I heard a rumour ages ago that masuda intended for Ho-oh to be the only legendary and gold was going to be the only game, but some other dev threw a fit and wanted them to keep the two game versions thing going, so Lugia was shoehorned in ad a last resort for the silver version
I mean, you can kinda tell, the games mention HO-OH so much, it’s pretty much got way more lore, it’s entrance is more majestic etc etc
Any truth to that? That this birb was meant to be the only game