I've made better Pokémon content since this video. Go check that out too, please! ua-cam.com/video/aKcZAv4Y-po/v-deo.html I greatly appreciate the love and the UA-cam algorithm's blessing, but I acknowledge this video's inconsistent argument and weak script needed revisions before it's final product. This was my first video essay, and tbh I rushed it out of excitement. Definitely should have proof read more, and established a more solid thesis before publishing. Criticisms are welcome, and all engagement is appreciated!
Im glad I saw this comment. I initally saw this video in my feed, not realizing it was from years ago, and felt a little disappointed by the video. You started touching upon some interesting ideas, but then didnt actually explore them. It kind of felt like it was "present conflict in Pokemon fanbase, talk about other games that changed styles, represent conflict in Pokemon fanbase" without actually talking about the changes in pokemons artstyle, or even why Pokemons artsyle has changed/stayed the same.
Another factor that makes this problem even more apparent is that, unlike Zelda or other series where each game's art style is self contained, Pokémon with wildly different art styles from different periods of the series are always going to have to interact with each other because most if not all Pokemon will be available in each generation of games (DeX cut aside). This means that there is always going to be a visual disconnect between your opponent's Fearow and your Impidimp. The lack of visual cohesion creates cognitive dissonance which may be the source of some claiming that pokemon don't look like pokemon anymore because it really doesn't look like any two given pokémon from gens on the opposite ends of the series belong in the same world.
@@propheinx2250 You don't need to buy the DLC to get the returning Pokémon. They'll be put into the base game in a free update at the same time, so you can still catch and trade them without paying any money.
I personally feel that part of my problem with the newer games isn't the designs of the newer generations, or newer regional versions but, the designs clash horribly with older generation Pokemon. Showing totodile next to sobble, for example. They should have either kept the same style or changed EVERY design. Not like regional variants but, just so it feel more consistent.
This is especially jarring with the eevee's, you put sylveon next to the original 3 without looking at eevee and they don't look that related beyond both based on cats and foxes, while with the originals even though they all have very different traits they definitely look like they're in the same family Editing this to say i absolutely love sylveon before anyone yells at me lol, it's just the art style is very different, I love a lot of the new pokemon and dislike some old ones but i do have a small preference for the old art style. It doesn't bother me that much though bc fanart exists lol
@@sneedcat88 Yeah, all the other eeveelutions use a single main color + ONE extra fur color, with vaporeon getting some extras with its fins and spine things. Sylveon uses two pinks and two blues, plus white, with a bunch of markings and color division.
@tonkuriiHQ I was under the impression all of the eeveelutions are they are foxes even beyond gen 3. I'll admit it was very jarring and still is very hard for me to find arts of Jolteon I like. The original art and the fact it really "Transforms" for battle (the hairs turn to spikes) is because looking at the original art vs something like the delta card art is just....very difficult to accept idk it might be 1000% preference but it's really what I feel, they did an amazing Job in N64 stadium for the 3d models but I totally see what you mean. The artist that took the liberty to show what art style changes could be like, I ended up liking 80-90% but as I look at the regionals I'm not really bugged maybe because I understand it's a new gen and new art but with ash...oh go they took the magical forever 10 year old and erased his shape(s) like kinda how Eddy took Jimmy's outline in Ed Edd n' Eddy. ua-cam.com/video/gKKdTlvZ5kI/v-deo.html I get it pokemon has been aimed at kids, and it always has been (exception for the bloody managas) and now its reaching a wider audience but yeah the art has been a nostalgia trip when you look back at the gen 1 starter decks and such. Fat pikacu and all I really like the clay art from gen 1 (I never thought it was watercolor but if it is I learned something) but some of the pokemon won't translate over. At the end of the day it's an art preference and I already agree yes pokemon is feeling like the 2 or so year Nintendo COD.
Hmm.. I do have to say that we don’t get cool ugly Pokémons that much anymore. I adore how ugly venasaur is and it brings about a level of realism in a fictious concept
I don't think an art style change can completely explain away the increased amount of inanimate pokemon/uninteresting designs. I know many people will point out that those existed in gen 1 as well, but those many times had at least a little plausible logic behind them, and logically going forward if you thought they where a problem in gen 1 you shouldn't make excuses for them in later generations.
I always thought that the first gen of Pokemon looked "sharper" than the newer ones - a less rounded style. But they looked different to me in other ways that I couldn't describe correctly until I watched this video. Body proportions, detail, etc. I've been playing since gen 1 but I don't really have a preference in artstyles? A lot of my favorite Pokemon are from gen 5 actually. I would say that Sinnoh looks the weirdest to me, but probably the only reason I say that is because I have spent the least amount of times with those gens. (Gen 1 fat pikachu will always be superior though!!!)
@@AndersonMallony-EricCF that's how I finally pinpointed it was the art style I didn't like, not the Pokemon. I notice a distinct difference I think around gen 4, the eyes started getting rounder. Then I noticed some of the other things like less detail
Ehhhhh..... I think what Crystal Aria means to say is that not all starters are anthropomorphic animals and that anthropomorphic animal designs aren't all bad. It's not furry fanservice. Sure, some pokemon have become quite popular in the furry community *coughcough Zeraora Lucario Incineroar*, but that doesn't automatically mark them as bad. I hope that answers your question. And no. I am not a furry. I know my name says otherwise, but just trust me on this one.
The cutesification and simplification of the artstyle also is a risk to the design of new monsters because they might become difficult to differentiate. If everything had a big round head and simple stubby limbs they not just lack grip but start to look samey.
@Hero-Of Courage -- Calm down, I didn't say they were _all_ the same. It's a hypothetical, that's why I'm not referring to anything specific. I'm pointing out there are only so many ways to apply neoteny in design. Thus the danger still applies to this subset of cute critters.
@Hero-Of Courage -- Is that my argument? I don't recall dismissing any exceptions. I said differentiating simplistic designs becomes more difficult over time with more monsters.
@@ChangedMyNameFinally69 ha yes, my favorite legendaries : the cute ones, like Lunala, Yveltal, Eternatus, the Ultra Beasts and the forms of Kyurem. Not like the non-cute from the first gens, you know like Mew, Celebi and Jirachi
Having spent a few years in Japan, I can see why GameFreak/Nintendo make the decisions that they make. There, it seems like every company is battling for the hearts of Japanese children (Yokai Watch, Dragon Quest, Pokemon, etc.). And as a result, pokemon gets dragged into the art styles and decisions that other companies make just because they sell more. Just remember, their main audience is not millennials like myself who fell in love with the magic back in the 90s, it's the mainstream of young Japan.
Not sure why you are adding Dragon Quest in your list, when the designer of these characters and monsters is Akira Toriyama, who is the mangaka of Dragon Ball. It is also one of the most beloved JRPGs in Japan and usually aimed at an older audience than Pokemon. Which is why Dragon Quest still has the beloved ingame Casino to get some rare items and Gamefreak scrapped the Casino since Gen 4 I believe - to be able to get a lower rating on their games. It's very clear Gamefreak would go for a simpler style these days as all Pokemon need to make 3D models, animated them, many Pokemon appear in the Anime and they also sell merchandise like plushes. I don't blame them and in fact I still like the designs even as someone who started the franchise in the 90ies with the first Gen. Gen 1 has a special place in my heart but honestly, newer Pokemon are far more creative, yeah some of them are silly, some of them are ugly but that's to be expected when you create over 900 of them.
well that weird cause the majority of their sales come from over seas seeing how japans birthrate is abysmal. they sell more adult diapers', so i know they cant be focused on japan with that in mind.
@@knight4041 I would say dragon quest has a rather childish look to it. Its Toriyama's style. Monsters/animals he draws look goofy, unless he wants something to look menacing like Hirudegarn or something.
"This shows Gamefreak's inability to innovate, despite Pokemon being one of the highest grossing franchises of all time." I'd argue that it is, at least in part, because of that rather than in spite of it. No matter what Gamefreak does, no matter how little they change, Pokemon will always make money. And truckloads of it at that. SwSh illustrates that perfectly. Even with all the controversy surrounding the games, they are the fastest selling pokemon games to date. They have no reason to innovate. No franchise that can be seen as "competition" can even come close to rivaling them, especially not with that shiny Nintendo association. On top of that, the vast majority of their revenue comes from merchandise sales. All they have to do is make pokemon cute and likable enough to push those sales. Gamefreak is a company that needs to be challenged if they're gonna innovate Pokemon. They're not like the devs behind Zelda or the mainline Mario games, where part of the appeal comes from how they innovate. They've built their plush castle and they're content to stay inside it.
Exactly. What are people going to do, refuse en masse to buy new Pokemon content because the art style is sliding towards simplification and the designs are getting more and more busy, when far larger numbers of people will eat up whatever bears the brand and marketing power of Pokemon? And you can't pin the change down to one generation; it's been happening bit by bit ever since Gold and Silver, so not many people realize exactly what changed, and that's if they have a problem with it. The story is the same with changes to other aspects of the franchise like music or gameplay. It's gradual change, and not to aspects most people would think were worth getting up in arms over. Game Freak doesn't care about Pokemon fandom because they don't have to, and it's frustrating as hell.
The games do very well, but to this day, the first two gens are the most successful. I think the fact that Pokémon has many successful ventures outside of the core series has more to do with it. I can't think of many series where the video game main and side series, the anime, movies, mobile games, card games, toys, plushes, clothing line, etc. are all incredibly successful on their own markets.
@@lirfrank I think your first two points are more related than you think. Because the earlier generations have more of a history of merchandise, adaptations and spinoffs, early Pokemon's popularity has tended to snowball.
@@theinvisibleskulk4563 Oh, I agree that the first gen in particular is the one pushing through many of it. Not a coincidence it's always the one they choose when they dip their toes into something new. Even the Detective Pikachu movie had all the key Pokémon be gen1. But I'm arguing the stagnation of the core series has little to do with the success of the series as a whole.
It's more like "pokemon have less texture" or "pokemon are plastic toys" imo Pikachu went from chub to no chub - is now smooth Mewtwo went from angular joints to smooth In comparison to Pidgey and Spearow, all birds are now smooth All starters are now made of smooth shapes, in comparison to the ridges, bumps and pudge of the earliest starters.. And so on and so forth. It's all so _smooth_
Round, smooth and simple are design traits naturally more appealing to wider audiences and easier to sell (easier for the brain to process, it actually ticks boxes in peoples brains when it comes to something aesthetically appealing). This is literally the only thing Pokemon is about now, selling easy and selling big. This is common in a lot of series once they get really big for too long, art styles frequently dumb down to appeal to general, non-fan audiences. Unlike developers who care about what they're making and have their own standards and a creative vision, Game Freak are really only trying to tick mandatory boxes so their product will sell and make as much money as possible. Pokemon isn't a cool video game series anymore, it's just a recognizable, money making brand, like something from Disney. It's painful, but I think very true.
@@Squishito I wouldn't say it's "dumbed down" -- the word you need to use is homogenized. The style of Pokemon has evolved alongside children's toys and animation, which you will note have also become more rounded and simplified for production and aesthetic reasons. The problem that a lot of people feel but are unable to express is that when a series like Pokemon becomes a homogenized product it loses its identity and initial appeal. Yes, the designs are still good, colourful and marketable, but what use is that when they have given up the smaller details that defined their product from the rest of the market? If it weren't for the series' pre-established name, I don't know if it could ever take off like it did. I mean, the style is simplified enough now that Yokai Watch's yokai, Temtem, Ni No Kuni's creatures and even Digimon Appli Monsters can sit side-by-side with Pokemon from the last 3 regions and not look out of place at all.
@@Squishito There's a very subtle difference between "dumbing down" and homogenization, but I get where you're coming from. One has more of an attack and blame mentality, as though this degeneration was 100% purposeful, while the other simply acknowledges that this was an evolutionary inevitability. Point is we both agree, though we clearly have varying feelings on the subject.
As far as I'm concerned the change in overall design is that in generation one the Pokemon's were conceptualized as more like monsters and less like plushies as opposed to now. Mainly to broaden the appeal I reckon.
I don't know that I buy that plushie appearnaces have an inherently greater appeal for in-game models of Pokemon. It's really just about being able to sell those plushies. On the one hand, cute _does_ help with plushies, and on the other, less detail makes them easier and cheaper to mass produce than an accurate Mewtwo or Kingler Gen 1 plush would be
@@chompythebeast Think of it this way. Humans are mammals. What appeals to mammals? Courtship and offspring. Like the saying 'Sex Sells', you can argue that 'Babies and everything that reminds me of babies sells'. These 'Monsters' transitioned into adorable mascots because selling cute mascots proved to be a profitable strategy.
I didn't grow up with gen one, far from it. My earliest interaction with the franchise was seeing my friends playing black and white. The first pokemon game I actually owned was Pokemon Y. There's a lot of designs I like in that game, aegislash is probably my favourite pokemon of all time, _maybe_ beaten by swampert. Basically, I've got no gen 1 nostalgia to speak of. I can definitely see the art style preference though, the old art is a lot more appealing to me, regardless of nostalgia. I _can't_ be a "genwunner" per definition. Basically, what I'm saying is that there are people who didn't even grow up with gen 1 who prefer the older art. It's a pretty large group, actually. I don't get why people have to become aggressive and dumb over it though.
The art style I can understand. Its when people attack the pokemon and players themselves just for having a differing opinion. I personally prefer the newer art style and I DID grow up with the old school art. I started with Yellow and Crystal. But I’ll always prefer the newer style. But there’s nothing wrong with that
I feel like Pokemon fans are just driving everyone away from Pokemon. I started with ORAS, my favorite Pokemon games are Diamond and X, and Black 2/White 2 are the worst games in my opinion, and I think Sword/Shield look like the coolest games. You can tell I get a WAY too much hate just because my views aren't the "norm" within Pokemon's community. I really don't have high expectations for new Pokemon games, and I play them casually, but I am really obsessed with them. I often get scared that I might get a reply from some genfiver saying "You're not a true Pokemon fan". Look, all I want to do is enjoy Pokemon without being bullied for me liking it a certain way, I didn't do anything wrong....
Omg I saw also saw friends play with Black and White, but platinum was my first since my uncle gave it to me as a gift, then I played Y when it was still relevant. Good innocent times
he's saying they changed to a more simplistic, easy design from the earlier designs with harder edges, etc. but refuse to change again as many fans are tired of this art style, and prefer the old style.
@@nightlygarbagerun7395 Maybe. Pokemon like Dragapult, Grimmsnarl, Centiskorch show that they're still willing to have edgier pokemon (check out those eyes! a lot like gen 1) so I think they actually are willing to experiment and do different things
@@nightlygarbagerun7395 Thanks for clarifying my poorly spoken words haha. I realized this a few days ago and pinned a comment explaining what my poorly written script should have said instead.
Everything that's targeting kids nowadays looks rounder, smaller, cuter and more toyish. There are a lot of psychological and marketing related aspects as of why characters look like that. Toy-shaped characters are easier to remember, their toy-like appearance make them more desirable to kids while simultaneosly easier to design toys of, and thats most-likely also the reason why we haven't seen that trend go away. It just seems like an optimised capitalist strategy to maximize profit with selling cartoon characters, and I don't think we'll see this trend fade anytime soon. Pokemon started off as a video game hence the design were more realistic, ugly and creature-like but pokemon quickly (almost immediately) turned into a multi media franchise selling all sorts of merchandise and toys. It's best seen when you compare the original video game designs with the more stylized and cleaner designs for the anime and later games (starting with Pokemon Yellow) to be more appealing to kids growing up in the late 90s.
Interesting. The best example I can think of is My Little Pony. That thing is even older than pokemon. The origional My Little Pony characters were very realistic. Imagine if one would take a real life pony. Then they colored it pastel colors. then they put symbols on thier flanks. Then that would be what the origional My Little Pony characters would look like. It is the first generation. Over time the ponies have changed in design. Now they are really different they are much rounder and cuter. The hoofs are more subtle in apearence. This is to gove a certain appeal. My Little Pony is mainly a toy franchise. So they are going for a round and cute appearence to sell more toys. The latest generation is the fourth one. The ponies there are so stylized they hardly look like the real thing anymore. One could mistaken the ponies for some other animal, like a dog or cat. My Little Pony has finish gen 4. It will release gen 5 in the near future. In the gap, there is the My Little Pony Life. This is where the trend goes to a reduculous extreme. I understand what they are going for here. Yet I think it may go too far. It helps to have big heads to make a creature cuter and more baby like. Yet these ponies have heads so big that they look like they are going to tip over. It is a bit distracting for me.
I once read that the best designs for children's characters is a character the children could draw and replicate by themselves easily, so rounder and simpler shapes fits with that.
@@jaritos675 if clearly is considering pokemon is one of if not the most profitable video game franchises of all time. and almost anyone you ask would know who pikachu/charizard is
Since Pokemon are fictitious, your brain learns how they look when you're first exposed to them. Your brain understands "so, this is how a Pokemon looks", and since there are many different Pokemon, your brain extracts general patterns from them, as the fantastic pattern recognition machine it is. If then you see something that doesn't share those general patterns, you may find it difficult to recognize as a "pokemon".
It feels like a whole different set of people are designing these latest gens, but not in a good way. They seem like creatures taken from a property similar to a -Mon, but off-brand in that way. There's such a distinct style clash between the Klink line, and the Magnet Boiz, even though they're functionally very similar, it just kinda takes me out of the experience. But I might just be a Pokéboomer, as differentiated from Genwunner, cos Skarmory is my fave and my knowledge is mostly up to Gen 3 where I dropped off.
@@MasonOfLife Same. They had a more rustic, wild appearance to them. I see people posting new official art of the old ones which doesn't show how they did look. I wish the series went with the Manga tone. I love how Pikachu looks like in generations and how Origins depicted Pokemon.
Another thing that also needs to be taken into consideration is the transition from sprites to models. While the official artwork has drastically changed, the fact that XY and onwards was 3D is also a massive artstyle change on its own. As many of Nintendo's other franchises moved onto 3D, Pokémon kept it and evolved it which can most drastically be seen in gen 5. Where in gen 4 had beautiful still sprites, 5 had fully animated sprites that were unique to each Pokémon and it made them feel alive in a way that the newer 3D games just haven't be able to capture.
They really could've just refined the sprite angle and it would've still sold gang busters. I hate they felt compelled to just jump on the 3D bandwagon for their core series games.
@@MikeSandersonVideos The TPC probably persuaded them after a Vocal Part of the Pokemon Community complained about Pokemon not being Modern enough and not keeping up with newer trends in Gaming.
@@MikeSandersonVideos i mean .... mantaining the Sprite would mean the game would stuck to the usual formula of random encounter, which i think It would have gone stale After a while. what's noticable is that by the Nintendo desiring of making Pokémon their Call of Duty the 3D Sprite of 800+ Pokémon never got the love and soul they deserved (compared to stadium of Battle Revolution)
For me it's the anthropomorphic evolutions, and how Pokemon are starting to look more like Porygon II. Which is ironic because that was *suppose* to look artificial.
Something that I thought was going to be discussed but was sorely missing from this video, is the actual ART style for each Pokemon. What I mean is the actual artwork done by Ken Sugimori- the style used in Gen I and II. Beautiful watercolor art for each Pokemon, with a very unique artstyle that translated into the actual game sprites. Starting with Gen III, we started to get a more industrial anime-ized look to all the Pokemon, including redrawn Gen I and II Pokemon. I feel this new artstyle looks extremely generic compared to the original artstyle and lacks any of the depth and personality that made me fall in love with the franchise over 2 decades ago. Second thing that I felt should have been discussed: The actual art direction of the franchise in Gen I and II was much more uniform. Even if some designs could be considered "lazy-" they all looked like they were from the same franchise. Nowadays many of the new Pokemon designs look all over the place, like they belong to completely different franchises. Add to the fact that you can see older gen Pokemon alongside the new ones, and the entire art direction looks like a complete mess.
True, especially your point of Pokemon not looking uniformly accurate within the franchise. The newer Pokemon don't look like they are from Pokemon, but are monsters from a childrens cartoon by Nickelodeon. It really went crazy
Yep it's not just about art style but rather how well they handled the design within that style... take a modern example of character design from Genshin Impact - both the 2D character imagery and the 3D model are amazing... Pokemon design on the other hand just feel lazy and unpolished...
i like the art style and especially in the gen 7 anime i think they went in the right direction plus there is also the fact that gen 1 looks ugly and youre wrong
the thing that bothers me that mostly happens in pokemon mostly fire starters nowadays is that pokemon has the weirdest fetish of trying to make 4 legged creatures turn into some furry looking human
@@sobersplash6172 Mewtwo originally looked way more animal-like and had this huge weird head in old art. Then the anime made Mewtwo have a really small head and look way more human-like and they've stuck with that design ever since.
I almost never choose the fire starter, for the exact reason you mentioned lol. Grass and water feels like actual pokemon, while the fire starters final evolution looks half human. Google Incineroar which is from the sun and moon games. It literaly looks like a body builder wrestler with a furry costume on it's the ugliest pokemon ever IMO and it's a fire pokemon starter of course. I've started to refer to the fire starters as the "#1 choise of every 12 YO boy", it feels like they designed the fire starters to cater to immature boys. BTW regular fire pokemon that isn't starters are usualy alot cooler so I catch them instead.
@@zebnemma Well, the fire starter's final forms from gen 1-2 where very animal like, but from gen 3-8 they always go with a more humanoid look which always bothered me. : / I still go with the fire type starter in Pokémon Moon, but I only keep it at Torracat. ; )
I grew up with Gen 1. I literally learned how to read by playing pokemon Red. My biggest issue is that the new generations don't feel like real animals in a world. The first 2 generations focused on trying to make the creatures feel like animals you were looking for on a safari, sketching in a log book, etc. The new ones are all just plastic plushies.
The thing I really don't like about the newer art style is it makes Pokémon look like Beanie Babies. What I like about the old style is there were cute Pokémon then, but they had more detail to them. Also, the artwork depicted them in a manner like someone documenting Pokémon in the wild. They're not posing for the cameras, it's just the image being captured at the right moment. In the new games, they're posing for the cameras. It's not a look that conveys they're supposed to be wild and they look like plushies on display. The old style had more personality to it.
I think the initial inspiration that Satoshi Tajiri used for the gen1 designs was actual biology book about native flora and fauna in certain places. He used the art in those books to keep the feel of “realism” in the mon’s designs.
I would say that the newer design look too personality-driven. The older ones were more multi-dimensional, more animal like and could have different personalities depending upon their trainer or in the wild and their upbringing.
@@dolphinboi-playmonsterranc9668 That reminds me of a boss battle from Final Fantasy XIV during A Realm Reborn days: Rafflesia, a deadly flower from Second Coil of Bahamut (T6) >D Don't think for a second that was a easy fight, it had mechanics that could one shot you! Like Blighted... something, don't remember the complete name If you're curious Dolphin, search youself for that fight here on YT, and see what a "Mega Vileplume" is capable of, haha XD
As someone who's always liked both I can definitely say Some Pokemon have looked like digimon, a lot of digimon look like Pokemon, and both franchises have gone through a lot of artists with very little aesthetic coherence between them. But with Digimon, it's always more justified because they're all artificial, they're sentient amalgamations of random computer data.
Part of the issue that was pointed out in a different video is that pokémon have become individual characters rather than species that feel like they live in a breathing world. For example, if you take two Charizards, they could have completely different personalities and mannerisms because their designs allow for that. If you take two Inceneroars, however, their designs box them into being macho wrestlers. Both cool designs, but only one feels like a living, breathing species rather than a character
I have favorites from both the oldest and newer generations, so for me, I think the design styles are most relevant for what type of pokemon the game is trying to convey. Gen 3 is where I myself noticed the art style change occurring, so it's the one I've thought about the most. It's where most of my examples will come from. For me, I think the newer, less "realistic" designs really work for things like Ghost and Psychic types. It makes the monsters look like things that aren't real, and would probably have to be ghosts or psychics to exist. It's why Gardevoir is probably my favorite psychic design to this day, but Alakazam just looks like an old man in a jump suit that wants to poke me with spoons. I also think the simple cute designs really work on making things look... well, cute. Duh. Spheal and Litwick are tied for the pokemon I find the cutest, and that's largely due to how ridiculously simple and non-threatening their designs are. It's really hard to compete with those factors using the more "realistic" gen 1 art style. All that said, I think the gen 1 style captures the animal and earthy pokemon the best. Feathers, fur, rough surfaces, muscles. These things just don't get represented with the current Pokemon art style, and I think it detracts a lot from making some of the newer mons reach their full "likability" potential when they're supposed to be based on familiar real-world counterparts. Focusing on gen 3 vs gen 1 again, I'll use Milotic and Huntail vs Gyarados as examples since they're all kind of similar in shape and type. I love Milotic's design, cause it really goes over-the-top in being majestic and beautiful. The smoothness sells what the Pokemon is about. Gyarados also works well, cause it has enough details to look intimidating and sell that it's a strong physical pokemon. It utilizes the gen 1 style well where it counts. The problem is Huntail. It's a strong physical fish pokemon, like Gyarados, but it's so over-simplified and friendly looking that it loses the impact it needs. It looks like a roll of playdough that someone drew some dots on and taped a smiley face to the front. That's not intimidating, and it doesn't stand out from the crowd. I wouldn't be surprised if most players don't even remember Huntail exists, because it doesn't look like something that should be remembered. It's too simplified and non-threatening to be remembered.
This is at the crux of my feelings with the newer Pokemon designs. Personally, I would feel completely fine with many of them if they were tweaked a bit. The heart of it all lies with what priority the developers have when they create Pokemon. Overall, if you look from generation to generation, the intention and priority of prior gen Pokemon were to convey, real living and breathing animal-like Pokemon with some oddballs and Japanese sensible choices mixed in there (which is why we got something like Jynx), they used to be creatures first and concepts second, which is consequently also 1 reason why they can feel more generic. However more and more as gens have passed by, the overall design-language has changed to be focused on inhibiting and conveying concepts, minimizing the expression of the creatures themselves and maximizing the expression of where they're inspired from. Basically, if you look at something like Blastoise and Lugia vs Cinderace and Zygarde. Blastoise is a mishmash of various different aspects that form a specific kind of creature and serves it's overall expression, a giant turtle with shoulder cannon pumps, that can tuck itself into it's shell and do a devastating spinning attack, all of it's aspects are loosely inspired but they're unique put together and distinctly Blastoise. Lugia is a giant water bird, with hand like white wings and streaks of Dark blue informing it's sharp beak like face and down its back. You could maybe loosely find an inspiration for it, but it itself again is very unique and it's expression is entirely its own. Cinderace on the other hand is simple to convey, a soccer playing fire rabbit, it's basically concept first, creature second. Zygarde is clearly based on the norse myth of the Nidhog, that not only conveys its expression as a giant snake under ground, but also its Ground and Dragon typing as Nidhog is a dragon serpent. And that's just the tip of the ice berg.
@@Yous0147 Completely agreed. I think you hit the nail on the head with "creature vs concept". It makes me think of the legendary dog trio from Gen 2 against the "old cloud men" from Gen 5 (Tornadus, Thundurus, Landorus). The first group feel like beasts with their mythologies tied to the pokemon world. They are a group of dogs that have some crazy designs tied to the elements they wield. They're feel cool to me because they are original. The Cloud Men crew are clearly based on Fujin and Raijin. Maybe a fertility Kami for Landorus. That's pretty much it. They kind of look like genies, but so did the interpretations of the original Japanese kami. It feels super out-of-place to see these clearly Japanese religious figures wandering the countryside next to a Pidgey. It takes me out of the game. Which sucks, cause their alternate forms actually do a good job of re-interpreting the concepts. Gamefreak can make believable creature concepts when they try. They just don't like to as much anymore.
@@0ctopusComp1etely Most modern Pokemon are too obviously meant to be a specific design, a lot of the animal Pokemon are just regular animals with an elemental theme slapped on it, a criticism that was usually thrown at Digimon.
@@kenmarkollano5795 Not Necassarily. Gen 1 is a bit generic because of its early nature as well as being on limited hardware at a time when games and media were much more homogenous. So they're a product of their time. That changes (or should change) over time as new inspiration and different possibilities and avenues open up. Just look at 2nd and 3rd gen as examples, with Pokemon such as Furret, Typhlosion, Flygon and Milotic, those are not generic designs and expressions in my opinion, but they follow the same guideline keeping them distinctly Pokemon. You find a lot sprinkled into 4th and 5th gen too. I don't mind different designs and ideas, what I do mind is the intention and thought put in behind why those Pokemon exist, and how that informs the design. Basically, instead of saying "hey let's make a genie Pokemon", it's better if you say "hmm genies are cool, can we make it fit into this world? Are there aspects of a genie we can take to inform our design of the new Pokemon? What other things could be really cool to add." That's one difference.
I wonder how much the art style was influenced by concepts such as befriending your pokemon. Later generations put a lot more emphasis on pokemon being closer to pets. You can't have sharp, edgy designs and then ask people to think of it like a huggable puppy. In Gen 1, most of the designs truly are monsters.
I wouldn't want to catch something like a frickin Golbat if it had that monstrous cavity and a tongue slimy than the skin of a grimer if Golbats started to exist like in the gen1 games
@@SheIsAVampireBat I can easily relate modern Pokemon to wild animals, in fact I see pokemon in wild animals. A fully grown rabbit is a cinderace to me, an adult lizard living in the water is Inteleon to me.
Older Pokémon were not edgy, only gen 5 tried to go that ruote and failed Sugimori design was to make thing cool but with some sort of flaw to make them unique and memorable, even the edgiest design of earlier gen are nothing compared to things like haxorus
@@M1551NGN0 "A fully grown rabbit is a cinderace to me, an adult lizard living in the water is Inteleon to me" This has to be parody because that's hilarious
good video overall but I'm a bit confused about the point you're trying to make. It seems from the latter portion of the video like you're saying pokemon needs to change more,... but isn't that what the entire video is about, a large-scale change with the franchise that's still ongoing? Maybe you're saying they should vary artstyles even more than they do now, but wouldn't that just isolate even more people? The only other thing I can think of is if they used older design traits more but you say repeatedly that you don't think that's necessary, and it isn't really a "change" in artstyle so much as it is a regression to the way things were before. This isn't meant to be a criticism, I'm just genuinely confused about what you mean about the series needing to change more. If it was in the context of the games or something I entirely agree, but in terms of design that's an odd request to make after spending an entire video showcasing the ways in which the artstyle is changing.
This is 100% a valid criticism of this video. My argument is washed and not very concise, and at this point I rather write it off as "my first video essay." I really should have proof read this script more and had some input before I finalized it haha. I elaborated a bit on it in the pinned comment above, but tldr I felt it was making a gradual change for the simplistic rather than an outright intentional art style change like the Zelda franchise.
@@noitsjustcody Ok that makes more sense. Thank you for clarifying! Also, I got recommended a similar video on the same topic which discusses a similar thing to you but goes over different examples, I think it's a good watch since you clearly are interested in the topic of pokemon's artstyle change ua-cam.com/video/q9pGtlafRvY/v-deo.html
@@noitsjustcody both your videos are really good man, don't put yourself down. This is a great video I was just confused as what you wanted that's all. I feel like both of these videos are great looks at the subject in their own way (yours is more about the gradual change and its impact on the fans, while the other is about different eras of design and the art principles in each). I do agree it deserves more views than it has though, it's unfortunate how many great videos from small creators go unnoticed.
@@noitsjustcody so basically your point (if I understand correctly) is that you think Gamefreak/the pokemon company should commit to more drastic changes?
I feel like people always get a little picky and choosy with stuff like this- they look at designs and say the series is getting more cartoony, but only point out base form pokemon or Pokemon specifically designed to look cute. They don't often bring up the more badass pokemon such as say Talonflame or Hydreigon or Toxtricity. I would argue these three all have suitably realistic proportions on par with gen 1/2 designs. Don't get me wrong, i agree with the point that pokemon has gotten more cartoon with time, but I think it's important to acknowledge that not every Pokemon is like this
A big part of it was a jump to simplistic 3d models. They make most Pokemon alot rounder then they were originally with the sprites and gives the games a more cuddly aesthetic.
On one hand I understand why they have chosen this art direction. When I was a kid we liked the more realistic looking and squared of edges of things. Pokemon as a franchise wants to aim at kids, and I've noticed that my niece and nephew are scared of more jagged looking things, a problem that I didn't really have. And I think I understand what is really going on when it comes to psychology and why this is and how media are being trained to handle this problem wrong when it comes to art direction. My nephew is like 3, And as I said look at stuff like pokemon brush, its meant for kids in this age range. He gets scared every time he sees someone in trouble, or a sharp face, and I myself was scarred of the dragon from Sleeping beauty at the same age. However my nephew can laugh at things like Hotel Transylvania 2 when he sees the vampires being punched around by small bats. The reason that they are making pokemon flatter, is to try and make them appear less threatening, and give them a wider range of coverage on which designs will appeal to more children, the problem with this is is that they can't keep this up, there are only so many times you can make oval and flatter shapes. Toxtricity Hydreigon, and Talonflame, certainly do look more Realistic, but they also consist of this general change in are design, they all look rounder and flatter compared to previous generations of their comparable counterparts like Kangaskan. I'm not picky, I still like the series, and I understand that these things are going to change. but How its changed I can say is really not the way I would have wanted it too growing up.
I agree it's mostly baby forms that are more cartoony where as the final forms have more detail and are more badass looking ,I also think if all Pokémon designs were like gen one they'd be very similar to each other
I'm sorry lol, though to be honest I didn't enjoy Skyward Sword myself. Much too fetch-questy and slow paced for me. My favorites are a tie between ALttP and BotW!
Everyone's entitled to their opinions and preferences obviously but, dang. I could write an essay on why I think SS is one of the most beautiful, underappreciated games in the entire LOZ franchise. The OST, art, themes.
Oh I loved it aesthetically, and the motion plus was a blast, it was the pacing I held most of my issue with. Similar to why I'm not keen on future replays of Twilight Princess. Amazing themes and designs, but a tutorial that drags harddddd.
@@AnnaHans88 SS has some of the best elements of the series. But as a all, it doesn't work very well. The Sky Overworld is empty and lifeless, and the Eldin and Faron's levels were linear and forgettable. SS has his strongest bits in the Lanaryu region, especially for his non-linear design, fun time-travel mechanics and good aesthetics. If i remember correctly, part of the stuff of Monolith worked in that specific area. Also Koloktos is one of the best boss fight of the series, but it hardly outmatched a lot of poor choices in that department (recycled Ghiraim/Imprisoned boss fights and some other ugly boss like Tentaclus)
“This leaves me worried that Pokemon will soon turn into the Call of Duty of Nintendo...” Controversial take here, but last years Modern Warfare already proved that at least the devs behind the yearly CoD releases aren’t afraid of taking risks in innovating a nearly two decade old franchise with cookie cutter gameplay and yearly releases. This should be pretty embarrassing to GameFreak to say the least, seeing as how 2019’s Modern Warfare showed more innovative and fan appealing features than Sword and Shield ever has in its current run. Essentially, Pokemon has been outdone by the yearly release syndrome and it shows.
To be fair COD is worked on by different developers every installment, although I can't say the same for the mainline Porkymon titles. If there's any solace out of this, Porkymon has more effort put in than the majority of the sports game that EA and 2k have published in the last decade. ... I think.
This comment. Digimon has always had far more complex designs than any pokemon. So why is it being compared to today's 'simplistic' pokemon designs? I have no clue. Digimon all had outfits, gears, lots of tiny accessories on each of them and patterns. Just frickin look at GABUMON. Complex design for a feckin rookie.
Damn the whole catering to genwunners went over my head. Like that’s why they get new regional forms, evolutions and gmax forms...which they are cool but like, why only do gen1?..so many more possibilities if they stepped away from that mindset.
I think one of the reasons why they do gen 1 is because ALOT of the pokemon are just a creature or object with a element. Ex: sandslash, rapidash, golem. Or just have boring concepts like muk, far fetched, raticate and more. They are good but just kinda uninteresting. I do agree that they should give love to others generations and stop giving the same pokemon over and over attention.
@@BelleTheMagazine My big bro is 27 yold, he would gladly play a gen 1 game because thats what he played back in the days, Charizard is obviously his favorite pokemon. He doesnt know any other gens. If you market Gen 1, you touch almost everyone, from the oldest to the youngest. The only people that are tired of that are the big fan because Charizard already has 4 different forms and we have already played way too much pokemon game with Kanto in it (RGB, Yellow, GSC, RFLG, HGSS and Lets Go).
Us "genwunners" are the ones who made this whole thing a success in the first place, it wasn't just a big series like now, it was a social phenomenon out of the blue. We're probably by far the biggest fan base of any generation and the ones with most buying power due to age and interest.
@@MS-vn2pb not really true though. Most people who bought gen 1 probably don't play the game anymore as they are a lot older. They are probably less serious about the changing nature of the games or the tv show. Just because you were there when it was released doesn't mean ur opinion matters more.
@@PC-qw2so What are you even talking about? He said "genwunners" not everyone who played the game while they were a kid. Sit your ass back down, you're talking out of it.
Oh my god. This actually blew my mind a little. For years I've been a genwunner, and I've never really understood why. I thought it was all the colorful patterns they gave to new Pokemon to justify making duplicates, like Butterfree vs Beautifly, but Emerald is my favorite Pokemon game, and my god is that generation known for its brightly-colored Pokemon designs. Then I thought, maybe it's the actual structure? Gen one Pokemon were simple, literally just horses and birds and piles of slime, whereas newer ones needed a gimmick to set themselves apart, like Butterfree vs Vivillon. But then mega evolutions happened that literally added extra structures and gimmicks to old Pokemon, and I thought most of those looked fine. I could never defend my opinions beyond, "I like what I like. Some of the newer ones look good, but I guess I just like more of the older designs better, shrug." This art style change explains everything. Old Pokemon were obviously cartoony, but they were cartoony in a realistic way. I could look at a Bulbasaur or Nidorino or Lapras, and totally see those existing in real life, and wonder why they didn't. There are some newer Pokemon that that works with too, but not nearly as many. It all makes sense now. Thank you.
My favourite generation are 1 and 5,because both have a very distinct style and feel,two extremes but each one good in his own style, if you notice every odd number generation has a particular style and the following even a more transitorial look from it.
I believe it’s because Gen 3 was more tropical in terms of the region. You’ll realize that in tropical places if the world, animals and insects as well as plants are more colorful looking. They look a little more stranger but they’re still animals. That in itself could justify the overly colorful pokemon for Gen 3. This can apply to Gen 7 as well
I think those arguments are difficult to defend, every generation has had crappy designs. In my opinion the art style has become more simpler and that can be a problem for some ppl but overall i think its a small issue. The big problem for me is the low difficulty of the games. There is no challange anymore, outside of the competitive scene, and that makes creating emotional connections with the new generations really hard because it becomes boring. Everyone has a story on how they caught mewtwo with a single pokeball, how a dumb miltank wiped the floor with them, that lvl 7 trainer using 2 full restores or just CYNTHIA. There are no memes anymore nor any reason to like the underdog ugly pokemon that everyone hates because it carried you through a tough moment during the game.
I've been saying this for years that the divide between fans is a matter of taste in style rather than in quality of concept or execution, but this point is generally ignored. I'm glad that artist was able to make this clearer for everybody.
I always thought this was most apparent when Ash would goto a new region and you'd see the newer pokemon next to Pikachu. They'd look like cross overs. Yokai, digimon. I just try really hard to chalk it up to regional differences and evolution but perhaps im being generous.
"pokemon may become the call of duty of nintendo... if it hasn't already." Dang that is one powerful line. And even more impressive you managed to perfectly articulate a major divisive issue in pokemon today in a way that shows the flaws in both sides while looking to the real problems and solutions instead of just complaining like most pokemon fans do nowadays. Very impressive video
CoD is a franchise that takes more risks (world at war with the gruesome depiction of ww2, bo1 with the art-style and the exageration of the cold war, sci-fi opus like bo2, bo3 and advanced warfare that changes from the modern and past realism approach of the franchise, infinity warfare that fell into the fantasy tone, and finally the groundbreaking cod 4) and excels on the technical aspect (im looking at you, Sword and Shield and 4th gen) not a fair comparison
Pikminologue Raisin That’s what I’m saying. It’s unfair people comparing massively different games when CoD actually made massive improvements and the same could not be said about current Pokémon games. With the games the Switch can run, there’s no reason why the games couldn’t look better or made massive improvements. For God’s sake man this is the highest grossing franchise and it’s pretty mediocre. It’s time GameFreak got some new staff that actually know how to work with modern programming rather than the clowns they have there now.
@Paul Toledo That isn't an issue, Game Freak have been working on that since gen 5, its why they created a separate team for non Pokemon games. They simply aren't given enough time, and probably not much of a budget either. What people don't often realize is that CoD is put out annually, but has three studios working back to back, so they each have three years. Game Freak on the other hand is expected to put out at least one game per year. There were around 100 people working on SW/SH between them, Creatures inc, and Nintendo. I suspect what's happened is Pokemon Co underestimated how much it would take to make a console scale Pokemon game, or worse they just expected GF to make it work on a shoestring like they always have. People wonder if they're too cheap to hire more staff, I wonder if they aren't being paid chump change like every other dev studio. They only own like 20% of the IP.
Now, FINALLY SOMEONE understands me. I love the old artstyle, because it was very detailed and they looked like animals and not like cutsie chibi versions.
Now that this video is beginning to gain some traction, I feel like I should address some very imprecise diction that causes both confusion and contradiction. In the video, I said "Pokemon is not the only video games series to see a stylistic change over time, however they are one of the few that refuses to change." The former half was addressing the observable and progressively simplifying changes the designs had seen over the years, while the latter half was addressing the fact that Pokemon hasn't seen any *intentional* steps towards different art styles compared with series like The Legend of Zelda. When writing this script, I think I already had the bit about Zelda's rapidly changing tone already spelled out in my head without realizing I hadn't even addressed it in the video yet. It doesn't help that my imprecise choice of words directly contradicts a point I made literally within the same sentence lol, so I apologize about that. Hopefully this clears up the oversight on my end.
First time I head about the "genwunner" meme. Anyone who is using this to insult someone is probably just jealous because they didn't experience the series from the start. I like most generations but if you didn't experience from the start you will never be equal to someone who grew up when it all started.
It's well known Game Freak does not take feedback from their fanbase. There are also numerous interviews where Matsuda explains his intentions to pander to children and simplify the game to an insulting degree. This was especially apparent in LGPE and SuMo. The change in art direction, both in the games and anime, was also an obvious ploy to attract a younger demographic who prefer the cute form factor in their pokemon.
While I do agree that there is a general shift in design, it's not as complete as the Reddit post made it to be. See this image: cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/197250053302124544/585971572917927976/15597769022143295005554857757397.jpg
I would say that the addition of the fairy type was about as significant as the physical/special split. Completely changed the meta of the game, especially competitively.
Whenever I feel like playing what I consider the best pokemon experience, I grab the gba and firered/leafgreen and emerald. The first 2 gens are very charming but they can be a bit hard on the eyes and ears today. Definitely not recommended for long play sessions. Not to mention I really love the looks on gen 3, the world is very colorful but doesn't look as plastic as gen 4. When I miss some newer pokemon, I grab Black 2 and play the huge love letter that is the PWT, music is incredible in Gen 5. I still get the new games, because there are always new designs and mons that interests me, like newer bugs in Golisopod or Centiskorch, newer dragons like Goodra, Kommo-o and Dragapult and weird as it sounds I'm really into rock types, so seeing Diancie and Coalossal makes me happy. Trying to maintain motivation on the newer games I'm building monotypes for each type while I wait for a Pokemon game that will finally include everything we want.
Can confirm. I'm playing through HG/SS right now with a friend of mine. We're doing that "IRL Rival" battle method I mentioned in my other Pokémon video and it's a blast going back through Johto and Kanto again.
I already love the style of Gen 5. It's a good mix of cute Pokémon and cool ones. The animated sprites are cool too. I much prefer them over the lifeless gyrating of the newer ones.
I'm glad that Gen 8 went outside of Game Freak's comfort zone and got wildly diverse and experimental with Pokemon designs and we see a return to form in some like Coalossal, which has the Gen 1-2 design style. Coalossal looks to me like it would have fit in perfectly in the old Game Boy-era games.
I agree but the ugly egg shape look left me disappointed. I expected something cool with some mechanical inspiration but it turned out to be Alolan Golem 2.0
I honestly enjoyed what Gen 8 offered more than some of the other ones. Gen 7 is almost tied, a lot of Gen 6 felt forgettable. The previous ones had bigger selections but also had a lot more filler forgettable mons while newer ones focus on quality and creativity. Maybe some bias, cos of Inteleon being my new all time favorite as someone who loves James Bond and spies, and can personally relate to the entire evolution line. My taste is different I guess since most people seem to prefer just straight up animals that only look cool with a typing slapped onto it, like in the earlier games
1:15 Thank you so much for this. I was discussing this a while back but couldn't find the original thread. But he's right though. I am more of a Gens 1-4 purist and those four gens just hit differently in terms of art and gameplay. As much as I like Mega Evolutions, I just can't get behind a lot of the new mons and the weird aesthetics and I think the reason this is an issue is greatly highlighted in Edelhardt's comparison: It looks like two different games and you can see it clearly with Pidgey VS Pikipek. They did this in the anime too because they felt they were losing the demographic to Yo-Kai Watch. I acknowledge that we're not the demographic anymore but it's still incredibly dumb to overlook the millions of millennials who still play and keep up with the series. I'd be 100% on board with a slightly older protagonist but they refuse to do it. Good video btw, appreciate you for making this
Honestly not genwunner is just a spam term used specifically by gen 5 stans considering they have the worst pokemon design. He only described the term from his biased point of view rather than the general use of it
I came here back 5 month later and I didn’t notice the 234 likes I got anyways. For Crowmaster: You are right, I was pretty dumb back than and I post that comment half way the video so I didn’t even watch the full video to post that comment.
I think the other important thing to understand is that the older Pokémon had to be designed on a gameboy colour instead of a switch screen. Pokémon look a lot flashier now because the hardware can support more complicated designs.
Actually Genwunner originated with the Transformer franchise. Its a reference to the transformer fans who preferred the G1 cartoons and toys above all other transformer continuities such as G2 (which was a compilation of G1 episodes of transformers but with some CGI transition screens), Beast Wars (infamiously created the Ruined Forever and Trukk not Munky), the anime trilogy, Live Action Movies (aka Bayformers), and everything post-bayformers.
Reading the comments made me finally realize the difference between old and new pokemon. Older pokemon, for example venusaur look like an animal. While newer pokemon like intelleon or cinderace look too... human. They dont really look like something you'd find in the wild. Like they're making new pokemon a bit to gimicky. Venusaur is just a frog with a plant on its back, while cinderace is a humanoid bunny that plays soccer. Blastoise is just a turtle with cannons, while inteleon is a humanoid chameleon things thats a spy.
Don't pretend Mr. Mime (a literal mime), Jynx (a Viking woman or opera singer), Machoke & Machamp (body builders), Hitmonchan (a boxer) dont exist. Even our beloved Mewtwo is anthromorphic cuz human DNA was used in the process of making it so it has a reason to have human traits. If u expected Scorbunny's final evo to be anything but humanoid then u were setting up yourself disappointment. Like inanimate mons, humanlike mons have always existed since the very beginning. It's a common design trope in Pkmn & not at all a new thing, but you're conveniently not mentioning the Gen1 humanoids.
8:18 the special split was gen 2. The physical special split was gen 4. Plus, the critical hit reworks and the additions of dark, steel, and fairy types are all major changes to the game
Gen 2 split defense and special defense. In gen 1 the special stat was both offensive and defensive. The actual split of physical/special moves was in gen 4.
This is a great video! Finally, someone who can explain that it is an art style problem! Omg. I tried explaining it to people, but most didn't get the point. This is awesome, gonna share it immediately.
I love Pokémon through and through, but I'd be lying if I didn't say the design of older Pokémon click with me more than modern mons. Typhlosion, Dragonite, Scizor, Nidoking, Starmie, Tyranitar, Blastoise, all look incredible.
I agree with you but I truly believe it's due to nostalgia. I mean, many of us were children when we picked up the original games. We had the opportunity to actually discover Pokemon for the first time and form bonds with these designs. I remember seeing some stuff about Ruby and Sapphire in a magazine and thinking "This is not Pokemon. I hate this." Now gen 3 is one of the most cherished gens in the franchise. Most people didn't like gen 5 at first either.
@@asimhussain8716 Those starters are definitely the lamest. I also still am not a fan of gen 3 and am growing tired of most of gen 1 Pokemon getting more attention than others. Nostalgia should never be seen as something negative. People are allowed to feel nostalgic towards something, just as we are allowed to have differing opinions. Do you disagree?
I realized something like this when trying to paint a Haunter. 1st gen LOOKS simple but the design of each is really complex. It took some time to get the proportions correct.
Me too, I started playing pokemone around the time Platinum came out. But my father bought me a gameboy advance sp instead of a DS. So I grew up playing ruby/sapphire and LeafGreen/FireRed. And to this day, those are still some of my all time favourite video games.
I think another big thing that goes along with this is that the older Pokemon retain most of their art style alongside the newer Pokemon with a newer art style. This creates a glaring contrast between different Pokemon that makes it appear as though two different characters from different franchises are fighting. I feel like if they kept the style consistent with all of the Pokemon, not as many people would complain. There'd still be complaints of course, whether they kept the old style or went with the new, but it wouldn't be visually disruptive. It'd at least flow better.
That issue on its own shows in the 3d models and animation for any Pokemon gen 6 and earlier, even from X/Y to S/M. Gen 7 Pokemon were just that much more lively in animation compared to the static ones first used in X/Y. I still don't like how they did Xatu and every other flying type dirty all because of the gen 6 Sky Battles
Thank you! I've been trying to argue the art style thing for years. It's definitely a lot rounder and less detailed now. Heck, I specifically always look for pointy/spiky lines (like on the old Pidgey, Jolteon, Flareon or Arcanine art) and I can't remember finding any in the last couple of generations. It's all rounded or big blobby shapes (like Minchino's tail). I think it DEFINITELY has to do with pokémon being 3D now. Back when the games were sprite-based you only had to draw one or two sprites (and animate them a bit in Gen5) and that's that. But in 3D you need to model each finger, rig each finger with multiple joints, skin them properly, make sure they don't distort or deform in ways they're not supposed to, and then animate each joint in each finger/claw individually. Maybe you'll need blendshapes too for extra animation. This is a few DAYS of work PER POKÉMON we're talking about, it can seriously take that long. But when all you have is a "nub" type of limb with no digits and maybe a single joint that needs to bend (or no joints at all) it is super simple and can be done in no time. If anything, I think the simplification of pokémon for generations now has been a sad sign that GameFreak is rushing the games more and more. Some would say becoming straight up lazy.
@@Soaring_Penguin what else do I have to tell you? Gamefreak intentionally half asses the animations. Other companies do a lot more with a lot less. The change to 3d models didn't have any impact on animation or artstyle.
@@renatoramos8834 I agree that they half assed it. In fact I was trying to make the point that it's clear to see in the modelling itself that they half assed it. I'm a modeller and I spot cut corners everywhere in both modelling and animation in these games (I would have failed my exam on my first year if I had handed in most of these cut scenes for my exam project. Would have had to repeat first year for that junk...)
@@Soaring_Penguin And I'm making the point that gamefreak intentionally half asses it. How much do you think it would cost them to get great animations? 20-30 animators working for a few years and a few million dollars? They had since 2013 to properly update animations and BILLIONS in cash. If you have the most lucrative multimedia brand in the world, certainly you can invest a tiny fraction of your profits in actual quality.
That watercolors Venasaur is probably my favorite Pokemon illustration. I really love how rich and detailed the illustrations were of older Pokemon art. (Not talking game). A lot of illustrations are taking a more minimalistic route. I really liked it before and it still has a place, but looking at those watercolor images just offer so much more depth and life.
It was never really the change in art style that bothered me too much, mostly since I kinda like the newer pokemon a bit more. But one thing that's more apprently than the art style to me is the color scheme used in each gen. I don't think I can describe it too well but most of the Gen 3 pokemon had this "tropical" color scheme where they had a brighter color tone that mixes with an orangey accent which is extremely apparent in the starter designs. I like the designs on the gen 3 pokemon but I'm not the biggest fan of the colors used for some of them. Gen 4, however, used more saturated colors that pop out more and I think that's one of the reasons why I like the starters there the most while Most of the Gen 5 designs made more use of light and dark colors. The point I'm trying to make is that the constant changes in color scheme for specific pokemon tends to stay even when they appear in the newer games in 3D models. While that can make them stick out more and be recognizable, it could sometimes feel like their designs clash with both the newer and older pokemon as if you can look at the designs alone and you can tell which gen they're from without looking it up. Weither or not people like that is honestly subjective and while it's not an issue that gets me old man cranky and be like "the old pokemon were better" the slight inconsistency in colors is pretty apprent and can sometimes be jarring to me.
I never noticed this. My guess was the 3D game have no colour pallette limitations. The models are made individually, so the colours likely aren't compared with eachother. That's probably why everything looks so washed out. I want to point out the models being so lifeless might also play a part. Gamefreak has an incredible library filled with poses and animations of they're Pokemon, but most aren't used for anything other than Amie/camp.
This is most likely due to the removal of hardware limitations. Until the DS era, Pokemon design had to work within a limited range of colors that the GBC and GBA could produce. This is most apparent in gen 2. The GBC only had enough memory to display 4 different colors on each pokemon, two of which usually being black and white, so no pokemon could realistically have more than two colors. Once that restriction was lifted, the designers had more freedom to chose whatever color they wanted the pokemon to be.
@@FiboSai It is interesting looking at how the design philosophy for a series can change depending on the technology available and the people in charge. Weither it's a good or bad thing kinda boils down to everyone's opinion on it. For someone who has been a fan of pokemon since red and blue came out, some of my favorite pokemon are around gens 4 and 5, but I can totally understand how the newer designs don't sit well with some older fans though. As for you talking about color palettes, it's also why shinies for gen 6 pokemon and up are more unique. Back when they used sprites, they more or less just used the next color palette sets after the original colors. It's kinda why most of the older pokemon have greenish shiny colors. With the 3d models, they have free reign on the colors that they can use for the newer pokemon, even some older pokemon like charizard had a slight change in shiny colors.
I personally like how the colors schemes from each gen were retained in a way. It gives a sense of nostalgia. Like those pokemon feel like they're from another time and place. Gen 3 color schemes were my personal favorites. I love how blacks were grayish and greens, oranges, and yellows were apparent. I kinda wished they stayed with starmie's gen 3 coloring in the proceeding games.
Great video! Though one gripe I have is that they are not "artstyles", they are designs. As someone who draws and experiment, the correct term is "design". One example I could take is Mega Man X8, Zero's and X's designs are different, they are not artstyles, they are designs. The one image showing pokemon in different "artstyles" are different designs. I don't know if the original poster calls it "artstyle", but they are designs and NOT artsyles.
Pikachu's redesign is one of the only ones I actually like I didn't like how fat he used to be but as for redesigns like Mewtwo and Jigglypuff those are terrible
lol I've been saying I missed fat Pikachu for years now. He looks so huggable and derpy in his original sprite. But I can definitely see how the sleeker designs make for a much more competent looking Pocket Mon, and completely understand why the change was made. Especially since he's the mascot.
Has Mewtwo really been redesigned? If you compare to Gen 1 sprite - well, it has. But if you compare it to the anime - I barely see any changes. I notice a little different proportions but I think... Ok, fine, it's been redesigned. If not taking a shiny form with it's terrible blue-ish shade of green I think the current Mewtwo looks the best. I absolutely love human like pokemon (because they are like friends rather than pets) and the current Mewtwo is the most humanoid one. Mewtwo is my favorite pokemon of all time and I'm happy to see it closer to what I generally like in Pokemon. But yeah, the shiny is trash. Gen 2 shiny was way better (Gen 2 also had the best sprite - the one from Silver) but still not as great as it could be. I think the shiny should be very light pink like Mew (not Mewtwo) from the first movie.
Wow, now Im upset that they changed artstyles in a franchise that keeps all the characters in the old style. One is inherently more detailed and more realistic with its proportions, while the other tries to synthetically be cute with its formulaic design. The new style looks like neopets x pokemon to me.
Couldn't have said it better idk where people are getting digimon. For its biggest grossing franchise youd think they could afford to hire more employees to give us double the shitty average looking mons if they arent going to have art director ken sugimori actually direct anymore. Look at literally every psuedo legendary then look at dragapult. The concept is ok but the design personally looks like a fakemon...
generalisation, yucky. theres: >talonflame/fletchinder >toxtricity >hydreigon >mega rayquaza (its technically a new design) >the swsh legendaries (i could care less about swsh so i don’t remember the names) >noivern not. all. pokemon. are. like. this
2:36 as someone who dabbles with sculpting and 3d modeling, the art on top seems to have more readable shapes that I could better translate to 3d vs the bottom designs imo. As you mentioned the light seems to hit their bodies in a more realistic way, making it easier to make out the necessary curves vs the bottom concept art, where the light seems to come flatly on their shapes rather than how it would in actual 3d space. Not that the shading and lighting is really wrong, just stylized to a point where they become more like stickers rather than beings that occupy 3d space.
Very interesting video, thank you! I've never really been able to grasp what it was exactly that had changed about the series' artstyle in specific and this helped me figure that out. Especially the Raichu comparison. Damn. I'd love more content on the topic of presentational choices in the series.
I think that pokemon was perfect back in gen 1-3. Sure not all designs were perfect but most of them were very good (imo). Later on the designs, as you said in the video, have become more and more cartoony. I really miss the old detailed designs with the more realistic proportions. Another little detail I recently noticed makes a huge difference is the eyes. Just look at squirtle's eyes and then compare them to popplio's. Or blastoise's vs greninja's. I know I'm sounding like a total boomer or "genwunner" as some would say, but I truly do not think there was any reason for pokemon to change it's style from gen 1. (Rather the gen 1 anime, I do like how they improved the actual games from the first up to FireRed and LeafGreen) This art style change is also something I have noticed in anime. A perfect example is naruto. In naruto part 1 the art style is very detailed just like pokemon. Although as the series progressed, the art style became much more dull, bleak and overall lifeless. I can't help but to be very saddened by all these changes. It feels like these properties, which I hold near and dear to my heart, are just straying further and further away from what originally made me like them so much.
Yep, I feel like gen 3 was the absolute peak, and then slightly fell off until it took a nose dive from gen 6 onward. It'd be great to have a "fork" of Pokemon picking things up from Gen 3 and adding pokemon with regard to style, concept and necessity in order to flesh out the world. In spite of all its success, it really feels like pokemon is one of the biggest wasted potentials ever in a gaming franchise. I'm pretty sure they will have to do a "reset" eventually, I just wonder whether they will actually do it well
The original art style felt far more real and alive, making the series feel more personal, as trainers and fans alike could relate to their expressiveness and subtlety. A slightly raised eyebrow ridge says much more than a rounded eyelid ever can for me. I want them to feel like they could be in the real world with me. I want to be able to imagine them as my friends, my companions. I want the series to lean back into the stance that, if players and viewers wanted to, they could trick themselves into believing the world was real... Even just for a few hours of immersion... It will always feel like a lifetime.
I've noticed this with the eevees too, they started out as pure simple embodiments of their type and gradually got more detailed, that's where my problem with sylveon comes in, it's a good design but it just doesn't fit in with the others, it looks out of place and over-designed compared to the rest
Sylveon mismatches more because it has a completely different eye shape than the rest. Otherwise it's about the same as Vaporeon and Leafeon levels of complexity.
@@phil2160 yeah it definitely is as a better design than flareon and Jolteon (vaporeon still holds up tbh) but it's more of the fact that it looks out of place than having a bad design and I don't really know why it looks put of place....
Interesting. I've never noticed the design style change. I've been playing every new pokemon game on release since the very first generation, and I've loved all of it. My issues don't lie in the style as I genuinely love large chunks of every generation. However, my problems with the franchise is with gameplay. The games progressively get easier, force liner gameplay, and utilize excessive hand holding. Pokemon used to be a challenge. The latest titles, though, are almost insultingly easy. They even removed all post game exploration. Generation 2 and 5 have been my favorite due to game length, and more mature story telling. Anyways, great video :)
I'll make it simple. Gen 4 and earlier design style for pokemon. Gen 6 and earlier for character designs; especially 2d drawings. Also age up player characters to 13.
Alola ash doesn’t even look like ash. I dropped sun and moon anime 1 minute into episode 1 because it’s so bad. I wouldn’t have even realize it was ash without Pikachu. Even then, I thought it was a time rewind. He literally looks 6-7 years old. And this is coming from a diehard Pokémon fan. Now that im older, I don’t feel a duty to watch the anime, but I would’ve if it hadn’t been for the art style.
I think this review was very fair. Looking at that drawing you posted near the beginning, I think the new Pokemon look better in the old art style. Seeing Pidgey and Vulpix in the new art style really makes them look like toys. It makes them look less "real." That Alolan Raichu really shows this, I think. It looks like a plushie, not a monster. I got into Pokemon way back in Gen 1 but I don't know if I would have been as crazy about Pokemon if it had that art style from the beginning or if that's just the older me talking. I've always loved monster taming games so I probably would have played Pokemon from the sheer fact it was basically all we had.
Pokemon used to feel like real animals, now it feels like a children's cartoon... Which is alright cuz it was supposed to be that from the start, it's just they keep the old style around for nostalgia and it's very jarring to see them side by side If they are gonna change everything to look like a kids cartoon have the balls to change Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, etc to fix alongside the new Pokemons
08:01 If anything, Pokémon today look like Baby I stage Digimon, not regular Digimon. Digimon are so overly-designed and complicated that no Pokémon can really compare to them, except maybe for some of the Mega forms and newest legendaries such as Type: Null (Who TOTALLY screams Digimon) This comparison is downright wrong and show ignorance in not only understanding Pokémon, but ALSO Digimon.
Digimon has always had a much broader spectrum of super simple to extremely elaborate. When Gen 3 and Gen 4 were new with much more elaborate designs than the first two generations, often overdesigned and full of needless detail, the claim was "they look like Digimon now" because they started looking like Ultimate level Digimon, particularly the legendaries. Now that the new standard keeps shifting to rounder and more plasticy texture and design silhouettes in gens 6-8, a typical Pokemon is looking more like a Baby 1 and Baby 2 Digimon so the same tired phrase which, to be clear, has been leveled at _some_ Pokemon since gen 2, is used to mean the exact opposite of what it did a decade previous. The video isn't even arguing that Pokemon do look like Digimon, it's showing that "argument" as an example of something people say when they don't understand the actual issues at hand.
@@RoninCatholic I don't even think the creator of this video understood the phrase himself though. He didn't elaborate further on it, and anything you add is just what you believe. (Which I mostly agree, it's just that we don't know what the video uploader believes)
@@RoninCatholic thanks dude, although I get why they might have interpreted that wrong. This was my first video essay, and while I'm still proud of it there are a lot of areas I could have made more understandable.
Wait wait wait... I thought the premise of newer gens was they tend to be more complex in design, not simplier! Ok yes, you did show the starters and other base mons, tiny cute creatures without much room for details throughout the years. But what is with higher evolutions? Comparing, let's say, Blastoise with Primarina, I clearly see a trend to more features and ornaments in design. And even with Vulpix and Zorua you can see the latter having more complex furmarkings. Maybe yes, the overall anatomy may change to the cute, simplistic, rounded artstyle, but the attached design elements are increasing in number, color variety and complexity.
Exactly, this video glosses over the overly busy design abominations that have infested the newer generations. The easiest place to see this imo is with mega evolutions; take an old design and add a bunch of extra features to the design, or make the existing features of the previous design more pronounced and extreme.
you're confusing complex concept with complex art style. if you took any of the pokemon you mentioned and redrew them in the old style they would look far more detailed than they do now. something can be complex without being detailed.
6:12 Oof. That really shows what the problem with the Sun/Moon art direction is. It is different, and the actual animation quality of Sun/Moon is pretty nice, but in addition to the rounded edges the proportions on Ash's face are fundamentally unpleasant. The eyes are too small for the space between them, the mouth is too low and implies he doesn't have a chin, the nose has been so simplified his face looks flat, the ears are WAY too low and migrating toward the neck... he looks like a bootleg of himself. He's actively unpleasant to look at. You can get away with weirder, goofier, and cartoonier proportions on the Pokemon, but Ash feels like he's fallen off of anime stylization and straight into the uncanny valley.
The backlash to the reveal of windwaker's art style was quite big at the time. It was a very jarring shift that really threw people for a loop. The spaceworld GameCube reveal trailer got people hyped for a super realistic looking Zelda game making the shift even more surprising and a bigger adjustment for fans. It took me a good while to warm to it. As for Pokémon I played gen 1 in my teen years and loved it despite its limitations (being a game made for the OG gameboy and all). It was the anime series that got me to try playing the game. I liked the designs back then although the original game art with its watercolor aesthetic I didn't like as much as the anime renders from the show. And so for me seeing each subsequent generation's designs be more in keeping with the anime look just seems logical. The very first game was released before the anime but every generation afterwards had a good deal of cross pollination with the anime as it helped with brand cohesion.
There is an upside to the "Cutesie" art style pokemon is sticking with. It ages better. Take ocarina of time with its polygon art style with an attempt at realism. Its an amazing game, but the graphics dont exactly age well. Compare that to wind waker, which used an art style that will hold up for much longer without looking like its from a completely different era. The "Cutesie" art style holds up better as the franchise ages. Personally, i prefer pokemon generations 1-4, but thats just my preference. Someday, i hope the pokemon games will add things like- open world aspects with legitimately fun exploration, interesting side quests, a new take on the storyline, the ability to catch them all in one game while exploring each region, and more ways to customize your character.
This is a very good point, and I personally think style longevity only really became a concern when pokemon shifted to 3D. I'm not sure why 2D art seems to hold up so much better than 3D, even with very limited pixel sprites, but I'd argue that all the old gameboy and DS games have more visual longevity than anything post X&Y. I just think that's interesting because I feel like that's around the time the design shifted more dramatically towards the rounded style we have today.
I've had problems with the newer designs since I first played gen 4 so I got so see all of Sinnoh, Johto, and Kanto. When gen 5 came out I thought a lot of the designs were kind of lackluster, but now seeing late gen pokemon redesigned with the old style looks really good to me. I never really thought that the bases for the pokemon were bad, (minus the snowflake and ice cream) but I liked the sharp edges of the earlier designs, like gyarados, better than the soft, round new designs, like Serperior. I understand the direction they went, but I don't really like the result. I'm glad I can now put it into words.
Well Arceus was a big step in the right direction in terms of innovation, right? Let's hope we get more of that (and that they go deeper down a more adult version of Pokemon.) Arceus shows, that both can exist at the same time.
Changing art styles is fine when used in the method of LoZ, where each game has its own unique tone and art style. Pokemon has simply been a slow and gradual transition into bulbous oddly shapen baby creatures with big anime eyes or overly designed brightly colored creatures. The art style would be fine if it was just a couple of games in the franchise, like Toon link, but Gamefreak treats this new art style as the norm.
Thank you, honestly. I've always thought that there had to be a reason for designs just feeling simpler to me in later generations, and it's because they were getting simpler! I honestly hope that GameFreak is able to find a middle ground between the two styles, or even change it entirely Wind Waker style, but I'm sad to say that Gamefreak is likely not willing to put in the effort.
I've made better Pokémon content since this video. Go check that out too, please!
ua-cam.com/video/aKcZAv4Y-po/v-deo.html
I greatly appreciate the love and the UA-cam algorithm's blessing, but I acknowledge this video's inconsistent argument and weak script needed revisions before it's final product. This was my first video essay, and tbh I rushed it out of excitement. Definitely should have proof read more, and established a more solid thesis before publishing. Criticisms are welcome, and all engagement is appreciated!
Still, THANK YOU for making this
if there was a jail for crimes against art you should be send there a couple of months for daring to upload this garbage nonsense ramble
Having the different art styles creates a diverse array of looks and appearances. They should keep both, add more, and not faze any of it out.
Don't let reddit-tier deboonking arguments get to you, your thesis in this was pretty damn good.
Im glad I saw this comment. I initally saw this video in my feed, not realizing it was from years ago, and felt a little disappointed by the video. You started touching upon some interesting ideas, but then didnt actually explore them. It kind of felt like it was "present conflict in Pokemon fanbase, talk about other games that changed styles, represent conflict in Pokemon fanbase" without actually talking about the changes in pokemons artstyle, or even why Pokemons artsyle has changed/stayed the same.
I've always loved the watercolor style of the original Pokemon.
The gen two Art in my Platinum Trainer Guide Book is just so appealing to me
I love and miss the old art style.
@@metroidmayhem8463 yeah me too, and it's a shame they didn't use it more
@@michaelcccr Yeah and it really show its beauty during the early card games. Beautiful pieces of art
@@metroidmayhem8463 yeah they were beautiful. they need to bring it back!
Another factor that makes this problem even more apparent is that, unlike Zelda or other series where each game's art style is self contained, Pokémon with wildly different art styles from different periods of the series are always going to have to interact with each other because most if not all Pokemon will be available in each generation of games (DeX cut aside). This means that there is always going to be a visual disconnect between your opponent's Fearow and your Impidimp. The lack of visual cohesion creates cognitive dissonance which may be the source of some claiming that pokemon don't look like pokemon anymore because it really doesn't look like any two given pokémon from gens on the opposite ends of the series belong in the same world.
Especially when it turns out the dex cut was just to sell the missing dex entries back to you at a premium, one dlc at a time.
@@propheinx2250 You don't need to buy the DLC to get the returning Pokémon. They'll be put into the base game in a free update at the same time, so you can still catch and trade them without paying any money.
@@naetle07 we'll see.
@@propheinx2250 They confirmed this when the DLC was announced. It was in the Direct.
@@naetle07 we'll see.
I personally feel that part of my problem with the newer games isn't the designs of the newer generations, or newer regional versions but, the designs clash horribly with older generation Pokemon. Showing totodile next to sobble, for example. They should have either kept the same style or changed EVERY design. Not like regional variants but, just so it feel more consistent.
Too late now...
It would have at least made the transition easier, though it might have ended up like the gen 7 anime
This is especially jarring with the eevee's, you put sylveon next to the original 3 without looking at eevee and they don't look that related beyond both based on cats and foxes, while with the originals even though they all have very different traits they definitely look like they're in the same family
Editing this to say i absolutely love sylveon before anyone yells at me lol, it's just the art style is very different, I love a lot of the new pokemon and dislike some old ones but i do have a small preference for the old art style. It doesn't bother me that much though bc fanart exists lol
@@sneedcat88 Yeah, all the other eeveelutions use a single main color + ONE extra fur color, with vaporeon getting some extras with its fins and spine things. Sylveon uses two pinks and two blues, plus white, with a bunch of markings and color division.
I disagree imo i think they all fit well together
@tonkuriiHQ I was under the impression all of the eeveelutions are they are foxes even beyond gen 3.
I'll admit it was very jarring and still is very hard for me to find arts of Jolteon I like. The original art and the fact it really "Transforms" for battle (the hairs turn to spikes) is because looking at the original art vs something like the delta card art is just....very difficult to accept idk it might be 1000% preference but it's really what I feel, they did an amazing Job in N64 stadium for the 3d models but I totally see what you mean.
The artist that took the liberty to show what art style changes could be like, I ended up liking 80-90% but as I look at the regionals I'm not really bugged maybe because I understand it's a new gen and new art but with ash...oh go they took the magical forever 10 year old and erased his shape(s) like kinda how Eddy took Jimmy's outline in Ed Edd n' Eddy. ua-cam.com/video/gKKdTlvZ5kI/v-deo.html
I get it pokemon has been aimed at kids, and it always has been (exception for the bloody managas) and now its reaching a wider audience but yeah the art has been a nostalgia trip when you look back at the gen 1 starter decks and such.
Fat pikacu and all I really like the clay art from gen 1 (I never thought it was watercolor but if it is I learned something) but some of the pokemon won't translate over. At the end of the day it's an art preference and I already agree yes pokemon is feeling like the 2 or so year Nintendo COD.
Hmm.. I do have to say that we don’t get cool ugly Pokémons that much anymore. I adore how ugly venasaur is and it brings about a level of realism in a fictious concept
That’s not true most of gen 8 is ugly as shit.
@@TimPatDuDe examples?
Grimmsnarl kind of looks like a throwback pokemon you could see in the old games. Reminds me of primeape and gengar.
I don't think an art style change can completely explain away the increased amount of inanimate pokemon/uninteresting designs.
I know many people will point out that those existed in gen 1 as well, but those many times had at least a little plausible logic behind them, and logically going forward if you thought they where a problem in gen 1 you shouldn't make excuses for them in later generations.
the last cool ugly pokemon was garbodor, and y'all shat on him the whole time, despite him being great
I always thought that the first gen of Pokemon looked "sharper" than the newer ones - a less rounded style. But they looked different to me in other ways that I couldn't describe correctly until I watched this video. Body proportions, detail, etc.
I've been playing since gen 1 but I don't really have a preference in artstyles? A lot of my favorite Pokemon are from gen 5 actually. I would say that Sinnoh looks the weirdest to me, but probably the only reason I say that is because I have spent the least amount of times with those gens.
(Gen 1 fat pikachu will always be superior though!!!)
Just look at the eyes.
@@AndersonMallony-EricCF that's how I finally pinpointed it was the art style I didn't like, not the Pokemon. I notice a distinct difference I think around gen 4, the eyes started getting rounder. Then I noticed some of the other things like less detail
I love joltik. and galvantula obvs
Same
FAT PIKACHU FOR THE WIN
Why does every starter have to become anthropamorphic? It's called pocket monsters, not pocket furries.
Ehhhhh..... I think what Crystal Aria means to say is that not all starters are anthropomorphic animals and that anthropomorphic animal designs aren't all bad. It's not furry fanservice. Sure, some pokemon have become quite popular in the furry community *coughcough Zeraora Lucario Incineroar*, but that doesn't automatically mark them as bad. I hope that answers your question. And no. I am not a furry. I know my name says otherwise, but just trust me on this one.
@@kittyatomic0147 I'm impressed you understood all that from two words tbh
So they can have more pokemon to make into characters for the anime? The more human-like a pokemon is, the human expressions they can use in the anime
I hate the more human-y designs lol. Like, it feels really wrong to literally own a being that looks like they could be your roommate or something.
Hey, us furries need our bait. But, I _do_ wanna finally see a quadruped Fire evolution. It's annoying that we haven't gotten one yet.
The cutesification and simplification of the artstyle also is a risk to the design of new monsters because they might become difficult to differentiate. If everything had a big round head and simple stubby limbs they not just lack grip but start to look samey.
@Hero-Of Courage A lot of cutesy Legendaries though
@Hero-Of Courage -- Calm down, I didn't say they were _all_ the same. It's a hypothetical, that's why I'm not referring to anything specific. I'm pointing out there are only so many ways to apply neoteny in design. Thus the danger still applies to this subset of cute critters.
@Hero-Of Courage -- Is that my argument? I don't recall dismissing any exceptions. I said differentiating simplistic designs becomes more difficult over time with more monsters.
@@ChangedMyNameFinally69 ha yes, my favorite legendaries : the cute ones, like Lunala, Yveltal, Eternatus, the Ultra Beasts and the forms of Kyurem.
Not like the non-cute from the first gens, you know like Mew, Celebi and Jirachi
@@siragon756 Cherry picked in both regards
Having spent a few years in Japan, I can see why GameFreak/Nintendo make the decisions that they make. There, it seems like every company is battling for the hearts of Japanese children (Yokai Watch, Dragon Quest, Pokemon, etc.). And as a result, pokemon gets dragged into the art styles and decisions that other companies make just because they sell more. Just remember, their main audience is not millennials like myself who fell in love with the magic back in the 90s, it's the mainstream of young Japan.
Not sure why you are adding Dragon Quest in your list, when the designer of these characters and monsters is Akira Toriyama, who is the mangaka of Dragon Ball. It is also one of the most beloved JRPGs in Japan and usually aimed at an older audience than Pokemon. Which is why Dragon Quest still has the beloved ingame Casino to get some rare items and Gamefreak scrapped the Casino since Gen 4 I believe - to be able to get a lower rating on their games.
It's very clear Gamefreak would go for a simpler style these days as all Pokemon need to make 3D models, animated them, many Pokemon appear in the Anime and they also sell merchandise like plushes. I don't blame them and in fact I still like the designs even as someone who started the franchise in the 90ies with the first Gen.
Gen 1 has a special place in my heart but honestly, newer Pokemon are far more creative, yeah some of them are silly, some of them are ugly but that's to be expected when you create over 900 of them.
@@knight4041 I would like that they remade older mons in to the new artstyle, it would just looks all more cohesive.
How did you live in Japan? What type of job 😛
well that weird cause the majority of their sales come from over seas seeing how japans birthrate is abysmal. they sell more adult diapers', so i know they cant be focused on japan with that in mind.
@@knight4041 I would say dragon quest has a rather childish look to it. Its Toriyama's style. Monsters/animals he draws look goofy, unless he wants something to look menacing like Hirudegarn or something.
"This shows Gamefreak's inability to innovate, despite Pokemon being one of the highest grossing franchises of all time."
I'd argue that it is, at least in part, because of that rather than in spite of it. No matter what Gamefreak does, no matter how little they change, Pokemon will always make money. And truckloads of it at that. SwSh illustrates that perfectly. Even with all the controversy surrounding the games, they are the fastest selling pokemon games to date. They have no reason to innovate. No franchise that can be seen as "competition" can even come close to rivaling them, especially not with that shiny Nintendo association. On top of that, the vast majority of their revenue comes from merchandise sales. All they have to do is make pokemon cute and likable enough to push those sales.
Gamefreak is a company that needs to be challenged if they're gonna innovate Pokemon. They're not like the devs behind Zelda or the mainline Mario games, where part of the appeal comes from how they innovate. They've built their plush castle and they're content to stay inside it.
Exactly. What are people going to do, refuse en masse to buy new Pokemon content because the art style is sliding towards simplification and the designs are getting more and more busy, when far larger numbers of people will eat up whatever bears the brand and marketing power of Pokemon? And you can't pin the change down to one generation; it's been happening bit by bit ever since Gold and Silver, so not many people realize exactly what changed, and that's if they have a problem with it. The story is the same with changes to other aspects of the franchise like music or gameplay. It's gradual change, and not to aspects most people would think were worth getting up in arms over. Game Freak doesn't care about Pokemon fandom because they don't have to, and it's frustrating as hell.
Fuckin A
The games do very well, but to this day, the first two gens are the most successful.
I think the fact that Pokémon has many successful ventures outside of the core series has more to do with it.
I can't think of many series where the video game main and side series, the anime, movies, mobile games, card games, toys, plushes, clothing line, etc. are all incredibly successful on their own markets.
@@lirfrank I think your first two points are more related than you think. Because the earlier generations have more of a history of merchandise, adaptations and spinoffs, early Pokemon's popularity has tended to snowball.
@@theinvisibleskulk4563 Oh, I agree that the first gen in particular is the one pushing through many of it.
Not a coincidence it's always the one they choose when they dip their toes into something new.
Even the Detective Pikachu movie had all the key Pokémon be gen1.
But I'm arguing the stagnation of the core series has little to do with the success of the series as a whole.
Thank you for putting my idea that “the Pokémon keep getting rounder” into better terms lol
It's more like "pokemon have less texture" or "pokemon are plastic toys" imo
Pikachu went from chub to no chub - is now smooth
Mewtwo went from angular joints to smooth
In comparison to Pidgey and Spearow, all birds are now smooth
All starters are now made of smooth shapes, in comparison to the ridges, bumps and pudge of the earliest starters..
And so on and so forth.
It's all so _smooth_
Round, smooth and simple are design traits naturally more appealing to wider audiences and easier to sell (easier for the brain to process, it actually ticks boxes in peoples brains when it comes to something aesthetically appealing). This is literally the only thing Pokemon is about now, selling easy and selling big. This is common in a lot of series once they get really big for too long, art styles frequently dumb down to appeal to general, non-fan audiences. Unlike developers who care about what they're making and have their own standards and a creative vision, Game Freak are really only trying to tick mandatory boxes so their product will sell and make as much money as possible. Pokemon isn't a cool video game series anymore, it's just a recognizable, money making brand, like something from Disney. It's painful, but I think very true.
@@Squishito I wouldn't say it's "dumbed down" -- the word you need to use is homogenized. The style of Pokemon has evolved alongside children's toys and animation, which you will note have also become more rounded and simplified for production and aesthetic reasons. The problem that a lot of people feel but are unable to express is that when a series like Pokemon becomes a homogenized product it loses its identity and initial appeal. Yes, the designs are still good, colourful and marketable, but what use is that when they have given up the smaller details that defined their product from the rest of the market? If it weren't for the series' pre-established name, I don't know if it could ever take off like it did. I mean, the style is simplified enough now that Yokai Watch's yokai, Temtem, Ni No Kuni's creatures and even Digimon Appli Monsters can sit side-by-side with Pokemon from the last 3 regions and not look out of place at all.
@@conspiracypanda1200 Yes, that's pretty much what I just wrote.
@@Squishito There's a very subtle difference between "dumbing down" and homogenization, but I get where you're coming from. One has more of an attack and blame mentality, as though this degeneration was 100% purposeful, while the other simply acknowledges that this was an evolutionary inevitability. Point is we both agree, though we clearly have varying feelings on the subject.
As far as I'm concerned the change in overall design is that in generation one the Pokemon's were conceptualized as more like monsters and less like plushies as opposed to now. Mainly to broaden the appeal I reckon.
I don't know that I buy that plushie appearnaces have an inherently greater appeal for in-game models of Pokemon. It's really just about being able to sell those plushies. On the one hand, cute _does_ help with plushies, and on the other, less detail makes them easier and cheaper to mass produce than an accurate Mewtwo or Kingler Gen 1 plush would be
@@chompythebeast Think of it this way. Humans are mammals. What appeals to mammals? Courtship and offspring. Like the saying 'Sex Sells', you can argue that 'Babies and everything that reminds me of babies sells'. These 'Monsters' transitioned into adorable mascots because selling cute mascots proved to be a profitable strategy.
I didn't grow up with gen one, far from it.
My earliest interaction with the franchise was seeing my friends playing black and white. The first pokemon game I actually owned was Pokemon Y.
There's a lot of designs I like in that game, aegislash is probably my favourite pokemon of all time, _maybe_ beaten by swampert.
Basically, I've got no gen 1 nostalgia to speak of.
I can definitely see the art style preference though, the old art is a lot more appealing to me, regardless of nostalgia. I _can't_ be a "genwunner" per definition.
Basically, what I'm saying is that there are people who didn't even grow up with gen 1 who prefer the older art. It's a pretty large group, actually.
I don't get why people have to become aggressive and dumb over it though.
Same but grew up playing X/Y
The art style I can understand. Its when people attack the pokemon and players themselves just for having a differing opinion. I personally prefer the newer art style and I DID grow up with the old school art. I started with Yellow and Crystal. But I’ll always prefer the newer style. But there’s nothing wrong with that
I feel like Pokemon fans are just driving everyone away from Pokemon. I started with ORAS, my favorite Pokemon games are Diamond and X, and Black 2/White 2 are the worst games in my opinion, and I think Sword/Shield look like the coolest games. You can tell I get a WAY too much hate just because my views aren't the "norm" within Pokemon's community. I really don't have high expectations for new Pokemon games, and I play them casually, but I am really obsessed with them. I often get scared that I might get a reply from some genfiver saying "You're not a true Pokemon fan". Look, all I want to do is enjoy Pokemon without being bullied for me liking it a certain way, I didn't do anything wrong....
@@thischannelisinactiveimsor9500 Yeah it's a bit sad that it's like that.
Hopefully the community will outgrow it one day.
Omg I saw also saw friends play with Black and White, but platinum was my first since my uncle gave it to me as a gift, then I played Y when it was still relevant. Good innocent times
This video confused me
“Pokémon has changed their art style over time”
“Pokémon refuses to change”
Uhhh.....
he's saying they changed to a more simplistic, easy design from the earlier designs with harder edges, etc. but refuse to change again as many fans are tired of this art style, and prefer the old style.
@@nightlygarbagerun7395 Maybe. Pokemon like Dragapult, Grimmsnarl, Centiskorch show that they're still willing to have edgier pokemon (check out those eyes! a lot like gen 1) so I think they actually are willing to experiment and do different things
@@JelloImpact grimmsnarl made me happy to see as we haven't had many edgy pokemon like that since gen 4
@@nightlygarbagerun7395 Thanks for clarifying my poorly spoken words haha. I realized this a few days ago and pinned a comment explaining what my poorly written script should have said instead.
@@SirBaconFace haxorous hydriegon sawk bisharp a lot of gen 5 has strong hard rigged edgier designs
Everything that's targeting kids nowadays looks rounder, smaller, cuter and more toyish.
There are a lot of psychological and marketing related aspects as of why characters look like that. Toy-shaped characters are easier to remember, their toy-like appearance make them more desirable to kids while simultaneosly easier to design toys of, and thats most-likely also the reason why we haven't seen that trend go away.
It just seems like an optimised capitalist strategy to maximize profit with selling cartoon characters, and I don't think we'll see this trend fade anytime soon.
Pokemon started off as a video game hence the design were more realistic, ugly and creature-like but pokemon quickly (almost immediately) turned into a multi media franchise selling all sorts of merchandise and toys. It's best seen when you compare the original video game designs with the more stylized and cleaner designs for the anime and later games (starting with Pokemon Yellow) to be more appealing to kids growing up in the late 90s.
Interesting. The best example I can think of is My Little Pony. That thing is even older than pokemon. The origional My Little Pony characters were very realistic. Imagine if one would take a real life pony. Then they colored it pastel colors. then they put symbols on thier flanks. Then that would be what the origional My Little Pony characters would look like. It is the first generation. Over time the ponies have changed in design. Now they are really different they are much rounder and cuter. The hoofs are more subtle in apearence. This is to gove a certain appeal. My Little Pony is mainly a toy franchise. So they are going for a round and cute appearence to sell more toys. The latest generation is the fourth one. The ponies there are so stylized they hardly look like the real thing anymore. One could mistaken the ponies for some other animal, like a dog or cat. My Little Pony has finish gen 4. It will release gen 5 in the near future. In the gap, there is the My Little Pony Life. This is where the trend goes to a reduculous extreme. I understand what they are going for here. Yet I think it may go too far. It helps to have big heads to make a creature cuter and more baby like. Yet these ponies have heads so big that they look like they are going to tip over. It is a bit distracting for me.
I don't see this as a sustainable strategy. The awesome character design is what drove the initial enthusiasm.
I once read that the best designs for children's characters is a character the children could draw and replicate by themselves easily, so rounder and simpler shapes fits with that.
@@jaritos675 Honestly the anime is probably the cause of that. They even changed the sprites in Yellow to be based entirely on the anime.
@@jaritos675 if clearly is considering pokemon is one of if not the most profitable video game franchises of all time. and almost anyone you ask would know who pikachu/charizard is
2:54 WAS THAT RYAN REYNOLDS AT THE END OF THE PIKACHU LINE!? Beautiful, 10/10! I didn't expect it, but it was amazing to see. 😂❤
Lucky Paola Studios lol
Since Pokemon are fictitious, your brain learns how they look when you're first exposed to them. Your brain understands "so, this is how a Pokemon looks", and since there are many different Pokemon, your brain extracts general patterns from them, as the fantastic pattern recognition machine it is.
If then you see something that doesn't share those general patterns, you may find it difficult to recognize as a "pokemon".
And also, if Pokémon looked like this in the first place, I never would’ve been interested
that's how I felt about dialga and palkia as a kid. You sure these things are pokemon?
It feels like a whole different set of people are designing these latest gens, but not in a good way. They seem like creatures taken from a property similar to a -Mon, but off-brand in that way. There's such a distinct style clash between the Klink line, and the Magnet Boiz, even though they're functionally very similar, it just kinda takes me out of the experience. But I might just be a Pokéboomer, as differentiated from Genwunner, cos Skarmory is my fave and my knowledge is mostly up to Gen 3 where I dropped off.
Astute observation. Very well put.
@@MasonOfLife Same. They had a more rustic, wild appearance to them. I see people posting new official art of the old ones which doesn't show how they did look.
I wish the series went with the Manga tone. I love how Pikachu looks like in generations and how Origins depicted Pokemon.
Another thing that also needs to be taken into consideration is the transition from sprites to models.
While the official artwork has drastically changed, the fact that XY and onwards was 3D is also a massive artstyle change on its own. As many of Nintendo's other franchises moved onto 3D, Pokémon kept it and evolved it which can most drastically be seen in gen 5. Where in gen 4 had beautiful still sprites, 5 had fully animated sprites that were unique to each Pokémon and it made them feel alive in a way that the newer 3D games just haven't be able to capture.
They really could've just refined the sprite angle and it would've still sold gang busters.
I hate they felt compelled to just jump on the 3D bandwagon for their core series games.
@@MikeSandersonVideos not their choice
@@MikeSandersonVideos The TPC probably persuaded them after a Vocal Part of the Pokemon Community complained about Pokemon not being Modern enough and not keeping up with newer trends in Gaming.
@@MikeSandersonVideos i mean .... mantaining the Sprite would mean the game would stuck to the usual formula of random encounter, which i think It would have gone stale After a while.
what's noticable is that by the Nintendo desiring of making Pokémon their Call of Duty the 3D Sprite of 800+ Pokémon never got the love and soul they deserved
(compared to stadium of Battle Revolution)
@@Mepphy99 Implementing 3D surely doesn't alter how the game functions though?
For me it's the anthropomorphic evolutions, and how Pokemon are starting to look more like Porygon II. Which is ironic because that was *suppose* to look artificial.
You're the only one who says Pokemon look like porygon, Apparently to you Muk and Mr.Mime are the pinnacle of design.
Comparing Gen 1 with later generations feels like comparing Sailor Moon to Steven Universe.
Something that I thought was going to be discussed but was sorely missing from this video, is the actual ART style for each Pokemon. What I mean is the actual artwork done by Ken Sugimori- the style used in Gen I and II. Beautiful watercolor art for each Pokemon, with a very unique artstyle that translated into the actual game sprites. Starting with Gen III, we started to get a more industrial anime-ized look to all the Pokemon, including redrawn Gen I and II Pokemon. I feel this new artstyle looks extremely generic compared to the original artstyle and lacks any of the depth and personality that made me fall in love with the franchise over 2 decades ago.
Second thing that I felt should have been discussed: The actual art direction of the franchise in Gen I and II was much more uniform. Even if some designs could be considered "lazy-" they all looked like they were from the same franchise. Nowadays many of the new Pokemon designs look all over the place, like they belong to completely different franchises. Add to the fact that you can see older gen Pokemon alongside the new ones, and the entire art direction looks like a complete mess.
True, especially your point of Pokemon not looking uniformly accurate within the franchise. The newer Pokemon don't look like they are from Pokemon, but are monsters from a childrens cartoon by Nickelodeon. It really went crazy
This is so accurate.
Yep it's not just about art style but rather how well they handled the design within that style... take a modern example of character design from Genshin Impact - both the 2D character imagery and the 3D model are amazing... Pokemon design on the other hand just feel lazy and unpolished...
i like the art style and especially in the gen 7 anime i think they went in the right direction plus there is also the fact that gen 1 looks ugly and youre wrong
Ehm, back then they made the art based on the sprites, not the other way around.
I almost missed Ryan Reynolds when you showed all pukachu's redesigns
the thing that bothers me that mostly happens in pokemon mostly fire starters nowadays is that pokemon has the weirdest fetish of trying to make 4 legged creatures turn into some furry looking human
the entire hypno line lol
Mewtwo, too actually
@@sobersplash6172 Mewtwo originally looked way more animal-like and had this huge weird head in old art. Then the anime made Mewtwo have a really small head and look way more human-like and they've stuck with that design ever since.
I almost never choose the fire starter, for the exact reason you mentioned lol. Grass and water feels like actual pokemon, while the fire starters final evolution looks half human. Google Incineroar which is from the sun and moon games. It literaly looks like a body builder wrestler with a furry costume on it's the ugliest pokemon ever IMO and it's a fire pokemon starter of course. I've started to refer to the fire starters as the "#1 choise of every 12 YO boy", it feels like they designed the fire starters to cater to immature boys. BTW regular fire pokemon that isn't starters are usualy alot cooler so I catch them instead.
zebnemma wait till you see Inteleon, it is by far one of the worst starter designs i have ever seen
@@zebnemma
Well, the fire starter's final forms from gen 1-2 where very animal like, but from gen 3-8 they always go with a more humanoid look which always bothered me. : /
I still go with the fire type starter in Pokémon Moon, but I only keep it at Torracat. ; )
I grew up with Gen 1. I literally learned how to read by playing pokemon Red. My biggest issue is that the new generations don't feel like real animals in a world. The first 2 generations focused on trying to make the creatures feel like animals you were looking for on a safari, sketching in a log book, etc. The new ones are all just plastic plushies.
That true but pokemon doesn't have to be animal in ther design make look good
Gen 4 was peak for me
This needs more views. This also explains why like the original Rescue Team art covers compared to the new one.
Peter Parker agreed. The new cover art feels so emotionless and bland. The in game world is nice and accurate tho
The thing I really don't like about the newer art style is it makes Pokémon look like Beanie Babies. What I like about the old style is there were cute Pokémon then, but they had more detail to them. Also, the artwork depicted them in a manner like someone documenting Pokémon in the wild. They're not posing for the cameras, it's just the image being captured at the right moment. In the new games, they're posing for the cameras. It's not a look that conveys they're supposed to be wild and they look like plushies on display. The old style had more personality to it.
I think the initial inspiration that Satoshi Tajiri used for the gen1 designs was actual biology book about native flora and fauna in certain places. He used the art in those books to keep the feel of “realism” in the mon’s designs.
@@frownyclowny6955 Seeing as how Vileplume is literally a Rafflesia...
I would say that the newer design look too personality-driven. The older ones were more multi-dimensional, more animal like and could have different personalities depending upon their trainer or in the wild and their upbringing.
The way I always saw it was that it was a change from fantasy animals to figurines/plushies.
@@dolphinboi-playmonsterranc9668 That reminds me of a boss battle from Final Fantasy XIV during A Realm Reborn days:
Rafflesia, a deadly flower from Second Coil of Bahamut (T6) >D
Don't think for a second that was a easy fight, it had mechanics that could one shot you! Like Blighted... something, don't remember the complete name
If you're curious Dolphin, search youself for that fight here on YT, and see what a "Mega Vileplume" is capable of, haha XD
"Pokemon look like Digimon now"??
Digimon are as cool as heck man
Agreed
Very.
As someone who's always liked both I can definitely say
Some Pokemon have looked like digimon, a lot of digimon look like Pokemon, and both franchises have gone through a lot of artists with very little aesthetic coherence between them. But with Digimon, it's always more justified because they're all artificial, they're sentient amalgamations of random computer data.
But they aren't Pokemon.
Yeah ask pm7 what is huntail
Part of the issue that was pointed out in a different video is that pokémon have become individual characters rather than species that feel like they live in a breathing world. For example, if you take two Charizards, they could have completely different personalities and mannerisms because their designs allow for that. If you take two Inceneroars, however, their designs box them into being macho wrestlers. Both cool designs, but only one feels like a living, breathing species rather than a character
I have favorites from both the oldest and newer generations, so for me, I think the design styles are most relevant for what type of pokemon the game is trying to convey. Gen 3 is where I myself noticed the art style change occurring, so it's the one I've thought about the most. It's where most of my examples will come from.
For me, I think the newer, less "realistic" designs really work for things like Ghost and Psychic types. It makes the monsters look like things that aren't real, and would probably have to be ghosts or psychics to exist. It's why Gardevoir is probably my favorite psychic design to this day, but Alakazam just looks like an old man in a jump suit that wants to poke me with spoons.
I also think the simple cute designs really work on making things look... well, cute. Duh. Spheal and Litwick are tied for the pokemon I find the cutest, and that's largely due to how ridiculously simple and non-threatening their designs are. It's really hard to compete with those factors using the more "realistic" gen 1 art style.
All that said, I think the gen 1 style captures the animal and earthy pokemon the best. Feathers, fur, rough surfaces, muscles. These things just don't get represented with the current Pokemon art style, and I think it detracts a lot from making some of the newer mons reach their full "likability" potential when they're supposed to be based on familiar real-world counterparts.
Focusing on gen 3 vs gen 1 again, I'll use Milotic and Huntail vs Gyarados as examples since they're all kind of similar in shape and type. I love Milotic's design, cause it really goes over-the-top in being majestic and beautiful. The smoothness sells what the Pokemon is about. Gyarados also works well, cause it has enough details to look intimidating and sell that it's a strong physical pokemon. It utilizes the gen 1 style well where it counts. The problem is Huntail. It's a strong physical fish pokemon, like Gyarados, but it's so over-simplified and friendly looking that it loses the impact it needs. It looks like a roll of playdough that someone drew some dots on and taped a smiley face to the front. That's not intimidating, and it doesn't stand out from the crowd. I wouldn't be surprised if most players don't even remember Huntail exists, because it doesn't look like something that should be remembered. It's too simplified and non-threatening to be remembered.
This is at the crux of my feelings with the newer Pokemon designs. Personally, I would feel completely fine with many of them if they were tweaked a bit. The heart of it all lies with what priority the developers have when they create Pokemon. Overall, if you look from generation to generation, the intention and priority of prior gen Pokemon were to convey, real living and breathing animal-like Pokemon with some oddballs and Japanese sensible choices mixed in there (which is why we got something like Jynx), they used to be creatures first and concepts second, which is consequently also 1 reason why they can feel more generic. However more and more as gens have passed by, the overall design-language has changed to be focused on inhibiting and conveying concepts, minimizing the expression of the creatures themselves and maximizing the expression of where they're inspired from. Basically, if you look at something like Blastoise and Lugia vs Cinderace and Zygarde. Blastoise is a mishmash of various different aspects that form a specific kind of creature and serves it's overall expression, a giant turtle with shoulder cannon pumps, that can tuck itself into it's shell and do a devastating spinning attack, all of it's aspects are loosely inspired but they're unique put together and distinctly Blastoise. Lugia is a giant water bird, with hand like white wings and streaks of Dark blue informing it's sharp beak like face and down its back. You could maybe loosely find an inspiration for it, but it itself again is very unique and it's expression is entirely its own. Cinderace on the other hand is simple to convey, a soccer playing fire rabbit, it's basically concept first, creature second. Zygarde is clearly based on the norse myth of the Nidhog, that not only conveys its expression as a giant snake under ground, but also its Ground and Dragon typing as Nidhog is a dragon serpent. And that's just the tip of the ice berg.
@@Yous0147 Completely agreed. I think you hit the nail on the head with "creature vs concept". It makes me think of the legendary dog trio from Gen 2 against the "old cloud men" from Gen 5 (Tornadus, Thundurus, Landorus).
The first group feel like beasts with their mythologies tied to the pokemon world. They are a group of dogs that have some crazy designs tied to the elements they wield. They're feel cool to me because they are original.
The Cloud Men crew are clearly based on Fujin and Raijin. Maybe a fertility Kami for Landorus. That's pretty much it. They kind of look like genies, but so did the interpretations of the original Japanese kami. It feels super out-of-place to see these clearly Japanese religious figures wandering the countryside next to a Pidgey. It takes me out of the game.
Which sucks, cause their alternate forms actually do a good job of re-interpreting the concepts. Gamefreak can make believable creature concepts when they try. They just don't like to as much anymore.
@@0ctopusComp1etely Most modern Pokemon are too obviously meant to be a specific design, a lot of the animal Pokemon are just regular animals with an elemental theme slapped on it, a criticism that was usually thrown at Digimon.
@@Yous0147 I mean if they continue the gen 1 approach. The mons will look like generic.
@@kenmarkollano5795 Not Necassarily. Gen 1 is a bit generic because of its early nature as well as being on limited hardware at a time when games and media were much more homogenous. So they're a product of their time. That changes (or should change) over time as new inspiration and different possibilities and avenues open up. Just look at 2nd and 3rd gen as examples, with Pokemon such as Furret, Typhlosion, Flygon and Milotic, those are not generic designs and expressions in my opinion, but they follow the same guideline keeping them distinctly Pokemon. You find a lot sprinkled into 4th and 5th gen too. I don't mind different designs and ideas, what I do mind is the intention and thought put in behind why those Pokemon exist, and how that informs the design. Basically, instead of saying "hey let's make a genie Pokemon", it's better if you say "hmm genies are cool, can we make it fit into this world? Are there aspects of a genie we can take to inform our design of the new Pokemon? What other things could be really cool to add." That's one difference.
I wonder how much the art style was influenced by concepts such as befriending your pokemon. Later generations put a lot more emphasis on pokemon being closer to pets. You can't have sharp, edgy designs and then ask people to think of it like a huggable puppy. In Gen 1, most of the designs truly are monsters.
Comes in the Japanese name! Pocket Monsters.
Its hard to picture a lot of modern starters as wild animals. Especially Intelion and Cinderace.
I wouldn't want to catch something like a frickin Golbat if it had that monstrous cavity and a tongue slimy than the skin of a grimer if Golbats started to exist like in the gen1 games
@@SheIsAVampireBat I can easily relate modern Pokemon to wild animals, in fact I see pokemon in wild animals. A fully grown rabbit is a cinderace to me, an adult lizard living in the water is Inteleon to me.
Older Pokémon were not edgy, only gen 5 tried to go that ruote and failed
Sugimori design was to make thing cool but with some sort of flaw to make them unique and memorable, even the edgiest design of earlier gen are nothing compared to things like haxorus
@@M1551NGN0 "A fully grown rabbit is a cinderace to me, an adult lizard living in the water is Inteleon to me"
This has to be parody because that's hilarious
good video overall but I'm a bit confused about the point you're trying to make. It seems from the latter portion of the video like you're saying pokemon needs to change more,... but isn't that what the entire video is about, a large-scale change with the franchise that's still ongoing? Maybe you're saying they should vary artstyles even more than they do now, but wouldn't that just isolate even more people? The only other thing I can think of is if they used older design traits more but you say repeatedly that you don't think that's necessary, and it isn't really a "change" in artstyle so much as it is a regression to the way things were before.
This isn't meant to be a criticism, I'm just genuinely confused about what you mean about the series needing to change more. If it was in the context of the games or something I entirely agree, but in terms of design that's an odd request to make after spending an entire video showcasing the ways in which the artstyle is changing.
This is 100% a valid criticism of this video. My argument is washed and not very concise, and at this point I rather write it off as "my first video essay." I really should have proof read this script more and had some input before I finalized it haha.
I elaborated a bit on it in the pinned comment above, but tldr I felt it was making a gradual change for the simplistic rather than an outright intentional art style change like the Zelda franchise.
@@noitsjustcody Ok that makes more sense. Thank you for clarifying! Also, I got recommended a similar video on the same topic which discusses a similar thing to you but goes over different examples, I think it's a good watch since you clearly are interested in the topic of pokemon's artstyle change ua-cam.com/video/q9pGtlafRvY/v-deo.html
I'm 5 minutes in and yeah, this dudes video is already way better than mine ngl lol. Why can't his video get the views this one did?
@@noitsjustcody both your videos are really good man, don't put yourself down. This is a great video I was just confused as what you wanted that's all. I feel like both of these videos are great looks at the subject in their own way (yours is more about the gradual change and its impact on the fans, while the other is about different eras of design and the art principles in each). I do agree it deserves more views than it has though, it's unfortunate how many great videos from small creators go unnoticed.
@@noitsjustcody so basically your point (if I understand correctly) is that you think Gamefreak/the pokemon company should commit to more drastic changes?
I feel like people always get a little picky and choosy with stuff like this- they look at designs and say the series is getting more cartoony, but only point out base form pokemon or Pokemon specifically designed to look cute. They don't often bring up the more badass pokemon such as say Talonflame or Hydreigon or Toxtricity. I would argue these three all have suitably realistic proportions on par with gen 1/2 designs. Don't get me wrong, i agree with the point that pokemon has gotten more cartoon with time, but I think it's important to acknowledge that not every Pokemon is like this
A big part of it was a jump to simplistic 3d models. They make most Pokemon alot rounder then they were originally with the sprites and gives the games a more cuddly aesthetic.
Dev On. It’s to sell to kids because kids don’t criticise games and will obediently buy each instalment with their parents money.
TheGreatjon Umber well duh, they’re kids. Plus, who else’s money are they gonna use lmao
On one hand I understand why they have chosen this art direction. When I was a kid we liked the more realistic looking and squared of edges of things. Pokemon as a franchise wants to aim at kids, and I've noticed that my niece and nephew are scared of more jagged looking things, a problem that I didn't really have. And I think I understand what is really going on when it comes to psychology and why this is and how media are being trained to handle this problem wrong when it comes to art direction. My nephew is like 3, And as I said look at stuff like pokemon brush, its meant for kids in this age range. He gets scared every time he sees someone in trouble, or a sharp face, and I myself was scarred of the dragon from Sleeping beauty at the same age. However my nephew can laugh at things like Hotel Transylvania 2 when he sees the vampires being punched around by small bats.
The reason that they are making pokemon flatter, is to try and make them appear less threatening, and give them a wider range of coverage on which designs will appeal to more children, the problem with this is is that they can't keep this up, there are only so many times you can make oval and flatter shapes. Toxtricity Hydreigon, and Talonflame, certainly do look more Realistic, but they also consist of this general change in are design, they all look rounder and flatter compared to previous generations of their comparable counterparts like Kangaskan. I'm not picky, I still like the series, and I understand that these things are going to change. but How its changed I can say is really not the way I would have wanted it too growing up.
I agree it's mostly baby forms that are more cartoony where as the final forms have more detail and are more badass looking ,I also think if all Pokémon designs were like gen one they'd be very similar to each other
"which Zelda game is their favourite"
>Doesn't show Skyward Sword
Why
I'm sorry lol, though to be honest I didn't enjoy Skyward Sword myself. Much too fetch-questy and slow paced for me.
My favorites are a tie between ALttP and BotW!
@@noitsjustcody Absolute casual. Only a true gamer can appreciate the responsiveness of the Motion Plus controls.
Everyone's entitled to their opinions and preferences obviously but, dang. I could write an essay on why I think SS is one of the most beautiful, underappreciated games in the entire LOZ franchise. The OST, art, themes.
Oh I loved it aesthetically, and the motion plus was a blast, it was the pacing I held most of my issue with. Similar to why I'm not keen on future replays of Twilight Princess. Amazing themes and designs, but a tutorial that drags harddddd.
@@AnnaHans88 SS has some of the best elements of the series. But as a all, it doesn't work very well.
The Sky Overworld is empty and lifeless, and the Eldin and Faron's levels were linear and forgettable.
SS has his strongest bits in the Lanaryu region, especially for his non-linear design, fun time-travel mechanics and good aesthetics. If i remember correctly, part of the stuff of Monolith worked in that specific area.
Also Koloktos is one of the best boss fight of the series, but it hardly outmatched a lot of poor choices in that department (recycled Ghiraim/Imprisoned boss fights and some other ugly boss like Tentaclus)
LOL you got me at the last picture in the Pikachu's evolving design history
Brooo he had Ryan Reynolds as one of the stylistic changes pikachu has undergone over the years. 2:50 had me dying.
He should have put that a bit longer for us to catch properly
Ryan Reynolds is the cutest and best Pikachu design
Change my mind
i thought it was superman...
“This leaves me worried that Pokemon will soon turn into the Call of Duty of Nintendo...”
Controversial take here, but last years Modern Warfare already proved that at least the devs behind the yearly CoD releases aren’t afraid of taking risks in innovating a nearly two decade old franchise with cookie cutter gameplay and yearly releases. This should be pretty embarrassing to GameFreak to say the least, seeing as how 2019’s Modern Warfare showed more innovative and fan appealing features than Sword and Shield ever has in its current run.
Essentially, Pokemon has been outdone by the yearly release syndrome and it shows.
To be fair COD is worked on by different developers every installment, although I can't say the same for the mainline Porkymon titles. If there's any solace out of this, Porkymon has more effort put in than the majority of the sports game that EA and 2k have published in the last decade.
...
I think.
I thought that was a remake?
I've actually noticed the art style change...and I do like all different kinds of designs really.
Jayden C Same
I do too I like the new Pokémon I just hate how so many Pokémon become bipedal when they evolve
Same
Unpopular opinion: gen 8 looks overly designed, still okay i guess
Same here
"Pokemon looks like digimon now"
This phrase is legit disrespectful to digimon
Ironically, I remember growing up how digimon was considered the "hardcore" version of pokemon.
That statement is always so uncalled for
Considering that Digimon actually come from Tamagotchi
People who say this has probably never seen digimon beyond renamon or agumon.
If it looked like Digimon it would be awesome
This comment.
Digimon has always had far more complex designs than any pokemon. So why is it being compared to today's 'simplistic' pokemon designs? I have no clue.
Digimon all had outfits, gears, lots of tiny accessories on each of them and patterns. Just frickin look at GABUMON. Complex design for a feckin rookie.
Damn the whole catering to genwunners went over my head. Like that’s why they get new regional forms, evolutions and gmax forms...which they are cool but like, why only do gen1?..so many more possibilities if they stepped away from that mindset.
I think one of the reasons why they do gen 1 is because ALOT of the pokemon are just a creature or object with a element. Ex: sandslash, rapidash, golem. Or just have boring concepts like muk, far fetched, raticate and more. They are good but just kinda uninteresting. I do agree that they should give love to others generations and stop giving the same pokemon over and over attention.
@@BelleTheMagazine My big bro is 27 yold, he would gladly play a gen 1 game because thats what he played back in the days, Charizard is obviously his favorite pokemon. He doesnt know any other gens. If you market Gen 1, you touch almost everyone, from the oldest to the youngest.
The only people that are tired of that are the big fan because Charizard already has 4 different forms and we have already played way too much pokemon game with Kanto in it (RGB, Yellow, GSC, RFLG, HGSS and Lets Go).
Us "genwunners" are the ones who made this whole thing a success in the first place, it wasn't just a big series like now, it was a social phenomenon out of the blue. We're probably by far the biggest fan base of any generation and the ones with most buying power due to age and interest.
@@MS-vn2pb not really true though. Most people who bought gen 1 probably don't play the game anymore as they are a lot older. They are probably less serious about the changing nature of the games or the tv show. Just because you were there when it was released doesn't mean ur opinion matters more.
@@PC-qw2so What are you even talking about? He said "genwunners" not everyone who played the game while they were a kid. Sit your ass back down, you're talking out of it.
Oh my god. This actually blew my mind a little. For years I've been a genwunner, and I've never really understood why. I thought it was all the colorful patterns they gave to new Pokemon to justify making duplicates, like Butterfree vs Beautifly, but Emerald is my favorite Pokemon game, and my god is that generation known for its brightly-colored Pokemon designs. Then I thought, maybe it's the actual structure? Gen one Pokemon were simple, literally just horses and birds and piles of slime, whereas newer ones needed a gimmick to set themselves apart, like Butterfree vs Vivillon. But then mega evolutions happened that literally added extra structures and gimmicks to old Pokemon, and I thought most of those looked fine.
I could never defend my opinions beyond, "I like what I like. Some of the newer ones look good, but I guess I just like more of the older designs better, shrug."
This art style change explains everything. Old Pokemon were obviously cartoony, but they were cartoony in a realistic way. I could look at a Bulbasaur or Nidorino or Lapras, and totally see those existing in real life, and wonder why they didn't. There are some newer Pokemon that that works with too, but not nearly as many.
It all makes sense now. Thank you.
Most Gen 5 and above pokemon d look weird in real life
My favourite generation are 1 and 5,because both have a very distinct style and feel,two extremes but each one good in his own style, if you notice every odd number generation has a particular style and the following even a more transitorial look from it.
I believe it’s because Gen 3 was more tropical in terms of the region. You’ll realize that in tropical places if the world, animals and insects as well as plants are more colorful looking. They look a little more stranger but they’re still animals. That in itself could justify the overly colorful pokemon for Gen 3. This can apply to Gen 7 as well
I think those arguments are difficult to defend, every generation has had crappy designs. In my opinion the art style has become more simpler and that can be a problem for some ppl but overall i think its a small issue. The big problem for me is the low difficulty of the games. There is no challange anymore, outside of the competitive scene, and that makes creating emotional connections with the new generations really hard because it becomes boring. Everyone has a story on how they caught mewtwo with a single pokeball, how a dumb miltank wiped the floor with them, that lvl 7 trainer using 2 full restores or just CYNTHIA. There are no memes anymore nor any reason to like the underdog ugly pokemon that everyone hates because it carried you through a tough moment during the game.
@@seeker3357 There was never challenge in pokemon games, at least in mainline games.
I've been saying this for years that the divide between fans is a matter of taste in style rather than in quality of concept or execution, but this point is generally ignored.
I'm glad that artist was able to make this clearer for everybody.
Pokemon company: "these kids are getting cuts from these sharp detailed pokemon. Let's remove all those sharp edges.
I always thought this was most apparent when Ash would goto a new region and you'd see the newer pokemon next to Pikachu. They'd look like cross overs. Yokai, digimon. I just try really hard to chalk it up to regional differences and evolution but perhaps im being generous.
"pokemon may become the call of duty of nintendo... if it hasn't already." Dang that is one powerful line. And even more impressive you managed to perfectly articulate a major divisive issue in pokemon today in a way that shows the flaws in both sides while looking to the real problems and solutions instead of just complaining like most pokemon fans do nowadays. Very impressive video
I don’t know what all the hate for CoD is when they really did sone great things with Modern Warfare tbh.
CoD is a franchise that takes more risks (world at war with the gruesome depiction of ww2, bo1 with the art-style and the exageration of the cold war, sci-fi opus like bo2, bo3 and advanced warfare that changes from the modern and past realism approach of the franchise, infinity warfare that fell into the fantasy tone, and finally the groundbreaking cod 4) and excels on the technical aspect (im looking at you, Sword and Shield and 4th gen)
not a fair comparison
@@CrazyDiamond419 haters gonna hate
Pikminologue Raisin That’s what I’m saying. It’s unfair people comparing massively different games when CoD actually made massive improvements and the same could not be said about current Pokémon games. With the games the Switch can run, there’s no reason why the games couldn’t look better or made massive improvements. For God’s sake man this is the highest grossing franchise and it’s pretty mediocre. It’s time GameFreak got some new staff that actually know how to work with modern programming rather than the clowns they have there now.
@Paul Toledo
That isn't an issue, Game Freak have been working on that since gen 5, its why they created a separate team for non Pokemon games.
They simply aren't given enough time, and probably not much of a budget either. What people don't often realize is that CoD is put out annually, but has three studios working back to back, so they each have three years. Game Freak on the other hand is expected to put out at least one game per year.
There were around 100 people working on SW/SH between them, Creatures inc, and Nintendo. I suspect what's happened is Pokemon Co underestimated how much it would take to make a console scale Pokemon game, or worse they just expected GF to make it work on a shoestring like they always have.
People wonder if they're too cheap to hire more staff, I wonder if they aren't being paid chump change like every other dev studio. They only own like 20% of the IP.
loved this analysis, usually its either a “”this sucks”” or some blind fan
Now, FINALLY SOMEONE understands me.
I love the old artstyle, because it was very detailed and they looked like animals and not like cutsie chibi versions.
Now that this video is beginning to gain some traction, I feel like I should address some very imprecise diction that causes both confusion and contradiction.
In the video, I said "Pokemon is not the only video games series to see a stylistic change over time, however they are one of the few that refuses to change."
The former half was addressing the observable and progressively simplifying changes the designs had seen over the years, while the latter half was addressing the fact that Pokemon hasn't seen any *intentional* steps towards different art styles compared with series like The Legend of Zelda. When writing this script, I think I already had the bit about Zelda's rapidly changing tone already spelled out in my head without realizing I hadn't even addressed it in the video yet. It doesn't help that my imprecise choice of words directly contradicts a point I made literally within the same sentence lol, so I apologize about that. Hopefully this clears up the oversight on my end.
First time I head about the "genwunner" meme. Anyone who is using this to insult someone is probably just jealous because they didn't experience the series from the start. I like most generations but if you didn't experience from the start you will never be equal to someone who grew up when it all started.
It's well known Game Freak does not take feedback from their fanbase. There are also numerous interviews where Matsuda explains his intentions to pander to children and simplify the game to an insulting degree. This was especially apparent in LGPE and SuMo. The change in art direction, both in the games and anime, was also an obvious ploy to attract a younger demographic who prefer the cute form factor in their pokemon.
FG 117 what the fuck are you on about 😂
While I do agree that there is a general shift in design, it's not as complete as the Reddit post made it to be. See this image: cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/197250053302124544/585971572917927976/15597769022143295005554857757397.jpg
@@godminnette2 Oh without a doubt! Trust me, I may have my general preferences on generations, but you'll never catch me defending Jynx lol
I would say that the addition of the fairy type was about as significant as the physical/special split. Completely changed the meta of the game, especially competitively.
Whenever I feel like playing what I consider the best pokemon experience, I grab the gba and firered/leafgreen and emerald. The first 2 gens are very charming but they can be a bit hard on the eyes and ears today. Definitely not recommended for long play sessions. Not to mention I really love the looks on gen 3, the world is very colorful but doesn't look as plastic as gen 4.
When I miss some newer pokemon, I grab Black 2 and play the huge love letter that is the PWT, music is incredible in Gen 5.
I still get the new games, because there are always new designs and mons that interests me, like newer bugs in Golisopod or Centiskorch, newer dragons like Goodra, Kommo-o and Dragapult and weird as it sounds I'm really into rock types, so seeing Diancie and Coalossal makes me happy. Trying to maintain motivation on the newer games I'm building monotypes for each type while I wait for a Pokemon game that will finally include everything we want.
Goodra Gang!
same although I love gen 2's style. especially the battle sprites, i think the 4 colour limitation lead to some really aesthetically pleasing designs.
Try heart gold/soul silver sometime. I think you'll like them.
Can confirm. I'm playing through HG/SS right now with a friend of mine. We're doing that "IRL Rival" battle method I mentioned in my other Pokémon video and it's a blast going back through Johto and Kanto again.
Magio Personally, I don’t understand the sound complaint.
But we can all agree on Fat Pikachu being best Pikachu, right?
Yes
I like am both
great breakdown, subbed!
Yo no way, thanks, Pad! Fan of your content, btw
I already love the style of Gen 5. It's a good mix of cute Pokémon and cool ones. The animated sprites are cool too. I much prefer them over the lifeless gyrating of the newer ones.
In contrast to the 3D model, the gen 5 Ferroseed sprite had some very lively gyrating
I'm glad that Gen 8 went outside of Game Freak's comfort zone and got wildly diverse and experimental with Pokemon designs and we see a return to form in some like Coalossal, which has the Gen 1-2 design style. Coalossal looks to me like it would have fit in perfectly in the old Game Boy-era games.
The Coalossal line are some of my favorite Pokémon now. They're creative and well designed.
I agree but the ugly egg shape look left me disappointed. I expected something cool with some mechanical inspiration but it turned out to be Alolan Golem 2.0
They instead went lazy on OTHER important parts of gen8
@COVID-19 PANDEMIC true words
I honestly enjoyed what Gen 8 offered more than some of the other ones. Gen 7 is almost tied, a lot of Gen 6 felt forgettable. The previous ones had bigger selections but also had a lot more filler forgettable mons while newer ones focus on quality and creativity. Maybe some bias, cos of Inteleon being my new all time favorite as someone who loves James Bond and spies, and can personally relate to the entire evolution line. My taste is different I guess since most people seem to prefer just straight up animals that only look cool with a typing slapped onto it, like in the earlier games
1:15 Thank you so much for this. I was discussing this a while back but couldn't find the original thread. But he's right though. I am more of a Gens 1-4 purist and those four gens just hit differently in terms of art and gameplay. As much as I like Mega Evolutions, I just can't get behind a lot of the new mons and the weird aesthetics and I think the reason this is an issue is greatly highlighted in Edelhardt's comparison: It looks like two different games and you can see it clearly with Pidgey VS Pikipek. They did this in the anime too because they felt they were losing the demographic to Yo-Kai Watch. I acknowledge that we're not the demographic anymore but it's still incredibly dumb to overlook the millions of millennials who still play and keep up with the series. I'd be 100% on board with a slightly older protagonist but they refuse to do it.
Good video btw, appreciate you for making this
Honestly I wish you get more recognized
Yes!!!
Honestly not
genwunner is just a spam term used specifically by gen 5 stans considering they have the worst pokemon design. He only described the term from his biased point of view rather than the general use of it
I came here back 5 month later and I didn’t notice the 234 likes I got anyways.
For Crowmaster: You are right, I was pretty dumb back than and I post that comment half way the video so I didn’t even watch the full video to post that comment.
I think the other important thing to understand is that the older Pokémon had to be designed on a gameboy colour instead of a switch screen. Pokémon look a lot flashier now because the hardware can support more complicated designs.
swizzermon now that is a great point
Genwunner is basically the Pokemon equivalent of "ok boomer"
Actually Genwunner originated with the Transformer franchise. Its a reference to the transformer fans who preferred the G1 cartoons and toys above all other transformer continuities such as G2 (which was a compilation of G1 episodes of transformers but with some CGI transition screens), Beast Wars (infamiously created the Ruined Forever and Trukk not Munky), the anime trilogy, Live Action Movies (aka Bayformers), and everything post-bayformers.
@@Xenotaris You are fun at parties
As someone who started playing videogames with Pokemon Blue, this made me laugh! :P
Reading the comments made me finally realize the difference between old and new pokemon. Older pokemon, for example venusaur look like an animal. While newer pokemon like intelleon or cinderace look too... human. They dont really look like something you'd find in the wild. Like they're making new pokemon a bit to gimicky. Venusaur is just a frog with a plant on its back, while cinderace is a humanoid bunny that plays soccer. Blastoise is just a turtle with cannons, while inteleon is a humanoid chameleon things thats a spy.
Don't pretend Mr. Mime (a literal mime), Jynx (a Viking woman or opera singer), Machoke & Machamp (body builders), Hitmonchan (a boxer) dont exist. Even our beloved Mewtwo is anthromorphic cuz human DNA was used in the process of making it so it has a reason to have human traits. If u expected Scorbunny's final evo to be anything but humanoid then u were setting up yourself disappointment. Like inanimate mons, humanlike mons have always existed since the very beginning. It's a common design trope in Pkmn & not at all a new thing, but you're conveniently not mentioning the Gen1 humanoids.
8:18 the special split was gen 2. The physical special split was gen 4. Plus, the critical hit reworks and the additions of dark, steel, and fairy types are all major changes to the game
Gen 2 split defense and special defense. In gen 1 the special stat was both offensive and defensive. The actual split of physical/special moves was in gen 4.
This is a great video!
Finally, someone who can explain that it is an art style problem! Omg.
I tried explaining it to people, but most didn't get the point.
This is awesome, gonna share it immediately.
Same here 😁
1:02 I love the fact that we still do not consider Yellow team
I love Pokémon through and through, but I'd be lying if I didn't say the design of older Pokémon click with me more than modern mons. Typhlosion, Dragonite, Scizor, Nidoking, Starmie, Tyranitar, Blastoise, all look incredible.
someone said it had more of the angry eyes dragon ball style xD
I agree with you but I truly believe it's due to nostalgia. I mean, many of us were children when we picked up the original games. We had the opportunity to actually discover Pokemon for the first time and form bonds with these designs. I remember seeing some stuff about Ruby and Sapphire in a magazine and thinking "This is not Pokemon. I hate this." Now gen 3 is one of the most cherished gens in the franchise. Most people didn't like gen 5 at first either.
@@asimhussain8716 Those starters are definitely the lamest. I also still am not a fan of gen 3 and am growing tired of most of gen 1 Pokemon getting more attention than others. Nostalgia should never be seen as something negative. People are allowed to feel nostalgic towards something, just as we are allowed to have differing opinions. Do you disagree?
@@asimhussain8716 I couldn't agree with you more
This is why the Cyndaquil line is still my all-time favorite starter, however I do very much enjoy all three Hoenn starters too :)
I realized something like this when trying to paint a Haunter. 1st gen LOOKS simple but the design of each is really complex. It took some time to get the proportions correct.
I miss third gen so much. Those were the games that made me fall in love with the series
Me too, I started playing pokemone around the time Platinum came out. But my father bought me a gameboy advance sp instead of a DS. So I grew up playing ruby/sapphire and LeafGreen/FireRed. And to this day, those are still some of my all time favourite video games.
Those gen 1 Pokemon in the modern style will haunt my nightmares forever.
I think another big thing that goes along with this is that the older Pokemon retain most of their art style alongside the newer Pokemon with a newer art style. This creates a glaring contrast between different Pokemon that makes it appear as though two different characters from different franchises are fighting. I feel like if they kept the style consistent with all of the Pokemon, not as many people would complain. There'd still be complaints of course, whether they kept the old style or went with the new, but it wouldn't be visually disruptive. It'd at least flow better.
That issue on its own shows in the 3d models and animation for any Pokemon gen 6 and earlier, even from X/Y to S/M. Gen 7 Pokemon were just that much more lively in animation compared to the static ones first used in X/Y.
I still don't like how they did Xatu and every other flying type dirty all because of the gen 6 Sky Battles
Thank you! I've been trying to argue the art style thing for years. It's definitely a lot rounder and less detailed now. Heck, I specifically always look for pointy/spiky lines (like on the old Pidgey, Jolteon, Flareon or Arcanine art) and I can't remember finding any in the last couple of generations. It's all rounded or big blobby shapes (like Minchino's tail).
I think it DEFINITELY has to do with pokémon being 3D now. Back when the games were sprite-based you only had to draw one or two sprites (and animate them a bit in Gen5) and that's that. But in 3D you need to model each finger, rig each finger with multiple joints, skin them properly, make sure they don't distort or deform in ways they're not supposed to, and then animate each joint in each finger/claw individually. Maybe you'll need blendshapes too for extra animation. This is a few DAYS of work PER POKÉMON we're talking about, it can seriously take that long. But when all you have is a "nub" type of limb with no digits and maybe a single joint that needs to bend (or no joints at all) it is super simple and can be done in no time.
If anything, I think the simplification of pokémon for generations now has been a sad sign that GameFreak is rushing the games more and more. Some would say becoming straight up lazy.
It has nothing to do with 3d.
@@renatoramos8834 You're gonna have to tell me why you think so. No offense, but I know what I'm talking about here.
@@Soaring_Penguin what else do I have to tell you? Gamefreak intentionally half asses the animations. Other companies do a lot more with a lot less. The change to 3d models didn't have any impact on animation or artstyle.
@@renatoramos8834 I agree that they half assed it. In fact I was trying to make the point that it's clear to see in the modelling itself that they half assed it. I'm a modeller and I spot cut corners everywhere in both modelling and animation in these games (I would have failed my exam on my first year if I had handed in most of these cut scenes for my exam project. Would have had to repeat first year for that junk...)
@@Soaring_Penguin And I'm making the point that gamefreak intentionally half asses it. How much do you think it would cost them to get great animations? 20-30 animators working for a few years and a few million dollars?
They had since 2013 to properly update animations and BILLIONS in cash. If you have the most lucrative multimedia brand in the world, certainly you can invest a tiny fraction of your profits in actual quality.
That watercolors Venasaur is probably my favorite Pokemon illustration. I really love how rich and detailed the illustrations were of older Pokemon art. (Not talking game). A lot of illustrations are taking a more minimalistic route. I really liked it before and it still has a place, but looking at those watercolor images just offer so much more depth and life.
Three minutes in and my mind is blown at how perfectly summed the artsyle difference is
I think I’ve found a hidden gem of a channel. Hopefully, it doesn’t stay that way for long! Great video
It was never really the change in art style that bothered me too much, mostly since I kinda like the newer pokemon a bit more. But one thing that's more apprently than the art style to me is the color scheme used in each gen.
I don't think I can describe it too well but most of the Gen 3 pokemon had this "tropical" color scheme where they had a brighter color tone that mixes with an orangey accent which is extremely apparent in the starter designs. I like the designs on the gen 3 pokemon but I'm not the biggest fan of the colors used for some of them.
Gen 4, however, used more saturated colors that pop out more and I think that's one of the reasons why I like the starters there the most while Most of the Gen 5 designs made more use of light and dark colors.
The point I'm trying to make is that the constant changes in color scheme for specific pokemon tends to stay even when they appear in the newer games in 3D models. While that can make them stick out more and be recognizable, it could sometimes feel like their designs clash with both the newer and older pokemon as if you can look at the designs alone and you can tell which gen they're from without looking it up.
Weither or not people like that is honestly subjective and while it's not an issue that gets me old man cranky and be like "the old pokemon were better" the slight inconsistency in colors is pretty apprent and can sometimes be jarring to me.
I never noticed this. My guess was the 3D game have no colour pallette limitations. The models are made individually, so the colours likely aren't compared with eachother. That's probably why everything looks so washed out. I want to point out the models being so lifeless might also play a part. Gamefreak has an incredible library filled with poses and animations of they're Pokemon, but most aren't used for anything other than Amie/camp.
This is most likely due to the removal of hardware limitations. Until the DS era, Pokemon design had to work within a limited range of colors that the GBC and GBA could produce. This is most apparent in gen 2. The GBC only had enough memory to display 4 different colors on each pokemon, two of which usually being black and white, so no pokemon could realistically have more than two colors. Once that restriction was lifted, the designers had more freedom to chose whatever color they wanted the pokemon to be.
@COVID-19 PANDEMIC Neat
@@FiboSai It is interesting looking at how the design philosophy for a series can change depending on the technology available and the people in charge. Weither it's a good or bad thing kinda boils down to everyone's opinion on it. For someone who has been a fan of pokemon since red and blue came out, some of my favorite pokemon are around gens 4 and 5, but I can totally understand how the newer designs don't sit well with some older fans though. As for you talking about color palettes, it's also why shinies for gen 6 pokemon and up are more unique. Back when they used sprites, they more or less just used the next color palette sets after the original colors. It's kinda why most of the older pokemon have greenish shiny colors. With the 3d models, they have free reign on the colors that they can use for the newer pokemon, even some older pokemon like charizard had a slight change in shiny colors.
I personally like how the colors schemes from each gen were retained in a way. It gives a sense of nostalgia. Like those pokemon feel like they're from another time and place. Gen 3 color schemes were my personal favorites. I love how blacks were grayish and greens, oranges, and yellows were apparent. I kinda wished they stayed with starmie's gen 3 coloring in the proceeding games.
Pokémon is now digimon. Baby stage is animal of fluff ball, final stage is furry.
Great video! Though one gripe I have is that they are not "artstyles", they are designs.
As someone who draws and experiment, the correct term is "design". One example I could take is Mega Man X8, Zero's and X's designs are different, they are not artstyles, they are designs.
The one image showing pokemon in different "artstyles" are different designs. I don't know if the original poster calls it "artstyle", but they are designs and NOT artsyles.
Pikachu's redesign is one of the only ones I actually like I didn't like how fat he used to be but as for redesigns like Mewtwo and Jigglypuff those are terrible
lol I've been saying I missed fat Pikachu for years now. He looks so huggable and derpy in his original sprite. But I can definitely see how the sleeker designs make for a much more competent looking Pocket Mon, and completely understand why the change was made. Especially since he's the mascot.
Becareful bro twitter will call you a fat shamer
7dogguy mewtwo looks better now for me lol. But I mean I agree with u totally. I don’t like the old pikachu design but I never liked jigglypuff
Has Mewtwo really been redesigned? If you compare to Gen 1 sprite - well, it has. But if you compare it to the anime - I barely see any changes. I notice a little different proportions but I think...
Ok, fine, it's been redesigned. If not taking a shiny form with it's terrible blue-ish shade of green I think the current Mewtwo looks the best. I absolutely love human like pokemon (because they are like friends rather than pets) and the current Mewtwo is the most humanoid one. Mewtwo is my favorite pokemon of all time and I'm happy to see it closer to what I generally like in Pokemon. But yeah, the shiny is trash. Gen 2 shiny was way better (Gen 2 also had the best sprite - the one from Silver) but still not as great as it could be. I think the shiny should be very light pink like Mew (not Mewtwo) from the first movie.
I Think new Bulbasaur beats new pikachu, before he looked dumb and absent minded, new bulbasaur looks friendly.
Wow, now Im upset that they changed artstyles in a franchise that keeps all the characters in the old style. One is inherently more detailed and more realistic with its proportions, while the other tries to synthetically be cute with its formulaic design. The new style looks like neopets x pokemon to me.
Couldn't have said it better idk where people are getting digimon. For its biggest grossing franchise youd think they could afford to hire more employees to give us double the shitty average looking mons if they arent going to have art director ken sugimori actually direct anymore. Look at literally every psuedo legendary then look at dragapult. The concept is ok but the design personally looks like a fakemon...
@@brushogun2051 "shitty average looking mons"
lol stfu
generalisation, yucky.
theres:
>talonflame/fletchinder
>toxtricity
>hydreigon
>mega rayquaza (its technically a new design)
>the swsh legendaries (i could care less about swsh so i don’t remember the names)
>noivern
not. all. pokemon. are. like. this
2:36 as someone who dabbles with sculpting and 3d modeling, the art on top seems to have more readable shapes that I could better translate to 3d vs the bottom designs imo. As you mentioned the light seems to hit their bodies in a more realistic way, making it easier to make out the necessary curves vs the bottom concept art, where the light seems to come flatly on their shapes rather than how it would in actual 3d space. Not that the shading and lighting is really wrong, just stylized to a point where they become more like stickers rather than beings that occupy 3d space.
Very interesting video, thank you! I've never really been able to grasp what it was exactly that had changed about the series' artstyle in specific and this helped me figure that out. Especially the Raichu comparison. Damn. I'd love more content on the topic of presentational choices in the series.
I think that pokemon was perfect back in gen 1-3. Sure not all designs were perfect but most of them were very good (imo). Later on the designs, as you said in the video, have become more and more cartoony. I really miss the old detailed designs with the more realistic proportions. Another little detail I recently noticed makes a huge difference is the eyes. Just look at squirtle's eyes and then compare them to popplio's. Or blastoise's vs greninja's. I know I'm sounding like a total boomer or "genwunner" as some would say, but I truly do not think there was any reason for pokemon to change it's style from gen 1. (Rather the gen 1 anime, I do like how they improved the actual games from the first up to FireRed and LeafGreen)
This art style change is also something I have noticed in anime. A perfect example is naruto. In naruto part 1 the art style is very detailed just like pokemon. Although as the series progressed, the art style became much more dull, bleak and overall lifeless.
I can't help but to be very saddened by all these changes. It feels like these properties, which I hold near and dear to my heart, are just straying further and further away from what originally made me like them so much.
Yep, I feel like gen 3 was the absolute peak, and then slightly fell off until it took a nose dive from gen 6 onward. It'd be great to have a "fork" of Pokemon picking things up from Gen 3 and adding pokemon with regard to style, concept and necessity in order to flesh out the world.
In spite of all its success, it really feels like pokemon is one of the biggest wasted potentials ever in a gaming franchise. I'm pretty sure they will have to do a "reset" eventually, I just wonder whether they will actually do it well
The original art style felt far more real and alive, making the series feel more personal, as trainers and fans alike could relate to their expressiveness and subtlety. A slightly raised eyebrow ridge says much more than a rounded eyelid ever can for me. I want them to feel like they could be in the real world with me. I want to be able to imagine them as my friends, my companions. I want the series to lean back into the stance that, if players and viewers wanted to, they could trick themselves into believing the world was real... Even just for a few hours of immersion... It will always feel like a lifetime.
I've noticed this with the eevees too, they started out as pure simple embodiments of their type and gradually got more detailed, that's where my problem with sylveon comes in, it's a good design but it just doesn't fit in with the others, it looks out of place and over-designed compared to the rest
Sylveon mismatches more because it has a completely different eye shape than the rest. Otherwise it's about the same as Vaporeon and Leafeon levels of complexity.
@@amandaslough125 yeah I realize that but it still just looks out of place to me, i really don't know why...
@Hjen Thai it does honestly, when it's by itself it's fine, but as soon as you put it next to the others it just looks out of place
I don't know, I feel like it's better designed than the other Eeveelutions. Especially the Gen 1 ones
@@phil2160 yeah it definitely is as a better design than flareon and Jolteon (vaporeon still holds up tbh) but it's more of the fact that it looks out of place than having a bad design and I don't really know why it looks put of place....
Interesting. I've never noticed the design style change. I've been playing every new pokemon game on release since the very first generation, and I've loved all of it. My issues don't lie in the style as I genuinely love large chunks of every generation. However, my problems with the franchise is with gameplay. The games progressively get easier, force liner gameplay, and utilize excessive hand holding. Pokemon used to be a challenge. The latest titles, though, are almost insultingly easy. They even removed all post game exploration. Generation 2 and 5 have been my favorite due to game length, and more mature story telling. Anyways, great video :)
I'll make it simple. Gen 4 and earlier design style for pokemon. Gen 6 and earlier for character designs; especially 2d drawings. Also age up player characters to 13.
Alola ash doesn’t even look like ash. I dropped sun and moon anime 1 minute into episode 1 because it’s so bad. I wouldn’t have even realize it was ash without Pikachu. Even then, I thought it was a time rewind. He literally looks 6-7 years old. And this is coming from a diehard Pokémon fan. Now that im older, I don’t feel a duty to watch the anime, but I would’ve if it hadn’t been for the art style.
It’s a Dog Which is ironic because the SM anime has some of the darkest episodes.
It's Ash and Team Rocket that look stupid in the new style, the other characters look alright.
I mean Ash is 10. He looks a lot closer to 10 in the SM anime than he ever has, tbh.
I prefer the older designs of pokemon because they were more monster-like. I mean, pokemon is an abbreviation of pocket MONSTERS for gods sake
I think this review was very fair. Looking at that drawing you posted near the beginning, I think the new Pokemon look better in the old art style. Seeing Pidgey and Vulpix in the new art style really makes them look like toys. It makes them look less "real." That Alolan Raichu really shows this, I think. It looks like a plushie, not a monster.
I got into Pokemon way back in Gen 1 but I don't know if I would have been as crazy about Pokemon if it had that art style from the beginning or if that's just the older me talking. I've always loved monster taming games so I probably would have played Pokemon from the sheer fact it was basically all we had.
Pokemon used to feel like real animals, now it feels like a children's cartoon... Which is alright cuz it was supposed to be that from the start, it's just they keep the old style around for nostalgia and it's very jarring to see them side by side
If they are gonna change everything to look like a kids cartoon have the balls to change Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, etc to fix alongside the new Pokemons
Umm..
The older ones were practically real animals.
Wow mukand voltorb looks like animal
08:01 If anything, Pokémon today look like Baby I stage Digimon, not regular Digimon. Digimon are so overly-designed and complicated that no Pokémon can really compare to them, except maybe for some of the Mega forms and newest legendaries such as Type: Null (Who TOTALLY screams Digimon)
This comparison is downright wrong and show ignorance in not only understanding Pokémon, but ALSO Digimon.
Digimon has always had a much broader spectrum of super simple to extremely elaborate. When Gen 3 and Gen 4 were new with much more elaborate designs than the first two generations, often overdesigned and full of needless detail, the claim was "they look like Digimon now" because they started looking like Ultimate level Digimon, particularly the legendaries. Now that the new standard keeps shifting to rounder and more plasticy texture and design silhouettes in gens 6-8, a typical Pokemon is looking more like a Baby 1 and Baby 2 Digimon so the same tired phrase which, to be clear, has been leveled at _some_ Pokemon since gen 2, is used to mean the exact opposite of what it did a decade previous.
The video isn't even arguing that Pokemon do look like Digimon, it's showing that "argument" as an example of something people say when they don't understand the actual issues at hand.
@@RoninCatholic I don't even think the creator of this video understood the phrase himself though. He didn't elaborate further on it, and anything you add is just what you believe. (Which I mostly agree, it's just that we don't know what the video uploader believes)
My claim wasn't that Pokemon look like Digimon. I was addressing those individuals who wrongly use this argument.
@@noitsjustcody That's exactly what I thought and I didn't get why people were slamming you in the comments for quoting that argument in your video.
@@RoninCatholic thanks dude, although I get why they might have interpreted that wrong. This was my first video essay, and while I'm still proud of it there are a lot of areas I could have made more understandable.
Perhaps Pokemon needs a great art overhaul to harmonize the various generations Pokemon into one consistent design.
Would be inclined to agree if it didn't mean they were going to simplify them all
I would personally like that very much. I grew up with Gen 1 so it would be a nice reset in a way.
Somehow the newer artstyle has managed to become more streamlined and over designed simultaneously
Wait wait wait... I thought the premise of newer gens was they tend to be more complex in design, not simplier! Ok yes, you did show the starters and other base mons, tiny cute creatures without much room for details throughout the years. But what is with higher evolutions? Comparing, let's say, Blastoise with Primarina, I clearly see a trend to more features and ornaments in design. And even with Vulpix and Zorua you can see the latter having more complex furmarkings.
Maybe yes, the overall anatomy may change to the cute, simplistic, rounded artstyle, but the attached design elements are increasing in number, color variety and complexity.
Exactly, this video glosses over the overly busy design abominations that have infested the newer generations. The easiest place to see this imo is with mega evolutions; take an old design and add a bunch of extra features to the design, or make the existing features of the previous design more pronounced and extreme.
This is exactly right, the whole video is based on a bad Reddit post
you're confusing complex concept with complex art style.
if you took any of the pokemon you mentioned and redrew them in the old style they would look far more detailed than they do now.
something can be complex without being detailed.
6:12
Oof. That really shows what the problem with the Sun/Moon art direction is.
It is different, and the actual animation quality of Sun/Moon is pretty nice, but in addition to the rounded edges the proportions on Ash's face are fundamentally unpleasant. The eyes are too small for the space between them, the mouth is too low and implies he doesn't have a chin, the nose has been so simplified his face looks flat, the ears are WAY too low and migrating toward the neck... he looks like a bootleg of himself. He's actively unpleasant to look at. You can get away with weirder, goofier, and cartoonier proportions on the Pokemon, but Ash feels like he's fallen off of anime stylization and straight into the uncanny valley.
The backlash to the reveal of windwaker's art style was quite big at the time. It was a very jarring shift that really threw people for a loop. The spaceworld GameCube reveal trailer got people hyped for a super realistic looking Zelda game making the shift even more surprising and a bigger adjustment for fans. It took me a good while to warm to it.
As for Pokémon I played gen 1 in my teen years and loved it despite its limitations (being a game made for the OG gameboy and all). It was the anime series that got me to try playing the game.
I liked the designs back then although the original game art with its watercolor aesthetic I didn't like as much as the anime renders from the show. And so for me seeing each subsequent generation's designs be more in keeping with the anime look just seems logical. The very first game was released before the anime but every generation afterwards had a good deal of cross pollination with the anime as it helped with brand cohesion.
You got a Transformers profile pic which is rare in these days
ya you need more subs, we need more analytic content like this!
You're awesome, thank you!
I dislike how big the heads are on new starters. It feels like the body is an afterthought.
There is an upside to the "Cutesie" art style pokemon is sticking with. It ages better. Take ocarina of time with its polygon art style with an attempt at realism. Its an amazing game, but the graphics dont exactly age well. Compare that to wind waker, which used an art style that will hold up for much longer without looking like its from a completely different era. The "Cutesie" art style holds up better as the franchise ages.
Personally, i prefer pokemon generations 1-4, but thats just my preference. Someday, i hope the pokemon games will add things like- open world aspects with legitimately fun exploration, interesting side quests, a new take on the storyline, the ability to catch them all in one game while exploring each region, and more ways to customize your character.
This is a very good point, and I personally think style longevity only really became a concern when pokemon shifted to 3D. I'm not sure why 2D art seems to hold up so much better than 3D, even with very limited pixel sprites, but I'd argue that all the old gameboy and DS games have more visual longevity than anything post X&Y. I just think that's interesting because I feel like that's around the time the design shifted more dramatically towards the rounded style we have today.
I've had problems with the newer designs since I first played gen 4 so I got so see all of Sinnoh, Johto, and Kanto. When gen 5 came out I thought a lot of the designs were kind of lackluster, but now seeing late gen pokemon redesigned with the old style looks really good to me. I never really thought that the bases for the pokemon were bad, (minus the snowflake and ice cream) but I liked the sharp edges of the earlier designs, like gyarados, better than the soft, round new designs, like Serperior. I understand the direction they went, but I don't really like the result. I'm glad I can now put it into words.
As a not-very artistic person, I am so grateful for artists being able to articulate concepts like this. Well done!
Well Arceus was a big step in the right direction in terms of innovation, right? Let's hope we get more of that (and that they go deeper down a more adult version of Pokemon.) Arceus shows, that both can exist at the same time.
Its so sad when the animation team responsible for the anime is willing to take bigger risks than Game Freak
Changing art styles is fine when used in the method of LoZ, where each game has its own unique tone and art style.
Pokemon has simply been a slow and gradual transition into bulbous oddly shapen baby creatures with big anime eyes or overly designed brightly colored creatures.
The art style would be fine if it was just a couple of games in the franchise, like Toon link, but Gamefreak treats this new art style as the norm.
Thank you, honestly. I've always thought that there had to be a reason for designs just feeling simpler to me in later generations, and it's because they were getting simpler! I honestly hope that GameFreak is able to find a middle ground between the two styles, or even change it entirely Wind Waker style, but I'm sad to say that Gamefreak is likely not willing to put in the effort.