a few different meanings: cinnabar or vermillion, two colours featured distinctly in the original Pokémon Red and Blue games.
We had a little dig into the history of cinnabar and vermillion. Vermillion being the colour, and cinnabar being the material it derives from. According to Nara Sightseeing, cinnabar was once though to have “life-extending properties if ingested.” It’s interesting then seeing Groudon and Kyogre, two immortal gods battling it out in a pretty vain fight of ocean and land. Would the story of Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire have been entirely different if they had stuck to the Indigo / Vermillion names?
20 years on, we got Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, and I’d like to think that this is somewhat influenced by the early names of the Hoenn games.
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