New pokemon are different

[Bato]

I actually pulled up a giant list of Pokemon months back and went through all of them to see how their design evolved over the years.
And I still believe the more natural design of Generation 1 is the best, even the Pokemon I didn't like that much had a visual styling that was perfect. But every subsequent generation after they just get worse. Their design becomes busy, unnatural, and like some guy on PCP took an animal, nailed some objects like jet turbines to it's head and painted it purple, red, and black.

I don't think it's Nostalgia speaking either because Gold and Silver were my Nostalgia nuggets, not Red and Blue. I know I played Gold three times as much at least.

 

[Jitters Caffeine]

Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, GenWunners gonna Wunn. Facts of life here people.

 

[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.

Aggron is a triceratops not a tyrannosaurus. Learn your dinosaurs.

Captcha = My Dear Watson.
Seems appropriate for now. Basically add this before the first word of my post.

It could be a mix.
I thought Triceratops's walked on all fours.

 

[loa]

Ultimate badass legendary gen1 -> current gen

->

Yeahh...
You can argue that there were complicated designs in earlier gens and you would be right but there clearly is a trend to be seen here.
Some shapes are interesting but there's so much of those that now we're closing in on FF belts-n-zippers territory.

I'm curious how they can top THAT in the next generation.

 

[FakDendor]

I actually jumped on the bandwagon at the tail end of Gen.2, and got gen.3 shortly thereafter. As such, I'd like to think that I can look at the issue without nostalgia (though that 'prolly isn't completely true).

I figure it this way. Sure, there were pokemon in the first generations we didn't like (those have already been mentioned in previous posts). But how often did you see one of those in battle and just sigh dejectedly?

I never particularly liked, say, Koffing. But when slogging through a big group of Team Rocket grunts, I never wanted to break my gameboy when they sent out the fifth koffing in a row.

Conversely, every time I see Chimchar, or the ice cream cone that shall not be mentioned on pain of disembowlment, I die inside.

I never favored the Chikorita family, but I never minded seeing them in the anime or games, and in fact choosing a starter in the first three games was a huge decision for me, because they were ALL awesome, and it would shape how my team would form.

Whereas, in generations four and five, I had made my choice as soon as I'd seen the images of the starters in pre-release info, because the other two choices were, quite frankly, rather dumb.

While you may not agree with my specific example above, I think that we can at least agree on my basic premise:

While there were disliked Pokemon in the earlier games, there seems to be a greater number of disliked pokemon in the later games, and a greater dislike of them.

 

[Emilyx382]

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.

You know, I actually agree with most of this... Gen 1, for the most part, I prefer because of it's simplicity....and Gen 2 is my favourite because they were a little more adventurous with their designs. There is however a point that they crossed in Gen 3 where some of the designs are just plain wrong. I very much agree with your comments on Ludicolo for example. I can get on board with nearly every Pokemon design in the first 2 generations....and then from Generation 3 onwards the amount of Pokemon I look at and go 'ergh' seems to increase. More so in Generation 5... Trubbish and his evolution are based on bursting rubbish bags! at least Grimer and Muk were a little better designed even if the were based on a similar thing. Though I am not saying that ALL the designs were graceful in Gen 1 or 2, nor that all of them are wrong in Gen 3.

I also feel that at some point the design team should stop trying to make new evolutions and devolutions for Pokemon from previous generations.... Lickilicky, Rhyperior and and Tangrowth weren't exactly exactly the best designs....

 

[snave]

Its all in the silhouettes.

Part of it is that Pokemon exhausted all available "cool" poses in the first generation or two. Pose is as much part of the silhouette as anything else. Heck, Nintendo themselves even knew this. Don't believe me? Recall the animated series and its guess the pokemon sections. Yeah. They knew.

So yeah, part of it is nostalgia: you associate that pose with the older generations. But to argue that means the newer ones are equally as innovative is like arguing the final Matrix film was as surprising or "fresh" as the first.

 

[Dryk]

I'm curious how they can top THAT in the next generation.

Give EVERY Pokemon a fur cock instead of just a few of them

 

[Joshimodo]

Ultimate badass legendary gen1 -> current gen

->

Yeahh...
You can argue that there were complicated designs in earlier gens and you would be right but there clearly is a trend to be seen here.
Some shapes are interesting but there's so much of those that now we're closing in on FF belts-n-zippers territory.

I'm curious how they can top THAT in the next generation.

This is the problem.


They've changed from being focussed on simple yet creative creatures into unimaginative creatures with WAY too much detail.

Take two very similar Pokémon - Muk and Garbodor. One is sludge, one is garbage.

Muk had an obvious silhouette, two-tone colour, and a face. Garbodor has an obvious silhouette, half a dozen colours, and lots of detail that reduces the impact of how it looks.

The Mewtwo/Kyurem comparison is apt. Another would be something like Mewtwo/Deoxys - Same sort of thing, but Deoxys has a lot of flailing bits and pieces, go-faster stripes, swirly bits, patterns and all sorts of messy shite.

 

[Cheesepower5]

The fewer doo-dads and colours on old 'Mons is for a pretty simple reason, the same reason every hero in Fire Emblem has blue hair to match their eyes: The Gameboy and Gameboy Color can do like, 2-8 different colours at a time. You just couldn't make a Pokemon look like they do now.

Overall I think Gen 5 has had the weakest designs (some were cool, like Golurk or Darmanitan), but I like 4's a lot. And to be frank, Gen 1/2 had plenty of problems. Why the fuck does Voltorb exist? Jynx, Mr. Mime, Dunsparce? I could think up more.

 

[Kikyoo]

I am somewhat of an oddity. I started with Red and blue, and have been following Pokemon since... I had 2 teams I was building in Gold and Silver. A all dragon pokemon team (never finished because there was not really 6 dragon pokemon) and a All Fire Pokemon team (Was finished but had several legendary pokemon and WAY too much fire/flying) Now in gold and silver I had to leave those pokemon behind. over 300 hours of playtime and I am over it, but I'm still bitter about it. Anyways The simpler aesthetics of the old ones did have some charm to it, BUT at the same time the old ones pissed me off a LOT because there was no variety if you wanted to make a single element team. The new variety slowly seeped in and I find myself caring less and less about the little things like this time the ground pokemon is a gator instead of a shrew. I liked rock pokemon but always hated that there were no good ones. There are lots of cases of gen 1 pokemon just being unbalanced. So to me, not much has changed. I don't really care if there are more dangly bits on pokemon now. But I will admit I like having more choices. I do kinda think that Gen 1 didn't have anything wrong with it, and shouldn't be altered however. But whatever if they want to revamp Gen 1 it's their choice. I just wish they would give Fire/fighting a rest. Really? we've had 3 of them in a row. How many Fire/fighting pokemon do we need?!

 

[Terminate421]

We've all noticed the trend that newer pokemon tend to have a bit more design choices than before. This is still a good thing.

Now before I get started, I'd say this whole topic is kinda useless as it will just attract the scum known as Genwunners.

Lets take a look at the most simple design for a pokemon game:

Blatoise, while not a bad design, probably represents the most lazy thought process I can think of, "A giant turtle....with cannons on its shoulders!" This simplicity is seen as the frontal for the 1st generation of pokemon and some say "Pokemon should be realistic and believable like this!" This is where I laugh at them.

Now lets take a look at a pokemon with some more design choices:

Right from the name, you can tell where the origin of Samurott's design came from. Hell, it gets better:

That sword came from his frontal arms where the sheaths are. This follows much to the Blastoise design however, keeps simplicity as an afterthought thus coming up with a badass design. "Lets get, an Otter, give him some samurai armor, a beard, and put impossible to grow items (in this case swords) on his shoulders like Blastoise!" Its not particularly realistic, but Alakazam carries spoons around so this fits to that theme.

Pokemon have been getting better and better, before we had Good ones, classics, Mr. Mime and Jynx (The worst designs ever), now we just get Good ones, new ones, and the ice cream shaped pokemon.

My personal favorite designs are the 2nd and the 4th generations actually. Also the games themselves, as they had the most changes.

Pokemon may have been changing but its for the better

 

[Nazulu]

Eh, I tend to agree and disagree. While generation 1 was very plain with heavy influence from pre-existing animals (a seal named Seel for instance), it was honestly the most boring and unoriginal generation because of it (cmon ppl agree with me here, don't let nostalgia blind you).

Or (just bear with me here) design preferences are actually SUBJECTIVE! Who'd have fucking thought it?

Personally I prefer the minimalistic simplicity of the original designs that appropriately catches the aethetic of Pokemon being 'wild animals' rather then a miss match of over the top bullshit.

E.g. That stupid Black Kyrem White Kyrem thing.

I think its just taken them a while to get the pokemon style down. Generation 1 is really the only one that stands out, all the others seem to be pretty coherent.

I disagree. Second gen kept the aesthetic, 3rd gen did too however there were some unfortunate design choices, and then all later generations scrapped the majority of the effective designs and kept repeating those same unfortunate designs ad nauseum.

And lets be honest, that charizard picture is a lot better than generation 1....I mean....cmon now...

That Charizard looks like shit. The Garchomp looks pretty cool though.

SUBJECTIVITY!

Don't do that fucking subjective shit, it never looks good, ever. The guys allowed to post up his thoughts without having to point out the obvious. Even then, you do your best to prove it.

Your contradicting yourself really badly, telling Don it's all subjective and then suddenly "I disagree, that charizard looks like shit". C'mon man.

 

[SpectacularWebHead]

Eh...
All the newest pokemon look shit. If they'd left it at platinum,Diamond and pearl era, then it would have ended on a high before the ideas ran thin and the pokemon started looking like animate testicular cancer.
Even then the platinum pokemon were going downhill.
The sooner pokemon finishes for good the better.

 

[SEXTON HALE]

Hav'nt played much new pokemon since pearl though I did pick up soul silver.
It seems to me that the new pokemon have a bit of a silly look about them but with more intricate designs.
I might be a bit nostalgic but I do prefer older generation pokemon to newer ones.

 

[Terminate421]

snip

The new colors are what you expect from DNA. Did you think of deoxy's name? Its fucking DNA which is SUPPOSED to have the large amounts of colors. Although I don't like garbador, I will defend the fact that it's going to have multiple colors, why? Because not ALL garbage is brown dirt, there's bound to be somethings that gave him that form.

Ultimate badass legendary gen1 -> current gen

I like the part where you complement Mewtwo but then insult Reshi-Kyurem. I'm just going leave a relatively simple pokemon design who I felt was badass:

1st. Right from the start, you can tell not only he's a legendary, but can kick your shit while not looking too complex.

2nd. Newer pokemon are no where design choices near: Yu-gi-oh creatures, Digimon, or Final Fantasy stuff

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?

They attempted to add armor plating and give the idea he was resistant to Volcanos. I'm one of the few people who like Rhyperior design wise I guess.

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?

Jynx and Mr. Mime are by far the worst pokemon designs to ever exist. Its not that we hate the 1st generation designs, no no....its that we're tired of people bashing later generations for having a different choice in design.

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?

How the fuck is Xatu a bad desing? Its supposed to by a MAYAN BIRD! Thats awesome! Azumarilll has her color choices to be a water rabbit, I'd guess the bubble design to help her blend in with the fucking water.

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.

They've added new abilities, have you seen Dream world blaziken?

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.

[/quote]

Yes yes yes...Ludicolo. Such as the way of Mr. Mime and Jynx.....Also Medicham.....

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....

Fire/fighting gave the fire type's use while still giving them counters while also balancing that shit. Defense from rocks is available while still having to fear water and ground types. Also, Rock/Ground is terrible typing IMO, too many water and grass types and ground types running around to fuck you up.

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.

Lucario
Empoleon
Weavile
Garchomp
Dialga
Arceus
Torterra
Starraptor
Palkia
Darkrai
and many many...others would like to speak with you.

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.)

Empoleon is a steel type. I can see where you got the ice type from for ice beam though. The idea was to change up the trio towards the end though.

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

Good, at least you're not a blind genwunner from what I can tell.