Pokemon Diamond and Pearl May Have Had Another Version of Charizard Planned

The Pokemon Company may have wanted to start putting more emphasis on Charizard as early asPokemon DiamondandPearl. The game’s source code reveals that the company may have had plans to give Charmeleon analternative Charizard evolution.

Pokemon DiamondandPearl’s source code leaked onlineyesterday along with the Nintendo 3DS', and its existence has caused fans to scour it for any potential secrets. Twitter user eclipse_tt thinks they may have found the one concerning Charmander and his evolutionary line.

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It ties back toDiamondandPearl’s Pokedex. Within in its files, Eclipse found a never-released Pokemon with dummied out stats and a dummied out entry. However, while none of that information may be present, the Pokemon’s name, category, and number are all visible, and they all seem to point to a Charmeleon evolution.

For starters, the Pokemon is called Rizaagan. The “Gan” portion of the name can stand for a multitude of things, but “Rizaa” means “lizard,” and Charizard’s name in Japanese is “Lizardon.” The Pokemon’s category also considers Rizaagan a “Flame” type, which is the same as Charizard. And finally, the Pokemon’s Pokedex number was 503, which puts it right between Magmorter and Porygon-Z, so Rizaagan should have ended up as a Gen 1 evolution.

It’s not definitive that Rizaagan would have been a variation on Charizard, but that’s what all the evidence suggests. There are only three Pokemon that Generation 1 considers “Flame Pokemon,” and they are Charizard, Flareon, and Moltres. Out of these three, only Charizard comes close to being a lizard, and his evolutionary line is the only one that would sensibly work with another evolved form. Eevee having another fire variation would break its gimmick, andMoltress having an alternative formover the other Legendary Birds doesn’t make any sense.

Maybe The Pokemon Company and Game Freak had plans to introduce one of Charizard’s Mega Evolutions earlier than Gen 6. Instead of a Mega Evolution, however, Rizaagan would be considered a branch evolution for Charmeleon. If this were the case, it would be interesting to know which Mega Form design Rizaagan would have used. Perhaps Y since its design looks more like avariation on Charizard.

Maybe Rizaagan will appear in a future Pokemon generation, or as part of DLC forPokemon SwordandShield. If it does and ends up being a Charizard variant, here’s hoping that The Pokemon Company will do the same forVenusuar and Blastoise.