any translations on what those monsters were called in that stage of development?
They're the same as the final Japanese version.
i was thinking, did anyone actually verify that that's maduin? i only ask because, in the esper world, at least a few of them shared that sprite.
That's definitely Maduin, he's the only one that uses that sprite. That said, he could just be a placeholder, they may not have drawn the Tritoch sprite yet.
The pictures also show that the fight/attack command was available when the M-tek status is applied... though I think you could still do that in some hacked/glitchy/coded circumstance.. but still interesting nonetheless.
I had a Game Genie code that would do that, I believe it just applied the armor sprite without actually giving Magitek status. For all we know there may not have been a Magitek status at this point in development, the armor could have just been for show, or it could be what's giving them those high HP totals. I doubt that though, that's probably just for testing purposes.
We have EVEN MORE themes now, but some old ones are gone...