Let’s assume you’re at least remotely familiar with the work of Satoru Iwata, Nintendo’s beloved president who sadly passed away in 2015. If so, you’ve no doubt heard the popular rumor surrounding his contribution to Pokémon Gold And Silver in 1999.
Iwata is rumored to have created a compression code that greatly reduced the size of the games, allowing Game Freak to include the original Kanto region in addition to the newly introduced Johto.
This narrative has almost been proven correct thanks to old interviews and in-game dialogue from later recordings. However, according to new information from DidYouKnowGaming on YouTube, Iwata’s contribution to Gold and Silver was not focused on the size of the games, but on their speed.
The video above goes into more detail, but the bottom line is that the algorithm found in the game data (which is a modified version of the same one found in EarthBound and other HAL Laboratory games) is related to increasing the overall speed of the game. In most cases, we’re talking about fractions of a second, like when a battle starts, when an opposing Pokemon appears on the screen, and many other minor examples. The fact is that all of this contributes to a smoother operation compared to earlier builds.
So this means Kanto was added by the developers despite Iwata’s algorithm reducing the total memory by a few percent. So, while Iwata’s work may not have been as revolutionary as we previously thought, it was still a significant contribution that saved players from long loading times.
