New pokemon are different

[Scrustle]

That gen 4 Charizard still looks way better than that gen 1 Garchomp to me. You have a point though. A lot of the new designs are far too fussy with lots of stupid useless bits and pieces hanging off them, but that's not what I think is the main reason for the decline in design quality. It's because they have drifted away from the original aesthetic. They're more or less had to since they've been creating more and more, but what it has done has made the new species look more and more generic. The new designs don't look like Pokemon, they just look like random monsters that anyone could have made up. There may have always been "stupid" designs in Pokemon, but at least you could tell a Voltorb and a Hitmonchan were actually Pokemon.

 

[Nazulu]

So it's not nostalgia, it was just better when the designs were simpler and lazier to fit with the crappy handheld graphics of the day. Gotcha.

Go suck a lemon.

Some of the really simple pokemon might of have been from laziness, I don't know. I wasn't speaking about them specifically though.

See, it's still the same guy doing the Pokemon Designs. It's not some new designer who's come in and messed up, it's the same designer, making designs that are more complicated and involved because now we have the graphics to handle them.

Take Mario. What's the meaning behind his classic look? It's all to compensate for the graphical limitations of the original arcade games. He's wearing a red shirt and blue overalls to make his clothes stand out against each other and the background. He's wearing a hat, so his hair doesn't have to be animated. He has white gloves to make his hands stand out more. He has a large nose and moustache to avoid having to draw any other facial features.

Older Pokemon designs were simplier because the Game Boy had crappy resolution, and if they were more detailed, you wouldn't be able to see anything other than a chaotic blob.

Same designer or not, it's irrelevant. Made simpler for Game Boy, irrelevant. Thanks for the info but it's not what I'm talking about.

I'll repeat, some of these simple design are just really really effective. My original post is to point out that if you can't see why they are iconic then it's useless. Both sides can't understand each other and the fighting should stop.

 

[Nazulu]

They have to be effective, because otherwise, like I said, they'd be a chaotic blob. And they're only 'iconic' because they came first.

If you took someone who had absoultely zero knowledge of Pokemon, which one of them do you think they'll like the most? A little yellow jagged-tailed mouse, or some sort of big, awesome dragon from B&W?

No, sorry, that's wrong. It's not because they came first. Unfortunately, that's a coincidence a lot of famous artists make there most iconic stuff first, not always but a lot of the time.

No matter how you spin it, Pikachu will always be a design that stands out more than some dragon. Cute and really good aesthetics, amazing design, stands out even more than Charizard.

 

[Nazulu]

They're effective, because they had to be to not be blobs, and they're iconic, because they came first.

That's a not good reason to say something is effective or iconic just so you know.

Believe what ever you want. Like I said, if you can't see it, then this is pointless.

 

[Scarim Coral]

While that is true to what you said but I take it they had just change style along the way. I mean Pokemon existed in 1998 so do you think they would of kept the same style for that long?

 

[Sean Hollyman]

I'm more inclined to prefer the newer designs, I mean a lot of the old ones kind of suck.

A seal? Woah interesting.. a crab? Jeez, it blew me away.

I know it's not Gen V, but come on Gen III had an armored Tyrannousaurs.

 

[Nazulu]

They're effective, because they had to be to not be blobs, and they're iconic, because they came first.

That's a not good reason to say something is effective or iconic just so you know.

Believe what ever you want. Like I said, if you can't see it, then this is pointless.

Yes, you're obviously far too blinded by nostalgia for a proper argument.

And you're blinded because you have poor taste or just because you want to be right no matter what. Either way, you're a hypocrite if you think you made a better argument.

 

[General Twinkletoes]

No, sorry, that's wrong. It's not because they came first. Unfortunately, that's a coincidence a lot of famous artists make there most iconic stuff first, not always but a lot of the time.

No matter how you spin it, Pikachu will always be a design that stands out more than some dragon. Cute and really good aesthetics, amazing design, stands out even more than Charizard.

It would be nowhere near as iconic. Most of the other iconic first gen pokemon are just iconic for being the ones from our childhood. I doubt pikachu would have been famous if not for the anime. Hell, they changed the model for the american release of pikachu in blue and red to match the anime version. The very first ingame original pikachu looks pretty crap.

 

[Nazulu]

No, sorry, that's wrong. It's not because they came first. Unfortunately, that's a coincidence a lot of famous artists make there most iconic stuff first, not always but a lot of the time.

No matter how you spin it, Pikachu will always be a design that stands out more than some dragon. Cute and really good aesthetics, amazing design, stands out even more than Charizard.

It would be nowhere near as iconic. Most of the other iconic first gen pokemon are just iconic for being the ones from our childhood. I doubt pikachu would have been famous if not for the anime. Hell, they changed the model for the american release of pikachu in blue and red to match the anime version. The very first ingame original pikachu looks pretty crap.

It would be nowhere near as iconic?

No, they are very well designed and stick out and are why the show became popular in the first place. I couldn't give a damn what the original looked like, the new model is super effective (hahaha).

It's like music really. All the famous pop icons could of released those catchy songs much later and they still would of received a lot of attention.

 

[Dryk]

See, it's still the same guy doing the Pokemon Designs. It's not some new designer who's come in and messed up, it's the same designer, making designs that are more complicated and involved because now we have the graphics to handle them.

Just because they could make convoluted, chaotic messes doesn't necessarily mean they should. There are still heaps of simple and very effective Pokemon and they look great.

 

[Scrustle]

That gen 4 Charizard still looks way better than that gen 1 Garchomp to me. You have a point though. A lot of the new designs are far too fussy with lots of stupid useless bits and pieces hanging off them, but that's not what I think is the main reason for the decline in design quality. It's because they have drifted away from the original aesthetic. They're more or less had to since they've been creating more and more, but what it has done has made the new species look more and more generic. The new designs don't look like Pokemon, they just look like random monsters that anyone could have made up. There may have always been "stupid" designs in Pokemon, but at least you could tell a Voltorb and a Hitmonchan were actually Pokemon.

The new Pokemon look like monsters that anyone could have made up? As opposed to the old Pokemon who look... well, like monsters that anyone could have made up?

It's easy to tell the old Pokemon were Pokemon because you recognized them as Pokemon. Because you've known them as Pokemon for a lot longer. In other words, because of nostalgia.

Although I won't pretend I don't have more nostalgia towards older Pokemon it's obvious there was a tighter aesthetic with the designs in older games. Like if you take a look at the bird species through the series. The Pidgey family, the Spearow family, the Duduo family, the original legendary birds, Ho-oh, and even Farfetch'd all have similar design cues. Fast forward to the most recent incarnation of Pidgey, and we have Pidove. It just looks like a cartoon pigeon. It looks like it could come out of any cartoon. The previous bird Pokemon designs were recognisably consistent, but as time has gone on it's become less and less cohesive. There's a clear progression.

 

[Ranylyn]

Prime example: Rhyhorn

Rhyhorn (Gen 1) - Rhydon (Gen 1) - Rhyperior (Gen 4)

Rhyhorn and Rhydon are great. I actually like using them for their decent defenses and having a pretty damn high Attack stat among gen 1 Pokemon. They also don't look half bad.

Then Rhyperior. Stronger than Rhydon, sure. But appearance-wise? WHAT THE HELL!? First off, the color is way off which is very jarring (Imagine if Gardevoir or Gallade, two very popular pokemon, were suddenly VERY off shades of nasty puke instead of a similar green to their prevolutions.) And that really scrawny part of the arm, it'd snap if it so much as tried to MOVE it's arm! Like what the hell?


Gen 1: Every pokemon was functional in it's own way. Elegant in their simplicity (just look at that picture in the starting post for this thread and how Charizard would be ruined if it was designed in Gen 4.) And whatnot. And come on, who can honestly hate pokemon like Sandshrew, Arcanine, or Starmie?

Gen 2: They got a little more adventurous, here. Xatu? Smeargle? Some were great, others less so, but the point was, it was largely more of the same. Sure, Azumarill, as cute as it is, just lacks the sleek functionality of, say, Raichu, but what can you do?

Gen 3: OH GOD WHAT AM I LOOKING AT!? Medicham!? What is this and why is it's ability so broken!? I despise Gen 3 because all the "Oh god I hate this design" Pokemon are leagues stronger than they should be due to their abilities. The few pokemon whose appearance I DO like (Torchic, Swellow, Altaria, etc) are, well, generally not even really worth using. Oh, and Ludicolo. I'll say it right now. Ludicolo offends me. My best friend died when he was 13 (will be 8 years ago this October) - and he was from Mexico - and he didn't like Ludicolo because it was stereotypically offensive. And I carry on his stance. Point being, I walked away from Gen 3 with... Gardevoir. That's... really about it. Oh, and they also introduced a lot of no-sense type matches simply to add more STAB options. Fire/Fighting? Really? Those don't exactly go hand in hand. Not like Rock/Ground, or Grass/Poison, etc. Fire/Fighting is seriously just "Here, handle some of your weaknesses better!" Like seriously....

Gen 4: Okay. So while they made some things worse (Rhyperior is just one example) at least their new designs GENERALLY weren't as atrociously bad as a lot of Gen 3. Sure, Chimchar is a blatant insult to Charmander (don't give me that "Sun Wukong tribute" crap, it just looks like a cheap Charmander ripoff coupled with the aforementioned Mixed type BS - but at least they balanced mixed types across all the starters. Torterra gets Earth STAB against Infernape, who gets fighting STAB against Empoleon, who double weaknesses Torterra with ice.)

Gen 5: I really can't comment. No money to play it.

 

[Hjalmar Fryklund]

Pokemon Generations are always full of subpar designs. Muk (a pile of mud), Smogmog (just... no), Dugtrio (triple the first one... *golfclap*), Mr. Mime, Jynx, Exeggutor. All of them are as lazy, disguisting or offensive as the examples brought up in this thread.

In Exeggutor´s defense, he is possibly based on a japanese folk spirit known as the Jinmenju, a tree that supposedly had human heads in place of fruit. Heads that constantly smiled and giggled.

 

[Some_weirdGuy]

I kinda knew what this thread would become about, but I'm glad to see it isn't too openly hostile yet, even if some comments are straying in that direction. (try and keep it civil guys)


I must admit some of the designs for new pokemon that were meant to be evolutions of older pokemon (such as the rydon evolution and the magneton evolution) aren't all that crash hot.

While others like the mismugnius i think it's called (evolution of the gen 2 ghost pokemon) I'm actually really liking.

I suppose it might come down to whether it feels they retained the same 'essence' to them despite the general shift in how they design pokemon now.

as for gen three, some designs were a little silly but on the whole i don't actually think they're to bad, even stuff i kinda mumbered(complained) about when i first saw it have kinda grown on me (like how aron's evolutions were just ryhorn/don with a steel coat of paint, yet now i think that's actually pretty cool). Guess they grew on me


(ps i like ludicolo, and must be kinda dumb as i never picked up on him being 'insulting' to mexicans... or even related to mexicans in any way XD)

 

[Lizardon]

That's also true, seems to be a few more inanimate-object pokemon.

Though i'd assume thats got to do with already having used so many real and mythological animals already, so they're trying to find other sources.


coincidently in the same place I saw the picture in the OP it also had this, which mentions pokemon by... 'source'? whatever you'd call it, by whether they're base don plants, animals, inanimate objects, etc.

IMAGE SNIP

(guize i bet you totally can't guess where i was wasting time on)

Damn, that's what I was going to post.

Anyway, this is how I feel about newer Pokemon.

I think I waste my time in the same place as you >_>