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I think G2's inception is very interesting and I wish we knew more about it. All the amazing prototypes that have been unveiled raise a lot of questions. It's been rumored that G2 was originally being developed by Kenner as its own toyline, separate from MLP. But when Hasbro bought the company they slapped the MLP label on them. I'm somewhat sceptical to these rumors, but it would explain why the design is so drastically different to G1.But G2 is unique in many ways compared to other generations. There is almost an "action figure" feel to them with the all the action features and the specialized accessories each pony came with. The accessories also told you a lot about each pony's personality/hobbies. So even though there was no cartoon or a lot of stories otherwise, the core characters seemed very well defined.Then there's the evolution the line went through in Europe. Culminating in the very weird last years where it seems it was mainly Hasbro France in charge of production. Suddenly some ponies used their French (or English translations thereof) names even on the English parts of the packaging. There were ponies that had the exact same colors and symbols, but different names. Lots of reused and generic accessories, and everything seemed very hastily and randomly thrown together. But this also resulted in some very unique color schemes. And names that are nothing like MLPs from other generations (Like "Medicin" and "Miss Teacher") and seem like they were made up by someone whose native language was not English.It's too bad Hasbro completely ignores G2 whenever MLP's history is brought up. I'm hoping it will be covered in the upcoming "Toys that made us" episode, but probably it'll get a passing mention at most if even that.
They were developed by the Kenner employees, at Hasbro's behest. I found an ex-Kenner employees blog about it a long time ago. (No longer have the link unfortunately.)They reason they looked so different from what came before was the ex-Kenner employees purposely tried to put their own spin on MLP, and also Transformers (Beast Wars), which Hasbro also gave them. Their company being consumed by Hasbro left them unnerved and a little rebellious and they wanted to show some independence, not just produce something that looked identical to previous Hasbro products. So MLP turned into G2 and Transformers ended up being robots that turned into organic looking beasts, which was also a radical departure from previous Transformers.
It was indeed that way , the first g2s that also were released in Usa have both Kenner and Hasbro logos on the cards Hasbro bought many companies,The Royal G2 Castle was a Galoob Kissing Dragon Castle,after buying that company they revamped the Castle and voila, "New" play set I own that Kissing Dragon Castle ,it actually is very fun , it has lights that activate with water, sadly all the high tech did not go into the MLP g2 castle .The Garden play set was also a Kenner's LPS play set , before it was revamped to be a G2 play set .
Speaking of prototypes, I guess these were brought to one of the pony fairs?https://heckyeahponyscans.tumblr.com/post/186600464808I love them. It's like they're wearing fashionable armor.
@KingdomOfThomond My guess would be batch numbers. So that if some ponies started having problems, they could see if it was related to just one batch from the factory.