Pokémon fans united over Pikachu's secret alternate evolution: 'bring him back'

Over the years, many iterations of Pokémon have likely fallen to the cutting room floor, in the best attempts at streamlining, and keeping the overall headcount low.

It was also a must during the early days of the games, as the limited Nintendo cartridges simply couldn’t store enough information.

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This meant that some of the most popular Pokémon had evolutions that were scrapped.

Sadly, this was the case with our dear friend Pikachu, who once had a third evolution beyond Raichu.

We all know that Pikachu evolves into Raichu, and a third form was eventually added in Pichu, which became the first stage of the evolutionary line.

However, the final stage of Pikachu’s evolution was supposed to be Gorochu, which you can see for yourself over on Reddit.

According to the Redditor who created the thread, Gorochu should make a comeback in a future game.

Other fans are in agreement, noting that Gorochu looks like they have fire aspects to the design.

“The design looks firey so maybe using a Fire Stone instead of a Thunder Stone on Pikachu gives the Fire-Electric type Goruchu?” said Termades.

“I'd say just make Gorochu an alternative evolution,” comments another Pokémon fan.

With Pikachu being the series mascot, there’s no saying that The Pokémon Company and Nintendo couldn’t make it have the franchise's first four-evolution monster.

Taking the line beyond Raichu, and utilising a new dual-type.

Kaptoz replies in the thread, “They already have mega evolution, and every else. I'm sure canon wise they could write something into the story that they discovered a way to increase some base power.”

Another fan, EclipseHERO notes one way to solve bringing Gorochu back - “Just make a Regional Pikachu that evolves into it when a Fire Stone is used on it. Make Kantonian Pikachu easily obtainable as well, and don't give Pichu a Regional Form so they can evolve either way.”

Maybe one day, when we have another thousand Pokémon, we’ll get more evolutions.